| Pages:
1
2
3
4 |
Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: analytical
|
|
Enough "picric acid hysteria" propaganda .....
let's move right along to this weeks showing
of "reefer madness" and "1984".
|
|
|
The WiZard is In
International Hazard
Posts: 1617
Registered: 3-4-2010
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
PA in schools
No doubt one could find dozens of these, I remember
several years back the National Park Service (?)
removed a bottle of PA from Edison old lab in NJ.
POTENTIALLY EXPLOSIVE ACID REMOVED FROM SCHOOL SCIENCE
LABS
Army bomb specialists and local police departments have picked up small supplies
of a potentially explosive acid from the science labs of eight Ocean County (N.J.)
schools and one Monmouth County school this week.
Bottles of picric acid found at Central Regional, Lakewood and Brick high schools in
Ocean County were considered too volatile to transport and were detonated at the
school sites. Supplies were also found in the Toms River High Schools North and
South, Point Pleasant Beach High Soho and Ocean County College in Ocean County
and Freehold Township High School in Monmouth County. Those supplies have been
transported to Fo Dix or Fort Monmouth for disposal.
The existence of the chemical in local schools came to light after news reports last
week that a chemistry teacher in New York City had alerted school authorities to a
decades-old supply of picric acid in his school laboratory. A search turned up supplies
of the acid in about two dozen New York City high schools. Ocean County schools
Superintendent William F. White said he ordered a similar inventory of county
schools.
The acid, not often used today, was a stock item in school chemistry laboratories
years ago. The dictionary defines the substance as a poisonous, yellow, crystalline
bitter acid used in making dyes and explosives and in analytical chemistry. It is
supplied either in a powdered form or already mixed with fluid. Both the powder and
the fluid forms crystallize with age and become unstable. Opinions vary as to how ex-
plosive it becomes.
Vincent R. Bickler, acting principal of Point Pleasant High School, said he had been
told by a chemistry teacher that "you would have to shoot a bullet at it or pound it"
before it would explode. Dover Township Detective Robert V. Hayes, however, said "I
wouldn't want to be the one to drop a bottle of it."
Four explosive ordnance disposal technicians from the 60th Ordnance
Detachment, Fort Dix, collected one bottle of picric acid each from Tom River High
School South and Ocean County College in Dover Township and four bottles from
Toms River High School North yesterday. The bottles contained about 6 ounces
each.
The technicians were headed by Capt. Gary J. Motsek, 60th Ordnance
Detachment commander. They were accompanied by Detective Hayes and Charles
Hayes, chief of security for the Toms River schools. Lt. Douglas G. Kremer, a
spokesman for Fort Dix, said all the bottles contained acid about 20 years old. The
technicians, he said, described one bottle from Toms River North as "hairy." It looked
hairy because when the chemical ages, the top of it looks like cotton or spun glass.
The vial, though "definitely very, very bad," according to the Fort Dix spokesman,
was not detonated, in part because there was no suitable detonation site at the
school.
Point Pleasant Beach police said they picked up two small vials of liquefied picric
acid [PA solution?] from the school there at 9115 a.m. yesterday (Feb. 7)- A worker at the Naval
Weapons Station at Earle, Colts Neck Township, picked up the vials from the police
station at 11130 a.m. Two of the four technicians from Fort Dix, meanwhile, had gone
to Lakewood High School and two to Brick Township High School.
In Lakewood, two ounces of the acid in a small, loosely corked glass vial were
detonated on the athletic field, considered a good detonation site. Another 6-ounce
vial was taken back to Fort Dix. Technicians made their third trip this week to Brick
Township High School yesterday. One bottle of picric acid was removed Monday, two
were detonated Tuesday and two removed to Fort Dix yesterday. A 6-ounce bottle
was detonated on the grounds of Central Regional High School Tuesday.
A team from the 54th Ordnance Detachment, Fort Monmouth, collected a supply
of the acid from Freehold County Township High School yesterday afternoon.
Detonation "made a significant bang" and shot debris 100 feet into the air, a Fort Dix
spokesman said.
(From the ASBURY PARK PRESS (N.J.), Feb. 8, 1979, contributed by Ken Kragh. It
would be interesting to know how the acid was detonated, probably by blasting caps,
as the substance is a primary explosive (actually tri-nitro-phenol, closely related to
TNT) requiring initiation by some such means to cause detonation. With regard to
impact sensitivity, Davis reported in THE CHEMISTRY OF POWDER & EXPLOSIVES
that it could be detonated by a 2-Kg weight falling 42.5 cm, or about 4-21 pounds
failing [?] inches. From this it would seem unlikely that detonation would result from a
6-ounce bottle of it falling to the floor or ground; however, like Detective Hayes, we
wouldn't want to try it with a bottle of the stuff that had been sitting around for 20
years!
As most students of pyrotechnic literature know, the principal use of picric acid in
fireworks used to be for making pyrotechnic whistles, [?] in tubes as potassium
picrate powder. Weingart (1947) however, recommended a 3/1 mix of potassium
chlorate and gallic acid as safer and less troublesome to prepare, while at the same
time making a "very good whistle." In late years most such whistles appear to have
dispensed with both the above acids, using instead sodium salicylate and potassium
perchlorate, about 3/7, though producing a somewhat less shrill whistle than the
earlier mixes. It it is interesting to note that this salicylate is a close chemical relative of
aspirin (acetyl salicylic acid), which may explain why its modern use for whistles
makes for fewer headaches among the manufacturers (?). Apparently both have
some of picric acid's behavioral properties, too: we have in fact read a. "field
expedient" method of converting aspirin tablets to picric acid!)
