Yes, the conspiracy to ensure I'm as stressed as possible before any holiday, including having to work stupidly hard to get some stuff setup in half a day today. If you use Windows, please ensure you have updated your system, if not sure go HERE now and install everything marked critical and reboot. Then repeat, as even the US Government are warning how nasty this could be.
It seems the airline/airport chaos of yesterday is still ongoing. Hand/Cabin baggage is completely outlawed, everything has to be in your checked luggage. That'll really break the shopping malls at Heathrow & Gatwick - how will Dixons sell you a video camera, or even some 35mm film if you're not allowed to take anything on board except your provided clear plastic bag containg your wallet and tickets? Perhaps Dixons can sue the Government for loss of trade.
I can see the restriction on taking liquids onboard becoming permanant, annoying if you just wanted to take a couple of bottles of Volvic or evian for a long flight though, but bearable. But banning electronic devices, and car keys with built in remotes, to cabin baggage is insane, unless you equally ban digital watches.
Wendy Grossman's column goes into more detail, but the best summary of this over-reaction was from Jerry Pournelle yesterday:
The TV is filled with stories about the end of the airline world as we know it. Can't bring toothpaste or baby formula on an airplane. Can't bring books or magazines if you are flying from England. God knows what they think of traveling with a cane. No laptops.
But, of course, we much continue to be nice to everyone, and do no profiling. We are all in this together, including the 40% of the minority population in England that says it is all right to carry out suicide bombing operations against Jews. We need to digest that information. But Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it
commits suicide; it was Liberalism that invited all those of alien cultures to live in every western nation, and said that it is OK for Muslim countries to have laws excluding Jews and Christians, but we cannot exclude anyone for any reason, even if they are here illegally. Interesting. But isn't that fair? Don't we feel better about ourselves for having been so fair and open? It's the land of the free and we will welcome those who want to end that.
I hope it is consolation for all those who are trying to go about their business and standing in 9 hour lines to get on airplanes without a water bottle or a book or a magazine. We should all feel good about how generous we are. The consolation is about all we will get for doing all this. But we have diversity, and that's really neat, and we all ought to be proud.
The cynical would think its an underhand plot to provide a reason for ID cards, except working in the IT industry, I just know the systems would never be reliable to make it work. All the negatives, without any positives.
Have a good weekend, think mine is going to be spent working out what I'm going to say to my line manager at the end of the month!
Comments (2)
The saddest part is if they want to really do it badly enough, no amount of security will help. Unfortunately, this overkill in the name of 'no profiling' causes untold stress in an already stressful time.
I just think of all the perfectly good cosmetics, food, toiletries, etc that are being chucked.
Pretty sad, if you ask me.
Posted by Sue | August 16, 2006 5:24 PM
Posted on August 16, 2006 17:24
Hi Sue, you're absolutely right. Look at the case of the 12yr old boy who managed to sneak through all the 'very tough' security and was sitting on an aircraft without any ticket or passport!!!
Its stupid to keep it up this long. They should have ramped up the security slowly, in a way that the infrastructure can cope with.
The UK airports are currently designed as shopping malls, not as efficient ways to transport thousands of people. Mostly due to their age, especially Heathrow!
Posted by Red | August 16, 2006 8:09 PM
Posted on August 16, 2006 20:09