On the interview to CB General Public agreed on the in-depth analysis of Harrison-Stetson Institute, but also reminded that “The Olympics is on and you’re standing in front of the TV”, while quickly typing chatroulette’s address to google hoping that facebook would’ve fixed it’s login page this already. “Have you seen the latest photos of the 9-year old samba queen? She’s a bit of a crybaby but boy do I want to see her grow“, General Public concludes the analysis while wiping drool from lips.

In other news a school collapsed in Haiti killing several children and almost 20 people have been killed in a train crash outside Brussels.

More accurate news from The Guardian.

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny – refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed. The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

This is nothing but vigilantism. Mob mentality. A frightened group of people – with no legal authority, and certainly no evidence – accuses a few people of being criminals, and promptly – forcibly – ejects them from a flight that they’ve paid good money for. The describtion that best fits a group of people who do this is “lynch mob”. What next? Mobs of Underground passengers in London throwing arabs off trains in order to “prevent bombings”? Companies finding themselves under pressure to not hire people belonging to certain categories that are deemed scary? Restaurants not serving them? Real estate prices dropping in areas where there are large arab minorities? Maybe we’ll even see neighbourhood militias harassing “undesirables” to make them move?

Think I’m going too far? Well, just go watch “Mississippi Burning” then – this was after all more or less standard operating procedure no more than 50 years ago. Rosa Parks must be turning in her grave, because all that she stood for is at stake here. Everybody involved in this should be ashamed. First of all: the airliners. If they have any faith at all in the security procedures at airports, they must rise up and say so. If they do not trust the decisions of airport security staff, they should get into another business. Second of all: the mobsters themselves. They should sit down, have a drink, and think long and hard about what democracy is about, what we’re actually fighting terrorism for, and what many, many years of struggle against racism, homophobia, segregation and prejudice was about. Third of all: the politicians and the media. They’ve indoctrinated us with fear for too long now, telling us with drooling excitement what threat level is currently active, what the evil-doers are plotting next, and above all, “stressing the need for vigilance”. Sure, the terrorists need to be dealt with. But media as well as official spokesmen must make it clear that a decent society is one that does not belittle, demonize and humiliate it’s citizens. That means that we must leave the terrorist-hunting to the ones we have charged with the task.

And, last of all: the rest of us. We’re the ones who have the greatest responsibility to stop these KKK-esque bastards. Every time we let them get away with this, we are sending them a validation; telling them that they are in the right. We need to stand up, all of us, and say: “You do not represent my values. You are not protecting anyone. You are the spreaders of fear, racism, isolation and all that is bad to Man. And there’s no fucking way we’re putting up with ya langers anymore.”

Can we just have our fucking principles back, please?

What I do find interesting, though, is HOW these guys were caught. They were caught by police work. Not by invading some faraway country, not by flying UAV drones over Birmingham, not by mistakenly bombing wedding parties. Police work, and intelligence was what did the trick. There’s also a case to be made for the fact that it was cooperation that sorted out this mess, which mightn’t seem like such a big surprise but really should be cause for concern in the US.

Here’s what happened: The MI5 and Scotland Yard were getting fed information from the nice boys of ISI (Pakistani intelligence; the same fellas who helped the CIA fund the Mujahedin against the Soviet Union in the 80′s), and this information was crucial for the Brits to foil the plot. I can’t claim to have any reasonable knowledge about British intelligence at all, but I would assume that they’re quite competent (highly educated population, rich country meaning vast budgets, a long history of threat scenarios etc.). Yet they still needed help. Luckily, they got that. The only reason the UK was being helped, was because they have decent ties with the Pakistani government. Had this been a plot emanating from terrorists based in, say, Iran, and directed against US interests, you can rest assured that Ahmadinejad wouldn’t have bothered phoning George up to let him know.

This is something the US should be feeling slightly iffy about, since they’re being led by that born-again, Christian, former cokehead GWB. And GWB doesn’t speak with nations he doesn’t like (Syria, Iran, North Korea…), because he has this ideological hang-up which tells him that interaction with the USA is good for countries (which it, for most part, also is) whereas non-interaction with the USA is bad for countries (again, this is true in most cases). This prevents him from opening direct talks with ANYBODY that he considers a wee bit naughty, because you shouldn’t “reward bad behaviour” or “give terrorists legitimacy by talking to them”. And this half-arsed concept of “principle” is what he bases foregin policy on! Not particularly reality-based, but hey – we’re talking rapturists here. So isolation it is, then, and when the shit starts hitting the fan (ie. Hezbollah right now, or future terror plots like the one the Brits uncovered yesterday) he doesn’t have any framework in place for diplomatic leverage, or for gaining access to information gathered by others than his immediate allies.

