Car Bomb Drama

lol at the target being a Tiger Tiger

Intelligence sources said they were keeping an open mind on who was responsible for the car bomb.

"All options, including the Irish, are open at this stage," said the source.

Strange to mention the Irish like that?

political correctness gone mad

Provided me with an excuse for being late this morning!

Curious. Friend on LJ mentioned this and implied it was aimed at Gay Pride march which is on today/tomorrow?

Strange to mention the Irish like that?

It probably went something like
Copper: We are keeping all options open
Hack: All options?
Copper: Yes
Hack: Even the Irish?
Copper: All options includes everyone so yes that would include the Irish
Hack: Got my "quote" thanks!

The Irish

How Journalism Works

sounds 'bout right

xpost

lol 'all options including militant smokers'

If this will lead to arresting Americans who claim to be Irish despite being roughly 23rd generation, then I'm all for it.

Spookily I revived that thread only last night. What with this and the Benoit wiki business it's as if the internet is trying to tell us something.

CHRIS BENOIT TRYING TO KILL ALL LONDON GAYS AS A FINAL ACT OF VENGEANCE

Showing admirable restraint, the Evening Standard's headline is "BID TO KILL 1,700 IN WEST END"

£20

Scotland Yard reporting that vehicle contained large containers of petrol, gas cylinders and nails. Spotted by a member of an ambulance crew who saw 'smoke' coming from the vehicle.

Managing director of Fopp brought in for questioning...

It's good that they set an exact target number. Must've been the Irish, gentleman terrorists, golden years

Is there an Orange mobile phone shop anywhere near there?

Isn't attaching gas cannisters a rather unconventional method of making a car bomb?

My guess - it was some idiot's attempt to pimp his ride that got out of control.

The nails were to sprinkle over the road James Bond style so fellow pimpers would blow out, right?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/77/Dickdastardly.jpg/250px-Dickdastardly.jpg

Gas canister, especially if acetylene would make a very powerful bomb and have been used extensively IEDs in Iraq. It doesn't rule out anyone though as the information is widely available on the internet. Whether it is Islamic, British or Irish far right fuckwits I am very very angry right now.

tony blair fans?

angry charlton fans?

Bombing for poppage?

strike that, bemused spurs fans actually.

Bit of a waste of a Merc if you ask me

I guess someone just wanted to give Gordon a nice initiation present.

mi5/mossad/cia amirite

it's what they're still saying about 7/7...

xpost
No, probably not.

Finding who was responsible will be like looking for a nail in a haymarket.

ho, there it is.

I've decided that if I ever get a dog I'll call it Mossad

... of course, it'll get blamed for every bit of trouble in the neighbourhood

Have the organisers of rival club night Club Poptimism been brought in for questioning yet?

Had it gone off, would anyone have dared do a "Tiger Tiger burning bright" headline?

So that's another one found. 2 seems like an odd number, so presumably there are more. There doesn't seem much concern about it here, though. What's it like in London?

seems like an odd number

well, even, to be fair.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6255452.stm

I like that the second car was found in a council pound. That's one hard-ass car-lifter driver be shitting himself, then.

some guy on the news pointed out this merc outside tiger tiger was almost certainly also parked illegally -- esp if it was in fact right outside the club.

This shit's going on in the american news, too.

I like that, as with the shoebomber onwards, any act of half-assed idiocy that can be construed as terrorism will be done so over and over again by both the U.S. Admin and 24/7 media.

eh?

errrrr

UH

One might take away the observation that if this, too, turns out to be the work of bin Ladin-sympathizing locals, they're fortunately not a very crack bunch. Considering Dhiren Barot -- who was primarily an Internet surfer and collector of cracked plans -- and the Chapati flour/peroxide bomb gang, success in bombing seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

yeah there is that. i dunno what it's like in london (cos i'm not there) but i remember two years ago most of my peoples were kind of blase about it, partly because that's what londoners do. but also i worked around bloomsbury and it just felt closer. it is funny being in the provinces (lol i mean i'm 45 mins out of london, i may as well be in the outer suburbs) cos when anyone visits london they notice the increased policing way more than people living there.

Guardian reporting second car is a def bomb.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2114743,00.html

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/06/securitymatters_0614

So both of the bombs were found by complete accident? Reassuring, that.

not clear that either of them had a viable detonation device. i mean what is the deal with smoke coming out of it?! sounds like something fucked up.

Well, the two cases linked here show a habit of screw up and incompetence, the gist of which is generally overlooked or completely censored by the mainstream media. Having looked over many jihadi documents from a few recent UK terror cases, one easily comes away with the impression of total incompetence. That said, it doesn't mean there aren't actual competent terrorists, only that in these highly publicized cases, the bad guys were stumblers. It goes against the received wisdom that terrorism and bomb-making is easy. It also tends to lessen the story in the eyes of editors.

It is interesting to note that Peter Clarke's speech a couple of months ago, one given to law enforcement and anti-terror men, admitted that most of the recent terror arrests were not the result of tips from the Muslim community, but from eavesdropping and tailing. This was a matter of some dismay, coming as it seems to from suspicion within the community that it's being set up.

In this case, the discoveries were fortuitous.

The computer files of terrorist Dhiren Barot.

The peroxide and Chapati flour bomb terrorists.

As long as the "dear society, don't collapse, you don't have to be afraid" message gets through...

Since police can't say they can stop terrorism, the next best thing to reassure the public are these "the terrorists are all incompetent crackpots" stories, I guess.

Except that 2nd message doesn't get transmitted in America

I'd say given the supposed availability of black market nukes/fuel, and the obvious ease with which it could be snuck into (anywhere), then either 1) terrorists are incompetent, or 2) intelligence/antiterrorism efforts really are working (they, indeed, are 'stopping it')

can someone explain the incompetence in this case?

neither 'bomb', if that's the right word, 'exploded', if that's the right word. bomb sounds lot less sophisticated than, say, the bombs of the ira in the early 90s.

so there's no difference between a plot that is less than 100% precise/perfect and is foiled in the attempt and a laughably impossible plot that never advances past the talking stage?

Not on this side of the pond, no.

there is, but it doesn't justify id cards, suspension of habeas corpus, ect ect.

xpost

i don't see what any of this has to do with this particular incident. there were two devices described by london police as potentially viable, and sorry i don't see any american media hysteria dealing with this. if anything, it's being underplayed.

what he said

according to dom the evening standard claimed a possible death toll of 1,700. i don't dispute this is bad news but come on, that's insane.

it is? what's the capacity of clubs, restaurants, hotels, stores, businesses on picadilly circus?

Yeah, a 1,700 death toll is nonsense (I think that's the capacity of the nightclub outside which the car was found, rather than any scientific / logical estimate), but that doesn't mean we're just talking about some half-arsed nutter who shouldn't be taken seriously. (xpost)

The busy Haymarket thoroughfare is packed with restaurants, bars, a cinema complex and West End theaters, and was buzzing at that hour. "Phantom of the Opera" is playing at Her Majesty's Theater down the street.

It was ladies' night Thursday, nicknamed "Sugar 'N' Spice," at the Tiger Tiger nightclub, a three-story venue that at full capacity can pack in 1,770 people and stays open until 3 a.m.

i'm assuming the club wasn't at capacity but what if the club structure caved in and everyone inside dies of fire and/or smoke inhalation?

from a petrol bomb?

multiple xpost
Apparently the Tiger Tiger nightclub has a capacity of around 1700 which is where the figure comes from and it was more or less full as it was 'ladies night' last night. Having said that such a crude device would be unlikely to destroy the entire nightclub though quibbling over whether there would be 17, 170 or 1700 deaths is besides the point.

intelligence/antiterrorism efforts really are working (they, indeed, are 'stopping it')

The Met's anti-terror operation has been successful in rounding up quite a few people. I'd refer you to a link that has Peter Clarke's speech on general counter-terror operations and challenges but at the moment, I'm having difficulty finding it on the hard disk.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2004526.ece

quite a lot of speculation there over the charge involved. if they mention high explosives i'm all ears, but the times eventually says petrol may have been meant as the main charge. i'm actually *over*sensitive about this shit btw, i don't ignore it.

Fuel air bombs are devastating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon

<a href="http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/06/goodbye-piccadilly-farewell-leicester.html";>What on earth is going on? Why is everyone on the news talking such utter fucking rubbish?</a>

you get the idea

oh FUCK lenin's tomb.

shield s06e01 has just finished on channel 5 btw.

best fuckin' series yet.

