Sciencemadness Discussion Board - FBI defends against 'kitchen sink bombs'

FBI defends against 'kitchen sink bombs'

chemoleo - 18-2-2007 at 18:32

From
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070218/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/kitche...
NOt too far in the future, I can see almost any of these things being banned. And then people will make NaClO3-based devices. So when is salt off our kitchen tables?

FBI defends against 'kitchen sink bombs'

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press WriterSun Feb 18, 1:18 PM ET

Kirk Yeager makes bombs from the stuff found under kitchen sinks. He does it to help the FBI defend against what officials say is the next frontier for terrorists in the United States.

Ten years ago, peroxide-based bombs were mostly the work of young pranksters. But the easy-to-make yet deadly chemical cocktails were embraced in the late 1990s by Palestinian militants and suicide bombers bent on killing large groups of people.

Now, Yeager says, the "Mother of Satan" explosives are considered the most likely weapon that terrorists will use against the U.S., more so than a nuclear or radiological "dirty" bomb.

"Every serious terrorist group knows about them and knows how to make them," Yeager said. The forensic scientist heads the explosives unit at the FBI's laboratory in Quantico, Va., about 35 miles south of Washington.

"Bad guys are bombers. You don't have to have the level of sophistication to make a bomb that you need to get nuclear materials," Yeager said.

The bombs are made by mixing chemicals that are used in common household items, including hydrogen peroxide and paint thinner, and easily found at drug stores or hardware stores. Experts know them as TATP, short for triacetone triperoxide, and HMTD, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine.

Recent cases of explosions or thwarted attacks with TATP or HMTD in the U.S. include:

_Millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam. He was carrying HMTD among the 124 pounds of explosives in the trunk of his car when he was arrested near the U.S.-Canadian border in December 1999.

_Richard Reid. The would-be British shoe bomber tried unsuccessfully to detonate 8 ounces of TATP hidden in his high-top sneaker during a Paris-to-Miami flight in 2001.

_University of Oklahoma suicide bomber Joel Henry Hinrichs III. He used TATP to blow himself up near a packed football stadium in October 2005.

_College student Matthew Rugo in Texas City, Texas. He was killed last July when a plastic storage container of TATP that was mixed in his apartment exploded. The FBI has not found any connection in the case to international terrorist groups, but the investigation continues.

Additionally, counterterrorist authorities say terrorists planned to mix a solution similar to TATP in last summer's thwarted attacks on as many as 10 London-to-U.S. flights — leading to the crackdown on bringing liquids aboard airlines.

Also, ecoterrorists and animal rights extremist groups such as Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front are believed by authorities to use peroxide-based explosives.

Yeager, 41, who helps the FBI solve bombing cases by investigating the crime scene debris, is the only U.S. official who makes TATP and similar explosives in mass quantities.

His interest in bomb-making began at Cornell University, where he earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry. He honed his skills at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, one of the nation's top centers for explosives research and testing.

Yeager's brews are used for testing and training police officers and bomb-sniffing dogs. Until recently, authorities knew little about peroxide-based bombs because they are too volatile to handle casually. Moreover, TATP in particular is hard for dogs to detect.

Over the past year, the FBI and Transportation Security Administration have trained dog teams to sniff out the chemical cocktails at 75 airports and on subway, train and bus systems in 13 cities. The government pays up to $50,000 to train each of the 420 teams currently in action.

"It's a threat that's not here right now, but we see it coming," said Dave Kontny, director of TSA's national explosives detection canine teams. "So we're better off to have these teams."

John Rollins, a counterterrorism expert at Congressional Research Service and former U.S. intelligence official, said TATP and other varieties of peroxide-based bombs are most likely to show up in the hands of homegrown extremists and other splinter sympathizers of international terrorist groups.

The larger and centrally organized groups, such as al-Qaida, are more interested in "big bang" weapons that he said would cause widespread deaths and economic losses.

But aspiring terrorists, Rollins said, "would lean toward this because it's so readily available, it's so hard to detect."

"It certainly would be enough of a bang to draw attention to their cause, and shake the foundations in the short term of society's belief that the government can protect the United States," Rollins said.

Rosco Bodine - 18-2-2007 at 19:09

WTF exactly is an "aspiring terrorist" ?
Stop muslim immigration , and 99.99% of the potential
" aspiring terrorists " can do their aspiring somewhere else .

