Known terrorist and Ringo Starr look-alike Yasser Arafat died 5 years ago today.
It’s the little things in life that keep me going, folks.
Archive for the ‘Terrorism’ category
Today in History
November 11th, 2009Miami 7 Mistrial
December 14th, 2007Remember the Miami 7? You know, the terrorist plot that was broken up back in 2006, important enough for AG Gonzales to hold a press conference on.
First trial is over. One aquitted and the jury was hung on the other six.
I doubt we’re ever going to see a conviction from this. If we do then I’m going to wager nobody serves more than 1 year in prison.
Here We Are: 9/11/2006
September 11th, 2006Seems as though I should at least say something on the day that marks the 5 year anniversary of the September the 11th attacks. Unfortunately I’m afraid that there’s not much I can add at this point — only reiterate what I’ve said in the past.
Always remember that it wasn’t the Federal government that put an end to the terror that day. It was private citizens standing up for themselves in defense of themselves and the nation. It wasn’t the National Guard that ran into the burning towers on that day — it was New York City firemen and policemen that were there first.
In times of crisis we must always remember to look first to ourselves and then to those around us. We have the greatest military force in the world at our disposal but it is not their job to come to our aid or assistance in a moments notice. That’s our job. The citizens, the militia, the local police, the firefighters, the EMTs. Our safety is in our hands.
You know what makes America great? There’s a shitload of Americans living here. The kind of people that, when facing grave danger, line up shoulder to shoulder with a guy like Todd Beamer as he uttered those now famous words, “Let’s roll.”
Terrorism only works when the people are afraid. I see no reason to be afraid. I see reason to be watchful, but not to live in terror.
Why should we?
Why should we live in terror when you know damned good and well that wherever you go in this nation there are men like Kim du Toit, and Bane are always right around the corner.
Shoot, I’m a pretty spry guy, but even I’ll do in a pinch. I’ve made more than one man taste his own blood.
Hell, we live in a nation where a wheelchair a bound grandmother has the gonads to shoot a mugger with a .357 magnum.
Rule #1 for getting along in America: Don’t fuck with the locals.
We’re never going to let the shit that happened on 9/11 happen again.
WV Bomb Scare
August 17th, 2006There’s a live video feed here.
They plan on detonating the substance sometime soon. I’m predicting that it’s nothing even remotely serious.
UPDATE: Baaahaha! It’s a “make up bottle” apparently with nitrate residue on it. Residue. Possibly from handling fertilizer or a hot dog. A. Hot. Dog. This is coming from a “federal official” and the news fellow is repeating it.
Oh, it could be residue from handling recentl dry-cleaned clothes too.
Hmm. I think it’s over.
Doing Something
August 15th, 2006In relation to my post below on the likelihood of liquid explosives being built on planes I’d like to address something that I’ve seen a lot of over this weekend.
The insistence that we must do something to combat this new threat.
I’m not dumb and I realize that we must react to the conditions around us as human beings to ensure our continued survival but I’m prejudiced against letting a government body make those decisions for me. Frankly, government bodies aren’t known for their critical thinking abilities.
I really do believe that the American public figured out the answer to this new wave of terrorism within the first hour after the first WTC tower was struck: If somebody is fucking around with a plane you kick their ass.
It’s unfortunate that Flight 93 went down over Pennsylvania, but the passengers did that they had to do. They figured out that the game had changed and acted appropriately. Given the same people in the same situation one day later (if not even a few hours) I highly doubt that Flight 93 would have ever gone down. They’d have started kicking ass earlier; well before those asshats took control of the cockpit.
That’s the answer to this problem, not forcing people to dump out drinking water before they board a plane.
Hell, since 9/11 we’ve seen people do exactly that. There was a report some time ago about a fellow (veteran of Iraq II actually) trying to bust down a cockpit door. The passengers took him down. We’re Americans — that’s what we do. If we feel that you pose a threat to us we’re going to fuck you up. We live in a nation where carrying a loaded handgun is considered a right. We’re starting to pass laws across the country permitting lethal force without the duty to retreat.
Frankly I don’t see why our government expects us to act like a bunch of dickless pussies when we board a plane. Further, I don’t understand why the populace as a whole feels it’s prudent that we do and that our safety should lie in the hands of government agents incapable of telling the difference between H2O and HCl.
I’m no hero, and I’m not even particularly brave, but damned if I don’t get on a plane with the understanding that as a decent American that values human life I might need to assist in putting the hurt on some asshole that tries fucking with the plane.
Fuck security screening. You put me on a plane where I know that at least 3 other men are willing to drop fists, knees, elbows, and a good choke hold and I’ll figure I’m pretty safe. I want no part of any system that would take a juice-box from a child based upon the prediction that I, as an American male, would be a dickless pansy unwilling to stop some yahoo from constructing a bomb or doing anything else to jeopardize the other souls on that plane.
