I'll pay attention to this terror thing when "liquid explosives"

[The_Casual_Observer]

is explained & whether those people actually had such things. The official guy in the UK seems to already be hedging on the whole cha-cha mumbling about the philosophy of when to foil a terror plot. My guess is the whole thing is bogus.

[Jacobin]

1. I would suggest NOT googling how to do that, btw

I know that some here will be inclined to find out how to do what you are saying, for purposes of today's discussions. I was tempted to do that myself and then started thinking that I would be tracked for going to such websites and targeted as a possible terrorist.

We live in a weird world these days.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

4. I had a similar thought.

These are strange days, indeed.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

5. Even a simple term search

is most likely on someone's hit list to pay attention to.

Then they start digging into what other terms you searched for so they can establish a pattern to your searches.

[enuffs_enuffs]

11. To fear knowledge simply b/c govt. might harass you...

Is giving them, *&Co., exactly what they want. What they want is fear driven servility. And you cowering behind threats, real or imagined, is just that.

Don't be afraid to seek knowledge. It is the ONE thing that we have that can be used in a very effective way. Don't you think when people do searches on Hezbolla and such the same "red flags" are raised... would you prefer not to have any knowledge of them b/c you fear some possible reprisal?

Now is not the time to be afraid. They can't incarcerate everyone...

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

14. Touche

Good post.

[enuffs_enuffs]

Glad ya like it...

[Jacobin]

27. I've done my share of protesting

during Viet Nam and in the run up to IraqNam.

I'm simply warning that if people innocently start looking up bomb making methodololgy to have a discussion here, they may not be prepared for the potential visit from the FBI.

If someone wants to do that, fine.

And it's not 'fear', its whether you want to go through the forking headache of dealing with the jackbooted idiots who want to make up a file on you....okay, it kinda is fear, but I'm just saying if you want to do it, be prepared.

[enuffs_enuffs]

37. One must agree...

BUT, to not seek something that you deem important is, IMHO, being a servile wimp.

Nothing we have is more powerful than knowledge. NOTHING!

AND to forgo that, for reasons of fear, is not protecting your rights... by you not exercising them.

Do you think the FBI has the time to check up on all the people who do research on Hamas, Hezbolla and Dirty Bombs? And the more the merrier! What we need is numbers... and forcing the FBI to investigate the most serious threats... no some arm chair news hound such as myself.

[Jacobin]

39. Be my guest

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

34. I've already made such searches. As I said in another post

I've prolly been on watch for a while now anyway.

[enuffs_enuffs]

38. So what... many of us are...

Speak your mind, don't threaten, don't advocate something that you find morally reprehensible... and you'll be fine.

Besides... I'd rather to be able to say FUCK YOU! and not waver in the least. A spine is developed... it isn't simply given... just ask the dems about their behavior over the last 5 years.

[hobbit709]

12. Take the time

and go to the library. That's where I learned all sorts of things back in the 60s. Information is also on the information dirt road-not necessarily on the highway.

[negativenihil]

17. It pays to have secure access to systems outside the US... n/t

[Blackdog4241]

21. Rove must have finally seen Die Hard 3

[fishwax]

44. odd how we must be cautious about keeping ourselves informed

weird world indeed

[TahitiNut]

61. Uh-huh. Just DON'T Google 'hydrogen peroxide' and 'citirc acid'

... whatever you do. Lord knows anyone who Googles 'hydrogen peroxide' and 'citirc acid' will be in Gitmo before winter, for sure.

(Hmmm...) It's warm. It's got free meals. Shit - sounds better than shoveling snow.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

2. Liquid Explosives Exist

And have for a long time.

Many are very potent and can be in the form of gels, aerosol foams, thick lotion type liquids.

Simple search on the internet will turn up several examples.

[OzarkDem]

24. They're also difficult to transport any distance

which makes them an unrealistic choice for a terrorist attack on an airplane.

[elehhhhna]

58. Hubs new a guy in HS (a nutcase) who made plastic explosives

w/ Vaseleine and some other crap, supposedly.

One could actually do quite a bit of damage by combining otherwise harmless OTC cleaning products.

[Snivi Yllom]

3. Ever hear of nitroglycerin?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bojinka

In 1994, Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohammed started testing airport security. Yousef booked a flight between Kai Tak International Airport in Hong Kong and Chiang Kai Shek International Airport near Taipei. Mohammed booked a flight between Ninoy Aquino International Airport near Manila and Kimpo International Airport near Seoul.

The two had already converted fourteen bottles of contact lens solution into bottles containing nitroglycerin, which was readily available in the Philippines. Yousef taped a metal rod to the arch of his of foot in place of the detonators. Yousef and Mohammed wore jewelry and clothing with metal to confuse airport security.