And WTF makes law enforcement believe that any
fully matured serious terrorist wouldn't be using something much worse than some peroxide based kiddie bomber concoction ?

This seems to be the same sort of " dangerous substances " consumer product police crap which
occupies agents time to make them think they are doing something , when they haven't got the balls to earn their
pay by rounding up illegals and subversives who would certainly just steal a truckload of commercial or military explosives instead of concocting the small stuff a bit at a time .

This is like the myth of " gun control " which only inconveniences law abiding citizens ....since criminals
don't obtain their guns legally nor would they care about
legal restrictions in the first place . People intent on doing murder will find a way around every countermeasure .

Ozone - 18-2-2007 at 19:27

Absolutely absurd, as usual. Hmm, Yeager has a great job (I'm drooling).

I suppose the K3wls are now officially "experts".

Sadly, another blow to the amateur practitioner, not so sadly, the announcement of a nice research post.

Try to keep going,

O3

I suppose an aspiring terrorist would be classified as anyone found with TATP or the like (and/or, scarily, the reagents needed for its preparation--this is especially laughable as Large cross section of the population are now officially, unwitting aspiring terrorists). Bah.

I agree that unrestricted borders are a serious threat to national security (If the Mexicans can come on over, so can anyone else that makes it in to Mexico) and that the people need to grow some balls, unify and send a bulk reminder (protests, letters, email, press release, etc.) to their government to remind them that English is our national language.

[Edited on 19-2-2007 by Ozone]

Polverone - 18-2-2007 at 19:50

I dislike the "nanny state" as much as anyone, but it seems hasty to suggest that this is a prelude to a chemical crackdown. After all, bomb squads have had to deal with pipe bombs made with black or smokeless powder or pyrodex for many years, and none of those are yet outlawed. It's been known for decades that you can make inexpensive, effective blasting agents from ammonium nitrate, but I still have no difficulty buying it.

In the mid 1990s I had bomb squad members remove a small quantity of TATP from the backyard shed that I did my experimentation in, after a careless friend blew his hand off with some. They had apparently never heard of it before, and were puzzled by my description of its creation.

"What's the hydrochloric acid for?" I was asked.
"It's a catalyst," I said.
"What, to make it burn faster?"

I have no objection at all to making the relevant authorities more aware of peroxide based explosives. I'm astounded that it has taken so long for the government to catch on to the high explosive that is easily the most accessible to people with little prior experience or resources. I'm doubly astounded that dogs have a hard time detecting it; it's quite volatile, as explosives go, and even my lousy human sense of smell easily detects it.

It is a bit funny that they were only able to come up with 4 incidents illustrating the threat posed by these explosives, of which half were accident/suicide that only killed the explosives-maker himself and the other half were malicious but failed to hurt anybody.

America doesn't face much, if any, threat from disgruntled Muslim immigrants. Since there's an ocean between the US and predominantly Muslim nations, the Muslims who can make it here tend to be relatively wealthy, educated, and secular. Guns, gasoline, and improvised explosives are easily accessible in the US. If there were any significant number of people living in the US who were willing to die to hurt it, we'd be seeing nightly reports of slaughter. The extreme paucity of homegrown attacks suggests that the will to terrorize is in very short supply among people who live here, since the means and opportunity are all around.

chemoleo - 18-2-2007 at 20:39

I agree, the opportunity is all around, but yet there is a scarcity of such attacks.
It seems to me that the law enforcement agencies seek out any possible avenue to justify their own cause. It is easy to ban chemicals, hell yeah, it makes sense to almost everyone but the chemically-inclined, and it's easy to put that down as one of your credentials. You'd probably get promoted by discovering a link/claiming a link! Why? Because bans are always something easy to achieve, for the safety of the population. And it looks grand, eh?
Yet, it actually doesn't root out the cause.
Like Mr Blair and Bush insist that 'terrorists hate our freedom' - easy to say, difficult to disprove. The root isn't that they hate our freedom (what a ridiculous concept to most except a few fanatics) but that they resist Western imperialism! And who can blame them, given that they sit at the forefront of it, at Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and so on?
Now I am not trying to excuse their misdeeds. But fact remains - the West dominates their lives more than any other force. Who can blame them that they'd want to fight this?

roamingnome - 18-2-2007 at 20:56

Quote:

but that they resist Western imperialism! And who can blame them, given that they sit at the forefront of it, at Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and so on?

may be a bit off topic but add to that list Nigeria

America is happy to acquire its light sweet crude from the corrupt government, leaving many super poor willing to "steal" oil in a bloody plastic bag to cook food..... then burning alive in a sparked fire....

but yet we should squash rebel resistance... give me a break.