BBC: It is understood that the devices were intended to have been detonated remotely by mobile phone but for some reason they did not work.

is lenin's tomb an SWP type hang out?

yeah. strong ties with the hackademic blogosphere. as so often with douchebags, it's his tone more than what he's saying that pisses me off (though his comment box peoples really are the worst). if he were serious about politics he'd probably think through communicating his ideas / making arguments, but there's so much that's just assumed; and you can't get round the fact that even if the attack was a misfire and even if the 'bombs' were crude, their existence is still a big political problem, and not just in the 'noooooo they be takin my civil liberty' way, cos voters do get upset by this kind of thing.

but i guess for him they're a blow against imperialism so y know...

"Do not, guys and gals, get me wrong. I am fully aware that insurgents in both Iraq and Afghanistan have engaged in some grizzly, grotesque spectacles. However..."

wtf, BBC News 24 is reporting that 'a car on fire has been driven into Glasgow Airport Terminal'.

OK, that's like five minutes from my house :-O

Here we go...

i wish they'd leave it till they knew something before reporting stuff.

Shall I go round for a nosey and report back?

bbc website says it was evacuated.

Cherokee Jeep driven through glass frontage of airport by two "Asian" men, one of whom was on fire.

BBC saying that it was just the man on fire, rather than the Jeep.

wow.

ysi?

Aye, I don't think I'll get anywhere near. Just had my brother-in-law on the phone from Barcelona, he flew out of Glasgow earlier today and just got a panicked text from a friend asking if he was OK because "someone's tried to blow up Glasgow airport".

http://991.com/newgallery/John-Parr-St-Elmos-Fire-34419.jpg

xp

Apparently the Jeep has exploded in the airport terminal

Jesus.

saw a still pic on the news of it exploding. it's pretty unclear from eyewitness reports what happened, but it sounds like they ramraided the terminal, were then taken by the police, and at some point the jeep blew up.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42446000/jpg/_42446848_airport2_203.jpg

Apparently the car crashed into another one before ramming the airport frontage?

Sky says that the man was trying to get a gas cylinder out of the Jeep.

Just spoken to my husband in the pub in Paisley who said there was a whole stack of all emergency services went haring past a while ago.

guy on bbcnews right now saying smoke was coming from the backseat after it had crashed into the terminal.

Sky says that the man was trying to get a gas cylinder out of the Jeep.

-- Billy Dods, Saturday, June 30, 2007 9:29 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

wtf

Does this country have the most useless fucking terrorists ever?

the makers of 'the bill' bring you.... '24UK'

haha, I was saying that last night re. failed car bomber guys in London (xpost)

Do we think this *is* terrorism, or just some random nutter? I've got News 24 on in the other room but am also talking to people on the phone and chatting to my neighbours so not giving full attention to news gibberings, have any other eyewitnesses corroborated the Asian men thing - I tend to think first people interviewed might be panicked and wildly speculating, though i have no basis for this at all.

i think it is a random nutter.

or two, rather. better picture on news24 of the flaming jeep.

Sky say that three men, 'barefoot and in boiler suits' were in the Jeep.

Slipknot fans?

Maggots, Dom.

one woman said a large man in a white t-shirt and khaki trousers was one of the guys from the jeep.

even as the bbc is trying to tease out some 'terrorist attack confirmations' from various eyewitnesses, i love that sky are just taking it one step further. as usual.

I'm not one for speculating usually, but since it's right on my doorstep I am being extra weirded out by it. Am supposed to be going to the pub just now, but am hanging around to see if I can get extra info, though I think my phone call to husband may have alerted the pub staff to turn the telly over to the news.

Pic on News 24 shows vehicle didn't actually get in to the building.

Strathclyde police are saying that four people have been arrested.

They are also treating it as a purely criminal matter, rather than a great big WOAH NATIONAL SECURITY BREACH OH NOES TERRORISM incident, it would seem.

'Asian' men' is such a fucking pointless, dangerous description (only used in quoting eyewitnesses tho)

Peter Sissons on News 24 seems to be totally flabbergasted by the details which are unfolding.

That's why I'm wondering if it has been picked up just because some generalising bloke with a BBC mic shoved under his nose said it and it makes it newsworthy and gives rise to fear and uncertainty coming on the back of the failed London attacks yesterday so we all sit glued to the telly until it turns out to be some ex-BA employee who just got made redundant and is a bit pissed off about it or something which is still bad but not as scary as big old terrorists.

xpost to Steve

My sister in law is supposed to be flying to Faro at six o'clock tomorrow morning.

BBC News 24 now reporting only two arrests, not four.

They've got the guy that tackled the on-fire guy on News 24 just now. He's saying the guy was Asian, he was "talking gibberish" and he was fighting with the police.

Eye witness says that one of the men poured petrol over himself and the vehicle and was trying to reverse the jeep when he was on fire. wtf x 1000

Aye. Just heard that. It's all so confused and confusing right now, so many stories. BBC News ticker still saying car in terminal building, even though the pictures show it outside, on the pavement at what looks like the main entrance to international departures, just before the taxi rank.

lots and lots of wtfs -- i guess it'll take time to get the story straight.

Helicopter just headed over my house away from the airport just now at great speed.

Daily Express being understated as per:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/11856/Breaking+news:+'Bombers'+try+to+blow+up+UK+Airport

"I think it was an Asian gang or something... There was this guy, he looked Asian... and he was speaking another language, I'm pretty sure it was... Asian."

Saturday afternoon, Paisley man crashes car, fights with the police and is 'talking gibberish'

and this is news?

ps. i live a mile or so away too but luckily (?) am not at home just now. I wonder if these utter incompetents went to the same school as me, hmmmmm

Chances that they're from Paisley are fairly slim I'd imagine.

I'm still thinking about the disgruntled ex-employee theory right now in absence of any actual facts, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that they are local.

If this isn't some amateurish attempt at terrorism perpetrated by two daft asian bams I will eat my hat.

^^^ this

The Shit Terrorists = good bad name.

Aye, it could be that. Given that the car bomb thingie in London arsed up because one of the dudes crashed his car and panicked running off and leaving his bomb, given that the 21/7/05 bombing attempts arsed up because the bombs didn't even work, daft bams playing at being terrorists seems to be about the size of it right now. If, in fact, it is terrorism. It's so close to last night's events that it has to be a consideration, but it might just be coincidence. Over to Strathclyde's finest...oh, er, yeah. Resurrect Taggart!

I'm starting to get pissed off at all this shite.

If this isn't some amateurish attempt at terrorism perpetrated by two daft asian bams I will eat my hat.

-- jim, Saturday, June 30, 2007 11:27 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yes. c4 news had footage of the fire. it was basically a large car fire. there's still a lot unclear, mainly why the car was on fire *before* it hit the building and what the deal is with the collision.

for all that these people are amateurs, i do tend to think that successful killers are amateurs who got lucky. case in point: the bus bomber on 7/7.

there's still a lot unclear, mainly why the car was on fire *before* it hit the building

don't the accounts conflict on this point?

xpost

Oh yeah, the point is that most terrorists now are "amateur" in this sense, that they don't operate in the paramilitary units that dominated 20th century terrorism. It doesn't make them much less dangerous, it just makes their tactics more erratic. [NB not implying that Jeep Man On Fire was/n't a terrorist.]

the greatest trick bin laden ever pulled was convincing us that bored punks making diesel pipe bombs and acting stupid was some kind of warfare

Talk of an explosion at Heathrow?

looks like i picked the wrong week to quit smoking

just a car fire, apparently. I wonder how common they are.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

wow bbc news 24 live on the web. how long has this been going on?

I don't really get this distinction between 'terrorists' and people 'playing at being terrorists'. If someone loads a car up full of stuff that can explode in a "potentially viable" way and leaves loads of nails packed around it then leaves it in the middle of the West End surrounded by hundreds of people surely that's terrorism? It doesn't really make any difference whether it actually goes off or not - it's not as if when IRA bombs failed to detonate people said 'ah, they were just playing around this time'. And it's not as if some nutter acting on their own (rather than belonging to some organisation) doesn't constitute a terrorist, as that bloke who bombed Brick Lane / Brixton / Soho a few years ago proved.

LOL @ BBC witness who described the sound as being "like when you throw a can of deoderant on a bonfire".

Sorry, that was meant to say Madchen underneath what I wrote.

*contemplates power potential of Stet remaining logged in at my house*

I don't really get this distinction between 'terrorists' and people 'playing at being terrorists'

There's not a distinction. Not professionally, anyway, speaking from authority. However, there is the valid observation that a good number of people caught up in terrorist cases and investigations -- as well as those convicted -- are not particularly adept at anything. My work shows me that the set I'm interested in, and whose documents I've been asked to evaluate, are very poorly educated and if they have received training, it does not appear to be training that is any good.

Often this has run counter to popular conceptions, often pushed by various experts and well-aired in the mainstream press, that terrorists are murderously efficient and capable of turning virtually anything into a weapon in their ingenuity.

It is actually good news to realize that while al Qaeda may be able to recruit and inspire young men to rally to their cause, the organization is not nearly so adept at turning them into effective religious warriors.

