Small Towns and Bombs

What is it with small towns having so many bomb threats? I recall that as a teenager in north Georgia (the US state) the nearby towns would have them, and they were typically traced back to prank callers.

After attending Cirque de Glace today in Prague, which turned out to be a bit of a bomb but at least my daughter loved it (I would've preferred Cirque Erotique a la Plage), we headed home a different way to avoid the traffic that we were stuck in for far too long on the way to the event, and we ended up in the Czech town of Melnik, where we had dinner at a pizzeria and then stopped by TESCO (like a British Wal-Mart chain) on our way home.

We'd been there about 10 minutes when employees and a couple police officers began guiding everyone to the front, along with the news that there'd been a bomb threat.

In the US, a message like this would have sent shoppers running in a panic... but not here in old Bohemia -- no, Czechs being the infamous skeptics that they are, people just looked pissed off and slowly trudged along toward the front, many even stopping to buy smokes on the way out. I too doubted the reality of the threat, but I quickly got my daughter outside (just in case).

Afterward, I sent an sms to a friend who lives not far from there and mentioned sarcastically that "Melnik seems to be a hotbed of Muslim activity" (actually, probably the only extremist group anywhere near there would be Czech neo-Nazis), to which he reminded me that Czechs did invent Semtex.

Gmail Spam Alert: This did NOT come from Gmail (and their spam filter missed it!)

from: Gmail accountsalert.era@gmail.com
to: accounts-support@google.com
date: Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 03:40
subject: Warning

Gmail Team is working on total security on all accounts and as a result of this security upgrade we require all Google members to verify their account with Google. To prevent your account from disability you will have to update your informations by clicking the reply button and filling the space below.

Account:
Password:
Birth date:
Country:

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.
Thank you for using Gmail !

The Gmail Team