Rosco Bodine - 18-2-2007 at 21:04

"Western" Imperialism ????

Gimme a break .

You do have sense of humor .

You think that the opression under which people live

VOLUNTARILY .....themselves calling it gods will ,

is a result of some western imperialism ???

You can't be serious . Those people have adopted
their own enslavement as a requirement of their
religion which defines their culture as primitive .
They embrace their own oppression and wear it
as a badge of superiority in their own idea of freedom ,
as being pure and godly and righteous in their
self-discipline .....their " habit " if you will ,

contrasted of course with those sinful and ungodly
societies of the west whose more liberal *truer* freedom
is condemned as being filthy permissiveness

Sauron - 18-2-2007 at 21:30

@Rosco, you are correct, BUT, political rants (left or right or center) don't belong on this forum, unless someone wants to add them to Whimsy.

That being said:

Western imperialism, who are you kidding?

The US and NATO are in Afghanistan not as imperialists but liberators, the TALIBAN were the imperialists, not even Afghan but stooges of the Pakistani ISI who wanted to control the regional opium trade.

The US and allies went into Iraq to rid the world of Saddam's be;;icose tyranny and they have done so.

Iran is a thoroughly corrupt theocracy bent on acquiring WMDs not for its defense but so it can according to the statemnents of its own bigmouthed leader, destroy Israel.

Its shiite proxies in Lebanon and Palestine do nothing but make trouble at their behest.

Who are the imperialists?

Get your head out of your ass.

pantone159 - 18-2-2007 at 21:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Sauron
political rants (left or right or center) don't belong on this forum, unless someone wants to add them to Whimsy.

Sauron - 18-2-2007 at 22:05

The sooner the better. I don't waste my time in Whimsy and have no PW for it (by choice) so moving this there will lower my blood pressure. Western imperialism!

Levi - 18-2-2007 at 23:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Polverone
It's been known for decades that you can make inexpensive, effective blasting agents from ammonium nitrate, but I still have no difficulty buying it.

[ . . . ]

"What's the hydrochloric acid for?" I was asked.
"It's a catalyst," I said.
"What, to make it burn faster?"

Lol. Sad.

Also, the only reason AN isn't illegal is because it's such a damn fine fertilizer. If it didn't contribute its weight in gold to our economy every year it would have been banned years ago. As it is today I'm sure you won't find any without taggants in it.

Glad you mentioned gasoline, Polverone. I've been trying to get the stuff outlawed for twenty years. Terrorists buy it by the gallon every week in the US but nobody does anything to stop them. :mad:

Ozone - 19-2-2007 at 00:21

Which is the same reason they cannot outlaw the TATP precursors, I mean what would we do without HCl, NaOCl or acetone?

What could happen though, are searches that turn up these chemicals-- And then, the resulting defamation and months of bureaucratic hell. This could happen to someone who never even considered this sort of application. If Polverone's take is correct (and I believe that it is) then I doubt that the official could differentiate between a terrorist or a k3wl or some random Jones with a pool, 10 cats and a fiberglass boat

.

I have to agree that the HCl schtick is pretty funny

.

Funny, but scary,

O3

I would be rather difficult to commit an act of terrorism with biodiesel, wouldn't it

.

[Edited on 19-2-2007 by Ozone]

not_important - 19-2-2007 at 02:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Levi
...
Glad you mentioned gasoline, Polverone. I've been trying to get the stuff outlawed for twenty years. Terrorists buy it by the gallon every week in the US but nobody does anything to stop them. :mad:

Not to mention what a terrorist could do with a tanker during peak traffic times, by staging something like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldecott_Tunnel_fire

Keep pressing your case, American will not be safe from terrorists until gasoline is totally banned from the country!

Sauron - 19-2-2007 at 02:59

Not really OT, what is going on with the Muslim gentlemen, who were foolish enough to accept a controlled delivery of 3 tons of AN?

After an initial big media splash there has been little in the press or on TV.

Anyone have an update?

kiknet - 19-2-2007 at 04:42

While people accept these restrictions because there willing to sacrifice some liberties to be safe from terrorist obtaining these materials it just means that the "terrorists" will find new ways to harm people and unfortuanetly we the minority group carry the brunt of these restrctions when we are not harming anyone.

