The way of the exploding milkbottle*

The best thing about terror alerts is that they make it a lot easier to get a seat on the tube to work in the morning.

First up, thumbs up to the security services. If half of what we're being told is true (and it looks as if it is) then they've done a bang-up job. Needless to say I expect that the usual conspiracy theorists will pop out of the woodwork to claim that this is all a fit up by Blair and Bush, but I'm always remnded of the Watergate conspiracy where Nixon couldn't keep a lid on a conspiracy involving six people. Suggesting a conspiracy involving what would have to be hundreds is so unlikely as to be unbelievable, so stop it before you start. Thumbs up for James Bond and his International Pals. Let me buy you a pint.

Overall, though, I'm not actually surprised by any of this; either the efficiency of the security forces, or the fact that the bombers existed. If you were to say to me that in a nation of 60+ million people there existed maybe 20-30 people willing to kill hundreds, my reaction would not be a breathlessly horrified "Really?", but more surprise at there being so few. On any bell-curve of population, every Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela has to be offset by the odd frothing lunatic. All that has happened in the last few years is that the internet has made it easier for said frothing lunatics to hook up with one another. The good thing, on the reverse, is that the internet has made it more convenient for the rest of us to ruthlessly mock them.

You shouldn't be surprised that the Frothing Lunatics^tm are targetting civilian populations. There are two reasons for this:
1) It is ultimately, an admission of defeat.
As the IRA only started to mostly target civilian targets when they realised that they'd effectively lost, so our current batch of frothing lunatics (FL's) are doing the same. I've said it before, but it bears re-iterating. We (as in the western cultural/economic hegemony, not just me and my friends list), have won - at least until the Chinese decide to make us their bitches, and whilst the FL's might be a danger to our lives, they are most certainly not an effective danger to our society.
It's a situation analagous to, say, Accrington Stanley playing Bayern Munich; eight-one down with five minutes to go, plucky little Terrorism is still going for the ball and making like they can come back to win it.

2) The above (1) is because the fight here is not actually one of weapons, but it is one of ideas. As most people seem outraged that the FL's are targetting non-military targets, there's something else to bear in mind. We are all, in their eyes, 'enemy combatants'. If you happen to think that Bacon Butties are a grand idea and compulsory bushy beards for men aren't, then you're actively engaged in a war of ideas whether you like it or not, and some people are willing to detonate themselves to prove you wrong.
The problem is that in this war of ideas, one side has belatedly realised that they're unarmed and they've started throwing their toys out of the pram with explosive force.

Like I say, though, for all the hoo-ha about the FL threat, they're not much of a threat to our overall society. I'm more concerned by the fact that John Prescott is currently wedged into an overstuffed chair in No.10 with one porky finger on The Button and another on his secretary's arse than I am about the possibility of getting blown up on the tube home tonight.
They threaten my life, but all they've actually managed to do this time round is make some people cancel thier holidays. Thanks to our fantastic police service and their own ultimate ideological failure, they're unlikely to manage much more than that.
And, when it comes down to it, there's really only one thing to do with people who aren't really that much of a threat to our way of life:



^{*flywingedmonkey: After our conversation yesterday, I thought "Sod it, this one is too good not to use."}