DADvocate

Similar to the underwear bomber incident, a private citizen spotted the bomb in an SUV parked Times Square.

Thousands of tourists were cleared from the streets for 10 hours after a T-shirt vendor alerted police to the suspicious vehicle, which contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

"We avoided what we could have been a very deadly event," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "It certainly could have exploded and had a pretty big fire and a decent amount of explosive impact."

The bomb appeared to be starting to detonate but malfunctioned, top police spokesman Paul Browne told The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Browne did not immediately return an e-mail to the AP seeking confirmation.

I'm eagerly awaiting Janet Napolitano's statement that "the system worked."