For example here in Aus Ammonium Nitrate was being pushed for a ban, of course being the huge farming country we are people laughed this off, unfortuanetly they come up with something just as worse and now you have to have to wait 3 months for a security clearance to buy AN and the only way you can get this clearance is if its essential to your farming practice. However every couple of days I see huge trucks carrying around 20 - 60 tons of pure AN driving around surburbia areas and when I was in a country gas station 3 of these trucks pulled up side by side each other and the drivers got out and went into the shop accross the road. It has been proven that it is easy to steal because a few months ago 400kg's was stolen from a train.

Sauron - 19-2-2007 at 12:34

Politicians (all legislators are such) like to appear to be doing something effective even when they know they are not,

The main sources of illicit explosives are theft and diversion of industrial and military explosives, followed rather distantly by agro fertilizers like AN and KClO4.

The Bali bombing was done with KClO4 stolen from farmers who use it to increase the yield of various fruit. In Thailand we had a huge blast (accidental not terrorist) a few years ago up north when a few tons of KClO4 went up on a lamyai plantation. Significant loss of life (>100 IIRC). The tin mining industry uses vast amounts of commercial blasting agents in their quarrying ops and that is the primary weapon of the Muslim terrorists in the south (where the tin mines are anyway.) In this region TATP is not even on the radar. The recent spate of small IEDs in Bangkok were all AN.

Polverone - 19-2-2007 at 13:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Levi
Also, the only reason AN isn't illegal is because it's such a damn fine fertilizer. If it didn't contribute its weight in gold to our economy every year it would have been banned years ago. As it is today I'm sure you won't find any without taggants in it.

I'm not sure that is true. There are a lot of (potentially) dangerous things that really aren't that big, economically, that still aren't banned in the US. The last attempt at requiring taggants for ammonium nitrate in the US was in 2004, and it failed like previous attempts. If taggant proposals didn't fly in the wake of the OK City bombing, I'm not sure when they would be successful. Not that AN taggants would much matter for chemical hobbyists anyway.

I'm rather gloomy about long-term prospects for hobby chemists in the US, but I don't think that assuming the worst is any more realistic than assuming the best. There's too many nannying proposals that turn into law, but even more that make it no further than a proposal.

Quote:

The Bali bombing was done with KClO4 stolen from farmers who use it to increase the yield of various fruit. In Thailand we had a huge blast (accidental not terrorist) a few years ago up north when a few tons of KClO4 went up on a lamyai plantation.

That's surprising. I had never heard of an agricultural use for perchlorates and thought that the Bali bombing used KClO4 purchased on the open market from a chemical dealer. Do you have a link about the plantation explosion or the use of perchlorate in fruit production?

Rosco Bodine - 19-2-2007 at 14:11

The whole business of regulators and
tax collector ( license/permit sellers ) is way too intrusive
on peoples lives .....and is one prime motivation for
my interest in " off label " uses for what are at least still for the present time commonly available OTC articles of commerce .

The amount of regulation and licensing red tape ,
inspections and approvals for purchasing , storing , and using explosives for even strictly legitimate purposes is
oppressive . It's the whole ATF payola shakedown routine .....
Damn revenuers ! Hands off my jug-o-'shine too

And yet if you get far enough out in the
boonies ....all the formality seems to disappear if you
know *who* exactly to see to obtain a few cases of dynamite , det cord , detonators , fuse .....or anything else for which you are willing to pay cold cash in sufficient amount to avoid the inconvenience of paperwork , taxes , and red tape .

What any old country boy can seem to find easily enough
for a reasonable price , sure as hell wouldn't be any problem for a well financed terrorist .....unless of course
another old country boy smelled a city rat headed back to the city with that load ....which could come back being bad for business , and as a public service , Jeb just took the cash as if going along ....and then sent another foreigner city slicker off to see allah

How many mercedes have we got out back in the barn now Jeb ? Well I don't rightly know Slim ...I reckon that's now about two dozen

The hogs are getting fatter , must be the new feed is agreeing with them

.....
So they'll go to market just fine ....but what about all them damn cars ?

Quote:

Originally posted by Polverone
America doesn't face much, if any, threat from disgruntled Muslim immigrants. Since there's an ocean between the US and predominantly Muslim nations, the Muslims who can make it here tend to be relatively wealthy, educated, and secular.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2007021...

