underpants bomber

[Bruno]

He reportedly is (was) an engineering student at University College London. But our brave men and women in coach handled him.

[EIM]

underpants bomber

Whose legs was he trying to bomb?

[Purves Grundy]

underpants bomber

His own, mainly. By the sound of it he won't have much use for all those virgins when he finally does make it to paradise. Beyond, you know, discussing women's rights and stuff.

[EIM]

underpants bomber

That'd be shit, wouldn't it? Blow yourself up, get to paradise, and it turns out that all them virgins don't see you as the sort of guy they want to sleep with. Just, you know, a good friend.

On the plus side, they'll not ask you to leave the room when they get changed.

[Gangster Octopus]

underpants bomber

About these virgins; has anyone thought it through? Are virgins of a certain age created specially, or are they just females who've died? 'Cos if it's the latter, the vast majorithy of dead females who've not had sex are either babies/children or old spinsters. Neither of whom do it for me, personally...

[Bruno]

underpants bomber

According to the dude who subdued him, he had lit some kind of device in his lap, or between his legs, and was just sitting there while it burned. That, my friends, takes balls.

[Femme Folle]

underpants bomber

This has me so wound up today.

Fucking TSA and their stupid ideas. I can feel my blood pressure rising as I type this. They now want to prohibit passengers from leaving their seats or even touching their personal belongings for the last hour of all flights. Carry on bags will be limited to one per passenger. That last bit is a welcome change, as far as I am concerned, but on the rest of it...WTF?? I hope that the next time I have to fly, I have diarrhoea and when they won't let me get up to go to the toilet, I'll just go in my seat. Morons.

Why don't we all just strip down naked and let them handcuff us to the seats until we land at our destination? FFS. I hope the result of this is that people just stop flying in the US. I want the TSA to ultimately be the undoing of the industry.

This might not make sense--I'm very pissed off about it.

[Bruno]

underpants bomber

You ain't kidding.

"Passengers on a flight from New York to Tampa Saturday morning were also told they must remain in their seats and couldn't have items in their laps, including laptops and pillows."

from an AP report today

[axel]

underpants bomber

I'm flying from Schipol to Osaka in a couple of weeks. I wonder if this might effect things? I'll report back.

[Unbelievable Jeff]

underpants bomber

I've just dropped my parents off at Calgary airport. It seems that - from what I/we could see of the airside departure lounges - in addition to the normal security screening, all passengers are then getting a second, extremely thorough body search as they go down the ramp to the aircraft.

This will make their five hour delay even longer, I would suspect.

[Bimbo Bred]

underpants bomber

It all fits: you do what the airline tells you.

So they take away your blanket, pillow and laptop an hour (ie a scheduled hour = 2 hours) before landing.

The fact that you're now awake without a pillow and a blanket, and also without a laptop doesn't mean that you HAVE to buy anything they offer.

It's just that in the interests of security you'd better suck their big scaly pecker. And sit up and beg when they command you to do so.

[Anton Gramscescu]

underpants bomber

According to this the changes only seem to apply to flights in US airspace.

The Air Canada statement: "Among other things, during the final hour of flight customers must remain seated, will not be allowed to access carry-on baggage, or have personal belongings or other items on their laps."

Does this include books? Magazines? If so, I'm pissed. I was thinking of going to California in February but if this is the kind of shit I have to go through, I'd just as soon not bother.

[Anton Gramscescu]

underpants bomber

It seems a number of sites are saying that the restriction is only to be on international flights inbound to the US, and that it may not apply to domestic flights.

[Bruno]

underpants bomber

So if I can't blow up the plane during the last hour, I guess I'll just have to do it right after takeoff.

[Femme Folle]

underpants bomber

Exactly. And that's when my idea will come to fruition.

[Tubby Isaacs]

underpants bomber

If they'd thought this virgin lark through, we'd be in a lot more trouble. Think of the volunteers if they'd promised Old Street babes or something.

[anton pulisov]

underpants bomber

Dutch media is blaming corrupt Nigerian airport authorities for letting this guy on the flight to Amsterdam. Of course he got screened at Schiphol airport also, so the Dutch are equally culpable.

[Guest]

underpants bomber

"Fucking TSA and their stupid ideas. I can feel my blood pressure rising as I type this..."

So you're angry that you can't get out of your seat for an hour on a flight, but not angry that a man tried to blow up a plane full of innocent people...interesting set of priorities.

Yeah how dare they place airline safety and the lives of passengers over your jippy tummy, stopping you getting out of your seat for a whole hour that's just outrageous.

[Femme Folle]

underpants bomber

Chocks Away, with all due respect, confining passengers to their seats for an hour is not going to prevent someone from blowing up the plane if they really want to. Obviously this kid was an amateur and not quite as skilled as the guys who took down my office.

[Amor de Cosmos]

underpants bomber

Yeah how dare they place airline safety and the lives of passengers over your jippy tummy, stopping you getting out of your seat for a whole hour that's just outrageous.

I don't think it's increased security per se that people object to, it's the mind-numbingly unimaginative approach that the TSA and Homeland Security take to it. Some nutbar is caught with explosives in his shoes, so for the next decade we all have to remove footware while going through security. Someone else has explosives fail to go off on their lap , so for the foreseeable future we can't have anything on our lap an hour before touchdown — but it's OK an hour after take-off, or sixty-two minutes before landing. This type of seemingly bone-headed literal mindedness sends out several signals, none of them good. To travellers and potential terrorists it says air security is entirely reactive, with policy that's merely knee-jerk reaction to the last incident. It could be that there's more substantive stuff going on that we don't know about — I certainly hope there is — however the evidence is not encouraging. As FF says no one with real intent to bring down an aircraft is going to remotely deterred by these measures, indeed they might even be encouraged by their enemy's continued blind belief in fighting the last battle rather than the next. Like the coloured "alerts" (how many years has it been on orange now? and how many people even remember what the other levels are?) these policies seem more like PR exercises designed to make the security services look busy and to maintain fear among the public, than an effective deterrent against an efficient terrorist organisation.

[Seven Saxon Kings]

underpants bomber

Totally agree with Amor - it's the fact that these measures won't work in the slightest that really turns people against them.

[anton pulisov]

underpants bomber

That's the thing, it does seem a big reactionary, and unfortunately the terrorists will find a way to be a step ahead. Before 9/11, it was legal to bring a box cutter on an airplane. It complied with the safety regulations of the time. Nobody ever imagined that a box cutter could bring down two skycrapers. Then, when box cutters where banned, along came the shoe bomber.

But you'd hope, you'd assume anyway, that the security people are employing the brightest minds about to imagine stuff that could happen, to stay one step ahead. The banning of liquids is one such example. That was banned before (as far as I know) any kind of attempt of an attack using liquids was made.

[Seven Saxon Kings]

underpants bomber

The banning of liquids is one such example. That was banned before (as far as I know) any kind of attempt of an attack using liquids was made.

I thought they were only banned after the 2006 plot to blow up transatlantic planes was foiled?

[Seven Saxon Kings]

underpants bomber

In the UK, at least

[Femme Folle]

underpants bomber

SSK is correct, it was in response to a plot that was discovered involving some type of liquid explosives.

Thanks, AdC, for explaining my point so much better than I did (apparently).

Afterthought: I remember having to fly somewhere in October of 2001, leaving out of JFK. The security agent confiscated my nail clipper, which had a one-inch file attached to it. It was at that moment I knew we would be where we are now one day in the future.