I don't go anywhere important enough to be in danger and I'm sure they wouldn't do the decent thing and blow up my workplace so I'm only following it with limited interest. I suppose growing up with news of terrorist bombings hardens you to them.
I was in London from friday night til early saturday evening and didn't notice anything different, no obvious extra security or anything. I didn't actually know of the glasgow occurrence until this afternoon, I really should watch the news more at the weekend...
It's a bit rainy down here on the coast. Otherwise fine. not too worried about incompetent terrorists, and no evidence of dangerously competent ones yet.
That reminds me, I cycled all the way around a very impressive and ferocious storm today, about 20 miles in all, without getting even slightly wet.
Ah those fabulous non-wet storms... Glad to hear that the English stiff upper lip is a stereotype that the media can continue to perpetuate, just because the English don't get hysterical at the least provocation. Continue to avoid all terrorist activity and we'll all feel a lot better.
*raises eyebrow* the car-bomb in London was fairly well made, from what I've read. Poorly disguised maybe, but between the explosion and the nails the car-bomb would have hit people as far away as 100 meters. It was designed for maximum overkill. Keeping your calm and living your life normally is one thing, but underestimation? I wouldn't underestimate fanatics.
It didn't go off because one of the officers who arrived was smart enough to disconnect the mobile-phone detonator. The problem was with disguising it. The Mercedes was noticed because an ambulance crew passing by thought they saw smoke coming out of it.
assuming that were accurate, which it isn't quite, then why didn't the second one go off, which wasn't discovered to contain a bomb until much later?
Two hours is not "much later". Especially when the two car-bombs were supposed to be remotely-detonated at a certain time by way of a phone-call, and not watched by someone in the immediate area. Had our friendly bomber people found out about the first car's discovery before the second car was found, matters could have ended differently. Their incompetence wasn't in making explosives, man. They appear to be very good on that count.
And I have yet to see evidence to the contrary. I have, on the other hand, read news reports citing just what said explosives could have done had they been detonated on schedule. To quote from a Times article: Imagine a great big shotgun shell expanding outwards, man.
i hardly need bad analogies to demonstrate what an incindiary anti-personnel bomb would be like. anyway, i would like to propose a challenge: I dare you to go one week without political commentary.
The storm was very wet indeed. Sheets of rain poured down constantly, but none of it on me because I was outside it. Also, back to the bomb, I didn't know that area was called Haymarket until they discovered the bomb there, so they taught me something at least.
One, your analogy is worse than mine. The incendiary part would only harm people in a limited range from the car. The nails and the shockwave (which has nothing to do with the bomb being incindiary) would have reached a very large radius. Certain rockets fired at Israel in the recent war had ball-bearings around the warhead. The result was that houses around the impact area, at a radius of several dozen meters, had holes in the walls. Cars were reduced to swiss cheese. The nails would have had a more limited effect, but having seen their effect (from a more limited explosive, thus said nails traveled slower) they would have been devastating against people in the nearby area. As for me going one week without political commentary, done that already. Lots of times. It's more than one week that's the trouble.
I am again impressed by the overall reaction and the public statements; it may only look like it from afar, I am not living near London after all, but they are very composed. You could panic after such an incident. What I see if it happened here -if it can't be observed already- is that far more people would use such an incident in a very obvious way.
One thing that kindof cheered me up about all this was a story on French news. "Coming live from where police have discovered a car outside a daycare center, full of explosives and bottles of gas." about half an hour later : "We are still live and waiting for more information from the police about what kind of explosives are in the car, we know there are about 13kg of it, plus 2 bottles of gas." another half hour later : "Ah. Well we have received a report from the police to say that the person who the car belongs to, and who had been in a meeting at the center after popping in to buy 2 13kg bottles of gas, has turned up and the police have now left the premices." I love it when journalists wet their pants over nothing and manage to get the information wrong while they're at it.
It's no use worrying too much. If you panic and run away and hide then the terrorists have won. I for one won't let them get to me. And neither will most of the population. This really is no different to what we've had from the IRA for decades. Now it's Al-quada or however its spelt. They're no different except the muslims like to kill themselves in the process. If I happen to get in the way and get killed, I'm not going to know much about it. So why worry. Thats my opinion anyway.
Gosh! As Stercus says, terrorist threats are nothing new. The police did their job and no one was killed. The weather here has been pretty bad, though. I wish I had Mal's rain-proof powers.
