Terror News: CODE RED ALERT!

I woke up this morning to a CODE RED ALERT! Actually, it’s not, well it sort of is, sorta, but not really. The Brits, those silly wankers, foiled this big terrorist plot to, as Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said, “be mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” Sounds pretty serious to me, especially when the British say something like that. They just have this way of talking that makes everything seem more proper and serious, maybe it’s me.

Evidently the plot involves using some sort of liquid explosive on carry on luggage to detonate planes in mid air, I’m assuming over the Atlantic. DHS has put a “RED ALERT” status on all planes coming to the US from the UK, which is the first time “RED ALERT” or “CODE RED” or in the case of my image “ELMO” has ever been used. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt here and say this is pretty serious.

This opens up a lot of questions. First, what sort of liquid explosives were going to be used? We’ll probably never know the answer to that. Second, what sort of containers were actually going to be used to hide the stuff? I find it hard to imagine it was in little glass nail polish bottles. Third, what was going to be used to ignite the stuff? Is it chemical reaction? Was it an electronic device? There are too many possibilities for that one.

Airports in the UK are chaos right now, as one would imagine. Airports here are a bit different. Long lines, people complaining, garbage pails filling up with water bottles, cologne, the aforementioned nail polish, eye drops, soda….any and all liquids have to be dumped. NPR said they were allowing on formula and breast milk, but only if the mother “drank it first.” That makes me wonder how they test breast milk still in the breast, interesting scenario there.

Sarcasm aside, jolly good show to the Brits in foiling this plot, they saved a lot of peoples lives. Officials seem a bit freaked still about this, which makes me wonder how close to “d-day” they actually busted this thing. I’m sure more will come out as the day progresses. Until then, if you’re planning on catching a plane today, well….sucks to be you. Be safe.

-Steve