World of crafty terror?

So the fed is starting to worry about terrorists discussing their evil schemes ... over world of warcraft?
Well, terrorists or other criminals could hypothetically use these games chat channels, coupled with some code-language to discuss the detail of their crimes. I mean, it would be perfectly possible to set up a drug deal over WoW (drugs are the anti-WoW after all), I suppose one could be talking worse as well.

I just feel like people are digging deep here, and I hope they've got better avenues than this one to pursue ...

• some day soon, we might find secret agents in World of Warcraft, along with the druids and orcs and night elves.

Hm, 60's era LSD ring infiltration all over again eh?

What's "mota policia" in Chinese?

Bringing shame to all mexican gangsters armed with what amounts to an overowered .22, Chinese terrorists from the Xinjian province managed to kill 19 policemen before being captured.
(ABC,CNN)

Their weapons?

1. Heavy trucks
2. homemade explosives
3. knives

Heavy trucks as seen in Israel in recent history, homemade explosives available to all with the inclination of learning how to make them, and knives which are supposed to be the scorn of England.

Nineteen fatalities, that's considerably "better" than the average school shooter stateside, and the dead were trained policemen, not high school/collge kids who are constantly drunk or on drugs (according to those who whish them banned from CCW).

Bombing plot foiled.

On this side of the pond, a man was convicted to seven years in prison for activities relating to a terrorist plot:

• A jury was told that the physics graduate, who had also studied chemistry, attempted to make bombs using nitrocellulose, fertiliser, white spirit and acetone, and had made handwritten notes stipulating the design of the devices.

What? I don't know which fertillizer exactly, but Nitrocellulose and (I can only guess) ammonium nitrate are far from practical explosives by themselves, and getting the resources to detonate ammonium nitrate plasticised with nitrocellulose (which is what the acetone is for) is no simple feat!

So I read on:

• "It's true that the materials you in fact had were so inferior, so third rate, that they would not themselves have made a viable bomb.

  "But the fault was with the quality of materials and not in the concept.

  "If you had developed this concept into a working bomb, there would have been great potential for destruction, injury and death."

Not so conforting after all ...

Potential for a massacre?

I just read this story of how vandals opened up and apparently contaminated a reservoir for drinking water. Above than normal levels of mercury were discovered.
This struck me, because this is a type of attack that could really hurt a large amount of people: attacking one of our basic requirements for life and survival.

Mercury isn't really that much an issue really, barring somebody getting a large amount of mercuric chloride, we shouldn't be seeing may fatalities resulting from an attack on our water supply with mercury.

But there are other dangerous chemicals, and better targets to attack with them.
Cyanide salts can be bought with little problem, somebody was found in posession of ricin not long ago, ... the weapons are out there!
I'm sure you can imagine a myriad of "targets" for a criminal who seeks to poison a large amount of people, I think I best not share my personal ideas ... wouldn't want to give anybody any ideas.

Seriously, once criminals get wise, guns will be the least of our worries.

Two cops held the men down, while others kicked him

Police officers caught up with a car, to do a traffic stop.

• A half-dozen police officers kicked and beat three men pulled from a car during a traffic stop as a TV helicopter taped the confrontation.
• The tape shows about a dozen officers gathering around the vehicle. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground. Both are kicked repeatedly, while one is seen being punched; one also appears to be struck with a baton.

Wir sind von das Gesetz, wir möchten dir nur hilfen. Stehe ruhich und befürchten sie nicht.

And they wonder why people shoot them ...

Times square bombing

New York was shook by a bombing on Times square, probably targetted at a recuitment office for one of the branches of the military.

I've said this before and I'll say this again: the internet is riddeled with infomation on producing explosives, some of which is accurate.

It is impossible to eliminate every single way for people to harm one another, it is vital that we try to instill some kindness into humanity. It is not so much "how" someone wreaks havoc, much more "why". School shooters don't commit their atrocities "because they can", they are ill, filled with hate or just trying to go down in a blaze of glory.

It's those first two that are the greatest threat, because they will go to any ends to do their damage.
Or for Awalk: I've long realized that removing guns from society (or just NYC) will make society safe.

Closing the castor bean loophole.

Ricin was recently discovered in a Las Vegas hotelroom.
Ricin, one of the deadliest poisons known to men, half a miligram of which can be deadly.
It would appear that somebody in a vegas hotelroom was extracting ricin from castor beans, I don't suppose he had any good intentions.


