From the Daily Telegraph:
A member of a British al-Qaeda cell was involved in a plot to buy a nuclear bomb, a court heard yesterday.
Salahuddin Amin, 31, had information passed to him about a “radio- isotope bomb” while he was in Pakistan, it was claimed.
The plan was to buy the device from the Russian mafia in Belgium, the Old Bailey was told.
The gang of seven British Muslims – six trained in Pakistani camps – also planned an attack on a shopping complex in Kent, said prosecutor David Waters QC.
Other targets discussed included “the biggest nightclub” in central London, which one of the gang said was populated by “slags”. Another plan was to attack gas, water or electrical supplies.
The men were under electronic surveillance for two months and were arrested on March 30, 2004.
Police seized aluminium powder and 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which could be turned into explosives, at a warehouse in Hanwell, West London.
The jury has heard the aim of the seven men – all British citizens – was to exact revenge on the UK for its support of the US in the war on terror. The jury also heard that one of the accused described the Madrid train bombings as “absolutely beautiful”.
Waheed Mahmood, 34, Jawad Akbar, 22, Omar Khyam, 24, his brother Shujah Mahmood, 19, Anthony Garcia, 23, Nabeel Hussain, 20, and Amin deny conspiring with Canadian Momin Khawaja and others to cause explosions.
Mr Waters said that the discussion of an atomic bomb showed the trust imposed in Amin and the importance of his position in the Pakistani end of the organisation.
[My emphasis]
Reached for comment, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) expressed “concern” over what he termed “unclearly defined—and likely illegal—electronic surveillance” by British intelligence, before renewing his call for the censure of President Bush, “just, y’know—because.”
But to be serious for a moment, this case simply reinforces what I wrote a while back suggesting that the more dangerous radical Islamists are those who have grown up and acculturated inside host countries whom they consider the enemy. Britain, because of it’s longtime acceptance of multicultural doctrine, is at greatest risk; rather than assimilate its immigrant populations, Britain adopted a notion of utopian social engineering that has led to a Balkanized England, with pockets of enemy cells operating freely in “Londanistan” (as several in the intel community call it), protected by a slightly-less radicalized ethnic community who nonetheless oppose the British government they live and work under.
But the philosophical underpinnings of the problem aside, we should all—regardless of what we believe animates the threat—be frightened by the fact that radicalized Muslims living in a westernized country were looking to purchase a nuclear device, and had plans to do major damage to a number of high-profile sites.
Kos and Digby, et al, have been pushing the meme that neo-cons “bedwetters,” frightened by the nearly-mythical Bogeymen of al Qaeda, are willing to surrender any and all of their liberties just so long as “Dear Leader” or “Papa Bush” promises to protects them. But such an argument is, of course, nothing more than a puerile ad hominem that, like the chickenhawk meme, is meant simply to silence those who believe that President is acting legally under his Article II authority to authorize warrantless surveillance on international communications, and that (automatically, most likely) collecting and vetting those communications—one end of which takes place out of the country and is tracked from suspected terrorists (or terrorist zones)—is an effective tool to protect the homeland, particularly when the M.O. of the enemy is to set up cells within the host country.
I have yet to see a case in which an American citizens’ civil liberties were trampled as a result of the NSA program. Instead, I have seen a turf war over who can authorize such things between the Executive and the Legislative branches of the government. So for the moment, at least, I’m willing to risk being called a cowardly bedwetter by a bunch of question beggers who, in keeping with the general tone of their rhetoric, would much rather try to “win” the NSA argument by shaming the other side into silence.
Fortunately, I don’t accept their premise—and so I’m not likely to keep quiet just because my ideological opponents have dreamt up a new and oft-repeated smear.
****
(h/t Allah)
Looks like Benbo Domenech is a serial plagiarist,have you checked his writings for any hot doggie action he may have lifted from you?
Looks like it is time to dig up those 50’s era bomb-shelter plans my father kept in his study…..Either that or go Jihadi hunting..
Well, Todd, the best defense is a good offense.
