British to arm apartment complex during Olympics

If this is what the Olympics have come to, I hope the games never come to the Bayou City. There are probably some residents in London thinking the same thing about now.

The British government, in all its infinite wisdom, has decided to look into the placement of surface-to-air missiles on apartment buildings in London. Residents of one East London complex received a leaflet stating that  missiles could be placed on a water tower at the complex during the games. Residents were told that the military would place missiles at the complex for an exercise in which military and police personnel would occupy the complex in early May.

According to the leaflet, the increased military presence would not make it anymore likely that terrorists would attack the complex; not that terrorists had any plans to attack the complex in the first place. The authorities also assured residents that the decision to fire any missiles would come from the highest levels of government - whew, that would certainly make me feel better.

The bigger danger to residents are the threat of terrorists, it's the threat that the government would order the missiles to be fired. Such a decision would, in the words of one resident, "would shower debris across the east end of London."

Of course it's often through the introduction of "temporary" security measures that the government gets its foot in the door and begins to make the measures permanent. And, once the security measure becomes permanent there will be a bureaucracy tied to it and the chances of it ever being terminated get worse and worse every passing year. For an example, just look at TSA.