An empty water bottle is a symbol. An honest man willing to visit violence upon a terrorist is a real testament to safety.
Liquid Explosives
August 14th, 2006Well, the big news lately is the threat of liquid explosives being built in airplanes. My initial reaction to this news was one of skepticism. I figured if the threat is really that serious then security personnel wouldn’t be dumping random liquids into barrels.
Seriously… if you’re afraid that somebody is going to make an explosive out of liquids the last thing you want to be doing is mixing them all together in an airport terminal. Hell, that’s just not safe period. A little hydrochloric acid (HCl, found in toilet bowl cleaners) combines with sodium hypochlorite (NaClO, bleach) would release toxic chlorine gas. Since we can’t trust the security personnel to properly identify drinking water then I’m going to presume that they can’t ID these other chemicals that shouldn’t be mixed together.
So, tonight I did some digging into liquid explosives. What’s out there, what’s the easiest to make, and how easy is it? I have a cursory understanding of how explosives work and a fairly sound grasp on basic chemistry so I wasn’t worried about being able to keep up with technical articles on the subject. Hell, it’s actually a fun topic for me to be looking up. I’m a guy — we did stuff that goes boom.
Apparently a substance known as acetone peroxide is considered the most likely goal of the terrorists in this situation. I say this because it was also the substance used in the July 7th UK tube bombings.
Other fairly common liquid explosives are nitroglycerine and Astrolite.
I think we can rule nitroglycerine right out because it’s too unstable to be transported. It wouldn’t take much to set it off before the plane was even boarded. Further, it’s not exactly easy to manufacture. Certainly not something that one could even attempt in the bathroom of an airliner.
Now, Astrolite is another beast entirely. It seems far simpler to make, consisting of only ammonium nitrate (fertilizer) and hydrazine. While hydrazine is a liquid at room temperature ammonium nitrate most certainly isn’t. Given it’s organic nature ammonium nitrate would show up on an x-ray scan machine used to screen carry-on baggage. As we’ve seen previously the TSA will shut down an airport when they see an organic object under their x-ray machines that they can’t identify; even if it’s just a freaking cookie.
So, we can rule out Astrolite too I think.
Now, back to acetone peroxide. It’s unstable as hell but the ingredients are quite stable until they’re all mixed together. So, you’d stand a decent chance of getting this stuff onto a plane. Sorta. Airport terminals have already been cleared out when nail polish remover (acetone) was smelled. Further, within the past year a plane landed because the crew smelled nail polish remover.
So, good luck playing around with that stuff on a plane and not having anybody notice. Still, let’s suspend belief for a bit here and presume that nobody on the plane in this post 9/11 world would freak right the fuck out at the smell of something odd.
Hydrogen peroxide, the other main ingredient in acetone peroxide is fairly docile. Plenty of folks use it for mouth wash and just like acetone you can buy it at any drug store. Even the stuff that’s 3% pure will work — no need to get all industrial here.
So, how easy is it to make turn these two liquids into an explosive? Let’s take a look:
Before beginning the synthesis procedure, you should put the H2O2 [ed: hydrogen peroxide] and 2-Propanone [ed: acetone] in a refrigerator for several hours. This will speed up the procedure.
Hmm. I’m guessing that’s not going to happen on an airplane.
Once the several hours have passed, prepare an ice bath for the glass beaker. Pouring a small amount of water around the beaker with plenty of ice seems to work well, as the cold water will surround the beaker better than the ice alone.
Try asking your next flight attending for a pound of ice on your next flight. I’m guessing that might stand out.
Put the H2O2 into the beaker in the ice bath, and add 60mL chilled 2-Propanone. Measure the temperature of the liquids with a thermometer and wait for it to drop to around 40 °F (4.4 °C).
How the hell are you going to control the temperature of a chemical reaction when you’re in the bathroom of an airplane?
Using a glass eyedropper, slowly add 15mL H2SO4 [ed: sulfuric acid. Found in car batteries]. Monitor the temperature closely while adding the H2SO4, if the temperature gets around 50 °F (10 °C), quit adding the H2SO4. Failure to quit adding the H2SO4 when the temperature rises may risk explosion.
Okay, so failure to keep the temp below 50 °F means Ackmed just lost a couple of fingers.
Oh, and what the hell are you going to put sulfuric acid into and sneak it onto a plane? It’d have to be fairly diluted to keep it from eating right through a plastic soda-pop bottle if my memory serves me correctly.
When all of the H2SO4 has been added, stir the mixture for about 15 minutes.
Uhm, at this point you would have been in that bathroom an awful long time.
After 15 minutes, place the reaction mixture into a refrigerator for about 24 hours.