Is that just a matter of time, though? The IRA got pretty good at it after a while as well.

I don't really get this distinction between 'terrorists' and people 'playing at being terrorists'. If someone loads a car up full of stuff that can explode in a "potentially viable" way and leaves loads of nails packed around it then leaves it in the middle of the West End surrounded by hundreds of people surely that's terrorism? It doesn't really make any difference whether it actually goes off or not - it's not as if when IRA bombs failed to detonate people said 'ah, they were just playing around this time'. And it's not as if some nutter acting on their own (rather than belonging to some organisation) doesn't constitute a terrorist, as that bloke who bombed Brick Lane / Brixton / Soho a few years ago proved.

-- Nasty, Brutish & Short, Sunday, July 1, 2007 1:25 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

it makes a big difference, think. we're fed a story about an international terror network so dangerous that we've gone to war over it in afghanistan, and more or less in iraq too. a lone nutter is not a terrorist any more than richard mcbeef was. these lamers seem to be between his level and the pros.

dunno what ", think" was going to be.

lol apparently alec salmond (sp) was teleconferenced for the cobra meet. awkward...

Is that just a matter of time, though? The IRA got pretty good at it after a while as well.

Not necessarily. Are the conditions the same for these people as for the IRA? Can they as easily operate, which is what's needed to gain experience.

Say you're a terror mastermind who wants to start a campaign of improvised bombings. You're going to need someone experienced in rigging bombs that work. How do you gain experience? By putting them together and seeing if they work without immediately being snatched off the street and tossed in a dungeon.

In Iraq, you can do this right away. There is a good supply of explosive and country is a failed state with large portions beyond the control of the US military. Not only can you put designs into action, you also have some opportunity to test designs in areas where you're not likely to be meddled with.

Now, if you were such a mastermind, you might think one place to go to get such a professional bomb rigger would be Iraq. How can you convince such a person to come to Britain? And if you can convince such a person to come to Britain, then you have to get him into Britain. And then you must be prepared to deal with procurement of materials, since your access in Britain will be much more limited. There won't be an open supermarket of high explosives and detonators for you to choose from.

It does seem fairly obvious, to me anyway, that one doesn't merely throw a few propane tanks and some gas in a car, and automatically get the equivalent of a 1,000 or 2,000 lb. bomb.

This is not to rule out that if people try often enough, they may have some successes. It's a far cry, however, from thinking that they're a threat to topple western civilization.

John Lennon Airport in Liverpool has closed until further notice.

Police press conference in Glasgow live now. Apparently the guy that was taken to hospital had a device on him and the hospital had to be evacuated until it was taken care of.

Heard reports of Blackpool, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Birmingham airports being shut (none confirmed - also why no mention of Prestwick? My initial thoughts re Edinburgh and Newcastle = threat of further attacks following initial tactic of disabling GLA as that's where some Glasgow flights would be diverted to, but surely they'd also go to Prestwick?).

Everything is still all so confused. Paisley currently full of people trying to get hotels and taxis (taxi driver told me SECC open for stranded people to kip in), hence why I'm not in the pub any more, thought I'd get home and leave all the madness.

Some bloke in pub also telling everyone the hospital in Paisley had been evacuated following admittance of burnt suspect but heard no confirmation of that (xpost , fuck, yer kidding!!!)

no im watching the conference now. my folks are due home later in week. there's going to be mass delays and i bet they aren't allowed ipods and stuff like last year.

Someone from the Sunday Mail asked if it was true Ferguslie Park Cricket Club had been evacuated. But he said he had no information on that.

btw the hospital was only evacuated for a while, it's back as normal now.

Aye, I just watched it (just in from the pub).

yeah, fuck, no ipods, how the fuck will the world cope when they can't listen to music when they're getting blown the fuck up. FFS, priorities, people.

I enjoyed the journo using the last question to ask about Ferguslie Park cricket club. I'm just sorry that the Sunday Post journo was cut off before his next question about the airport cafe's shortbread supply.

Also enjoying Frank Gardner now giving expert commentary on the police statement: "I was filing a report and didn't see the statement so you probably know more about it than me, but..."

Wonder what the Daily Mail question would've been about.

mmm flying into pwick the morra ;)

do you have an ipod?

nah, no

I do

i don't :(

mine was a gift

They might let you keep it in the suitcase. I haven't heard of any restrictions yet. But they could still happen.

Daily Mail: "Paisley House Prices Plummet"

hope I'm allowed a suitcase

I think last year they banned hand luggage and all bottles. Mothers had to test the baby's milk bottles in front of security people etc

hope you're prepared for that indignity, rjg.

the penultimate indignity

To be serious for a moment: here's a moral quandry. The threat level is critical - more attacks imminent. A fair assessment, considering. Only it's not known where, when or by whom. There is one sentient guy who might know, and he's in custody. He may or may not be talking.

Is he isn't talking, is torture justified?

i'm federal agent jack bauer, and today is the longest day of my life.

they are incompetent, but maybe not so incompetent that a footsoldier in glasgow would know the names and locations of everyone else in the network, if there is a network.

No, because torture doesn't result in actionable intelligence. The ticking time bomb scenario was a fictional concept dreamt up by Jean Lartéguy in his Algiers-focused book Les Centurions from the early '60s. The shit never happens outside of badly written eps of "24" and the bloodthirsty writings of authoritarians.

Still, wrong thread for this. There are more tortuous threads elsewhere.

xp

ha

backing up a bit, apparently the car outside tiger tiger was "parked" with... its lights on... and doors open... what the shit?

Well, how 'bout that the second car bomb was parked illegally and towed away to an impound yard. You would think one of the instructions in the books of improvised vehicle bombs is: "Do not part your car bomb in a tow away zone unless you plan to detonate it immediately."

I think last year they banned hand luggage and all bottles.

Really? They should've publicised that a bit or something. People have been flying since then, perhaps they should have made that a bit clearer.

you know fine well what i meant. There was a temporary ban. happy?

Cars with molotov-cocktail-wielding passengers wearing bomb-belts have never been allowed on planes ever. I fail to see relevance of past security measure you "think" might have happened (despite universal knowledge of them from anyone who has actually been on a plane since that threat was revealed) vs some tit attempting to ram-raid a terminal building.

But, y'know, well done on your recognition of sarcasm when you see it. RJG's humour is very subtle, I know it's hard to spot.

(I am being ultra-defensive because I don't really like terrorist dudes doing shit anywhere, not least within shouting distance of my house)

Haha, I R an nimby.

That guy who went on about deodorant cans in a bonfire was on BBC24 just now. The full interview. I R Cringing.

2 people have been arrested in Cheshire in connection with the events in London & Glasgow according to the BBC.

You will all be delighted to know that the bouncers outside the pub I was in earlier were espousing such enlightened views as "I bet all the Paki shops in Paisley get burnt out the night" and "that big mosque in Glasgow is totally getting it" etc. They were bouncers and therefore bigger than me, or I would have smacked them in the fucking face. Instead I glowered in a kind of menacing-ish manner and did some sort of approximation of flouncing away in what I hoped showed disdain and disgust. I think I probably just looked like a pissed twat.

I should make it clear that they were passing on the views of people they had encountered this evening and weren't advocating this themselves, just in case any of their bosses who happen to know me and what pub I was in tonight happen to be reading this. but still, even discussing it out loud = instant rage from sensible passers-by (i.e. me)

Matters discussed Previous gas cylinder bomb case and misrepresentations. Peter Clarke speech on counter-terrorism and lack of tips from community.

Couldn't resist taking the title from a post upthread.

Chances that they're from Paisley are fairly slim I'd imagine.

-- jim, Saturday, June 30, 2007 6:13 PM (Saturday, June 30, 2007 6:13 PM) Bookmark Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If this isn't some amateurish attempt at terrorism perpetrated by two daft asian bams I will eat my hat.

-- jim, Saturday, June 30, 2007 6:27 PM (Saturday, June 30, 2007 6:27 PM) Bookmark Link

Well, Strathclyde Police searching houses in Renfrewshire right now. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6258206.stm), also, Renfrewshire probably has its fair share of daft Asian bams, same as everybody else.

ps. i live a mile or so away too but luckily (?) am not at home just now. I wonder if these utter incompetents went to the same school as me, hmmmmm

-- bakerstreetsaxsolo, Saturday, June 30, 2007 6:11 PM (Saturday, June 30, 2007 6:11 PM) Bookmark Link

Bakerstreetsaxsolo, are you Rumpie under a different name, or do we have a third ILXor round here?

it's the guy from the top of buchanan street

:-)

Gas canister, especially if acetylene would make a very powerful bomb and have been used extensively IEDs in Iraq. It doesn't rule out anyone though as the information is widely available on the internet. Whether it is Islamic, British or Irish far right fuckwits I am very very angry right now.

