The JFK errorists (no typo)

As I wrote elsewhere:

Been reading the official complaint on the WaPo site. Glad they caught these guys. With any luck, most of our terror plotters will be no more knowledgeable than these. Just because they had delusions of planning something bigger than 9/11 doesn’t make it so. They expected to blow up “the whole of Kennedy” and explode part of Queens by bombing a couple of fuel tanks and a jet fuel pipeline behind a gas station at the entrance to Kennedy? Please.

“Individual A opined that the tanks appeared to be made of titanium, and recommended utilizing a chemical that would penetrate the metal.”

Speaking as someone who’s spent some time designing and climbing around carbon steel tanks and pipelines filled with flammables: Whata buncha maroons.

And liquid (un-aerosoled) jet fuel ain’t that explosive, by the way. It will burn nicely, though.

Economic disruption, yes. Nice fireworks display, yes. Mass casualties, no.

Newsday follows up:

When U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf described the alleged terror plot to blow up Kennedy Airport as "one of the most chilling plots imaginable," which might have caused "unthinkable" devastation, one law enforcement official said he cringed.

The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a technical impossibility.

Makes one all nostalgic for the color code alert system, doesn't it?

Mayor Bloomberg weighs in too:

"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life," he said.

[. . .]

"You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist," he added.