a thought here.... all the carry ons..add weight to a flight ..more weight.. more fuel consumed.. now with BP oil shut down..could Blair being holding back fuel for the british airlines..and US carriers..in preperation for a air strike on Iran? i believe Blair shut down the oil fields of BP to reserve oil..in case of a oil shortage in the event of air strikes on Iran! think about it..its a self imposed reserve of oil... fly

"We are confident that we have stopped an attempt to create mass murder on an unimaginable scale," he said.

Mr. Stephenson said that "a critical point" was reached last night that indicated "an urgent need to take action," but he declined to say what information led to that decision.

Man to man is so unjust, children you don't know who to trust, Your worst enemy could be your best friend, And your best friend your worst enemy.

Rule of thumb: Initial, panicked reports are usually unreliable. The Brits reportedly have taken at least 18 people into custody--all residents of Great Britain. ... ... So, what next? Instead of a common sense approach to security, the Brits have hit the panic button. Here's what needs to be done: No liquids on board a plane weighing more than one pound. Eight ounce bottles are okay but you must drink the liquid to demonstrate it is not an explosive. One carry-on bag per passenger. All carry-on bags hand-searched. No cotton balls. No third-party cargo on passenger aircraft. The latter is the real gap in aviation security. Right now most checked baggage is subjected to inspection by a machine that can detect explosives. Hand carry and cargo are not. You can deal with the threat of hand carry by physical inspection but cargo is a different problem. In the back of my mind, I worry that this threat might be trumped up in order to divert attention from the disastrous US and British policy (or lack of policy) in Lebanon.

Tell that to the people in the towers and pentagon...

British authorities said today that they had thwarted a terrorist plot to to blow up airliners traveling between Britain and the United States by constructing bombs in midflight using liquid explosives and detonators concealed in carry-on luggage.

Sailor, your logic is truly childish. You state: That's just hype, actually, the scale is quite well known, it's the number of passengers on an airplane.

The idea, "how dare they increase the alert level" boils down to "how dare they do something that's bad for my team!" The real question you should be asking is why terrorism-related news is bad for your team.

That is why it is so annoying (but hardly surprising) when these things happen during the run up to an election.

Britain's security services upped the threat level in the country to "critical" from "severe"

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security raised the threat level for passenger aircraft to "red"

Rather then conceed that the raising of the terror threat is the necessary government raction to a real threat you would rather believe a complicated conspiracy theory.

Authority just foiled a really really serious terroist plot with arrest and detailed information

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says. Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled. (...) The level is raised if a majority on the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council favors it and President Bush concurs. Among those on the council with Ridge were Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI chief Robert Mueller, CIA director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. (...)