One Smart Note on the Bomber

With all the talk about the failure of airport security to detect the PETN that the Christmas bomber sewed into his underwear -- and to think I've been using the phrase "underwear bomber" as a joke all these years -- people forget that airport security played an important role in foiling the plot.

In order to get through airport security, Abdulmutallab -- or, more precisely, whoever built the bomb -- had to construct a far less reliable bomb than he would have otherwise; he had to resort to a much more ineffective detonation mechanism. And, as we've learned, detonating PETN is actually very hard....

Read the rest for some very good quotes on plastic explosives.