In Kos and digby’s defense they really are just pretty much morons, as evidenced by the dual facts that they know nothing about either politics or the history of terrorism against the west prior to or even after 9/11. I’m not just saying that to be mean, they just seem to have a great big blind spot in both those areas. Other than that they may be fine and smart fellows.
However, they have tapped into the “I hate Bush and the Right” market fairly effectively.
So, you know, kudos to them for that.
Either that or go Jihadi hunting
Like this
By the way did anyone catch the last Law & Order,
apparently written by Jay Bennish & Harvard’s Steven Walt.(I’ll explain the last in a moment.
Not only did they ‘jump the shark’ by bringing back a character, they had killed off two years
ago, but they puried a scenario crossing the Fallujah Blackwater Massacre, the Nick Berg beheading; Abu Musab Al Zarquawi under a different nom de plume, the Mossad,; under the
Rubric of “America Inc” with screeds aimed atHalliburton & Exxon. It made Dick Wolfe’s
early Miami Vice scripts seem elegant.
LGF Foot soldier:
Was I supposed to be moved by this?
1.When armed troops point their weapons, you stop
2.When a warning shot is fired, you stop
3.If you don’t stop, you die.
4.Don’t drive with your family when a curfew is imposed and armed soldiers are enforcing said curfew.
It doesn’t take a camel surgeon to figure this out.
Pretty simple really. No matter what language you speak…
Was I supposed to be moved by this?
You are suppose to get a hard-on or are just another Dhimmicrat Anti-Semite?
Neither
I’m done with you
A particularly evil and vitriolic species of troll we have tonight.
I think you made a slight error there, Jeff.
Should be oft-repeated sneer.
Excellent point otherwise. Heh.
Um, Jeff-
this is clearly impossible. The Russian mob is far too secular for an Al-Queda cell to work with.
They were probably going to try and acquire the nuke to turn it, and the sellers, over to the authorities…to weaken the secular Russians. And of course our racism got in the way.
Way to go, LGF Foot Soldier! All of us raging wingnuts are too incompetent to realize that you linked to the third image in that set, totally bypassing the context-providing first two images! Brilliant!
In actuality, the two idiots that were killed in that incident were probably driving a car bomb, using their own kids for cover. Those soldiers probably saved the lives of those children. Of course, since the BBC is reporting, we’re almost certainly never going to get a follow-up to see whether my bomb hypothesis is true. Until then, I’m sticking with it, so, kudos to those soldiers for saving those children.
And for any bullshit that we’ve scarred them for life? They probably knew they were on a death mission, and if they don’t appreciate being saved, fuck them.
Speaking about appreciation for having one’s live saved, fuck those false-Christian, former hostage fucks. Our forces should have left them to die, and the fact that we didn’t (and wouldn’t) puts lie to their bullshit preaching. I’ll pray that they don’t rot in hell, but I prayed for a Tampa Bay Super Bowl win last season, too.
Eric, listen, it’s our fault that we even have to stop cars and search for bombs.
If only we donated our helicopters, jet fighters, destroyers and M1A2s, spent twenty-five years training al Qaeda/Baathist/goat-rapers (or is that goat-rappers? Westside!) to use them while sending UBL and the Taliban to Yale, and upped our percentage of GDP to subsidizing UN graft…errr, sorry, for aid…then the camel-fellating nail-bombers would’t have to resort to suicide bombs.
Haven’t you been watching the news and our evil imperialist plot to ravage the middle east, spur terrorism, and oppress brown folk and gays, especially brown gay folks?
Hmmm.
The real danger that accrues from native born or raised Jihadis isn’t to the native population, either British or American, but to the specific immigrant population that the Jihadis represent. Particularly in an environment where the government loses a lot of credibility for soft handling of people who are pro-Jihadi.
There’s generally only one result of a native population that fears a specific group and that doesn’t have a basis for trusting the government to protect them and that’s vigilante justice. And once that gets started it won’t get stopped easily or quickly. And in this sort of situation things could escalate very easily with pro-Jihadis acting to inflame a bad situation into a worse one.
It’s something like this that can instigate a regional uprising and outright gunfights in the streets.
sw: “street”. and the spam filter selects another extremely appropriate word. very creepy really.
