CNN: “Due to the nature of the threat revealed by this investigation, we are prohibiting any liquids, including beverages, hair gels, and lotions from being carried on the airplane,” a DHS statement said.

Increased security means airline passengers around the country should show up at least two hours early for all flights, an official with the Transportation Security Administration told CNN.

There’s a shoe bomber, and then everyone has to take their shoes off.

There’s a hijacking plot with boxcutters, and then everyone has to throw away their plastic forks and nail files and eat lunch with their fingers.

It’s no longer suitable to merely turn on your laptop to show that it’s not a bomb; it gets swabbed, though I don’t believe I’ve heard of a laptop bomb.

Now, because there has been a plot to bring ‘liquid explosives’ onto a plane, nobody can take any liquids onto a plane. Well, today at least. I assume that these liquid explosives are gelled substances, or at least volatile enough that a dog could easily smell them. I would also imagine that they’re not safely ingested, nor mistakeable for water, so I am confused as to why they’re not being let on in the same way that water and coffee and soda were in the past years; security makes you drink some.

CNN: “Because the plot involved taking liquid explosives aboard planes in carry-ons, passengers at all U.S. and British airports, and those boarding U.S.-bound flights at other international airports, are banned from taking any liquids onto planes. British police are also banning passengers from carrying electronic key fobs, which have the potential to trigger bombs”

Stories of people being sent back to put their iPods and cellular phones into checked baggage are also coming out.

Soon air travel will require all clothes to be checked in, and you will not be allowed to take anything on board with you after submitting to the complimentary anal probing. Then someone will go and ruin it for everyone else by swallowing a brick of C4 and planting a contact switch in their teeth, and we’ll have to have our teeth pulled in the interests of security.

It’s a shame that Bush’s army stopped looking for Al Queda in their Fight Against Terror and went after unrelated factions. If Al Queda does take over a plane, here’s hoping it’s Air Force One. Crash it in the ocean; you’ll be doing us all a big favour.