-- Ed, Friday, 29 June 2007 11:08 (2 days ago) Link

ed you've just made it even more widely available!!

and i've just made it worse!!!

how did they make bombs before internets?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_cookbook

Bakerstreetsaxsolo, are you Rumpie under a different name, or do we have a third ILXor round here?

no, i just joined last week for ILM and hopped over here for this thread. born in RAH, brought up along Glasgow Road but now i mostly stay in Edinburgh. Family is all in Paisley but, within sight of Love Street actually.

How old are you (I have friends who were brought up along Glasgow Road too)?

Was out with a friend who lives up the back of Love Street, between there and the airport, yesterday, who was spectacularly unaware of everything that was going on.

Sky News reporting controlled explosion in the carpark of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley (the hospital where the suspect is). No mention on the BBC.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,70131-1273148,00.html

that was just on cnn.

I'm 24

and so is this!

Aye, it's on the Beeb now. Daerest BBC, Paisley is not in Glasgow, please stop saying it is.

xpost, right, you'll be 10 years younger than everyone I know from round that way then

also from cnn: american airlines terminal at jfk evacuated due to a suspicious package.

now it's been un-evacuated!

The car in the RHA car park has been linked to the attacks

Daerest BBC, Paisley is not in Glasgow, please stop saying it is.

They must be confused by the 0141 phone numbers.

But some of Paisley, round about the RAH, is 01505. Doubly confusing!

How could a car in the hospital car park be connected to the attacks?

Visitor? Left there before the attacks (presumably attackers knew that casualties would be sent there from the airport)?

(presumably attackers knew that casualties would be sent there from the airport)?

damn that's cold! if that's what this is. i hadn't thought of it, being a nice enough sort of chap.

Someone who knew there was a ton of police there due to hospitalisation of attacker?

xpost - placing people in the path of secondary attacks isn't that odd a tactic, is it?

(you saying I'm not a nice sort of person?)

lol

It's OK, Jack Bauer's on stage at the Diana concert, we're safe!

CNN:
Hot Topics » UK Terror Scare • iPhone • Election Campaigns • Paris Hilton • More Topics

sky news' website still has a dedicated "Madeleine" section second top of their links. It goes "UK News * Madeleine * World News * Politics * Business * Money" = LOOK NO TERRORISTS BUT WE STILL CARE ABOUT MISSING KIDZ.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/010707exposeshysteria.htm

i'm an agnostic on this. there are other experts who said people could have died. but officially, at least, the authorities have not overplayed the threat. that article links to a bbc story to evidence the claim that the authorities are using it to do this that and the other. if you read it, here is what it says:

"At a news conference on Friday evening, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command, [...] said: "It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or loss of life.

Police sources said it would have caused "carnage" if it had exploded.

"International elements" were believed to have been involved with the bombs, Whitehall sources told the BBC."

Johnson contrasted how the media glaze over deadly car bombings in Iraq which occur every day "And then you have a non-event in London and we're going to battle quarters and beginning to give the hairy eyeball to every Muslim."

i think it's pretty obvious why two attempted terror attacks in the uk is bigger news than the continued war in iraq.

ultimately the incompetence of these guys is not that reassuring, at least for those of us who -- i would presume, unlike this ex-cia guy, opposed the war.

i kind of think americans don't 'get' that it's very weird -- put it another way, a big political problem, to think that people who live in nondescript houses in staffordshire have the intention to kill people at random.

Just heard some massive explosions/rumbling coming from Islington way, followed currently by loads of police sirens.

Anybody know anything? Is it just hoodies playing tricks?

Err. Doesn't everyone except crazy people like the Unabomber live in "nondescript" houses? And back-to-the-land types and survivalists, I guess. And the homeless. Survivalists are pretty scary, so maybe that was your point....?

It's a problem when ANYone wants to kill people at random, I would think, and I don't get what Americans aren't getting.

that was part of my point, also that the 9/11 guys didn't have roots in the US; and because the US has a very small muslim population, and one which so far as i can tell has been less sympathetic to islamism and terrorism than the british muslim population.

Small vs. the whopping 2.8% population in Britain, right?

possibly a matter of distribution; the point is this is going to be a political problem if the bombs are effective or not.

Yeah, Larry Johnson's been writing about this for a coupla days.

too few facts in that piece.

Fortunately he left the windows in the car up and there was not enough oxygen to really get the fire going. Looks like the brave British police reached in and snuffed the flame.

maybe, we'll see -- personally i'd heard the guy had left the doors open. there are still conflicting accounts going round. so far as i know the official one is not that the guy was driving erratically and then the police were called.

upthread i was also among the many commonsense folk who said 'where were the explosives at?' but there are people who are talking about other possibilities. possibly cnn is hyping this more than the bbc because nobody has mentioned nuclear weapons in my hearing -- just larry.

i love his blowhard use of acronyms though, adds to the reality effect.

i suppose the problem comes down to:

Still a crock of hype and over-reaction. Let the police do their job. Investigate the culprits and get these nitwits out of circulation before they harm themselves.

that was posted before a second attack was attempted at glasgow...

but so long as we're in iraq and afghanistan, there isn't going to be a finite supply of 'nitwits' who can be rounded up. finding new nitwits is not going to be that much of a problem.

I don't really get this distinction between 'terrorists' and people 'playing at being terrorists'. If someone loads a car up full of stuff that can explode in a "potentially viable" way and leaves loads of nails packed around it then leaves it in the middle of the West End surrounded by hundreds of people surely that's terrorism? It doesn't really make any difference whether it actually goes off or not - it's not as if when IRA bombs failed to detonate people said 'ah, they were just playing around this time'. And it's not as if some nutter acting on their own (rather than belonging to some organisation) doesn't constitute a terrorist, as that bloke who bombed Brick Lane / Brixton / Soho a few years ago proved.

-- Nasty, Brutish & Short, Sunday, July 1, 2007 1:25 AM

it makes a big difference, think. we're fed a story about an international terror network so dangerous that we've gone to war over it in afghanistan, and more or less in iraq too. a lone nutter is not a terrorist any more than richard mcbeef was. these lamers seem to be between his level and the pros.

-- That one guy that quit, Saturday, 30 June 2007 19:57

I still don't get the point. Whether it ultimately achieved anything or not, the troops were sent to Afghanistan as a direct response to the Sep 11th attacks. Those attacks are widely agreed to have been carried out by people trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and financed by that organisation. This wasn't a case of anyone hyping up a threat - the attack had already happened and we knew who did it (except for the people who believe that CIA lizards from the planet Maldack rigged explosives in the World Trade Center and then spirited the planes away to the centre of the Earth). Again, whatever the rights and wrongs about the clearly futile and disastrous invasion of Iraq, it was never sold to anyone in Britain on the basis of there being any link to Al Qaeda at all. It was 'justified' on other grounds.

I don't feel like I'm being pushed a line about an all-powerful international terror network. There's been plenty of talk in the media about the attacks / thwarted attacks over the last couple of years being planned by individuals or small groups of people being at best loosely affiliated to Al Qaeda or possibly merely inspired by them, gaining most of their ideas from the internet. They might well be not very good at making their bombs actually go off, but it's obviously still terrorism and still a worry if there are so many people like this in this country looking to do such things, not least because sooner or later they'll get better at it.

I don't know who Richard Mcbeef is/was.

(Don't ask me how, but copying that text has changed the date of my first post so it looks like it came after the response)

HAS ANYBODY HERE ACTUALLY TRIED TO LIGHT A LOT OF GASOLINE ON FIRE

SERIOUSLY

WHY IS THIS (incl. every other gang of "terrorists" which amounted to the same as a bunch of goff-lookin unpopular kids with a botched-up bittorrent copy of the anarchists' cookbook, cf ft dix, jfk, sears tower, what have you) BEING TREATED AS SOME KIND OF SYSTEMATIC THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY

FUCK OFF MY TELEPHONE WIRES AND QUIT BEING FUCKING AFRAID OF IDIOTS

ALTERNATIVELY, BAN THE SALE OF PETROL

THANK YOU

FUCK

well it's not very nice

I suppose I'm having a little trouble expressing how infuriating this makes me that absolute numbskulls with no training and no ingenuity, just simple faux-ideological misanthropy, are allowed to dictate the funnelling of the two greatest democracies of the last century right into the goddamned toilet, because the mass media can't think of anything more worthwhile to do than stir the electorate into some kind of headless chicken impression

http://johnsmeaton.com/

kicking a man who is already on fire does certainly take some kind of extraordinary character

I think it was the one who wasnae on fire but I quite like that image.

HAS ANYBODY HERE ACTUALLY TRIED TO LIGHT A LOT OF GASOLINE ON FIRE

me. army men and g.i. joes didn't survive my pyromaniac adolescence too well.