On December 11, 1994, Yousef built another bomb, which had one tenth of the power that his final bombs were planned to have, in the lavatory of the aircraft and left it inside the life jacket under his seat, 26K, after he got off the plane from a flight that arrived in Cebu. Yousef had boarded the flight under the assumed name of Armaldo Forlani, using a false Italian passport. The aircraft was Philippine Airlines Flight 434 using that aircraft on a Manila to Narita route. Yousef had set the timer for four hours after he got off the aircraft. The bomb exploded while the aircraft was over Minami Daito Island, near Okinawa, Japan. A Japanese businessman named Haruki Ikegami was killed after the bomb detonated. The Boeing 747-200 safely made an emergency landing in Naha, Okinawa. None of the aircraft's other 272 passengers or any members of the crew were killed, although 10 passengers in front of Ikegami were injured. Yousef then planned which flights to attack for Phase I.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

7. Far past Nitro

Nitro is a simple explosive nowadays. You have items that won't explode individually, but can be mixed on board to give small quantities of highly explosive materials.

[The Deacon]

6. No

I suspect they're like those poor dumb guys in Miami (and the ones in Canada the week before) wannabes who are more of a danger to themselves than to airliners or anything else. They get together & talk big (we used to call it Guys Poker Night) but unfortunately attracted the attention of the police & intelligence - professionally paranoid people we don't pay to have a sense of humor.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

10. Unfortunately

Sometimes you need to employ people with no sense of humor.

The trick is controlling such people.

[The Deacon]

20. My point

We usually don't want our security people to have a sense of humor. On the other hand, some of the funniest people I've ever had the pleasure of working with were FBI agents - but maybe it was a Wisconsin thing.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

41. Not just a Wi thing.

I know several LE from different Fed and Local Depts. They are all great guys.
But you are right, they can be serious when we need them to be.

[CJCRANE]

23. With the Miami 7

it was the FBI infiltrator who suggested the plot! (to blow up an FBI building)

[Taoschick]

8. I believe the London bombings

Were carried out using liquid explosives. They've been around for quite a while and they're not detectable by normal airline security procedures if they're carried in sealed containers.

[OzarkDem]

18. Its also highly unstable

and needs special handling to transport it any distance. Its not something you can put in a tupperware container and throw in your carry on luggage or purse.

Its not a realistic scenario for targeting an airliner, either for getting it on the plane in its mixed form or bringing ingredients on board to mix.

No doubt some loony might consider it, but its unlikely they would succeed.

[Taoschick]

25. From what I recall

There are liquid explosives that can be mixed on demand by relatively stable components. I'll try and see what I can find but I'm just a little hesitant to start an internet search on it right now.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

31. You might get FBI at your door

I'm pretty sure I'm already under surviellance

[Taoschick]

33. Yeah, well

I suspect there are a lot of people googling "explosive liquids" today. It'll probably take them a while to get here.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

35. True, but I've made searches before

just out of curiosity. That black van across the street has been there for a while now

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

42. You've only got a van?

Give me a call when they rent the house across from you.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

46. :(

I've been shown up

[meldroc]

9. I can think of nitroglycerin off the top of my head,

though even the most insane bomb-chucking terrorist probably isn't crazy enough to use nitroglycerin. Making homemade nitro is extremely dangerous (when you stir the ingredients, if you allow the stirring implement to clink against the wall of the container, BOOM!) and carrying it is even more dangerous.

Or you could go with ANFO (Ammonium nitrate fertilizer mixed with diesel fuel) - the same stuff Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma city, which ends up in a slurry. It's hard to detonate, so you'll need a blasting cap, and the stuff really smells bad - you'll get caught in a heartbeat, especially given the number of bomb-sniffing dogs and explosive sniffing devices found in airports.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

13. Making Meth is EXTREMELY dangerous too

But thousands of people do it at home, in apartments, in motels, in cars, etc.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

29. The fertalizer can be done with a lighter if you if you use extra

diesal to ignite it. But as you said, it'd be pretty easily noticed.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

15. Theres a gasoline chlorine mixture

which can pack a punch in a coke bottle..

ON EDIT* theres also a potassium permanganate-gasoline mixture, it requires a glass container and only a few drops and can have almost the power of a half stick of dynamite.

[proud2BlibKansan]

32. Speaking of coke

http://www.eepybird.com/

[The_Casual_Observer]

40. God damn, I'll bet that's what it was, and you can buy the ingredients

right there at the airport gift shop. Leave up to those muslims!

[elehhhhna]

62. Those waskally Wahhabis!

[originalpckelly]

16. Have you ever heard of nitro-glycerin?

It is really easy to produce. (If you manage not to blow your face off.) The seemingly pointless ban on cosmetic products is actually the thing that tipped me off to this, they don't want hundreds of false positives. Most cosmetic products contain a small amount of glycerin. The machines which are used to detect the presence of this chemical are highly sensitive and can spot even the small non-lethal amounts present in cosmetics.

I am not certain if all airports have acquired these machines, but you can imagine how this could really slow travel down if all the people with hair gel and lipstick on need to be taken aside as suspected terrorists.