For fuck’s sake, George. Start talking to people – especially the Iranians. And do it NOW, before another a bunch of people get killed because of something you could have stopped. You could even bring up the issue of Lebanon, Israel and regional stability whilst you’re at it. Sound good, eh?

The reason why most of the clothes are now forbidden is because the security officials noticed that “stuff” can be taken to aircraft cabins if dry frozen and/or pulverized. Heathrow’s specialist of cunning measures, Wile E. Coyote explains “Only thing they need is an Acme catalog and BANG!” at the precise moment of “BANG” the whole terminal jumps to the ground screaming “We all gonna die.” It took good quarter of an hour to calm down every one.
“I mean just look at the ”Instant: Just add water section””, Wile E. continues after the incident. “Just between you and me, we are actually preparing even stricter measures to prevent a breach of roadrun.. sorry where was my head, terrorists. We are going to require people not to wear any clothes – only underwear. And we are gonna change the see through plastic bags to paper bags, one can suffocate a person with a plastic bag. Never can be too cautious…”.
Wile E. Coyote, Heathrow security specialist, is about to continue when a silent “meep-meep” distracts him and off he goes to save the world from roadrun… international terrorists.

“Further to today’s national security alert at UK airports, the Department for Transport (DoT) has issued additional security measures. With immediate effect, the following arrangements apply to all passengers starting their journey at a UK airport and to those transferring between flights at a UK airport.

All cabin baggage must be processed as hold baggage and carried in the hold of passenger aircraft departing UK airports.

Passengers may take through the airport security search point, in a single (ideally transparent) plastic carrier bag, only the following items. Nothing may be carried in pockets:

pocketsize wallets and pocket size purses plus contents (for example money, credit cards, identity cards etc (not handbags));
travel documents essential for the journey (for example passports and travel tickets);
prescription medicines and medical items sufficient and essential for the flight (eg diabetic kit), except in liquid form unless verified as authentic.
spectacles and sunglasses, without cases.
contact lens holders, without bottles of solution.
for those travelling with an infant: baby food, milk (the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the accompanying passenger) and sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight (nappies, wipes, creams and nappy disposal bags).
female sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight, if unboxed (eg tampons, pads, towels and wipes).
tissues (unboxed) and/or handkerchiefs
keys (but no electrical key fobs)
All passengers must be hand searched, and their footwear and all the items they are carrying must be x-ray screened.

Pushchairs and walking aids must be x-ray screened, and only airport-provided wheelchairs may pass through the screening point.

In addition to the above, all passengers boarding flights to the USA and all the items they are carrying, including those acquired after the central screening point, must be subjected to a secondary search at the boarding gate. Any liquids discovered must be removed from the passenger.”

So just perfect news for anyone carrying a laptop, camera bag or anything else fragile and expensive.
I know security measures are tightened because they “uncovered air terror plot” but there is still people needing to use their equipment on board and afterwards. I highly doubt that a laptop “likes” to spend time in the cargo bay or that people traveling today are prepared for this.

What? Are UK universities (financed in no small measure by UK tax money, I'm suppose) really assisting oppressive regimes to stem the free flow of information by helpfully pointing out how their system of opinion-control is faulty? I thought the UK were supposed to be pro-democracy? What assholes.

Why are the English so much worse in this regard than any other country? Not even the teutonians’ old arch-enemy the French are being this stupid. My own personal theory is that the English believe the won the thing. They think that when the world was cowed, only one brave island nation’s refusal to give in to evil saved civilization as we know it. Bullshit. The Russians won the war, and the English were fighting only because they had little other choice. A lot of them wanted to give up. Of course one can easily find examples of nigh unbelievable courage and self-sacrifice amongst the English during WWII. One can, though, almost as easily find acts of malice, cowardice and selfishness. But that seems to be conveniently ignored by far too many English people (you think most of them are nice? That it’s just an “awful minority disgracing the vast majority”? Fuck off. Read the Sun).
Now, I’m a great fan of the idea that nothing is beyond humour. Anything can be joked about, and the funniest things there are are the ones who are decidedly provocative. But the war just isn’t funny anymore. Some very funny jokes have been made about it (John Cleese, anyone?), but by now it’s pretty emptied out as a subject. But what really pisses me off is that all these jokers aren’t even making fun of the stuff that’s worth making fun of in Germany. I mean; David Hasselhoff. Scorpions. Rudi Völler’s hairstyle. Need I say more?