Tho it was my 9th grade biology class that our youngish teacher and one of my friends got into a discussion about what exactly happens when you dissolve styrofoam into gasoline, and then use a model rocket engine to ignite it.

yeah and even then I suspect a jeep impaled on a concrete barrier isn't exactly the delivery mechanism most people have in mind when they're thinking about the best ways to cause mayhem with homemade napalm. I melted half of a campus trashcan when I was at U7k, nobody raised the National Threat Advisory. Perhaps we should have named our satirical seditionist group using a foreign language, that would've turned the tide.

>Again, whatever the rights and wrongs about the clearly futile and >disastrous invasion of Iraq, it was never sold to anyone in Britain on >the basis of there being any link to Al Qaeda at all. It >was 'justified' on other grounds.

You're wrong there. The entire basis of the trial of the alleged London ricin ring was based on ties to al Qaeda and Iraq. I know since I was asked to review a lot of the evidence from it. The US government pushed it and much of the prosecution's early thrust was aimed at linking the ricin ring to al Qaeda.

See here

And here

And here

There is a significant segment of people who saw the ricin ring as part of an effort to furnish evidence for the Bush administration's rationale for war. It was consistently misrepresented as a sophisticated al Qaeda plot, not the work on one bad loner.

This too more recently from the Reg. Suspect in case that helped sell Iraq war, cleared.

You seem to getting the US mixed up with the UK, Gorge.

WHY IS THIS (incl. every other gang of "terrorists" which amounted to the same as a bunch of goff-lookin unpopular kids with a botched-up bittorrent copy of the anarchists' cookbook, cf ft dix, jfk, sears tower, what have you) BEING TREATED AS SOME KIND OF SYSTEMATIC THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY

-- El Tomboto, Monday, 2 July 2007 00:04 (7 hours ago) Link

i'm not indifferent to the fact that these chappies were useless, but given that we have had actual effective attacks, and given we don't know enough about this lot, it's too early to call them downloading fantasists. there is some kind of a network that has some kind of links to AQ in pakistan, it's not just downloaders. but also life kind of goes on, i don't sense hysteria. maybe it's worse in ldn but that's where i'm going today.

you’ll either be mugged or not appreciated

Or shat on by a parakeet.

It's every man for himself down in That London.

this all rather reminds me of "the Pathetic Sharks" of Viz magazine fame

Terrorists in Paisley! Whatever next!!

El Tomboto very much 8080 here. every pillock with a gas bottle bag of fertiliser and can of diesel causes another lurch towards police state.

I know the NHS isn't perfect but is that any reason for their doctors to start trying to blow us all up?

NO

we're heading straight back to racial profiling :(

The most bizarre part is that Glasgow is probably the most awkward airport in the country to drive up to as it is (although there has been a barrier at Bristol for a year or so now).

YES

(Although agreeing so vehemently with Max Hastings is unnerving)

Next thing you know - compulsory stop-and-search powers over people in white coats with stethoscopes round their necks

It is not just about intelligence though; it is about lifting muslim youth out a slumland underclass existence as well.

Right, so where were Andrew Neil and Paolo Nutini on Saturday then?

A slumland underclass existence as NHS doctors?

Right, so where were Andrew Neil and Paolo Nutini on Saturday then?

They were out with me on a Paisley Old Boys Night Out

... i.e. nobody bought a round all night

In the blazing jeep a pair of NEW SHOES were found.

There was a really interesting guy on R5 yesterday, called Ed Hussein. He's a reformed extremist, and a devout Muslim, and he believes that in order to crack down on aggressive Islamism, clerics and scholars need to get hold of these recruited 'footsoldiers' (as he says, they're often nice guys, but they're vulnerable to doctrine, and there are recruiters at universities and mosques only too willing to take advantage) and convince them that Muslim is a religion of being at peace with the world rather than at odds. He claims that Britain has at present its highest level yet of sensible, good Islam theology, but that access to it is being denied for youngsters. He also admits that there will be those who cannot reform, and he states that harsh as it may sound, for them prison should be the remedy (until they see the light). Your thoughts? This guy didn't seem to harbour any hatred or bitterness, but instead he gave a rational, sensible solution based around his experiences (he only snapped out of extremism when encountering 'true' Islam). His perspective put the rabid Daily Mail-esque block racial profiling ("Islam is a religion of evil") to shame.

They might well be not very good at making their bombs actually go off, but it's obviously still terrorism and still a worry if there are so many people like this in this country looking to do such things, not least because sooner or later they'll get better at it.

This appears logical but isn't it actually the case that the opposite seems to be happening? Tbh I'm mystified by their apparent incompetence.

OTM

Ed Hussain and Hassam Butt both written good pieces on this in last few days (Hussain in the ST, Butt in the Obs). Both are reformed jihadists.

Hussain's spat with Ken on Radio 4 was a bit embarrassing for Ken.

Also a very good cover story on the lead July 7 bomber in last month's prospect. Sorry, don't have time to provide links.

This should have been dismissed for what it is: an event on the level of some teenagers getting a tremendously foolish notion, and being drunk enough for it to appeal to them.

FFS. The trouble with this kind of posturing is that it's possible for everything to be true simultaneously:

1A. these bombers were amateurs;
1B. the tube bombers were amateurs, and got lucky;
2A. visible security measures are ineffective gestures which couldn't stop any bomber if he was even half-way determined;
2B. visible security measures are effective gestures because people feel subconsciously reassured and so society continues to function normally;
3A. even if bombs go off occasionally, your chances of being killed are miniscule and so you shouldn't be that worried for your personal safety;
3B. if bombs go off occasionally, fifty-odd people will killed from time to time. That's bloody terrible, and definitely something to be worried about;
4A. a few small explosions caused by angry young men are not going to threaten the integrity of the UK;
4B. a few small explosions caused by angry young men might cause fewer people to fly/some pubs and nightclubs to close/it to be harder to get about, and thereby change the UK not in a good way.
5. etc

It's fun to be cynical - sometimes I do it too, just to make myself look cool and feel righteous - but I doubt that saying that this is all easy is the right answer.

Here's the Prospect article, by the way: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?&id=9635

Okay, I lied. here are the links. first two pars are key in Butt's piece.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115889,00.html

Husain

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/article2010048.ece

Prospect

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9635

that Register article annoys me. it says they were idiots and then goes and tells them and everybody else what they did wrong. so the next bombs will be better. thanks for that, Register guys.

had the car bombs worked would the headlines have been 'Tiger Tiger Burning Bright'?

We did that one upthread.

Security experts have called for Israeli-style vehicle checkpoints at British airports in response to Saturday's attempted suicide bombing at Glasgow airport that brought chaos to terminals yesterday.

YAY REACTIONARY

Tiger Tiger scuppered, cunt.

subtitle: vulgar flames

vulgar flames: This one's shor yu, Ken.

that prospect mag article was informative (for me)

Fired Blank..kar bomb attempt thwarted

Police analysis confirmed large Mercedes less manoeuverable than wee Hondas.

Why did they do this all now, just days after a new PM takes office? Isn't this the most stupid moment they could pick? Unless they're sympathetic to the security/military/industrial complex and this is a conspicuously coincidental "you weren't thinking about decreasing the anti-terrorism budget, were you, Gordon?" warning?

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, usually, but I'm wondering why anyone would be so stupid to try and (er, what's the opposite of "befriend"?) a new PM so soon after he starts?

Unless they're sympathetic to the security/military/industrial complex

the more violent and reactionary britain and the us behave, the better it is for violent terrorists/wannabe terrorists, at least in their own minds

I would have said it was the ideal time for terrorists to strike

They're not in the business of making friends with world leaders. It doesn't tie in with the whole universal Islamic caliphate thing.

yeah wtf. change of leadership is surely always the best time to attack? to take advantage of the chaos that's already there. and to try and send the message that nothing would magically change just because there's a new leader?

it's a bit like attacking when your opponent just missed a dragon punch, and is totally vulnerable in mid air.

I GET THIS THREAD NOW!

g-kit: what happened
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:snIriQf6jFIRUM:http://randomselect.i-xcell.com/bonusimages/bonus_car.gif

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42451000/jpg/_42451356_notpixellatedman.jpg

This picture is now everywhere, and I can't look at it without thinking 'Greased Up Deaf Guy'.

tbh we were lcuky guile was around to pwn the guy up

that Register article annoys me. it says they were idiots and then goes and tells them and everybody else what they did wrong. so the next bombs will be better. thanks for that, Register guys.

And how does it do that?

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/street_fighter_blanka.jpg

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42451000/jpg/_42451356_notpixellatedman.jpg

what happened next

http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/6399A23D-D4E1-43BE-9307-975E7D25AE21/0/ilmstreetfighter2livearcadexbox360005.jpg

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/thumbnail/1036076431-00.jpg

^^
surely?

hey, why aren't any of these animated

or working anymore

And how does it do that?