Not only that, but many people have asked how a detonator could get onto a plane, nitro doesn't need a detonator in its simplest forms. Simply hitting it hard enough can give it enough energy to detonate.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

28. Exactly; that was the big thing about TNT was that it wasn't so volatile

you could actually carry it without risking blowing yourself to hell and back

[The_Casual_Observer]

50. I've heard about a lot of stuff, colin powell explained it all to me

back in 2003 at the UN.

[HereSince1628]

19. There are 2 component liquid explosives...check Astrolite

entry on Wikipedia. I have no idea if this is what is suspected. But they are another product for better living brought to us by modern chemistry

[survivor999]

22. Next plot: exploding farts after drinking explosive liquids

All passengers will have to wear special pants.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

48. After much research

I found that Taco Bell actually produces a more voloatile mixture.

[Sinti]

26. Re: liquid explosives

Actually, I can promise you "liquid explosives" are very common. It may not be exactly as they are explaining it, though, they don't generally do well by explanations. Various otherwise harmless seeming chemicals when mixed together can create quite a boom. The same goes for "chemical weapons," separately the ingredients pose no risk, but mixed together they are deadly.

Going into the fine details would certainly bring DHS to my door, but it can be done with ease.

[Xenotime]

30. If you waked on the plane and said....

"I have a jar of hydrogen and oxygen." You would be arrested for carrying water.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

36. True, but when seperate, that stuff can go BOOM!

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

43. Add one more Oxygen Molecule

and you have some pretty dangerous stuff there too.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

49. H2O2? Hydrogen peroxide?

Do explain, I've never heard of it being dangerous

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

55. Oh Sure

The stuff you get on the store shelves is nothing. It is a very dilute concentration of H2O2. But you start getting above 50% concentration and you get a nice oxidizing agent. In 70-80% conentrations and you have a nice rocket fuel component. In pure form it can "spontaneously decompose" in an exothermic reaction:
H202 ---> H20 + O2 + Energy Then you have the heated O2 naturally produced in the mix and well, you know the rest.

Hell, even the active in acne cream in pure form is extremely dangerous. I've seen plants catch on fire and explode b/c of the stuff sitting around getting too dry and too hot.

Peroxides in general are not fun things to have sitting around in high concentrations.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

59. Ah yes.

Explosives in general aren't too good to have lieing around. The problem is there's just so much shit you can mix together to make something go boom

[IChing]

45. Actually salt would be more deadly when seperated

sodium :
Sodium's metallic form is highly explosive in water and is a poison when uncombined with other elements. The powdered form may combust spontaneously in air or oxygen. This metal should be handled carefully at all times.

Chlorine:

irritates respiratory systems especially in children and the elderly. In its gaseous state it irritates mucous membranes and in its liquid state it burns skin. It takes as little as 3.5 ppm to be detected as a distinct odor, but it takes 1000 ppm or more to be fatal. Because of this, chlorine was one of the gases used during World War I as a war gas.
Exposure to this gas should therefore not exceed 0.5 ppm (8-hour time-weighted average - 40 hour week).
Acute exposure to high but non-lethal concentrations of chlorine can result in pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs, an extremely unpleasant condition. Chronic low-level exposure weakens the lungs, increasing susceptibility to other lung disorders.
Toxic fumes may be produced when bleach is mixed with urine, ammonia, hydrochloric acid, or another cleaning product. These fumes consist of a mixture of chlorine gas, chloramine and nitrogen trichloride; therefore these combinations should be avoided.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

47. True, but sodium would be detected most likely because it's a metal

[The_Casual_Observer]

51. Gatorade or urine could be synthesized in the toilet & turned

into a sodium flare. Jesus, I'm staying off those planes from now on.

[Ron Green]

52. OK, EVERYONE ON THIS THREAD IS UNDER SURVEILLANCE.

Up against the firewall, m.f.

[SoCalDem]

53. Coming to an arrival area near you..Cranky, thirsty people, with bad hair

I cannot even imagine how difficult it will be for parents to not have a change of clothes for the baby or any toys or books for toddlers..

Travel is just too intrusive to endure these days..


of course where am I headed at 3:30 today? taking my son to the airport ...he's going to visit his older brother & help him paint his house..It's only a 45 minute flight, but he called the airline & they said to arrive TWO hours early....adding the hour commute to the airport (Ontario CA), and the flight to Concord, CA almost becomes "driveable"...

[The_Casual_Observer]

54. "Cranky, thirsty people, with bad hair" And that will be different how?

I'd watch what you are saying about cans of paint and airplanes, you are liable to wind up on NPR & fox.

[SoCalDem]

56. He's not taking the housepaint with him

but he had planned on taking a book and a backpack.

[The_Casual_Observer]

60. House paint can be very dangerous.

Particularly if consumed in large quantities.

[DoYouEverWonder]

57. All the other 'scares' have been bogus

Why should this one be any different?