Bomb Plots: Or Why You Cannot Bring Your Starbucks Into Economy

Two for the price of one, today only.

Is it just me, or are you suspicious about the recent arrests of terrorist conspirators in Britain?

Harry Shearer - most famous as the voice of Homer Simpson - writes an interesting blog on the Huffington Post called Eat the Press. In it, he critiques the media coverage of whatever is exorcising the mainstream press at any particular time. A recent post by Shearer wonders why there is so little information available about the latest British bombing plot beyond what has been officially released by the law enforcement authorities. One would have thought that the nation which can record the Prince of Wales' cell phone conversations and obtain pictures of Prince Harry squeezing a young woman's cleavage might turn its attention to a more serious subject, at least for a few minutes.

In any event, some of Shearer's commentators link to a website called the Register, which is located at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/. This link leads to an article where the author has actually gone to the trouble of seeing whether you can cook up a bomb out of commercially available chemicals, mix them together on the ground or in the airplane's toilet, and blast yourself into the presence of the proverbial 99 virgins.

It seems that bomb making is not as easy as Bruce Willis would have us believe in the Die Hard movies. What is really happening with these mixed explosives is not so much combustion as conversion from liquid state to gaseous state at a high speed with resulting blast. I am not a scientist, maybe that is what is happening when the Coyote gets blown up with dynamite anyway, but the gist of the article is that if you try to make explosives in the airport loo, you are going to have to be very careful about it and it will take a long time. If you make the explosives at home and smuggle them aboard the plane in a bottle of Gatorade, try not to drop it or allow it to get too warm or you will be visiting those virgins earlier than expected.

With either strategy, getting the substance onto the plane is going to prove quite tricky. It would seem much more expeditious to pack some explosives with a timer in your checked luggage (which is what happened with the Air India flight back in 1985) or, indeed to buy a rifle and start shooting shoppers at your local grocery store. Or, for that matter, you could simply travel to Jordan, enlist with the insurgents, and take on the US army in Baghdad or Fallujah, if that were your cup-of-tea.

Shearer points out that the British police have a dismal conviction rate when it comes to terrorists. Of the people arrested (mainly Muslim, of course) 88 per cent are never charged with anything, and of the remaining 12 per cent, a further 80 per cent are acquitted. Of those who are actually convicted, most are found guilty of other charges which have nothing to do with terrorism.

I might point out that the conviction rate for charges of impaired driving in the Ontario Courts is about 90 per cent of all the persons charged.

Oh, well. It least it cannot be said that the criminal courts of the United Kingdom have become kangaroo courts in the War on Terror.

Intolerance

I have been away for a few weeks, but there was an excellent post to the Globe and Mail comments section last night in answer to some rather... errr...illiberal...comments about the Canadian Government's funding of AIDS research.

This year, the International Aids Conference was held in Toronto, but it seems that our Prime Minister decided not to attend. Indeed, the Health Minister and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister were also scheduled to attend, but both bailed out at the last moment. These actions left a bad taste in a few people's mouths, and consequently a news story was born.

Anyway, Adam Mateyko from Calgary posted a wonderful manifesto on how religious fundamentalism can be the cause of a downward spiral into oppression. I have excerpted it here, and thank Adam for his thoughful post:


I will only repeat the comments about fundamentalists, like Harper stated by ex President Jimmy Carter to der Spiegel magazine recently: The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God's ideas and God's premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong. And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior, and in extreme cases -- as is the case with some fundamentalists around the world -- it makes your opponents sub-humans, so that their lives are not significant. Another thing is that a fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality. And so this administration, for instance, has a policy of just refusing to talk to someone who is in strong disagreement with them -- which is also a radical departure from past history. So these are the kinds of things that cause me concern. And, of course, fundamentalists don't believe they can make mistakes, so when we permit the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, it's just impossible for a fundamentalist to admit that a mistake was made. nuff said - I think that about sums up Harpers modus operandi - it is clear to see it in action.. adamm

Well put, son.

Speaking of intolerance, has anybody noticed how the right wing of the blogosphere has exploded on Madam Justice Taylor, a Federal Court judge in Michigan who yesterday ruled that the President of the United States does not have the authority to undermine the Constitution? Now, Justice Taylor just happens to be black, and has some modest Democratic Party connections. She was also appointed a judge by President Carter. The gist of most of the comments is that Justice Taylor is a fool, a Democratic tool, an Al Qaeda tool, a radical left-winger, an enemy of America, and just about every other pejorative you can think of. To date, none of the right wingers have actually commented on Justice Taylor's judgment, which -- in my view -- takes particular concern to protect the United States Constitution.

Until recently, it seems, right wingers in the United States were quite keen on the Constitution. It was a perfectly respectable position for Republicans to say that executive power should be severely circumscribed by the Constitution. The most obvious example is their opposition to the faintest whiff of gun control legislation. When the President was Franklin Roosevelt or Bill Clinton, the Constitution was just dandy. Now that the President is Dick Cheney, the Constitution is, shall we say, a bit obstructive

Anyway, Justice Taylor appears to be the latest victim of the unfortunate tendency of spinmeisters to attack the person, rather than the idea. This technique is the basis for Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly's careers, but that does not make it acceptable in a society which used to value intellect and reason.