Ah, if it had detonated. Yes, it could have been a real horror. Only, the device could not have detonated. Not under any circumstances. You see, the terrorist wannabe clown who built it left out a crucial element: an oxidiser. The device was pure pre-teen boy fantasy.

"We'll heat up these propane cylinders with burning petrol, and they'll go off like bombs", boys the world over have remarked with glee. They don't realise that air is a poor oxidiser, and the only "explosion" they will get is when gas pressure inside the cylinders is great enough to burst them. Then the propane will ignite, and a nice fireball will blossom. A fireball, not an explosion.

That doesn't tell you how to correct your dodgy plans. What you seem to be objecting to is the idea why the terrorists were boobs at bombmaking.

Another Reg piece from a writer who used to be on a bomb squad.

> That doesn't tell you how to correct your dodgy plans

it tells them that their plans are dodgy and that they should perhaps google up some better plans rather than letting them try again and fail again and get caught in the process. why help them? let them debug their own explosive devices.

if these people were remotely intelligent enough to figure out what he means by "an oxidiser" and build better bombs as a result, they would have done so in the first place, it's not as if it's hard to go hunt down this shit. you can go from timothy mcveigh's entry in wikipedia to the formulae for homemade mining explosives in a few clicks. help them? by saying "oxidiser" in an article on the reg?

>>it tells them that their plans are dodgy

When you park your carbomb in a towaway zone and find out on the news that it was towed to impound -- you know that. Of course, one could also argue that someone so mentally deficient would never be able to improve upon their plans, just find different ways to screw up.

When you see pics of Mr. Jeep Man Burning and Burnt in news -- you know that.

Better plans aren't Google'ble.

I'm rather more inclined to think that, if anything, one can easily see this as a morale blow to terrorists and terrorists in waiting, as in, Alleged Fearsome Jihadists Exposed as Clowns.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1287/684531318_b4f8ceca7a_o.gif

we're heading straight back to racial profiling :(

-- Just got offed, Monday, July 2, 2007 10:43 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Link

yeah, sucks to be you.

It is not just about intelligence though; it is about lifting muslim youth out a slumland underclass existence as well.

-- Ed, Monday, July 2, 2007 10:48 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Link

um yeah what tom d. said, but way to paternalize.

Daerest BBC you have been covering this for over 50 hours now, surely you can by now get the name of the hospital right (running ticker on News 24 currently referring to the Queen Alexandra Hospital - have also heard Royal Alexandria & Royal Alexander over the last couple of days). Mind you, they were also running a headline re a security alert at Stanstead (sic) earlier, so, yeah, hurrah for fact checking and accuracy.

the shell station on alexandra parade used to and maybe still does have a big alexander parade sign on it

"Strathclyde Police revealed the names of the two suspects in the Glasgow Airport car bombing as Singe Majeep and Maheed Zafayr"

Fuck it let's expand this out. If you are muslim in this world then the likelihood is that you are living a pretty shitty existence. YOu are probably living in poverty under a corrupt, undemocratic and incompetent government or are a mistrusted minority. A large part of Islam is about collective feeling and collective responsibility, something that has been scoured out of western society by the victory of liberalism. Just because it is allegedly doctors behind these bomb plots it doesn't mean that they were acting out of thatcherite/blairite self interest. We should start repairing the damage done to our fellow humans and the easiest place to start is at home. A socialist solution is about the only one that flies.

And as a socialist, I say fuck you Islamist cunts

As do I, but let's use that potential for collective responsibility and action for good.

It's a shame Blair's not around to try and explain how an Iraqi trying to blow up Glasgow Airport has nothing to do with Iraq

Apologies if this has already been posted:

http://www.johnsmeaton.com/

John Smeaton, FRS, (June 8, 1724 – October 28, 1792) was a civil engineer – often regarded as the "father of civil engineering" – responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a more than capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. He was associated with the Lunar Society. He was the first self-proclaimed civil engineer.

not him, then.

"What’s the score? I’ve got to get this sorted"

Ha ha, yes, that was brilliant, fair made me homesick!

John Smeaton, FRS, (June 8, 1724 – October 28, 1792) was a civil engineer – often regarded as the "father of civil engineering" – responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a more than capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. He was associated with the Lunar Society. He was the first self-proclaimed civil engineer.

"What’s the score wi' this bridge? I’ve got to get this sorted"

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2521212084

He may or may not currently own three ferrets, one of which may be white and may be called Snowy.

Oh and England if your wondering where your British Bulldog spirit is, its currently sitting happily up here in Scotland lapping contentedly at its baws trying to get the taste of burnt crispy terrorist oot of it’s mooth

Has someone told Michael Moore?

NHS, now a known terror organisation

Physician Blow Up Thyself

does anyone else find it to be a whole new level of disturbing on a/c of the terrorists, incompetent as some of them appear to have been, being doctors? In the sense that these are the ppl whose job it is to save lives?

Hippocrates'll be a-spinnin' as we speak

brave new waiting list reduction tactics

I don't think there's anything specifically disturbing about it. Unless we are still (still! decades later!) of the misguided impression that firebrands, revolutionaries, ideologues etc are impoverished people seeking a way out.

Unless we are still (still! decades later!) of the misguided impression that firebrands, revolutionaries, ideologues etc are impoverished people seeking a way out.

Ken Livingstone to thread

I guess this is what happens when there is 'no such thing as society'

disconnect/detachment

Why is this misguided?

Andreas Baader was far better fed than I ever was

Although it is equally true that the firebrands/revolutionaries are also exploiters of the impoverished seeking a way out.

This is not just a no such thing of society this is also about the death of a credible left wing politics. Everything happens on the right now, from liberalism to fascism.

Because most ideologues/revolutionaries are intellectuals from middle class backgrounds

see: 'the far left' 60s-80s

i dont think this is about a credible left wing at all. it is more to do with a divided society that has no social cohesion

i dont mean 'them and us' btw.

What society are you talking about? Jordanian? Iraqi? Indian?

Any society where cohesion is eroded (Britains, like most of the wests, has been eroded via the cult of individualism)

firebrands/revolutionaries are also exploiters of the impoverished seeking a way out.

Is true. The impoverished can make good foot soldiers. but it is the vulnerable that make better foot soldiers, and they need not necessarily be poor

the disconnected, the searchers, those that don't belong.

Liberal-Individualist 'Society' says "You can do what you like", what it means is "We don't care what you do, because we don't care about you, you don't count"

...ie

'there is no such thing as society'. there certainly isnt if you undermine it!

Broxbourne leisure centre is right, let us follow him and storm the winter palace.

the disconnected

Good name for a punk band

More seriously though, society needs to be trumpeted, rebuilt, it is a cold hard world as an individual.

A cold rationalist one certainly.

As Geoffrey Palmer says in Mrs Brown, firmly and ominously: "We can't begin again."

More seriously though, society needs to be trumpeted, rebuilt, it is a cold hard world as an individual

yes there is a big problem of too much individualism, but what can you do when ppl are so suspicious of institutions? Esp as often ppl are suspicious of institutions *with good reason*.

e.g. the NHS.

It is not about institutions it is about society.

how do ppl go abt acting collectively if it is not through some form of organization?

Even lynch mobs have to be organised.

Ditto piss ups in breweries

maybe Ed means more society in terms of empathy and solidarity on a general level, rather than the organisations that let these impulse be put to practical use, which i guess come after.

This country is obsessed with top down solutions.

after decades of stripping away of social glue it is not something you just form a committee to make a new one

You could almost believe they wanted a divided working class (long after such things mattered). But once a ball is rolling...it will roll to its eventual destination, long after the affect desired has been achieved.

I blame Thatcher

The NHS is banned from Wikipedia until December as well, they're fighting this war on several fronts.

Question: Do people feel a need to belong? To contribute?

Businesses appear to think so (when it suits them) and invest in expensive team building exercises (the irony of corporate fear of collective action...sending their employees on...courses on how act collectively)

Countries on the other hand...appear not to think people need to feel a belonging

Even a cursory reading of Durkheim should have told us this

They certainly feel a need to belong - that's why you have religion.

In other news: there's just been a controlled explosion at Hammersmith Broadway. It turned out to be three old fire extinguishers.

Has Bush added the NHS to the Axis of Evil yet?

how will the wiki world of minor wrestling stars and lower division footballers cope

xp

There's not enough love and understanding. I blame that cher.