Eric: 1
Troll: 0
These comments suck where is the hot man on (4 legged) bitches action?
I just tried to post a link to a website that provides follow up on the event that LGF Foot Soldier brought up, but it’s blacklisted here. It seems that the BBC, as far as I can tell, did not ever follow up on the story, but Newsweek did. It seems the two idiots that were killed were probably not driving a car bomb, but there is still not confirmation one way or another. The BBC dated the incident ‘January 18’, with no apparent year so I assumed it was 2006, but I found out that it was in fact 2005. I’m an ass for not checking first. Mea culpa.
LGF Foot Soldier is still a fucktard.
How pissed off at the Banana Republic do you have to be to want to nuke the mall?
Of course you realize Panama Jack stole Dr. Vic’s wife. Well, it was either Panama Jack or Richard Perle. Doctor Vic has a hard time telling those two apart.
Since all us cons are just the maladjusted whiny kids anyway, it’s all our parents fault. So why do the dems hate us?
Sorry, I just can’t do whiny lib shit with a straight face. I second Eric’s last paragraph, except for the Tampa Bay part. I’m a Buffalo fan, which is sort of like being condemned to Boot Camp at Parris Island for eternity.
139 words and one closing period. Ever heard of a run-on sentence? Maybe you could take a writing class or something. People sure must love reading your blog, having to edit shit like this in their heads as the go along. What a joke. Atrios is right.
Wow.
What kind of “human being” needs to exploit the suffering of a child under a pseudonym for his own ego gratification?
T/W: better. As in “no, this one isn’t going to get better I’m afraid…”
yuck/
:peter.
Actually, Bob, it’s not a run on sentence if it’s properly punctuated, and that one was. But it’s hard to know that when “BUSH IS THE SUXOR OPN THRED!” is the upper limit of your reading comprehension.
Oh and Bob, I’m guessing you didn’t do so well when your English Lit. teacher assigned you Faulkner, but that’s what those cliff notes were for, eh.
I write simple. For Bob. He has trouble with long sentences. Reading all that Kos-crap does stunt your intellectual development.
You rock Jeff, keep up the good work!
Hell, leave it up to the Wahabis, the Taliban and Yale, and that won’t be an issue in a few years…
Bob! Bob!
You counted the words? And you’re a grammarian too!?
Be amazed. I are!
I don’t know, I kind of like the idea of these Kosatridiot trolls squinting at their screens, painstakingly counting words in a sentence so the can embarass themselves with pitifully ineffectual snark.
Let me give Jeff some praise before he bans me from the site, if nothing else he’s certainly not stealing other people’s shit left and right like box turtle Ben. His writing style is—umm unique, yea that’s the word.
embarrass, that is …
I don’t get the Box Turtle thing. Not that I want to derail this thread by having someone explain it to me.
Hmmmm.
1.
Right here. Enjoy!
2.
Considering some of the crazy-ass nonsense I’ve read posted by liberals, who’ve never heard of punctuation evidently, this is pretty tame.
3.
About what? Frankly Atrios being right about *something* is most definitely news. I’d suggest telling these people.
4.
I sure hope nobody is doing something manually that Microsoft Word, and most wordprocessor programs, do automatically.
The Russian mob is far too secular for an Al-Queda cell to work with.
That’s funny.
Just a quick observation: People who believe “run-on” sentences and long sentence are the same thing should not be giving writing advice.
Oh. And the phrase “Atrios is right” is an oxymoron, unless he happened to be talking about how many “open threads” it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop or some such.
It’s a pleasing mental image, anyway, and I think I’ll keep it. =)
It’s sort of funny that the party that was able to redeem itself from the stigma of the ‘White Rule’ campaigns is likely to be killed off by the likes of Atrios and Kos.
Also sad. Very sad.
There you go, Bob. I added an extra period for you. See if you can follow along now.
Well Bob, don’t let the tread topic get in your way.
Bob needs some periods?
Well, I’m menopausal, he’s welcome to mine.
Really now, I liked Faulkner because it was so much fun to say “Yoknapatawpha County” four or five times fast.
