Kitty litter bombs

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Via Michelle Malkin.

I’ve been reading every article I can on the materials these two guys were playing with. They are claimed to have had the following in their car:

  • Three pieces of PVC pipe cut into various sizes, 1 foot or less, filled with a mixture of
    • Potassium nitrate
    • Karo syrup
    • Cat litter
  • Safety fuse, 20 feet.
  • Electric drill
  • .22 caliber ammunition
  • Gasoline, 5 gallon canister
  • Laptop computer reflecting visits to the following Web sites
    • A video file that shows Qassam rockets firing
    • Hamas information
    • A discussion of martyrdom
    • M-16 rifle photos

Except for the pipes and the stuff all mixed up you might find that in one of my vehicles sometime.

It is claimed the cat litter was used to “bind the ingredients” but I’m not buying it. Karo syrup doesn’t need any help “binding”. If you put enough cat litter in the mixture it would make it easier to handle–including putting it in the pipe. But if you add enough litter to make it easy to handle I keep thinking it would interfere with the desired reaction–unless you were just trying to make a 4th of July type “fountain” or “smoke bomb”. With a good detonator (blasting cap) and with no, or a limited amount, of cat litter it might go boom but it’s not going to be all that impressive.

If it were just the above items and it were up to me personally I would give them a stern warning for traveling with the pipes filled with the mixture. If they had a car accident it might catch fire and make the situation much worse. It’s not going to go boom and rip the car apart or anything but it’s not something you should do either.

If the mixture will actually explode then it would be a violation of Federal Law in regards to transportation of explosives since I doubt they had the proper placards, packaging, licenses and/or permits, storage magazine, and an hazardous materials endorsement on their drivers license.

But it wasn’t just those items. There was one more thing that changes the entire flavor of the case:

In July, Mohamed posted a video on YouTube that explained how to transform a toy remote controlled car into a detonator, Hoffer said. The 12-minute video is narrated by a man speaking Arabic with an Egyptian accent. It shows no face, only hands.

“Mohamed admitted he made and uploaded it,” Hoffer said.

The video’s narrator says it’s meant “to save one who wants to be a martyr for another day in battle,” Hoffer said. The narrator also mentions a previous example that used a remote controlled toy boat. Federal agents searched the New Tampa home of Megahed’s family and found a remote controlled toy boat, Hoffer said.

But what does that mean?

The judge asked if there was a definite link between the two, and Hoffer said no.

Exactly! Does the video mean he was intending to be “a martyr for another day in battle”? Was he going to try to detonate the material remotely for an evil purpose? I detonate explosives remotely using supersonic lead pellets and I could see doing it by a radio controlled device too (it’s been a common fantasy of mine and others to fake shooting a reactive target with an ordinary iron sighted handgun from 500 yards then tease those that can’t hit a target with their scoped rifles).

Summing up I am in near complete agreement (an extremely rare event) with CAIR:

Ahmed Bedier, director of the Central Florida office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was quick to distinguish between Megahed and Mohamed.

“It’s obvious there are two separate individuals with different charges and different allegations,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the two individuals end up having separate cases altogether.”

He defended Megahed, saying it appeared he “just happened to be in the car.” But he had harsher words for Mohamed.

If he could talk to Mohamed, Bedier said, “I’d say, ‘Wake up!’ “

He added, “Muslims don’t get a second chance when they dabble with things like this. Not only will this have consequences on him, but it will have consequences on most of the Muslims in this country.”

Update: Ry reminds us we can’t believe everything we read in the media.

Update2: Ahh… now things are making more sense:

In the trunk, deputies found four small sections of PVC pipe, at least three of which were stuffed with a “potassium nitrate explosive mixture” of potassium nitrate, Karo syrup and kitty litter, Hoffer said. He said the kitty litter served as a binder to keep the substance from coming out of the pipes, which were not capped.

[…]

Both men are charged with transporting explosives without a permit, relating to the stuffed PVC pipes deputies have described as pipe bombs. Hoffer conceded in court, however, that the devices, while explosive, were not pipe bombs and were not “destructive devices” under the law.

Allen maintained that the filled PVC pipes couldn’t do much damage because there were no caps and no metallic material that could serve as shrapnel.

Sounds more like smoke bombs than pipe bombs to me. Worst case they could be incendiary devices. My bet is that if the defense plays their cards right they can beat the explosives charge.

Robyn Ringler stopped by a few times

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I knew Ms. Ringler was stopping by for a visit every once in a while. I had some time tonight to explore in greater detail her visits. I put the results in an Excel spreadsheet to easier share it with you: RobynRinglerVisits.xls (36 KB)

When I wrote my Sympathy for Robyn Ringler post I actually knew a little more than I let on. I knew that she had seen my post where I called her and her ilk bigots. I also knew she was visiting Kevin’s blog at least occasionally too (it’s all in the spreadsheet).

After my “sympathy” post she came by to read it less than 36 hours later (as well as visiting Uncle after he poked her with a stick). Ride Fast had his hope realized in less than 19 hours.

Bigots really don’t like to be made fun of. Frequently part of the reason they are bigots is because they are unsure of themselves and feel threatened. They need to bring someone else down in order to make themselves feel powerful. This may particularly apply to anti-gun bigots because we already scare them just because we own guns. As explained by my formerly liberal friend Mike:

Back in the days when I was very anti-gun, I tended to think of “gun nuts” as drooling, knuckle-dragging morons. Cavemen. Uneducated. Beer-drinking slobs who could barely read and who probably beat up their wives a lot. Maybe they were even all closet Nazis, eh? Etc., etc., etc. It was an image that came instantly to mind. I would talk about “gun nuts” that same way with friends of like mind. It all made such perfect sense to us.