Back to the point, growing inequality of wealth in a nation doesn't increase the wellbeing of the poor, for obvious reasons, but it doesn't increase the wellbeing of the rich either, of the 'winners'. who live in fear and worry of losing their gains. who become fearful of the poor, the hordes at the gate

ie - it is no surprise that it is the well off and the succesful, and yes, the doctors, that become the ideologues and the revolutionaries, because wealth is not a defence against anomie/disconnect

i heard the hammersmith thing was a forgotten briefcase. it meant me waiting over an hour for public transport this morning. i hope they extend detention beyond 28days for that alone.

how will the wiki world of minor wrestling stars and lower division footballers cope

They'll stick together, I hear they're all British Scientologists

um, that was how N*z* G*rm*ny started, trains running on time and all that.

The forgotten briefcase was at Heathrow Terminal 4, which has also been evacuated.

how will the wiki world of minor wrestling stars and lower division footballers cope

-- acrobat, Tuesday, 3 July 2007 13:46 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Tracey Smothers is not "minor"

Tracy Smothers wrestled an unmuzzled bear in the Continental Wrestling Federation. The bear was announced as 550 lbs. and Tracy took the bear to the mat several times. [1]

by the way, the makers of Doctor Who chose Saturday afternoon to detonate a huge special effect in the centre of Cardiff - without telling anyone they were going to do it. Cue lots of panicked shoppers.

<i>without telling anyone they were going to do it.</i>

Apart from coverage on TV, local press and the radio, that is.

Well I missed that then, cos it frightened the life out of me.

Yeh, they've apologised because the last radio adverts were only an hour before they did the blast. It seems they'd planned two blasts, but cut it down to one because of teh situation as well.

That John Smeaton website thing has been doing the rounds of my work today, mostly forwarded by one of my co-workers who claims that it's been set up by a charity to reward him for his heroism (and she's not taking the piss either). General consensus in my office = he deserves pints for being a hero. I need a new job :-(

Someone else at work this afternoon got a text telling her there had been a car "full of explosives" rammed into a shop in Riddrie. ("Why would terrorists attack Riddrie?" she asked, the possibility of (greatly-exaggerated) revenge attacks against innocent Glaswegian shopkeepers having not entered her head.) I'm guessing this story is bollocks?

Someone else at work this afternoon got a text telling her there had been a car "full of explosives" rammed into a shop in Riddrie. ("Why would terrorists attack Riddrie?" she asked

New stock of Buckfast just delivered to shop perhaps?

No, it's true. Wasn't full of explosives, from what I know. But it totalled the shop, it's an empty shell now. It was owned by an nice Asian chap.

Smeato is my hero, also.

Smeaton is loads of blokes I know. In fact, I have to check, but I think I might know the guy behind his website. What odds can I get on him winning Celebrity Big Brother next year, do you think?

(Oh, OK, fair enough, I thought it sounded like grain of truth exaggerated for dramatic effect, though I'm more surprised that my colleagues heard the story and thought it was another terrorist attack rather than "revenge")

I think the Smeaton thing is funny, btw, but everyone at my work is taking it so seriously, like he actually *is* the Scottish Jack Bauer or something. Other people did stuff too, but weren't so comically self-promoting about it.

http://photos-d.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v78/215/52/678145379/n678145379_265807_8211.jpg

but it is the vulnerable that make better foot soldiers

This is true, and how it works for the
American dominionist crowd, too.

text:FROM THE SCOTTISH FIRST EDITIONS:
DAILY RECORD:
I KICKED BURNING TERRORIST SO HARD IN BALLS THAT I TORE A TENDON IN MY FOOT
A hero cabbie who took on the Glasgow Airport terror suspects told yesterday how he booted one of them in the privates.

lol my old job was credentialing doctors from outside the eu lol

He wants some of John Smeaton's pints xpost

(there was an item on the six o'clock news tonight about the cult of Smeaton, featuring one of the Facebook groups set up in his honour)

A large part of Islam is about collective feeling and collective responsibility, something that has been scoured out of western society by the victory of liberalism.

somewhat pointless abstraction. i'm not saying it's totally untrue (though it's probably *as* true of christianity), but what part of islam, what collective responsibility or feeling was involved here, or on 7/7?

Just because it is allegedly doctors behind these bomb plots it doesn't mean that they were acting out of thatcherite/blairite self interest. We should start repairing the damage done to our fellow humans and the easiest place to start is at home. A socialist solution is about the only one that flies.

-- Ed, Tuesday, July 3, 2007 10:07 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Link

you need to open the shutters a little if you can only conceive of things within the parochial confines of modern british politics. who said terrorists acted out of self-interest? only a tiny, mental subset would link self-interest in all its forms to thatcher and blair anyway, but who, seriously who, is saying they were 'were acting out of thatcherite/blairite self interest'?

ie - it is no surprise that it is the well off and the succesful, and yes, the doctors, that become the ideologues and the revolutionaries, because wealth is not a defence against anomie/disconnect

-- Filey Camp, Tuesday, July 3, 2007 2:48 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Link

oh what fucking balls. anomie, disconnect? fucking listen to the arcade fire. these are not revolutionaries, they are dipshits who wanted to kill at random. ideologues? yeah, regular fucking karl marxes, pretty inspiring shit. what revolution, what ideology were they going for exactly?

Oh, OK, that shop thing in Riddrie:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6266022.stm

I dont think what youve said necessarily contradicts my point. whether they are revolutionaries or not, and whether islamist fantasy counts as an ideology or not, is one thing. my point is that ridiculuous young men who dont feel they belong in society (whether is correct or not - history of adolescent men to thread) will always be drawn to things that give identity. and that this isnt to do with poverty, but with socialisation/integration/cohesion

my point is that ridiculuous young men who dont feel they belong in society (whether is correct or not - history of adolescent men to thread) will always be drawn to things that give identity. and that this isnt to do with poverty, but with socialisation/integration/cohesion

-- Filey Camp, Tuesday, July 3, 2007 10:43 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

i sort of -- sort of -- agree. but, you know, fucking listen to goth rather than started getting into millennarial religion, travelling to pakistan and learning how to make bombs and then bombing people. it's not the ridiculous young men but the more sinister old men you have to worry about.

i don't know if these were young or ridiculous men, either. and i don't know that the 7/7 guys even were particularly socially isolated.

in a way this is all another debate, which is legitimate -- but like home secretaries using terrorism as an excuse to curb liberties, i'm queasy about using this as a convenient moment to deliver the same message over again, it's a bit opportunistic.

well you're sinister old men are your ideologues..and you offer belonging, a role, a place to contribute, unity, sense of purpose, meaning...to impressionable and disconnected (yes, disconnected, i mean isnt disconnection the price to pay for decades of individualism?) young men, and they become younger 'sinister old men'

im not really saying these people are socially isolated. im saying they;re not socially integrated (at large or, it seems, within own communities). i dont think isolation and lack-of-integration are the same thing

of course you are right about the opportunism regarding using stuff like this to curb liberties (this is a widely held viewpoint as well, hearing much more talk of 'this is becoming a police state' than 'terrorist oh no' on the streets right now)

John Smeaton reminds me of Ally McCoist in terms of accent, talking style and using his head and arms expressively

basically i'm having a bit of a time where i think everyone is mad, one way or another, because we can't really handle the prospect of death, ours and others'. and i guess these guys feel it more strongly than most. that's not to say there aren't concrete things too, to 'protest'. i wonder, of the bombers so far, since 7/7, arrested or dead, migrated from regular protest to violence.

these particular people may not have been integrated so much -- locum doctors from overseas don't do that so much, if their family is back home and they're here basically to fast-track, training-wise, for when they get back. they move around, they focus on getting it done, they often work over the odds to get the good references. they don't particularly need to integrate with their communities any more than the bankers in rotterdam or the wonks in brussels. from my experience. all that will become clear.

Filey Camp otm; this has nothing to do with protest (except insofar as protest stands in for personal statement, which admittedly it often does)

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3342018&page=1

i think 'protest', not necessarily specifically about this war or that policy, but more broadly, is in the mix, is probably a conscious reason. for locum doctors it makes a lot more sense than anomie or lack of integration. locum doctors come from all over and (presumably) experience about the same level of dislocation.

why not cheer them up by renaming them lolcum doctors?

Western society/capitalism priviledges the individual above the structure/society, (the americans pay at least lip service to the notion of a structure...'america'...the british don't even do that..the dutch even less so?).

This is where the difference between isolation and non-integration comes in. isolation is an extreme case, a logistical and even physical disconnect...that can easily go hand in hand with poverty, falling through the cracks, abandoned by society..