A vintage quote from Addie B. for all those Atrios grammarians:
And so when Cora Tull would tell me I was not a true mother, I would think how words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless, and how terribly doing goes along the earth, clinging to it, so that after a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other; and that sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forgot the words. Like Cora, who could never even cook.
Poor Bob.
People who believe “run-on†sentences and long sentence are the same thing should not be giving writing advice.
If Atrios’s “Off to the treadmill, OPEN THREAD” is what he’s used to, content and sentences might just be too much of a challenge and were being unfair.
Wow. He actually did add a period. Hilarious.
Looks like Benbo Domenech is a serial plagiarist,have you checked his writings for any hot doggie action he may have lifted from you?
Glad to see the netroots are devoting their precious energies to getting netroot candidates elected.
Oh nevermind, that doesn’t work. Well, maybe this will.
So true.
Oh please, Britons killing Britons—those guys were members of al Qaeda the same way Padilla was a member of al Qaeda: yo mama. al Qaeda is the new Godwin.
Oooo…. Bob not only got his period, he can use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, too!
But Bob, before you drip again, I suggest the super maxi-pads.
Easy solution to your problems, Bob: don’t read my site.
all drinks are Coors Light unless otherwise specified\
Fucking liberals, they want to control everything except uterus’s.
Uh, Limpin’buff?
What is it about Islamism you’re not getting here?
Or stay drunk. Whatever floats your boat.
BECAUSE OF THE WHATEVER!
(Drink, motherfucker!)
BTW
â€ÂCindy Sheehan and Billy Jack talk about how they hate freedom and smell their own buttsâ€Â)
Who doesn’t want to drink to that?
In my experience, snark is a wonderful device. I find it can make otherwise dry polemics accessible. However, I fail to see how itâ€â€as an end in itselfâ€â€evinces any argument.
Anyway, “bitter tears of the debasement of our discourse� Oscar Wilde this author is not.
Hmmmm.
As an aside what I find absolutely astonishing are:
1. Hillary Clinton trying to tie illegal aliens, the Good Samaritan and Jesus Christ together. This is by claiming that any laws that dealt with illegal aliens would also have an effect on, were they alive today, both the Good Samaritan and Jesus Christ.
Which really begs the question of why is it that Democrats who obviously don’t know jack shit about Scripture are always fucking trying their hand at it?
Both Jesus Christ and the Good Samaritan were both legal citizens, not illegal aliens. WTF? There are Christians all over America laughing at her lame ass.
2. The Democratic party relies almost entirely on the African-American community for the votes necessary to win elections. Yet many in that group are in jobs at the lowest end of the pay scale where they are in competition with illegal aliens. It used to be that illegal aliens worked in the fields but they’re more likely to be working in landscaping, construction or at Wal-Mart now.
So how is it positive message when the Democrats have to fuck over their current voter group to pandering for votes with a new one that’s composed of a large number of “voters” that aren’t eligible to actually vote?
3. The Democratic party has to continue supporting the teachers unions because they’re a huge block of votes, have a lot of political power, can take the time off to participate in activism and contributes a lot of money to Democrats.
But the core group of voters for the Democrats are being screwed over by the teachers since African-American kids are ending up in shitty schools that cannot be fixed regardless of the amount of money spent. Why? Because shitty teachers will teach in a shitty manner. Putting more money into the system just means better paid shitty teachers.
And what’s even crazier is that parents organize their entire financial and residential lives around which schools are linked to what neighborhoods. With charter schools and vouchers it would break the power of the teachers unions, end the cycle of crappy schools and score points with the African-American parents who are generally held hostage and utterly disempowered by the educational system.
…
And what’s amazing to me about all this is it still seems the fucking Republicans can’t get their thumb out of their ass on these issues.
There should be a Christian on television explaining to Hillary just why her analogy is utter trash.
There should be an effort to explain the impact of illegal aliens on the lowest end of the payscale. Which would force the Democrats to either continue this push for illegals, at the cost of credibility with the African-Americans, or to abandon it entirely. In which case it becomes an obvious political attempt at pandering which backfires onto the Democrats.
