Geek woman news story of possible interest...

[Gary Layng]

As has been proven repeatedly, aircraft are terribly vulnerable to attack, 
which results in much higher casualties than any other form of 
transportation.  They come with their own "bomb load" (jet fuel) and can be 
steered into places that vehicles, ships and trains cannot go.  Take one 
down, you take down anywhere up to 500 people, plus the people on the ground.  
You don't even need to physically step on board, like with Pan Am or Air 
India, or be physically on board when the bomb goes off, as happened to a 
Pacific air carrier when it was bombed by an Islamic terrorist - he placed 
the bomb and walked off the aircraft.  (Last I heard, he was still behind 
bars in the Phillipines.)

One irrational airline hijacker back in the 1970's threatened to bring his 
victims down on top of Pickering Nuclear Station.  Fortunately they were able 
to talk him into surrendering.

Suspicious of liquids on board?  Blame that British terrorist who tried to 
detonate his shoes.  Ludicrous sounding, but cabin fires can spread rather 
quickly and are notoriously difficult to extinguish.  See the Swissair 
disaster, or a similar one involving an Air Canada DC-9.

Bomb a train, you tie up the line for a few hours and kill some of the people 
in the compartment, which may be as few as 10 people.  Bomb a train station 
or airport terminal, and you'll get a handful of souls if that.  Detonate a 
truck bomb (say, the size of the one Timothy McVeigh used) in the middle of a 
span of the Boor Viaduct and you'd disrupt life in Toronto for days, weeks, 
maybe months and if you were "lucky" nail a subway train or two (mass 
casualties, by no means all killed).  Hijack a typical ship, even an oil 
tanker, and congratulations you have a large, slowly-moving, 
use-once-and-discard battering ram - we don't send many ships with Mount 
Blanc's cargo of munitions from Point A to Point B much anymore, as World War 
I ended some time ago.

So yes, if you want to do spectacular damage, aircraft remain our 
civilization's biggest soft spot.

And people doing crazy things - can you ever stop lunacy?   We tried with 
SCOX, and yet they still kept suing people, "to our utter destruction".

On Monday 24 September 2007 10:03, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 23, 2007 at 03:15:32PM -0400, Matt Middleton wrote:
> > In this day and age, especially with the paranoia about people trying
> > to do horrible things with airplanes, it unfortunately forces us to
> > conform.  If you choose not to, fine, but you must be prepared for the
> > potential consequences - in this case, damn near being shot.
> >
> > I've done a fair bit of flying over the last couple of years, and I do
> > the same thing as you Colin - there's no point in trying to make a
> > "statement" at the airport.  If you really wanted to make some sort of
> > pro-geek statement, wear a Penguin shirt, or something from a place
> > like ThinkGeek.
>
> And why all the worry about airports?  They already did airplanes.  Why
> won't they pick trains, ships (just remember what happend many years ago
> in halifax from a ship), busses, etc.  Someone setting of a bomb in a
> large train station would probably kill as many people as 9/11 did.  Can
> you screen everyone entering a train station?  Not if you want it to
> work you can't.
>
> Until people start dealing with the reason there are people doing crazy
> things then they will continue to happen.
>
> --
> Len Sorensen
> --
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