And I agree that a lot of the reporting about the UK events has been hysterical.

I haven't kept up with the details of the UK airline bomb plot, but it's been [link|http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/uk_airline_terror_plot/index.html|reported] (scroll down to the August 17, 3:31 pm story) that the suspects made "martyrdom videos" and that explosives have been found. The explosive seems to have been HMTD. (It's exceedingly easy to find a recipe to make it, so I won't supply a link. Liquid nitrogen does not seem to be required.) Whether it's easy to make the explosive from a few liquid constituents on an airliner, I can't say. But the FBI found that HMTD can be made with [link|http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/oct2001/bartick.htm|commonly available hair coloring with other chemicals].

It certainly looks to me that the UK plotters thought they were going to be blowing up airplanes with their explosives. It's not clear to me how the ban on liquids relates to that plot, though. I suspect that it was a case of: "These explosives are made from liquid constituents. We don't have enough time or personnel to check liquids or other chemicals in carry-on bags, so we'll just ban all of them for now".

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.