So you should now know that almost 30 people were arrested in England for suspicion of plotting to blow up planes leaving the UK for the USA. News links here to refresh your memories:

And more news links everywhere than I’d care to link. Check them at your usual online news outlets.

The implication is that things that we take for granted as allowed to be carried onto a plane are now banned in the UK and the USA. Major airports around the world may follow suit. Things like laptops, iPods, water bottles, contact-lenses containers and the list goes on. The new threat is a type of liquid explosive which can be detonated using any form of electrical charge.

But if the threat is a liquid explosive, do you just allow big bins at airport terminals for travellers to throw their contraband into? (via BoingBoing) Does that seem like a wise idea to anyone? How do you logically deal with such a threat?

Is the response appropriate to the threat? Where do you draw the line? Terrorism is a reality and there will always be a threat of catastrophe. Do we strip every airline passenger naked and inject them with tranquilisers for the duration of the flight? Is that what it would take to make us feel safe again?

ZeFrank has nicely summarised it.

The strategy to terrorism is to use isolated acts of violence to instill fear and confusion into the population at large. A small number of people can incapacitate a society by leveraging our inability to understand risk.

He also noted that many other places in the world have to come to terms with terrorism on a daily basis and yet,

These societies have pulled together and not allow isolated acts of violence to tear at their fibre.

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