What struck me was this last bit:

• "ricin is not illegal to own, but is illegal if processed to be used for poisoning someone."

So ... how long untill the Brady bunch gets their tighty whities in a bunch over this? Their terror loophole speeches are full of "terrorists can get explosives" even though that requires a great deal of background checks in real life, when will they be speaking out against the publics right to own castor beans?

Clearly, these beans are a threat to the general public, a madman might poison a cafeteria or resteaurant, killing dozens! Why aren't they calling for background checks and waiting periods for buying these killer beans?

Maybe that would just be insane, after all: millions of Castor beans pass hands on a daily basis, and never end up killing anybody. It would be madness to come down hard on this food. Guns however, with a 1-in-23000 abuse rate for homicide, maintain their position as fair game for politicians who want to act like they are keeping people safe.

120 Nuclear smuggling operations busted

The nuclear material involved (including radioactive polonium) is said to be suited for dirty bombs.
In total, over 700 (!) cases of illegal importation were detected! That's what I call a "terror gap"

Where are the terrorist guns?

Today was a good day for counter terrorism.

Roughly a pound of better-than-weapons-grade uranium was seized by Slovakian police, who suspect it was going to end up in terrorist hands (Telegraph, Fox) Even though the uranium would have been "good" enough to manufacture a nuclear bomb (I'm not sure if was enough, mind that there's no such thing as a small nuclear weapon), the long half life of uranium 235 would have also made it prime material for a so called "dirty" bomb.

Another success was the uprooting of a liberty city based terror cell who planned to commit a 9-11 style terrorist attack. The Miami herald reports of how the group of seven was infiltrated by the FBI. That's what I call great work from the feds, which will hopefully mae the US a safer nation.

What I miss in both of these stories; where are all the guns? The Brady campaign has many convinced that the US legislation concerning firearms would be a major pull for terrorists, but where are they? Eastern Europe is riddled with small arms, where are the big busts of terrorists attempting to buy those guns? If a homegrown terror cell was willing to commit to staging a 9-11 imitation, surely there must exist such cells who intend to gun down people in ways only the violence policy center can imagine?

Next time somebody brings up the entire "terror guns" hoax, bring this up, please, bring him/her up.

Bradies Vs Terrorism, scarecrows on an empty field.

Terrorism is a felony,
Felons can't buy firearms,
ergo, convicted terrorists cannot legally buy firearms.
Remember that when you read this page by the Brady campaign.


Now, I am a strong proponent of war on terror, both on an economical and a tactical level. Make no mistake, I fondly believe terrorism is something that needs to e dealt with decisively, to protect our freedoms and our way of life.

But calling out to remove those exact freedoms from people because we "suspect" they might be part of a potentially terrorist organization? Defeating the purpose in my opinion.
Suspected terrorist can be tried on conspiracy charges, the patriot act allows for serious options on gathering evidence; if somebody has ties to a Pakistani terror cell or handles large sums of suspicious money, "they" will find out! No terrorist, real or suspected, will be able to walk into Joes gunstore and arm up without his file landing under sevral federal microscopes.

Stop trying to scare people with imaginary terrorists, that's our (Rep.) job!

And about those explosives the Bradies put on their site ... what? What about them, you put such a big scary word on there and then you don't talk about it? Have you got any idea what you need to go through to get a license to manufacture/store/buy/use/transport explosive substances? Yes, those are all separate licenses, all expiring, and you can bet the farm that application records will never be fully discarded.
And let me tell you, legislation doesn't eliminate the illegal manufacture of explosives of any order. I'm a chemist myself with a keen interest in what's referred to as high energy chemistry.

I've seen accurate descriptions on the internet explaining in great detail how to make both low explosive propellant and burst charges, high explosive primaries, boosters, main charges, shaped charges (as found in armor piercing ordinance) and tons of exotic compositions, all available to your average citizen, all available to an aspiring terrorist.
Yes they're accurate, I check these things with certified literature, yes, that information is out there and poses a real source of information for terrorists, even though a lot of their recent attempts have been "half-assed" to use a popular expression

So what? You're hoping that some more legislation will deter these people, who often intend to die themselves in their attack, from building and using explosives? When is the last time a squad of terrorist gunmen have walked down main street gunning down innocent civilians?

Give it up, because reason never will.