..but lack of integration is different. I think this is more where opportunities are there, places in society are open, but people don't feel valued/belonging. You are right to say why not go listen to goth (and its not a bad parallel, the spoiled moody teenager feeling misunderstood in the suburban bedroom!). And of course there will always be people who feel this way, not matter how cohesive a society is, but the more atomised one is, surely the more likely? and thats why i think this is less to do with poverty (and anyway, even if it was poverty, its never poverty per se...its inequality)

Yep: "it's not the ridiculous young men but the more sinister old men you have to worry about"

Which is why multiculturism-combined-with-relativism was such a stupid idea. In practice it meant leaving the field open to crazy ideologues, and everyone else being too timid to do anything about it. Leading to the ridiculous young men withdrawing/being withdrawn from the rest of society and into their own isolated culture, one where no-one thinks bombing ordinary folk is a bit strange. Like a handful of animals reaching an uninhabited island and quickly mutating into a different, weird species - the genes were there all along, but the rest of the population kept them in check.

I don't think lack of integration, more generally, is a problem. Our society is packed with institutions which you can join/use/work for/post messages on/go out for a drink with, as you wish. Take a look at this: http://www.slate.com/id/2169614/nav/tap1/ and think about how many others there are that we take for granted. Some people need a lot of them, others don't.

Beyond this, I don't actually know what you're advocating, Filey. I don't think we are atomised, and even if you wanted us to be less so, I don't see what you could do about it. All the things that you might want to introduce already exist. Making them compulsory would just piss off everyone who likes making their own decisions for themselves.

Western society/capitalism priviledges the individual above the structure/society, (the americans pay at least lip service to the notion of a structure...'america'...the british don't even do that..the dutch even less so?).

This is where the difference between isolation and non-integration comes in. isolation is an extreme case, a logistical and even physical disconnect...that can easily go hand in hand with poverty, falling through the cracks, abandoned by society..

..but lack of integration is different. I think this is more where opportunities are there, places in society are open, but people don't feel valued/belonging. You are right to say why not go listen to goth (and its not a bad parallel, the spoiled moody teenager feeling misunderstood in the suburban bedroom!). And of course there will always be people who feel this way, not matter how cohesive a society is, but the more atomised one is, surely the more likely? and thats why i think this is less to do with poverty (and anyway, even if it was poverty, its never poverty per se...its inequality)

-- Filey Camp, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 07:41 (1 hour ago) Link

ok, we really do have to wait for the full audit on this case, because i really don't think that foreign doctors working in the UK come under your headings. i don't think they suffer particularly from inequality -- no more than a lot of people of all ethnicities. as i said, they are probably as atomized as most transient workers.

i think muslim communities -- this, i'm afraid, is not based on enough first-hand knowledge -- are pretty cohesive, on the whole. and there will be people who will leap in to say 'too cohesive'! i can see british muslims feeling a lack of belonging to wider british society, but that isn't entirely a matter of capitalism and individualism. unless there's a large muslim left-wing movement. a lot of the left-wing yearning for community values strikes me as part of its religious (methodist) heritage, tbh.

i think we are more atomised, but i think thats partly an inevitable consequence of postindustrial capitalism

All the things that you might want to introduce already exist. Making them compulsory would just piss off everyone who likes making their own decisions for themselves.

im not advocating anything per se, and im certainly not in favour of introducing anything compulsory, this isnt really an institutions thing, more a mindset thing

think muslim communities -- this, i'm afraid, is not based on enough first-hand knowledge -- are pretty cohesive

well i can only reply without enough first-hand knowledge, but the impression i get is one of a generation split to an extent, but not so much against westernized/compliant parents, but against traditionalist parents (pakistan/india)..not really so sure about more recent immigrants (somalia, yemen).

a lot of the left-wing yearning for community values strikes me as part of its religious (methodist) heritage, tbh.

im sure this is absolutely true.

to an extent i think we haven't really figured out what to do with what would have once made up our manufacturing/industrial sector

Anyway...its easy to overstate what's actually happening here...but I basically wanted to refute the idea that this comes from impoverishment

the right-wing reply to that is that it isn't down to 'we' to make that decision. i mean even ed, upthread, said society shouldn't all be about top-down decisions, right? but in reality of course, you enable an 'enterprise culture' and surprise, surprise, you still have vast unemployment.

i don't know if this is pertinent to the bomber mindset. i think the 7/7 guys were relatively comfortably off. but if you don't think it's about impoverishment, then what's the problem with deindustrialization? the absence of the dignity of labour and and the close-knit company-town community?

there might not be a problem with deindustrialization per se, but it can lead to lesser cohesion (this isnt necessarily a problem, depends how you look at it...opportunity/enterprise/freedom all require a slackening of cohesion/ties)

you are right about the 'we'...who is the 'we'? i'd like to think it means 'society', not something topdown imposed. what does that mean? I think that whats interesting is when attitudes to immigration in france, the uk, and america are contrasted, its not extrapolated to its logical conclusion. attitudes to new arrivals from abroad are often not dissimilar to attitudes to new...children. ie...its not just about how 'immigrants fit in' but about how generations fit in

Real actual bomb-making stuff story

atomization and anomie affects white crazy people too i guess :/

Of course it does!

lol i was kidding

pete yr link no workee

the plot thickens, or rather does not.

pete's link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,,2118215,00.html

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

OMG WTF

anyone who saw channel 4 news, wtf, the cambridge nexus of three of these terrorist blokes was about 100m from where i sit.

the glasgow/london ones, not the bnp.

so anyway, i can tell you stories about the anomie and isolation of life in north cambridge.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3345743&page=1

the 500 or so patrons who partied late at the 1,700-person occupancy nightclub that perhaps best symbolizes London's vital nightlife scene.

Good of ABC to publicise this so future bombers know not to make the same mistakes

hahaha acrobat that sentence is gold!! americans in not-doing-irony indeed

the 500 or so patrons who partied late at the 1,700-person occupancy nightclub

?? does it not make much money then?

those 500 or so patrons each had table service and at least two £100 bottles of vodka

http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v77/45/40/577570421/n577570421_696434_5534.jpg

http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/33106/1183390755/b2tt.jpg

The Boyler's one is actually a bit funny!

I think Chris Morris may have written today's Evening Standard splash headline:

NHS REVOLVING DOOR OF TERROR

i'm waiting for a memo about how we're going to process foreign doctors in the future. as is they produce a document which is at least 400pp long, which is then scrutinized by four consultants (and yrs truly). i guess we'll add a question saying "do you hate freedom?" or something.

Speaking of Morris, isn't he still working on that movie on suicide bombers?

i guess we'll add a question saying "do you hate freedom?" or something.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, July 6, 2007 3:41 PM

reminds me of an american childhood, by annie dillard, in which she writes of her mother: "she regarded the instructions on bureaucratic forms as straight lines. 'do you advocate the overthrow of the united states government by force or violence?' after some thought she wrote, 'force.'"

I'm visualising a Day Today graphic of a revolving door, with glum-looking junior doctors trooping out as stereotypical terrorists — dressed like the ones who are waved through the metal detector at the start of Airplane! — saunter inside with evil grins on their faces.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/world/europe/08britain.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

so so weird. guy lived above local curry place. worked in staples.

Fox News quickly turned this into an anti-universal healthcare talking point: "We would need to import terrorist doctors like these ones," said Bill O'Reilly.

I also got to watch some other dickhead argue with an intelligent English dude about "War On Terror" being an abstraction. "Come on, these are just semantics," said the Fox dickhead. No matter what was said, dickhead kept approaching the 'semantics' angle again and again. Calmly and repeatedly, the English dude kept responding, "In England, we are very upset about this so-called 'War On Terror' because if you have a war, you name the enemy and you fight that named enemy." Dickhead couldn't seem to comprehend this, even after it was pointed out that this generalized abstraction got us into Iraq which was not the home of the enemy.

How about a War On Crime, dickhead? Think that would ever be over? Let's have a War On Crime!

Then, for some incomprehensible reason, Richard Dawkins actually appeared on the O'Reilly factor and got yelled at by dickhead supreme for about 5 minutes. I guess this is an old interview that was repeated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxdrNDNm-Ho

Fox is not good to watch on vacation if you're trying to de-stress.

But, back to the original topic. Does it seem weird that this new doctor breed of terrorists surfaced on the same day that Michael Moore's SiCKO movie hits box offices (June 29th) and Fox immediately has it all figured out that this NHS type of universal healthcare in America would leave America "wide open for terrorism" and that importing foreign doctors is a "breeding ground for terrorists?" Seems a little strange to me.

it is very interesting how different the (so far) three sets of identified UK bombers have been. the 7/7ers were born here, or in the north, and apparently led quite contented and rooted lives. the 21/7 guys were refugees from nw africa, and perhaps less well settled in london. the cambridge cell were highly skilled migrant workers, mostly, who had not been here long.

the fox commentary sounds predictably insane and off-topic.

MORON TERROR

Yes! I was coming here to post that headline. Not as good as "RACIST IN PEACE", but still.

hang on, that's an actual headline?!?!?!?!?!

Yeah, front page of The Sun this morning.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003410014,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6780898,00.html

bang-up job guyz