This isn't the first incident where a muslim behind the wheel
has deliberately run down college students .

It was a cabbie this time .....
the other earlier errant driver was a college graduate .

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1710

That mall shooting murder spree a few days ago in Salt Lake City was another little jihadi going off .

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2726

[Edited on 19-2-2007 by Rosco Bodine]

Sauron - 20-2-2007 at 05:16

@Polverone, it was K-chlorate in both cases.

The accidental explosion in Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai province Thailand involved tons of smuggled chlorate (almost certainly from China, possibly India) being used to increase the tonnage of lamyai, a lychee-like small sweet fruit.

The Thai government attempts to restrict the use of potassium chlorate for obvious reasons but the agro business wants its profits. In this incident mishandling or mis-mixing (probably with some sort of oxidizable substance) led to disaster. I will see if I can find a news article in the archives of The Nation or Bangkok Post newspapers online.

It was sometime in the 5-10 years ago timeframe.

I am sure I read that the Bali car bomb was hundreds of kilos of potassium chlorate stolen or diverted from a similar agro application in Indonesia, not purchased from chemical suppliers.

I know from personal experience from 15+ years ago that anyone inquiring about the purchase of even a 25 Kg sack of AN in Thailand will be directed to the Industry Ministry for a permit and if they don't have a legitimate use, none will be forthcoming. I wanted some to make my own blueing salts (to blue steel for gun parts) and didn't want to have to use pricey AR grade AN for that. (It takes AN and NaOH.) No go.

tito-o-mac - 6-7-2007 at 06:20

who cares? As if a terrorist would run into our house and plant a kitchen-sink bomb in every house in the United States

Kitchen Sink Bombs

Bromide - 7-7-2007 at 07:14

Quote:

Originally posted by tito-o-mac
who cares? As if a terrorist would run into our house and plant a kitchen-sink bomb in every house in the United States

Did you not read the article, or did you simply fail to comprehend it?

The 'kitchen sink bombs' discussed in the article have nothing to do with bombs being planted in homes (really, where did you get that conception?). Rather, the term refers to bombs made from substances commonly found under kitchen sinks.

quicksilver - 7-7-2007 at 07:31

The BOTTOM LINE with Islamic terror is forcing the spectacle of scantily clad young women on the fruit of Islam. We have GOT TO WISE UP! To look up the skirt of an American woman is horribly insulting and must be paid for WITH DEATH!

The nightmare of the "Hot Dog" as they call it, is an abomination; mixing pork with other meats! And must be paid for WITH DEATH!

The vicious folly of the "Sports Car" is violently insulting to the Ships of the Desert (camel) and must be paid for WITH DEATH!

It's all around us! Women talking openly, in the same room as the men! The illegality of pedophilia! The absence of the Chador on Hillary Clinton....Oh you could go on and on....but they are all Western afflictions and must be paid for WITH DEATH! If they stop the use of hair bleach & solvents they will accomplish nothing.

The ANSWER to this issue is to become more sensitive to the needs of those people who are simply misunderstood.

DerAlte - 7-7-2007 at 23:21

@ Sauron, re above: Sauron wrote:
...Rosco, you are correct, BUT, political rants (left or right or center) don't belong on this forum, unless someone wants to add them to Whimsy...

Can't agree with that. If politcal rants are not about societal issues I'll eat my hat. Otherwise, no beef with what you say. True, it occurs in this forum tangentially, but linked to the desire for freedom of experimentation. We are against the laws limiting freedom, and who does that involve? Our friends the politicians. Sometimes one is tempted to use the old Jewish adage, with such friends, who needs enemies?

However, rants should probably be restricted to this section alone. Those who don't like them but want science only can go elsewhere.

Pease keep in mind two self evident truths:
(1) Fifty per cent of the population is, by definition, below average intelligence.
(2) Blasphemy is only possible to a believer. No atheist can ever blaspheme - to him blasphemy is a meaningless statement.

@ Roscoe, quicksilver et al., I am with you 100% (well, 96.73%).