And there should be a seriously hard push to force the Democrats to really take a stand and defend the current status quo in education. Anyone with a kid in a shitty school, regardless of their political affiliation, would regard that sort of defense as absolutely crazy.
Frankly I think these sorts of things would deliver some serious hammer blows to the Democrats. Don’t ask me why it’s not happening.
IMHO the title of the book that will be written about the Republican party of this era will be:
“Opportunities Lost”
“Both Jesus Christ and the Good Samaritan were both legal citizens, not illegal aliens. WTF? There are Christians all over America laughing at her lame ass.”
Actually, no. Samaritans in ancient Judea enjoyed roughly the same status as leftists do in this comments section (not that the latter doesn’t earn that status, perhaps Samaritans did likewise with their funky religious views). Neither Jesus nor the Samaritan were “legal citizens”, that designation was reserved for Romans. Paul, for instance, was a Roman citizen, and took advantage of this (rare) status to demand a hearing with Caesar.
“And what’s amazing to me about all this is it still seems the fucking Republicans can’t get their thumb out of their ass on these issues.”
Unfortunately, school vouchers have foundered not only due to the corrupt teacher’s unions, but also suburban parents (largely Republican) who don’t want inner city kids coming to their schools. Plenty of shame to go around.
OK, I admit it, I thought:
was somewhat funny. Of course, I’m thinking “huff a bag of glue because some people don’t get it even when explained 30+ times and it just makes your head hurt to share a planet with these folks.”
For what it’s worth, I think that this blog regularly provides wonderful exemplars of hyperlink use. The creative “*” links, “in-line” links, “the story so far” link compendia—all of these provide a subtle, playful commentary on the relationship between the linked text and the text of the post.
Mary and Joseph were going to Bethlehem to be counted in the census and pay taxes. They were going to Bethlehem to because it was their hometown. They may not have been granted full citizenship, but they were not illegal aliens.
<style isâ€â€umm unique, yea that’s the word.</blockquote>
Did anybody else notice that the Domenech piece is dated 2001, the Cox piece is undated, yet Domenech is the one accused of plagarism? Since the article in question is an obscure movie review, personally I’m betting they both are quoting press releases, but who really gives a shit.
Ahhh. I always wondered how the moonbats got that way, and now I know.
TW: However, prolonged substance abuse does not lead to competence in political debate.
Still, the mentions of ChimpyMcHitlerBurton and BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY his “drinking game” give me the hope that Bob has made the first uncertain steps on the path that will lead to his eventually discovering the concepts of parody and catchphrase, which will allow him to elevate the content of his diatribes above the disjunct-SMS-message style that currently characterises them.
(Hmmm, that sentence might be too long for poor Bob. Do let me know, Bob, and I’ll rephrase it in See Spot run terms that even you might be able to grasp).
I can’t believe I have to post this:
Q. What is a run-on sentence?
A. A run-on sentence is an ungrammatical construction in which two or more independent clauses are improperly joined without a conjunction or appropriate punctuation.
Really Bob, isn’t it time for school?
Fuck creativity.
I NEED SMALL SENTENCES!
I find it unlikely that there was any real attempt to purchase an atomic bomb. Most likely it was just a case of an ignorant reporter who thinks a radio-isotope bomb is an atomic bomb. Radio-isotope bombs are a waste of time for the terrorists. They increase the chance of getting caught, but do no more harm than the conventional explosives they are based upon. They are useful as scary-sounding boogeymen on right-wing blogs though.
I also don’t see why Russ Feingold would object to the surveillance that caught these men. He is staunchly in favor of justified spying. The man in question had travelled to Pakistan and met with suspected terrorists. If he came to the US he’d have his house bugged, his phone tapped and he’d be followed around the clock by surveillance teams – all justified by very easily obtained warrants. I’m sure the British obeyed their own laws in pursuing these men. It is entirely possible that they caught these men because they were not busy spying on dozens of law abiding citizens who simply received phone calls from abroad.
Waitaminute.
One of the ‘Jeff Goldstein Drinking Game’ snarks is to drink when Jeff provides extensive link support/background for something he’s written?
