Bite Me

This is not the recommended way to carry a grenade.

“Terrorism expert Chris Dobson called it 'a chilling indication of what our soldiers are up against.'”

Call me crazy, but I'm not too worried about this guy.

Related posts: Idiot Terrorists

Source: Armed to the Teeth, The Sun (UK)

Terrorists in the Trees

Suicide squirrels have launched a nationwide assault on freedom-loving Americans, including our most vulnerable. (Won't someone please think of the children??) Below is a column by Mike Licht at the Notions Capital Blog, updated to list the recent strikes.

Terrorists Strike U.S. Infrastructure

Despite billions spent on homeland security, the Obama Administration is Bush-league when it comes to defending America’s vital power grid from home-grown terrorists. Known to experts as Sciurus carolinensis, these sly, suicidal saboteurs infiltrate transformer stations at will, denying thousands of loyal Americans their God-given right to power up their Chinese-made flat-screen TVs.

Discovery Channel Hostage Incident

(At the time, DisasterMan worked close enough to Discovery HQ to see the siege from his office window.)

The incident:

• His demands 
• Audio recordings: 911 calls and police radio communications
• Pictures: View from a neighboring building 
• Police were willing to wait, but hostages made a break for it and forced their hand.
• His gun was a starter pistol, but the bombs were real and more were in his home.
• Did you know?: In Montgomery County, MD, all police uses of deadly force automatically go to a grand jury.

The gunman, James J. Lee:

• Arguing with anti-birth-control protestors about overpopulation [Video]
• Attending an anti-war rally with a sign saying: "The Hell with the troops. Disarm them and make them clean up depleted uranium.” [Video]
• His 2008 protests at Discovery

Live-Blogging the Discovery Gunman

Update, 9 pm: Police are still blocking the street. I guess they're still looking for other bombs.

Update, 5 pm: The Washington Post is reporting he's been shot and the hostages freed.

2 pm: A gunman stormed the Discovery Channel HQ in Silver Spring. He reportedly fired one or more shots; took hostages; and claims to have bombs. See the "DC Area Emergency Info" tab above for links to local media sources, including live video.

Turns out this guy is James Lee, who held protests at Discovery a couple of years ago.

Here are Lee's demands:

Pain in the Ash

South African police have arrested four men allegedly trying to sell radioactive Cesium-137 that could be used in a "dirty bomb." Cesium-137 is commonly used in medical gauges, and is very dangerous if removed from its sealed canisters. In 1987 in Goiânia, Brazil, scrap metal scavengers unwittingly exposed such a source, and it resulted in 4 deaths and 249 other cases of radiation poisoning.

There's no danger of a nuclear bomb being made from it. However, it could be an ingredient in a "dirty bomb," which uses regular explosives to spread radioactive dust and soot. It wouldn't take much to create a very big problem.

Idiot Terrorists, Part 3

The new issue of The Atlantic has an article about incompetent terrorists -- clearly inspired by DisasterMan's blog posts. :-) They cite the same incidents described in DM's Idiot Terrorists, Part 1 and Part 2, and also provide a few more fun facts.

The Case for Calling Them Nitwits

...it’s fair to say that the Taliban employ the world’s worst suicide bombers: one in two manages to kill only himself. And this success rate hasn’t improved at all in the five years they’ve been using suicide bombers, despite the experience of hundreds of attacks—or attempted attacks.

Fuggedaboutit, Part 2

A Slate columnist says, "If you see something, say something? You'd never shut up."

"I set out to see how much disturbing behavior I could encounter in Times Square during an hour and a half around lunchtime...

"I met a Brazilian tourist who had way too many shabby bags in tow, and an off-duty Indian pilot who was carrying a grocery bag around his neck like a cape, food stains running down his shirtfront. I sidled up to a guy scalping Broadway tickets because he was wearing a sweatshirt in the heat.

"Several guys ... tried to sell me a ride, including Abdullah Ghazi, a bearded young man in a yellow City Sights polo. I asked Ghazi what sort of 'unusual' behavior might grab his attention. 'Someone panicky or paranoid,' he said. 'You make a logical assumption that he's off his meds.' And how often does he see that? 'Oh! Every day.' ...

"Investigators announced that they were hunting for a man who was shown on a surveillance tape taking off his shirt immediately after the incident. This was deemed suspicious activity by the police, though Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn't necessarily agree: 'It was a hot day,' he said. 'Maybe he was just changing his shirt? And this is Times Square, where you have the Naked Cowboy.'"

If you see something... eh, fuggedaboutit

The Huffington Post reports that someone left a shopping bag labeled "Suspisious Package?" [sic] on an electrical box in Manhattan...

...and everyone ignored it.

New Yorkers don't scare that easily, and besides, much like DC, people are busy and they have places to be!

In any case, it seems some people know the lesson in my "Scary Things" section: how to recognize when something's not a bomb. (You know, like when it's a name badge, bacon, or a coin. I'm just sayin'....)

