Yeah, so is it a weird fluke that this has happened twice in two weeks after AFAICR never happening in 15 years of airport paranoia, is this life in the age of Trump (although airline travelers seem like a marginally less Trumpish populus), is it ISIS fear, or is there something else?
Ooh, hot take: people are extra-cranky/panicky because of the extra-hot summer!
2. probably explains it. About six months ago they evacuated St Pancras railway station (among other things the London Eurostar terminal). People did leave, but basically at a reluctant stroll. It was not warm outside. Most people assumed it was an exercise, I think.
2, 3: It hasn't been especially hot in LA (until today). People probably need to take magnesium supplements, and strengthen their core muscles.
People freaked out at a subway station in Boston a few days ago because howitzers were being fired on the park nearby. The howitzers were for some governors' convention or something.
re: 3
I also sometimes wonder if the IRA have performed a kind of inoculation. Then again, a lot of adults will barely remember, and in London the majority of people, even of the right age, probably lived somewhere else.
3,7: During the 1980s IRA bombings, actual explosions in London were so rare that I and everyone else I knew just assumed that every tube station evacuation - and they were fairly frequent - was a false alarm caused by someone forgetting their bag. I think that's still a widely held assumption.
Is it possible that experience made British people less likely to leave their bags unattended or fire on parks with howitzers?
re: 7
Yeah, i was thinking both about actual bombs, and about the huge number of false alarms (and deliberately planted false alarms), and the fact that the transport system, police, etc have long standing procedures for getting a lot of people out of stations. And people aren't completely shocked by it when it happens.
AIPMHALOB, some old guy decided he didn't want to take his rolling suitcase inside with him when he went to see the doctor. And, I guess, he didn't want the suitcase to get stolen but didn't care if somebody cut it open to get the contents. Anyway, he chained it to a railing right next to a major street. That caused so much delay.
Oh, this. Three of my colleagues were separately trapped at LAX. They didn't report panic, just that it was a PITA to be kept inside by security.
Did they figure out how to bill it?
Am I a bad person for laughing at the part where the crowd ran from a shouting woman in a hijab? If so, I blame the Jalal brothers.
1- NYT story says there have actually been more than JFK and LAX, but really who cares about malls.
Far from being an isolated episode, it was essentially what had happened on Aug. 13 at a mall in Raleigh, N.C.; on Aug. 14 at Kennedy International Airport in New York; on Aug. 20 at a mall in Michigan; and on Aug. 25 at a mall in Orlando, Fla.
As long as our discos are safe.
Speaking of panic, I was already pretty put off by the tone of fundraising emails last cycle, but it's gotten really bad. Does this stuff work on anyone? I'd be happy to forward emails about how disappointed Mrs. Obama is about my failure to respond to the President's appeal to anyone who'll donate to help her get over it.
19: Me. But then in 2012 I was convinced that Michelle had inexplicably fallen in love with me.
There's a movie coming out about peep and Michelle Obama's first date.
I like how the emails address you by your first name:
ACADEMICLURKER! WE HAVE TO ACT NOW TO STOP THE REPUBLICAN'S LATEST SCHEME!!!!
I got an email from Eric Trump today saying that Hillary doesn't care about me.
I've been with her all year, more than almost everybody I know, but I'm not inclined to give money this time. Maybe that's the impact of those big fund-raisers. I expect to do some door-knocking and legal poll-watching, probably both in Rac*ne Cty nearby, one of the "swing counties" and where I was last time.
But I was the only one that got emails from Michelle with the subject line, "You Were Great Last Night, peep!". Right????
This is actually an interesting problem -- in medicine, it crops up when there is an extremely rare disease that it doesn't make sense to either test for or try to prevent. I studied one, Human Alveolar Echinococcosis, which you get by spending your time enjoying yourself in nature -- stopping doing this will cause vastly more harm by making people inactive. However, untreated HAE is 100% fatal. You can't test everyone, the waste would be immense (Type I error); but then the people who actually get it die from your Type II error.
Shootings at airports are very rare, but are you really going to ignore everyone running? A mistake is serious!