Regards, DerAlte

Rosco Bodine - 8-7-2007 at 06:46

@DerAlte

Sauron is our local minimod and PC enforcer come to put the kibosh on any non-technical content which might lead to a flamewar between the straights and the faggot neo-nazi or mohammedan elements , 9-11 truther moonbats or others whose comfort level is served best by censorship , since they can't be offended by truth which can't be stated or debated to their embarrassment . They wear out the "report" button on their screen instead of joining any frank discussion which they find threatening due to ideas and language suitable for adult audiences . So we must keep everything blandly seasoned to suit the palate of the most gentile of the PC'ers to keep them from mail bombing the inboxes of the moderators with whinings for intervention to "protect them" .

What is political correctness to any person depends
entirely on what is their own individual politics .

Maybe even science has its own flavor of PC called
scientific method .

And when making observations and drawing reasonable conclusions which seem supported by the facts , is a
scientist supposed to refrain from any conclusions or
opinions which may offend , and keep PC as the patronizing protocol ....instead of blurting it out in plain
language what they see ? Then where is free speech
if we must censor ourselves and abide protocols which
patronize the socially and intellectually lowest common denominator ....shall we all talk baby talk next ???

I call it like I see it and play no favorites ....I fear no
fatwa that might issue for me from the next imbecile
trying to earn his very own version of a Darwin award ,
looking for trouble ???.....BRING IT ON . I have lived long enough and put up with so much garbage that I just don't have patience with a lot of nonsense anymore .
I have no use for the lowlifes institutionalized contempt for women and freedoms , the self-deluding sense of POWER and "superiority" that necessarily seems to afflict *all* fanatics of whatever stripe . And like I have said before, it is simply a case of persian cat meets pit bull dog , fur is going to fly

What can I say but I'm proud to be an infidel , infidels rule , infidel today , infidel tomorrow , infidel forever .....
and anyone having a problem with that ...come see me
and I'll solve all your problems forever , like for so many other vermin for whom I've already done the same .

It's been a long family tradition of which I'm proud ,
and I am nothing if not traditional .

All these "master race" types can bring it to the middle of the street at high noon instead of hiding behind their women and in the bushes or under a rock .....and that's
any day of the week , anywhere on planet earth or
whatever planet they are on . I'll show them an honor killing that's more matter of fact than gravity dispensed
from one branch of a family of seafarers predating their
lunacy by a few thousand years , on an ocean that was and is the real thing .....and not a sea of sand lorded
over by some child molesting "prophet" .

quicksilver - 8-7-2007 at 06:51

Quote:

Originally posted by DerAlte
(2) Blasphemy is only possible to a believer. No atheist can ever blaspheme - to him blasphemy is a meaningless statement.

Is it not possible that blaspheme is a perceived slight toward one's beliefs & as such could be introduced by anyone? - What I mean is that IF someone were to deeply believe that a woman who displays her body is a slight to the Deity then that 3rd party's (the scantily clad young woman) religious beliefs are not taken into consideration.
____
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah & His messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, even if they are of the People of The Book (Jews & Christians), until they pay the Jizya with willing submission & feel themselves subdued." --Qu'an 9:29
____

[Edited on 8-7-2007 by quicksilver]

Rosco Bodine - 8-7-2007 at 07:08

There is more to be said for the value of steel than ideology .

Good prevails when the best of both are on the same side .

DerAlte - 8-7-2007 at 11:55

@ quicksilver – I agree with your point, that to utter what is not a blasphemy to oneself with deliberate intent at a devout believer amounts to issuing an insult. I am against that and similar racial, chauvinistic and sexist behavior.
I am atheist (actually agnostic, but you’d hardly notice the difference. Like all metaphysics, all theology is neither provable nor disprovable, just mere speculation. I just find such speculation very highly improbable (– 10 sigma, say) but have no way of proving it actually untrue).

Actually all teaching is a form of brain-washing. Where the basis is demonstrable fact, the effects may be positive. But most religious teaching has no demonstrable basis and is pure brainwashing to the destruction of the intellect. Didn’t the Jesuits say, give me a child at age 5 and I can make him mine for life? “I was born a Christian, or a Muslim etc.” is totally meaningless – I was born a human being, period. Someone tried to brainwash me into being a Christian, etc..

Veering slightly ON topic, one must remember that the agents of law enforcement and “Homeland Security” etc., in the main, are just trying to do a dangerous and very necessary job. You cannot expect Deputy Joe to have a deep grounding in the sciences or even law. You can’t expect him to have an IQ of 130 and be willing to quietly discuss philosophy with you. He has to do his job as best and safely as he can. You can’t expect him to have the morals of a saint either. The same goes for politicians.