Well, that speaks volumes.
Noah, read the post directly above yours to see what the left considers “thought”.
“I find it unlikely”
“Most likely “
“I also don’t see why”
“I’m sure the British obeyed”
“It is entirely possible”
All that along with the interesting assertion:
“Radio-isotope bombs are a waste of time for the terrorists. They increase the chance of getting caught, but do no more harm than the conventional explosives they are based upon.”
You see, the left doesn’t need sources to back up their claims, merely asserting the point is enough.
TomB- or rather, merely feeling that a claim is right is enough
tw: horse, as in beaten dead
Oh, well – nevermind, then. Radio-isotopes around, Jeeves. Sorry for the bedwetting concern, we’ll no longer worry about those chaps with the hard-on for radioactive materials; they’re just a different color of dust after the convetional explosives go off.
Yes, because the NSA is just randomly picking people who receive international calls to surveil.
True, Njorl’s attempt to pass off radio-isotopes as no worse than conventional bombs is particularly egregious; it’s the blatant ‘You must be some kinda smart guy’ cynicism of the JGDG that stuns me. I thought lefties were supposed to be smarter than us, and reality-based? Documentation and exposition are apparently to be ridiculed, now.
This, from the “home school” crowd. Actually, I’ll concede on the run-on sentence. I had that wrong. Jeff’s ubersentence was grammatically correct, just not concise. Better writers tend to say more with less, not the other way around, which appears to be typical for this site. Thanks for the laughs, though. I’m going to go read something a little more worthy of my time.
OPEN THREAD!!! WOOOOHOOOO!!!
But really Bob, congrats on coming back and admitting you know nothing about basic grammar. Now exactly why should we believe your opinion on the conciseness of Jeff’s posts?
I mean if you don’t know what a run-on senctence is, aren’t you a….um what’s the word….oh yea…..moron?
I don’t get the whole “home school crowd” criticism. Could it be the left is so found of socialism that they cannot let go of the public school ideology? Mediocrity for ALL!!
Bob, really, what kind of asshat are you anyway? I supposed I should sacrifice my children to the alter of the Public school, here in Detroit, because certainly my children don’t deserve anything better than the gang-banger down the street. They need to be socialized to wear baggy pants, listen to rap, and have sex before they hit drivers ed.
I can’t believe that the left is so devoted to Public school. So trapped in that box.
/rant off
Funny how the Left cult members sneer at choice when it doesn’t serve their faith. How dare the ideologically incorrect parents be allowed to teach their own kids!
Talk about y’bedwetters.
Bob. Forget the maxi-pads and go right for the Depends.
I wouldn’t worry about the “home school” crack, considering he’s admitting they are smarter than he is.
I just wonder if he realizes it.
A sterling example of the mental acuity of the Kos Kiddies, that boy.
I actually found the drinking game mildly clever. I think you could go a lot further with it though. It’s too bad they didn’t spend more time on it (e.g. Any time Jeff describes an explicit sex act involving anyone over the age of 60, drink a shot of Old Grand Dad, then gouge your eyes out with a spoon).
You could make a drinking game for PW Trolls, but it’d ultimately boil down to, “Drink non-stop until you collapse.”
I notice that Winds of Change recently posted a link to a list of techniques writers can use to improve the quality of their writing. For your edification, Bob, you should check out #26; Fear Not the Long Sentence.
BECAUSE OF TEH SHAMEFUL VINYL SIDING!
BECAUSE OF TEH RAMSHACKLE WOOD-BURNING TIN HUTS!
Intolerant statist edukation. Because a mind is a terrible thing. To waste. Outside of The Institution.
Too many periods?
Or the radio-isotope bomb.
Or the mindless voter?
Beck – I may just play your PW troll drinking game tonight. Thanks for that!
I wonder where Noah found the source of the NSA call intercept program. I figure it’s Norm (No Profiling) Minetta who has decreed that we MUST intercept at random.
So the Feds are listening in as we talk to my daughter in Australia:
How are you doing in school? I’m fine we went to Brisbane with (roommate’s name redacted.) It was cool, we rented a car and I drove on these roundabouts.
