Current location:	Balad, Iraq
Current mood:	pissed off
Current music:	Star Guitar - The Chemical Brothers

Why Banning all liquids in carry-ons is a Stupid Reactionary move
Today I heard what was clearly the worst news for air travelers since Richard Reed decided it would be a good idea to put explosives in his shoes and try to destroy a plane: That terrorists had a plan to smuggle aboard liquid explosives in common containers. What this has already generated is extreme delays as people in every airport in the country are told that they can no longer carry personal hygiene items on board a plane, and that stores inside the checkpoints can no longer carry any similar items. But when you look at the facts, it simply becomes an overreaction to the threat.
1: Liquid explosives are far too sensitive to motion, shock, and changes in pressure to be a useful means of destroying an aircraft, as they are far more likely to detonate prematurely.
2: Military-grade field explosives (C4, Semtex) sacrifice detonative force for stability, and are, while still powerful, not as potent as the significantly less stable liquid or industrial slurry explosives, and require blasting caps or other similar detonators to be set off.
3: No item containing explosives is sealed or cleaned sufficiently enough to escape a trained dog’s nose, and even if that were not what clued it in, the person carrying it would have the traces on him/her. And walking bomb-sniffing dogs through the terminal is significantly less obvious to someone planning something like this than having every single person throw away or check items of a specific type. The current measures are more likely to tell the bomber to just not try at all and work out a new plan, instead of letting themselves get sniffed out by a dog unintentionally.
4: No personal hygiene bottle of any kind is even remotely close to airtight. And filling it will any explosive will leave the surface smeared with residue.
All this is is an attempt to make people feel safer instead of actually doing something that will lead to apprehension. The technology to check for explosive residue has been in airports at least since 9/11, and the dogs for far longer. And dogs have the advantage of mobility and significantly greater ability to distinguish between actual explosives and harmless materials with similar chemical profiles. The new security measures in place are a knee-jerk reaction, not an actual attempt to prevent anything from happening.