Whoa! How long is this flight!?
A white crystalline solid will result. This crystalline mass can then be filtered out with filter paper. When the crystalline mass has been filtered, pour 400mL of water over it to wash the acid residue away. Set the crystalline mass out to dry. The crystalline mass is tricycloacetone peroxide. If you did the reaction above 50 °F (10 °C), you will have the much more unpleasant dicycloacetone peroxide.
Shit. This really turned out to be a bit of work.
Ice, refrigerators, thermometers, sulfuric acid, 24 hours, filtering, drying — all of this in the bathroom of an airplane?
Still sound plausible to you?
Not me.
Yuck
August 2nd, 2006Well, looks like Hezbollah is willing to use children as props and cart them around for a couple of hours striking a pose.
I thought rescue workers were there to rescue people? Running around for a couple of hours with the same dead child in your arms doesn’t sound like rescue work to me.
On that topic, don’t forget to check out the Pallywood video. I know I’ll look at footage from Gaza a lot closer now.
To Be Fair…
July 28th, 2006Abject Disappointment posted a link to the following video in the comments directly below this post. It is worth a watch.
WARNING: It is graphic. Blood, guts, burned bodies, etc.
Nobody in this conflict is a saint. War is Hell.
Just Because
July 28th, 2006
Israel and Palestine Modern History
July 27th, 2006It’s a pretty intense subject, and here’s the Wikipedia entry on it.
Here’s a couple of things that I wasn’t aware or, or might have just plain forgot, prior to this week:
- Israel and Jordan (Palestine) was under British control after WWI.
- Jews were immigrating into this area prior to WWII and purchasing land
- Palestinian Arabs sided both with the Allied and Axis powers during WWII.
- The Axis powers encouraged Palestinian Arabs to join their side.
- From 1939 to 1942 Jews were illegally immigrating into the British Mandate of Palestine because of the Holocaust. It stopped with the Soviets sunk a boat carrying Jews and resumed after WWII.
- Prior to British withdraw there was no formal state of Palestine, or Israel.
I think the last point is the most important one here. Palestine? Ancient state. Israel? Ancient state. They both lay claim to the land based upon ancient history. However, since it is religious in nature, things get sticky, but let’s ignore that.
The British owned that area. It was theirs. They gained it in the fruits of war. When they gave it up the allowed the UN to split it up into a Jewish and an Arab state. If the Arabs think they have a right to Israeli land then logically the Israelis should presume that have every bit as much right to Jordanian and Lebanese land.
After all, prior to 1948 it was British land. If the UN can’t give the Jews Israel then certainly they cannot give the Arabs Jordan. Of course the only way to handle a border dispute is with a war, and through war the Israelis have won their land. They’ve even taken over more land only to give it back later.
Yes, Israel is a creation of the UN — but so is Jordan. Palestine, as a nation, doesn’t even exist. It has no land! How they fly their own flag in the Olympics I’ll never understand.
The Palestinians are refugees. I don’t disagree with that. They were given Jordan and provided that you’re not trying to walk into Israel with a bomb on your chest they’re actually allowed into Israel to work. The Palestinians were refugees not when Israel was formed, but with the British took over the land, if not before that. I cannot recollect the last time that they actually did have a formal state of Palestine.
The same case can be made for the Jews. They are refugees. The British gave up the lands so that the Jews and the Palestinians would have their own` home states. One nation is OK with this, the other is not and demands occupation of that land at all costs.
Let’s try and relate this to the United States of America. What historical right do we have to be on this land? None. The British took it over, at least the original colonies, and when push came to shove we took it from the British. The Israelis were given their land.
Through a series of wars the USA kept their land, and actually expanded it in vast tracts through treaties and wars combined.
Israel was engaged in a war within days of becoming a state, secured their land, and the natives are still trying to push them out — although in their case they can actually lay a historical claim to being natives where US residents typically cannot.
I can’t really blame them for fighting to secure their lands. If I were to do that then I must also presume that Native Americans lobbing rockets into US cities should be met with a meek and mild force to subdue their activities.
The Native Americans have more rights to the lands of the US of A than the Arabs do to the lands of Israel.
Ponder upon that. What makes the Native Americans less hateful to modern Americans than the Arabs are with regards to Israel?
Most Americans do not share the Native American’s skin tone.
We do not share their religions.
We’ve actually been the aggressor in a multitude of conflicts.
We’ve committed genocide against them.
I’d say we have a worse track record than Israel when it comes to occupying a foreign land.
I figure it is one of the following:
1) The Native Americans are real keen on making bank on the stupid white man in their casinos.
– or –
2) The Native American isn’t a radical fundamentalist Muslim extremist.
I figure if we put a casino in Lebanon we’ll find out what the root cause is.
