again

I know I've said this before but I'm gonna say this again: Governments are the biggest terrorists; terrorism is beyond the singular act of terror; terrorism is that memory of that singular act of terror and that lingering possibility of its recurrence. Governments make this memory and this possibility very real and concrete by their omnipresent security measures, which are ultimately useless in what they are supposed to do.

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For those who are wagering, here is the revised list of the likely ways I'm gonna die, in decreased order of likeliness:

1. Shot to death by airport security
2. heart giving way
3. Shot to death in the midst of a killing spree

I totally cannot understand the airport liquids policy. It's obviously a knee jerk reaction after some terrorist brought some combustible liquids onto the plane but what good does it actually serve?

Let's see. So the rule is you can't bring liquids in those big opaque containers which shampoos and what nots generally come in: all your liquids have to be packed in a clear plastic bag and in bottles not more than 100 ml each and not totaling 1 litres or something like that.

From personal experience, it's totally not ok to bring a bottle of branded shampoo in but you can take the shampoo back out, empty all its contents into transparent containers conveniently available cheaply at the stores outside, and whiz right past security.

So what if you can see the liquid? Do the security guards have bionic stoichometric eyes that can tell that the whitish milkish liquid is liuid sarin? I suppose you should ban all liquids. Oneday some terrorist dude is gonna invent combustible blood and I'd love to see what security measures we are gonna take.

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Closer to home, we have our ever-vigilant MRT security, either the omnipresent middle-aged uncles/aunties stationed after the gates on the Concourse, or our very dependable SWAT-ish cops making their rounds around the station and on the train.

Of course those SWAT-ish cops are different from those that let Mas Selamat go, nor were they involved in any of the recent escapes. Very dependable and reliable people. They travel in teams of 4 and walk around MRT stations carrying their really mean looking guns, watching and watching. Each MRT station must be about 3-4 football fields big, and they open for like at least 16 hours a day. I know I can count on them to keep me safe at every square inch of the station, all 16 hours of the day, or at least when they start work, which is generally after morning peak hours because we all know that terrorists work 9 to 5.

The auntie/uncle security guards are even braver. I'm not sure what they could do if I actually turned violent and a couple of them acknowledged that to me too but yet they hold their ground. And they really hold their ground. The entire MRT concourse must be at least 100 metres across and I'm sure everyone that passes by the gates is profiled and screened, and not just the unfortunate few that happen to walk infront of them. And they have bionic eyes too! I carry really big bags and within my bag is usually always another bag and I've been checked a few times and I always marvel how someone can open my bag, see another bag and decide that it's not a bomb. Genius.

Where do we find all these people I wonder? Probably from the same places our ministers crawled out from.