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.
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.
posted by Rob Stewart | 1:40 PM
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