You have to rely on the law. Stupid laws are made by stupid people. Make sure you don’t elect them!

Regards,

DerAlte

quicksilver - 9-7-2007 at 10:24

Quote:

Originally posted by DerAlte
@ quicksilver – I agree with your point, that to utter what is not a blasphemy to oneself with deliberate intent at a devout believer amounts to issuing an insult. I am against that and similar racial, chauvinistic and sexist behavior.

This is an important point I believe. Note the quote of the Koran illustrated in my previous post......The non-Islamic individual can do everything in their power to produce a positive affect but that person is still NON-ISLAMIC and therefore should be scorned (or MUCH worse!)....In this; from the Koran itself dictates that those who are not Islamic will NEVER be treated humanly if they are judged by those who are literalistic in their interpretation of the Book.

I have read the Koran several times and each time I read it - it seems most damning in it's condemnation of those unlike the Believer. I highly recommend to anyone interested in today's world politics to READ the KORAN! The points of view reflected in it's teachings are very significant to understanding why we find ourselves in the midst of terror.

DerAlte - 9-7-2007 at 12:19

Interesting to hear that you have read the Koran not only once but several times. I struggled to just get through it once, and a bigger pile of irrelevant ranting and miscopying of Jewish and early Christian writings is hard to imagine. But then again, Mohammed admitted he was illiterate, so he can’t have written it – he must have dictated it from what was obviously faulty and erratic memory. And we can be sure it was altered and emended by later Islamic scholars.

They didn’t do a very good job. It is repetitious and boring, non-sequiter, inaccurate, preaches violence and is even vulgar. Yet the devout claim it is the perfection of Arabic literature, a thing of beauty. But untranslatable. To do so is mistaken, because Allah spoke in Arabic.

Unlike you, the average Islamic devout has never read it. He just listens to imams chanting sections and spouting religious and racial hatred. How any intelligent being can be so brainwashed eludes me.

I have also read the Bible about half a dozen times. And parts of the Vulgate in Latin, even Genesis in the ancient Greek (En arche ho theos…). (I can still read Latin but the Greek I once had has virtually evaporated). The English King James version is a masterpiece of literature for a work done by committee. The Latin version is prosaic and so is the Greek. The English translators added Hebrew versions and managed to produce literature yet keep faithfully to the originals..

A lot of the OT is merely Jewish legendry history, sometimes interesting; some sections are unreadable! So is the dogma of the Law books... But there are some pearls in the bible, such as Ecclesiastes, a work of philosophy that still rings true today. Or Revelation in NT, a very late piece of rather gripping imagery and apocalyptic thinking. There’s poetry in the Song of Solomon. In contrast, the Koran reads as the ravings of a schizophrenic whose alter ego is dictating. The prophet appears to have been seriously disturbed mentally.

It should indeed be required reading by all intelligent people in the west and non-muslim east, and not just a few selected suras or verses. Parts of the Haditha, too. A devout muslim believes them - could he then possibly be 'moderate'?

...However, if this is germane to the original thread, it is so tenuous that the very last strand is about to break…

Regards,
DerAlte

Rosco Bodine - 11-7-2007 at 10:30

@DerAlte ...my dittos to everything you just said .

Before this thread goes the locked way of so many others , I would like to say that I very seriously doubt the premise that this forum has been missing out on any valuable technical content which would have otherwise been posted here by potential contributors who are "turned off" when they see any observations of fact they find offensive to their cultural or religious sensibilities .

I see and saw all the anti-american sentiment stuff that gets sometimes posted by revisionist historians and propagandists .....and it never has once interfered whatsoever with my own interest in technical dicussions
which are perfectly "culturally neutral" .....or not.

And since the "new rules" to keep everything PC have been put into effect .....there hasn't been some huge influx of new technical contributors who were holding out for a more "sheltered environment" to make them feel more welcome to make a scientific contribution .

There really is a growing tension in the world over a
sort of counter-cultural minority class of savages .
And it is as difficult to ignore or put on the blinders concerning , as if it were the elephant in the room ,
or laboratory ...and as if we pretend it isn't there it will just go away .

Obviously no political or social sensitivity deficiency on
the part of the non-fanatic accounts for the deficiency
of rationale and reason which necessarily is the primary
affliction of the fanatic . By definition there is no placating fanatics which stops short of complete capitulation to them , which no reasoning person will ever do .

[Edited on 11-7-2007 by Rosco Bodine]