Mmm, Terrorist threats are nothing new here but I do think the amount of news coverage they yet have increased. Which ironically is a great thing for terrorists. Worring about terrist threat is a waste of time though. Personally, i dislike the excuse 'then you let the terrorists win', as it implies that we're playing some game win them. I use the slightly less appealing reason of - We shouldn't worry becuase it is something completely beyond our control. The power of terrorist threats lies with the police and the terrorists. Our worry or concern can pretty much do nothing. Besides we're probably more likely to get stabbed to death by some chavs for some loose change. i've countered this by always walking around with as many valubles as possible, then I won't have died for nothing, i'll have died for an i pod and a camera and some converse shoes. In your face chav/terrorist. The weather has been shit though... We should probably be more worried about global warming. That will kill us all.
After a decade of drought it has rained nearly non-stop since the footings of my new house were laid 4 weeks ago. Typical.
Most scottish people were of the opinion that terrorism happened to other people. We never got blown up by the IRA or anything. I suppose that perception has changed. However, I don't really think that anyone is giving it a second thought. I mean, the dudes at the airport were hilariously inept. Good old glaswegian spirit kicked in. A flaming fanatic running about? What do you do? Punch him in the face. Nice! But fuck, everyday at work I read about things far shittier than a botched terror attack. And these are "normal" british citizens perpertrating them. As rinso said, you've more chance of being knifed by some arsebag on the street than being killed by terrorists. So really, what's the point of being in a panic about it? Yes, be vigilant, but that's just common sense.
While I freely admit to leading an immoral lifestyle; living in sin, drinking, swearing and having lots of uncharitable thoughts. None of these things produces Carbon Dioxide, so unless the church can prove that they do, they're wrong and should stop burning all those bloody candles that do cause global warming.
I never considered that, The Church is the cause of Global Warming. Wow. Ok, I'm off to church with a fire extinguisher.
Notice how I didn't say anything about the dudes at the Glasgow airport. I only spoke about the car-bomb dudes in London.
I'm glad that everyone is doing okay (-: Sorry about not replying, I was having some issues that Mal resolved for me.
Stop if you start seeing pink elephants. So it looks like those idiots are Indians. It's idiotic to feel responsible, but I feel ashamed that they are. Stupid jerks really, parents slave away to send children to good schools, better life etc. and after getting there this is what they do.
I understand that sense of shame when idiots from your country show off their idiocy in other countries. But those of us who aren't idiots understand that a car-bombing Indian is not every Indian, an aggressive and gun-toting American is not every American, a promiscuous and drunken Englishman is not every Englishman, and so on.
However, it should also be pointed out that all Scots are just like Doors. And no-one Irish is even remotely like Rinso.
Where did you get that from, class stuff but who the hell puts a '2' to mean 'to' in quotes like that?
Good old scotland, we should learn from them. Next time you see a would-be terrorist, kick them as hard as you can between the legs! I Got the times Higher education Suppliment the other day and was surprised to find that terrorism Studies have Tripled since the 2005 London attacks. I didnt even know there were Such things as terrorism studies. Many universities have dedicated corses now which is encouraging although a little worrying too. Why is terroism only now affecting us enough to have specific courses? Someone said earlier that we have been subject to terrorism for a long time from Groups such as the IRA, so why have Al-quieda (Spelling?) motivated us enough to spend our money on researching them? Does anyone know why they did it yet? Useually theres a reason for terrorism like all the abductions in Iraq, but i havn't heard any reasons yet. So was this terrorism for the sake of it? which is pretty pathetic by anyones standards.
I took it off a forum. The part towards the end is the poster describing a TV interview, I think. In any case, I have now found an online version of the actual article here: The Daily Record - NEWS - HERO CABBIE: POLICE TOOK MY GOOD NIKE TRAINERS
A-ha, now I know where the terrorists are learning their craft. This last lot obviously couldn't wait until the end of their course. :lol:
Awesome! Some guy tries to attack your airport, everyone in the crowd beats him up then tells a lengthy blow-by-blow account, including how they'd have beaten him up much better if only the police had handed over a weapon. That's Glasgow for you! Doors, what does 'skelp' mean?
This may be a Scottish take on 'scalp'... but scalping is usually much more permanent than skelping, so maybe not. Ah language who's to know what anyone actually means?
[FONT=verdana, geneva, helvetica]From About.com Definition: A piece or strip of metal produced to a suitable thickness, width, and edge configuration, from which pipe or tubing is made. Maybe it means to beat with a pipe! [/FONT]
It never even occurred to me to wonder what it means, I never heard it before but just assumed he meant hit.
Skelp does mean hit. its even harder in Scotland when you move up from England. I've lived here for 6 years now and I'm still learning. Here's a good example of confusion which happend to me in my first week of school. "I dont have a Scooby" mening "I dont have a clue" because Scooby-do and clue rime and I'm still learning some of the slang. but I love it up here. Well Im glad we still have people who will protect the contry they live in not just for being called a hero or for money. The're just protecting the country because its where they live. I like the army but I like people who protect the contry without the govenment's help better.
