Water bottle bomb?

[Herr Magoo]

A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated Thursday after a female passenger's water bottle twice tested positive for explosives, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said.

I'm ready for this to turn out to be a false positive.  I'm also prepared for this to turn out to NOT be a false positive.

[skdadl]

West Virginia,
Mountain mama,
Take me hooooome,
Country roads.  

:)

[Herr Magoo]

Hehe.  2006:  the year ground travel became cool again.

[skdadl]

:D

I'm really thinking false positive -- either that or total wingnut. You know that yesterday two fighter jets were sent up to "escort" into Boston a planeload of people headed from London to Washington? And why? A woman on board had had ... a panic attack. She may also have had some banned substances on her person -- ie, matches and/or Vaseline.

Think about how dangerous that overreaction could have been. The people on that plane are the only people who have been in real danger from this story from the time it started -- and they weren't in danger from the lady with the panic attack.

[Boom Boom]

Our neighbours to the south have become the Hysterical States of America. :roll:

[k'in]

There were a few of these stories this week.  One I heard quite a bit about was the young American-Palestinian men who were buying cell phones & Walmart for $ 20 & reselling them for close to $ 40 (duh!). If you google the story over the course of the week, at one point they were trying to tie them to the U.K. arrests.  There was another !! story about 11 Egyptian students who were late to report to Montanta State University (they have all shown up but for a few days it was "terrorists on the loose"). :roll:  

Meanwhile, The Associated Press reports the local prosecutor in Caro, Mich. reluctantly dropped terrorism charges against three Palestinian-Americans from Texas. Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark E. Reene had filed the charges against the men after they had bought dozens of cell phones at a Wal-Mart in Caro last Friday.

Here's a link:  http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0817/dailyUpdate.html

[sparqui]

This latest terrorist threat seems to have as much validity as snakes on the plane  :D

An interesting piece:

Published on Friday, August 18, 2006 by the Guardian / UK  

The Timing is Political
 We should be sceptical about this alleged plot, and wary of politicians who seek to benefit

by Craig Murray

Nine days on, nobody has been charged with any crime. For there to be no clear evidence yet on something that was "imminent" and would bring "mass murder on an unbelievable scale" is, to say the least, peculiar. A 24th person, arrested amid much fanfare on Tuesday, was quietly released without charge the following day.

Media analysis has been full of information from police and security sources. By and large journalists are honourable in this kind of reporting. Their sources, unfortunately, are not - viz the non-existent ricin, the Forest Gate "chemical weapons vest", or Jean Charles de Menezes leaping the barriers. Unlike the herd of security experts, I have had the highest security clearance; I have done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis; and I have been inside the spin machine. And I am very sceptical about the story that has been spun.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not have passports. It could be pretty difficult to convince a jury that these individuals were about to go through with suicide bombings, whatever they bragged about on the net.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for more than a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information from people desperate to stop or avert torture. What you don't get is the truth.

We also have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing arrests the weekend before they were made. Why? Both in domestic trouble, they longed for a chance to change the story. The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a chance. Comparisons with 9/11 were all over front pages.

And we have the appalling political propaganda of John Reid, the home secretary, warning us all in advance of the evil that threatens us and complaining that some people "don't get" why we have to abandon traditional liberties.

We will now never know if any of those arrested would have gone on to make a bomb or buy a plane ticket. Most do not fit the "loner" profile you would expect. As they were all under surveillance, and on airport watch lists, there could have been little danger in letting them proceed closer to maturity: that is what we would have done with the IRA.

In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. More than 1,000 British Muslims have been arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, but only 12% have been charged. That is harassment on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% were acquitted. Most of the few convictions - just over 2% of arrests - are nothing to do with terrorism, but some minor offence the police happened upon while trawling through the lives they have wrecked...

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0818-29.htm

Makes me wonder what ever happened to the Mississauga 17?

['lance]

:D

I'm really thinking false positive -- either that or total wingnut.

A colleague told me yesterday that airport tests of his laptop computer have turned up three false positives over the years.