---------
Byda the good old Red Book sez less than 25 pounds
of picric acid with not less than 10% water (49 171 20, NA1344) is
a flammable solid not an explosive.
|
|
|
Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: analytical
|
|
Actually no, the crystalline and powder forms do not "crystallize with age and become unstable" but opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. On
the other hand, facts are facts, and truth is meant for those who seek it, rather than for it to be simply taken for truth and believed whatever is
written or disseminated by those few for whom whatever lie and disinformation reenforces their particular ignorance and / or serves their particular
agenda.
Some people have the wrong idea that a lie is power, rather than that knowledge empowers, and for any deception they can perpetrate or even deceive
themselves into believing they have perpetrated .....then they enjoy the further illusion that they have somehow been empowered over those they
deceive.
It is a fine madness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0lAcSKJjqQ&fmt=18 Panhandle Rag
The mystification of energetic materials via disinformation is a brazen attempt of and by government propagandists to discourage and interfere with
factual knowledge being in the possession of those whom they would prefer be kept unarmed with either wits or firearms, because they don't wish to
have a level playing field with those whom they would seek to subjugate. There used to be an absolutely opposite philosophy which "governed" in a
time before governance became extremely corrupted.
[Edited on 30-8-2010 by Rosco Bodine]
|
|
|
grndpndr
National Hazard
Posts: 508
Registered: 9-7-2006
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Exactly what my post was intended to describe, a beauracracy run amuck supoposedly concerned with the safety of all feeding on its own declared
success,demanding
more government largesse tro expand its mission, declaring more and more products unsafe for the unwashed masses.Rapidly dissapearing shelves that
contain any potentially dangerous materials from news papers that dont report news anyway to the second line of defence against unfettered govt
intrusion also no longer a right being reinterpreted and also to dangerous for again the unwashed masses or the Public in this case.
God given right or not a free press, right to keep and bear arms as well as assemble is far to dangerous and subversive an enterprise for the
uneducated uninformed public who need gov guidance to engage in.Self determination by the mob?! The
gov says this idea is ridiculous,the mob,you and I, need guidance from cradle to grave.
[Edited on 30-8-2010 by grndpndr]
|
|
|
Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: analytical
|
|
A true blue bureaucrat would advocate that all horses be killed so that no cavalry can be mounted up to put down a government which has gone off the
reservation and is whooping it up against its own people. And basically that's the sad situation which we have.
Everyone should keep in mind that the same overly "safety conscious" bureaucrats engaged for decades in a mindless arms race where enough nuclear
weapons were built to completely destroy the entire earth a dozen times over,
and more recently have imposed "medical treatment" using Ritalin and similar drugs upon more than a million children
who were misdiagnosed as having a far less common disorder than was first believed, known as "attention deficit disorder" (A.D.D.)
later recognized to more often than not be a misdiagnosis more accurately designated as cases of professional ineptitude and incompetence residing
with some adults who never understood that it is normal for children to behave as children, rather than miniature adults.
[Edited on 30-8-2010 by Rosco Bodine]
|
|
|
grndpndr
National Hazard
Posts: 508
Registered: 9-7-2006
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Regardless of safety it is a very litigious society.With that in mind i dont know if its wise from a standpoint of potential lawsuits to have what has
been determined by the PTB that regardless of any discussion to the contrary here Old bottles of PA represent a hazard,real or imagined.
Thats a legal fact so it would be irresponsible for those in charge to do any less than report the presence of the materials.And have them removed as
the protocol demands.To do otherwise would likely be viewed as reckless on our part assuming we valued our jobs as a chemistry teacher.later we could
have explained our belief to our students that the scare is far overblown but not if we were fired for negligence by disposing it of our own accord.
like it or not in some situations the game is played according to rules we dont believe in
and our personal beliefs matter very little in these cases.In other words id save the fight for when it matters and a positive outcome is achievable
rather than tilting at windmills.No offense.
|
|
|
Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: analytical
|
|
Some people will "play the game" go along to get along, been there, done that myself and just got tired of it, because it is a neverending comprimise
on top of comprimise and at some point you just can't keep a straight face about the "company line" anymore, about whatever long list of "fill in the
blank" kind of things in what really is a rigged game where there is a double standard for everything ....and it all comes down to
things being the way some say, just because they say so, in the realm where truth is reduced to nothing more than a figment of somebody's imagination,
and that somebody doesn't even have a clue.
At some point, a man just gets tired of riding that train you know, and it becomes a matter of to thine own self be true, and screw the critics.
As for saving the fight for when it matters, it's the accumulating comprimises that is gradualism, incrementally surrendering gets you to the same
destination but it only takes awhile longer and makes it easier to deceive yourself that it isn't really happening. Look around at what we've got now
versus what we had forty years ago and separate the real progress from the bullshit which has been advertised as progress. Technology has advanced
but how far have people evolved ?
Call me old fashioned, but fighting sons of bitches isn't tilting at windmills especially when you have knocked on or two of 'ems sorry butts to the
ground.
I'm one that will look the assholes square straight in the eye and say I refuse to play the game. I will "play ball" when I have to (for the right
price) but I sure as hell won't dress it up as being anything else but a whoring required by the circumstances if and when that happens, not
pretending a shotgun wedding was a heartfelt romance unless of course I had secretly planned it all along to be both.
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2
3
4 |
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