Rebecca, I don’t think your NY license is valid in Australia.
That’s OK mom, (name redacted) rented the car, I’m not old enough.
Conversation goes downhill from here.
Or my daughter in Germany:
Hi Natalie, how are you doing?
Oh, I’m fine. They keep us busy with things to do while Mark is in Iraq.
We want to come ver and see you this summer.
That’d be great.
We sent some DVDs and Japanese food.
Great.
Love you.
Love you.
Or my wife’s sister in Japan:
Neesan, atashi. Emiko yo.
Genki?
Nnn Genki.
Ano nee… (at this point, conversation shifts into hyperdrive, where no gaijin has a chance of catching one word out of ten. Sorry NSA.)
I’m really worried.
FWIW, I was thinking the same thing: in print, this looks as if it’s possibly a dirty bomb. Unforgivable, because if the reporter had enough information to write the article in the first place, he had enough information to make it crystal clear what he was talking about.
Unless of course he had no idea what he was talking about… Still, hardly anyone says “radioisotope” when what they really mean is uranium or plutonium for use in a fission bomb. IMO, anyway. Just saying: this looks really odd, that it’s written this way.
Anyway, it ought to be intuitively obvious to the casual observer that dirty bombs and fission bombs are entirely different beasties in terms of casualties, property damage, etc.
Hmmm.
Actually Jesus, Mary and Joseph were citizens of the Israel. The Roman Empire was exactly that, an empire. The Empire not only consisted of lands directly controlled by the Empire but also those territories that were nominally ruled by local rulers through which the Romans preferred to rule.
I.e. a Roman citizen was a citizen of the entire Roman Empire and had the right to live in Rome. A citizen of Israel, which describes Jesus, had the right to live in Judea but did not have the legal standing to live in Rome or obtain the daily bread ration that was reserved for Romans only, in Rome.
So it is correct to state that Jesus wasn’t a Roman but it is completely false to assert that Jesus was an illegal alien when his citzenship and residential status was obtained through the Israel which was a vassal client state of the Roman Empire.
Really Njorl? So an area being sprayed with Cesium-137 , Strontium-90, or Iodium-131 is of no concern then?
Re that drinking game, they don’t really get humor, do they? To poke fun at someone, at least successfully, you have to actually be funnier or wittier or smarter than the object of your jest. Otherwise, it’s just sad.
A radiological bomb is more dangerous than a conventional bomb just as a lion with a knife is more dangerous than a lion – insignificantly. The only additional harm is from panic. Those who continually wet themselves about the idea aggravate any eventual use of a radiological bomb. By hyping the fear, you aid the terrorists.
It is also a stupid thing to do on the part of the terrorists. To get even the noticeable amount of contamination you need to cause panic, you need lethal doses at the detonation point. Just to assemble the thing, you need protective gear. Obtaining the material and obtaining the protective gear are both more risky than obtaining the mundane items necessary to build a conventional bomb. The risks incurred are out of all proportion to the additional harm (if any) the bomb might cause. By indulging in the unwarranted risk of building one dirty bomb, they are likely foregoing the opportunity to build many conventional bombs.
Assuming that terrorists are willing to aquire the radioactive material and the gear to handle it, why would they waste it in a bomb? A bomb scatters it indiscriminately and ineffectively. A bomb is an announcement that terrorist activity has occurred – ensuring radiation testing and clean up will happen. Surely there is something nastier they could do with it.
Of course, there are terrorists who are idiots who might try it, but it requires almost a magical combination of ability and stupidity to pull it off. To get an idea of what kind of geniuses want to try this just look at Jose Padilla. He was going to use uranium as his radiological material. It poses very minimal danger due to its radioactivity. It is actually more toxic as a heavy metal – though not as dangerous as lead.
However, if I recall correctly, they fled Israel when Herod decreed the death of all male children under 3. I doubt they did so legally.
So whatever you bedwetters do, don’t PANIC. Lie in the street, and sunbathe in radiation, because a little radiation never hurt no one.
Because we have absolute reams of data on the sense of self-preservation of Islamic terrorists.