When you hear hoof beats thing horse, not zebra, unless zebras are generally heavily armed.
25: all I have from her is one saying "Real quick, Thomas" which is not the same at all.
At least Gmail has gotten pretty good at sorting those things into my "promotions" tab.
I never even heard of that one. If I ever get bored enough to write a paper, I'm going to propose that the NNT for all interventions be compared to that of universal castration.
The Number Needed to Treat is the most awesome computable stat of practical epidemiology . . .
Right, but it's hard to get a clinical trial with randomly cut off balls, even if you could think of a placebo.
I guess you could use the informed consent for from a study with a blood draw and replace "pain on needle insertion" with some new language.
25: She loves me the most, according to a sort of my deleted folder. Note 2/14 and 2/27 in particular.
From Subject Size Received
Michelle Obama I'm counting on you, Arthur 37 KB 8/5/2016
Michelle Obama Arthur, we've always counted on you 34 KB 5/29/2016
Michelle Obama Arthur, I'm asking for your help 36 KB 5/21/2016
Michelle Obama If you're ready, Arthur 31 KB 5/2/2016
Michelle Obama Seriously, Arthur - thank you 36 KB 4/28/2016
Michelle Obama I just want to say thanks, Arthur 32 KB 4/11/2016
Michelle Obama From the bottom of my heart, thank you 35 KB 3/26/2016
Michelle Obama Arthur, this is so important 36 KB 3/14/2016
Michelle Obama You amaze me, Arthur 34 KB 2/27/2016
Michelle Obama I want to say thanks, Arthur 34 KB 2/24/2016
Michelle Obama Love is love 28 KB 2/14/2016
... and one more from the junk folder
From Subject Size Received
Michelle Obama I am so, so thankful for you, Arthur 35 KB 3/8/2016
Brad DeLong on Trump's fundraising e-mails:
The DCCC emails are pathetic, annoying, and embarrassing...
But nothing like this:
I find 35 even funnier (pretty funny already!) if you read her as writing not to unimaginative but to Dudley Moore. Dead alcoholic English man-child, I love you!
I got an email from Eric Trump today saying that Hillary doesn't care about me.
I just got one from Hillary saying that she was worried that SP thinks she doesn't care about him*. I replied that I didn't really see how sending her $35 would help, and that she should just pick up the damn phone.
*?? I heartily endorse LB's ban-preference for two-letter pseuds
Shootings at airports are very rare, but are you really going to ignore everyone running? A mistake is serious!
Yes? People run in airports all the time. Being late is not exactly uncommon. And, speaking as a Brit, we have experience of what happens when you implement a shoot-on-running policy.
People run in airports all the time.
Tell me about it.
37: Mine too. I had no idea you were having fictional dates with other women!
38: Do you people never see Republicans? That's been a standard pitch for decades. Dave Barry even had a column about it back when we was funny.
Do you people never see Republicans?
Res ipsa loquitur.
I actually can't think of the last time I saw a Republican. Let's see ... I guess about four months ago a lawyer I know? And that guy is a Trump hater who is voting Hillary. I still don't have a single acuaintance anywhere who is a known-to-me Trump voter.
Oh, I guess a few judges (Republicans I have seen, not known Trump voters). That doesn't feel like it counts.
You don't have to bond with them. Just look through their mail.
I actually can't think of the last time I saw a Republican
I'm pretty sure I haven't seen one since I got home a few minutes ago.
49: Have you checked the closets?
He means for David Vitter wearing a dirty diaper.
I know one likely Trump voter. We had a conversation about immigration in which he revealed that he knows jack shit about the subject. Mexicans sure are scary though, no denying it.
I recall being evacuated from the Reading Room at the British Library, because of an IRA bomb threat (and f*** you, Uncle Jimmy, with your shamrock-y "Four Green Fields" ideology: this shite gets real when you're actually being evacuated). I wanted to run ahead; there was that moment of panic when I wanted to elbow people out of the way, and just run ahead. But it seemed wrong and uncivilized to hold myself above everyone who was in front of me, so I waited in queue like a good and obedient Canadian, after all. For a few minutes, I felt quite panicky, though.