bomb alerts and stuff

tisssp - thanks. i couldn't get reuters to work earlier, so i'd given up on it.

Might as well live in an extremist Islamic state then, eh? ;-)

we should make everyone go through a volatile isolation tank before getting on the tube, any bombs will blow up inside, killing noone but the bomber.

Have you managed to get anything to eat, Ken?

That was very good, Ronan.

X-post

So every time every person wanted to get on a Tube at any station they would have to queue up, have their bag x-rayed, empty their chage into a little tray etc?

It presents certain logistical issues, no?

Ian Blair just told everyone to stay where they are for the time being.

Contrived example, I know, but I just want to illustrate that banning rucksacks would be pointless--i.e. Martin S OTM.

Plus, dogs can't look up.

Even if they did this people could just blow up the queues of people waiting to have their bags searched. It's depressing, but if someone's determined to do it, there's nothing you can do to stop it.

BBC are mentioning UCH incident, but not much more details.

'Wicket' clearly = terrorist code for 'bomb'. Make a citizen's arrest on these colleagues of yours now please, Mark.

The guy who is head of emergency medicine (or something that makes him responsible for implementing emergency procedures for the whole hospital) is an Irish guy, and so has been on RTE radio a lot in the last couple of weeks, talking about the bombing. He's just been on to say that he has not been beeped with the special alert code that indicates a major incident, so he is not worried.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair appealed to Londoners to "stay where you are" in what he described as a "very serious incident".
end

touche - on fri 8th i got a call from my friend ran checking i was ok. i haven't spoken to ran since about september, other than a couple of emails back in april. he lives in tel aviv and i never, ever think to call him when anything happens there (- because he is my friend and i love him therefore it's impossible for anything to happen, presumably - stupid (and arrogant?) thinking as we have all found out), yet as soon as anything happened in london he was calling me up...

All this fuss about airport security began in the early 1970's after a rash of hijackings occurred. Before then, there were no security measures at airports. In 1970 the Air Marshall program began, but was limited by budget and agents flew on only a few international flights. By 1973 the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) demanded that all passengers and carry on items be searched. But it wasn't until after September 11th, 2001 that airport security was thrust into the public mindset. Armed with only box cutters they had carried on the plane, 19 terrorists on four planes hijacked those planes. Shortly afterwards, the TSA was formed and Congress demanded all airport screeners be federal employees. Before then, most security at airports was performed by private contractors. There are now more than 48,000 federal airport screeners around the country. All baggage, whether carry-on or checked, must be x-rayed.

= ban australian backpackers?

But we still wouldn't be safe. Someone could just hurl a grenade at a bus or something. You just have to get on with life and hope nothing else happens, and hope the police catch everyone.

Nosehounds.

But we still wouldn't be safe. Someone could just hurl a grenade at a bus or something. You just have to get on with life and hope nothing else happens, and hope the police catch everyone.

I know, I was being glib. Alternatively, we could all go naked?

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0009OU2M8.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

then again they never caught our anthrax letter guy from a few years back, but whatever.

Admittedly the flights I would have been on would be largely to/from London and Dublin, and there's good historical reasons why those would be more secure.

(That said, I do not remember going through X-ray machines. That does not mean they were not there.)