Oh, say, shutting down Manhattan for six months while they scrub the buildings, that sort of thing, maybe? If radon was/is a scare factor costing billions, what is uranium?
Oh, and since you brought all of this up, what do you think of the Department of Homeland Security’s advice to use duct tape around windows and doors and remain inside?
TW: Ralph the Mouth; because someone here is talking out of both sides of theirs.
I am sure that you would concede that a lion who wishes to kill you is in fact dangerous.
As far as I can tell, there is no panic or even a hint of panic in the post.
First, those who deny the danger of terrorism actually increase the danger. It’s not bedwetting to point out that those who wish to kill the innocent have not changed their mind. So, what exactly are you hoping to accomplish with your playing down these threats as unreasonable.
While I reject with heat and scorn the “scary-sounding-boogeymen” stuff that follows it, Njorl’s essential point, that radiological weapons’ principal effectiveness is spreading fear and panic, and that more people would die through panicked stampedes than from the bomb itself, is accurate. Sucks indeed if you yourself get “sprayed” with Sr-90, I-131 or Ba-137, but compared to the “nuclear bomb” referred to by the article: Ain’t the same ballpark, ain’t the same league, ain’t even the same fuckin’ sport.
I don’t have to be a lefty insisting, “Nothing to see here” to be annoyed by a news story that doesn’t seem to know the difference between a bomb that would kill dozens and shut down a city, and one that would make a large sector of the same city simply cease to exist.
On the other hand, I’m enjoying the whole “right-wingers-panicking-over-a-li’l-ol’-dirty-bomb” meme that will no doubt keep cropping up. Because the folks who think this is a devastating put-down are generally of the same political persuasion as those who agitate against food irradiation, convinced that it turns food radioactive, and who put out the ad, “The Department of Energy has a new solution to the problem of nuclear waste. They want to put it IN YOUR FOOD!”
“So, what exactly are you hoping to accomplish with your playing down these threats as unreasonable. “
That we concentrate on threats that are more reasonable.
Such as?
I googled the story, and it appears that some of the news agencies are not even using the radio-isotope quote. CNN for example makes no mention of this quote.
I do believe that al Quada would use a nuke against a western nation. Although to be honest, I have no solid evidence to prove this assertation. Only the story that they requested a fatwa for permission to do so.
Such as BushHitler’s hijacking of American democracy for his fascist oil-rich Illuminati Skull club.
TW: Duh!
Bushitler listening in on overseas terrorist phone calls.
Because, you know, that is really bad….
Ooooh, within a minute of each other.
Cue the Twilight Zone music.
That would not be me. I’ve defended the use of nuclear power on environmental grounds and the use of depleted uranium ammunition on humanitarian grounds. There is too much emotionalism in decision making. Certain buzzwords resonate with the masses out of all proportion to reality. People who resort to sensationalism in whipping up anti-terrorist sentiment make the terrorists more effective. Remember, the terrorist’s aim is not to kill or destroy, but to cause fear. Those who overdo the threat from terrorism are just as self-defeating as the environmentalists who wrecked the smogless, CO2-free nuclear power industry.
Yeah, because dirty bombs are a little unreasonable, aren’t they?
Heh, seems to have worked wonders in the MSM, hasn’t is?
Anyway, while I appreciate the terrorism 101, this isn’t the MSM. I’ve seen the MSM and Njorl, this is no MSM.
Among the reasonable, I see a hell of a lot less fear than I do killing and destroying. You?
Safeguarding urban chemical plants and trains that carry toxic chemicals though highly populated areas. (Google Bhopal if you’re a youngster)
Safeguarding choke-points for major sources of fresh water supplied to areas with inadequate local supply.
Safeguarding the integrity of electronic record keeping. If you think this is putting money over lives, just image the carnage and rioting that would ensue if significant numbers of people had their entire savings eliminated.
Most of all, making real efforts to keep real atomic bombs out of the hands of terrorists.
When you get right down to it, no act of terrorism short of that last one would result in as much death and destruction as we inflict on ourselves every year with our own ordinary crime. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to prevent them, but we should do so rationally, not emotionally.