Well, they nearly shut down London's Heathrow Airport yesterday, due to the threat of terrorism. They didn't go that far, but they did do this:

Light tanks and hundreds of troops were deployed at Heathrow Airport west of London Tuesday, when police warned that Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network might try attacking the British capital.

Tanks. They deployed friggin' tanks to the airport. So is the threat serious, or are people so jaded and paranoid that they think it's all a bunch of hooey? here's what the chairman of Britain's Labor Party had to say about that notion:

"I was asked, what was my response to those people who said that what was going on at Heathrow and elsewhere was all part of a public relations exercise, a spin," Reid said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"And I said that I didn't think that was even worthy of an answer -- that we were dealing with a huge problem, the nature of the phenomenon of international terrorism which gave us things like the twin towers in New York.

"And the suggestion that any government would use that sort of subject amd phenomenon for spin and public relations I thought was beneath contempt," Reid said.

Yeah, I feel the same way. I blogged before about how much our government should be trusted, and though the answer isn't 100%, I don't think it's 0% either.

Intelligence officials are testifying before Congress now, and Tenet has said that bin Laden's most recent tape is probably a signal for another attack.

Would you have scoffed at such warnings before 9/11? Probably. I doubt many people would have taken them seriously. So why hasn't 9/11 woken people up, changed their mindsets?