Idiot Terrorists, Part 2

The bumbling nature of some freedom-haters was detailed in a prior post, Idiot Terrorists, Part 1. Al Qaeda's 1993 bombing on the World Trade Center is another example.

Mohammed Salameh was the guy who famously got arrested when he returned to a Ryder outlet -- twice -- to try to get the deposit back on the truck they'd blown up. But that's not all:

• Salameh was used as the driver for the materials in the bomb, and possibly for the bomb itself, despite having failed his driving test four times, and getting into three accidents in the prior few months.
  
  
• The second accident, a month before the bombing, involved his car jumping the curb, tearing the undercarriage, and landing him and another conspirator, Ramzi Yousef, in the hospital. He checked out the next day, but Yousef was laid up for 5 days.
• Yousef ordered some of the chemicals used in the bomb from his hospital room.
  
  
• Since Salameh's car was unusable, another conspirator, Nidal Ayyad, used his corporate account with his employer to rent another for him -- which Salameh then crashed two weeks later in the third accident.
  
  
• Ayyad also used his position and company letterhead to order other chemicals used in the bomb, and he used a computer at work to write the letter claiming responsibility for the bomb.
  
  
• Salameh called Ayyad at his office number several times from the storage facility where they had the chemicals used for the bomb -- and where they still had all a lot of leftover materials when the FBI raided it.
  
  
• The fourth guy involved, Ahmad Ajaj, was arrested at an airport trying to get into the country, when he was found to have four passports in different names and military manuals for making bombs. He was still in prison when it went off.
  
  

If it had been a suicide mission, they'd have reason to not care about the trail they left -- but it wasn't! They may have at least planned to flee the country afterward -- but good old Salameh stayed and kept trying to get his deposit back. With rocket scientists like this, who needs waterboarding?

Next installment: Idiot Terrorists, Part 3
Prior installment: Idiot Terrorists, Part 1

Idiot Terrorists

A lot of would-be terrorists are stupid or incompetent, and that's good. Sometimes, it thwarts their plans; it at least makes them easier to catch afterward.

The recent bombing attempt at Times Square is an example. The Oklahoma City bombing utilized barrels of ANFO -- ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil. It's a powerful explosive commonly used in mining. Ammonium nitrate is also used as fertilizer. The Times Square bomber used fertilizer -- but it was the wrong kind.

Also, it was inside a metal gun locker, not mixed with fuel oil, and not exposed to the firecrackers and fuel canisters he also used.

There but for the grace...

The plane a tax protestor crashed into a building in Austin today hit 9420 Research Blvd. In late 2000, I worked in 9430 Research Blvd., right next door. What are the odds?

Also, for about a year I was assigned to an IRS building in the Washington, DC area. It's covered by the post-9/11 restricted flight zone, however, so it's somewhat safer -- unless attacked from the ground. (D'oh!)

For that matter, I worked on Capitol Hill for a couple of years. Again, in the restricted flight zone and somewhat safer from the air (key word: "somewhat"), but a prime target for ground attack.

Now I work someplace no more likely to be attacked than any other office building, so all I have to worry about are floods, fires, power outages, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, extreme heat and cold, chemical spills, train crashes, and disease. Oh, and a rising sea level due to global warming. (But not earthquakes or volcanoes!)

Update: Oops. Earthquakes too. Still no volcanoes, though!

Update #2: And sharks.

Friendly Skies

Fallout from the Christmas Day underwear bomber:

NY Times -- A businessman ... said he was shocked to have a female flight attendant barge in on him in the restroom while he was washing his face during a flight from Seoul. "It was kind of weird, to have a lady try to get in," he said. "She said that they had to watch people being in the restroom too long."

Lesson: Don't get constipated on an international flight.

Maybe they should just ban loo visits altogether. Fun facts:

"Many of the ingredients for explosive mixtures, such as potassium nitrate, ammonium nitrate and phosphorus, were originally manufactured from putrefied urine." -- DynamicScience.com.au

"The process of making gunpowder ... Saltpeter was originally extracted by mixing barnyard wastes, the soil under privies, or bat guano." -- AmericanHeritage.com

Another incident:

CNN -- On August 28, the Saudi Arabian deputy minister of interior, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, survived a bombing attack ... The would-be assassin ... concealed the bomb... in his underwear.

 Actually, it wasn't the underwear, exactly. It's said he got through security because he had it in his rectum.

(The Friendly Skies are about to get a whole lot friendlier.)

Here's what the "Skating on Stilts" blog had to say about that:

How did the terrorist manage to set off the explosives? Well, he was allowed to call Yemen just before the explosion, so it seems likely that his accomplices in that country used a cell phone as a detonator.

Yes, it's true. Al Qaeda is now reduced to making booty calls.

Carrot Bombs

From the BBC:

Carrots cause Swedish bomb scare

The carrot bombs had been placed around the city at the request of a local art gallery, as part of an open-air arts festival. They had only been in place for an hour before police received their first call. ...

Mr Blom described it as a harmless stunt. "After all, it is just carrots with an alarm clock and nothing else... this is just a caricature of a bomb," he said.