Only they weren't exactly false positives... When this happens, security people naturally confiscate your boarding pass, frog-march you over to a locked room, and ask you a lot of questions from a list. The last question is "have you had any recent contact with anyone who uses this-or-that heart medication?"

His answer each time has been "yes." His mother has a heart condition, and has a quick-acting spray which contains... yes, nitroglycerin. It transfers readily to her clothes, and if he then gives her a hug, and later uses his laptop... the rest you know. Weird, but true.

[k'in]

sparqui wrote:

Makes me wonder what ever happened to the Mississauga 17?

-- So far, four of the 18 men charged have been granted bail.

from a cbc article http://tinyurl.com/qbq9b

[fern hill]

Wow, 'lance, that's good to know about the nitroglycerin. sweetie has one of those spray thingies. I don't think he's used it, but he carries it around.

['lance]

[drift]

Some questions of similar type to who-was-the- first-to-make-beer- or-eat-lobster- and-what-made-them-think-of-it:

Who first wondered if nitroglycerin might make a good treatment for angina (or whatever condition it is)? And just how did they research it, anyhow?

I'm guessing that the answer to the second question is "carefully."

[/drift]

[fern hill]

A short history of nitroglycerine and nitric oxide in pharmacology and physiology.
Marsh N, Marsh A.
School of Life Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. n.marsh@qut.edu.au
1. Nitroglycerine (NG) was discovered in 1847 by Ascanio Sobrero in Turin, following work with Theophile-Jules Pelouze. Sobrero first noted the 'violent headache' produced by minute quantities of NG on the tongue. 2. Constantin Hering, in 1849, tested NG in healthy volunteers, observing that headache was caused with 'such precision'. Hering pursued NG ('glonoine') as a homeopathic remedy for headache, believing that its use fell within the doctrine of 'like cures like'. 3. Alfred Nobel joined Pelouze in 1851 and recognized the potential of NG. He began manufacturing NG in Sweden, overcoming handling problems with his patent detonator. Nobel suffered acutely from angina and was later to refuse NG as a treatment. 4. During the mid-19th century, scientists in Britain took an interest in the newly discovered amyl nitrite, recognized as a powerful vasodilator. Lauder Brunton, the father of modern pharmacology, used the compound to relieve angina in 1867, noting the pharmacological resistance to repeated doses. 5. William Murrell first used NG for angina in 1876, although NG entered the British Pharmacopoeia as a remedy for hypertension. William Martindale, the pharmaceutical chemist, prepared '...a more stable and portable preparation': 1/100th of a grain in chocolate. 6. In the early 20th century, scientists worked on in vitro actions of nitrate-containing compounds although little progress was made towards understanding the cellular mode of action. 7. The NG industry flourished from 1900, exposing workers to high levels of organic nitrites; the phenomena of nitrate tolerance was recognized by the onset of 'Monday disease' and of nitrate-withdrawal/overcompensation by 'Sunday Heart Attacks'. 8. Ferid Murad discovered the release of nitric oxide (NO) from NG and its action on vascular smooth muscle (in 1977). Robert Furchgott and John Zawadski recognized the importance of the endothelium in acetylcholine-induced vasorelaxation (in 1980) and Louis Ignarro and Salvador Moncada identified endothelial-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) as NO (in 1987). 9. Glycerol trinitrate remains the treatment of choice for relieving angina; other organic esters and inorganic nitrates are also used, but the rapid action of NG and its established efficacy make it the mainstay of angina pectoris relief.

from here:http://tinyurl.com/qun5v

['lance]

Now I don't know what I was thinking. Of course the answer was just a simple search away. Thanks, fern.

Of course, I'm going to keep on drifting threads. (Can I use "drift" as a transitive verb? What say you, skdadl?). Mwahaha.

[fern hill]

Your question made me curious. And besides, Debra, The Head Drifter, is back.

['lance]

Ah-ha! So your efforts to Impose Order, and Confine Drift to Certain Specified Threads, are all in vain, hey?

Well, serves you right for trying to become BnR Kommissar. Hmmph. (Or should that be "hmmph, tovarich"?)