But if ever I came across a “gun nut” in person I would be silent — especially if it was someone dressed in, say, hunting cammos. Or I might see “gun nuts” on TV and make a snide comment about them, but seeing them made me feel a bit afraid (something I didn’t reveal to other people). It wasn’t rational, but it wasn’t surprising considering how I’d been raised. It wasn’t until a long time later that I realized what I’d been doing: trying to make the “gun nuts” almost into sub-humans in my mind, and paint them as ridiculous and stupid so that they shrank in stature and were less scary to me. (But as I said, this doesn’t work. No amount of sneering made me feel less afraid.)

Pointing out their total lack of factual knowledge on the subject has got to be very painful for them. For them to think of us as knuckle-draggers and then have their intellectual lunch handed to them probably will do nothing to change their minds. But what it does do in this new democracy is make them back off the topic. I believe that having them avoid the topic is the best we can hope for. When they have such a poor self-esteem and they have taken a very public stance on the issue it is simply beyond their ability to admit they are wrong. You wouldn’t expect a Klansman to admit they were wrong would you?

The best you can hope for is for them to back down. So let’s take our victory over this bigot and continue on to the next one. Conversions are too difficult, just intellectually shame them into silence and mock them as we roll on past.

Ms. Ringler, if you stop by again to read this there is something I want you to know and understand. From Clayton Cramer:

Still, her announcement that she was going to stop allowing comments doesn’t particularly upset or surprise me–this is a common response of gun control advocates, who soon discover that we knuckle-dragging Neanderthals don’t just outnumber them, but we’re smarter than they are–way smarter.

That and if you ever change your mind about guns and gun ownership I’ll give you free NRA Certified training, a free position at Boomershoot, and I’ll never bring up your ugly past again.

Quote of the day–John Crook

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Shooter groups, like the Sporting Shooters Association, who want to break our gun laws; take away gun registration; take away limits on hand guns; are in my opinion the most anti-social and dangerous type of groups that Australia has recently seen outside of course of certain criminal drug-related gangs.

John Crook
Gun Control Australia’s president
http://ssaasa.org.au/alerts2.htm
[Just so you know what they really think of you.–Joe]

Time for a Quorum Amendment

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Listening to the radio on the way to work, I heard that a small town school bond levy in Idaho had passed by an approximately 70:30 vote.

Let that sink in for a moment…70:30 approval.

The next thing I heard was that the voter turnout was 30 percent.

If my math is correct, 70 percent of 30 percent comes to 21 percent of eligible voters who approved the levy.  21 percent of the people wanted the levy, and the other 79 percent either opposed it, figured it was a forgone conclusion, didn’t care enough to vote, or didn’t know about it (the latter leaves me wondering who was in charge of publicizing it).

In a very small town where the school district is possibly the largest single employer, how many of those 21 percent who approved the levy do you suppose were school district employees, the families of school district employees, and contractors to the school district?

Forget how you would vote on something like this– you could be on either side of it, depending on the particular issue.  Looking at it conceptually; how is it that 21 percent of the people, most of whom are the direct recipients of the tax revenue, are able to impose taxes on 100 percent of the people?  Is that outcome consistent with the idea of democracy, or of a free society?  No and no.

Why don’t we have a quorum rule for something like this?

Gingrich on war on terror

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Lots of sobering material in this video.

I wish some national leaders would reframe the issue for what it is rather than a politically correct phrase. It’s not a “War on Terror”. It’s a war against religious fanatics.

We must destroy their culture to win. If we don’t win everyone loses.

At least Newt gets it. But I suspect he is right–we will have to lose an American city before we as a nation will take their threat seriously. And losing a city will be a much bigger loss than just the city and it’s people.

Quote of the day–Anonymous

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Handguns should be banned because they can kill quickly and from a long distance giving victims little chance to escape. If they use knives or any other weapon then the victims can escape.

We should be tightening our borders to ensure no one can bring any guns across the border and maybe lobby the Americans for a gun ban (too bad Americans to believe in this) or else energy exports are reduced.

rewrite the safe schools act to determine which disipline method is needed on a case-by-case basis (i.e instead of expulsion, we should try mental health programs)

Some police presence near schools can be helpful but can’t be everywhere at once.

I DONT WANT TO SEE ANY OPPOSITION TO THIS REMARK.

September 9, 2007
Comment in response to Gun ban needed, not school metal detectors: McGuinty 
[signed] “Vote NDP in the next federal/provincial election from Toronto, Canada”
[Heavy sigh. See also yesterday’s QOTD. Keep in mind this article was, in part, about a high school student who was fatally stabbed. Apparently victims can’t always escape. Or else it is a nuance available only to the liberal mind which, of course, escapes a red-necked, knuckle dragging, Neanderthal like me. I suppose it could be that someone is mocking McGuinty but I can’t quite convince myself that is the case.–Joe]

Public servants

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Does it ever strike you as odd that some of our servants demand that they have a monopoly on certain types of weapons?

I keep thinking that they must have either forgotten they are servants or intend to change the relationship.

Make a difference on gun ownership views in the U.K.

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I have been in contact with Alice (Catherine has taken over) at Firecracker Films in the context of Boomershoot. My family is not that good of a match because Alice Catherine wants children aged 12 and under. Does the following apply to you? This is your chance to make a difference in the British view of firearms.

Quote of the day–Dalton McGuinty

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Let’s ban handguns in Ontario. Let’s ban handguns across the country. Let’s declare war against handguns.

Dalton McGuinty
Ontario Liberal Leader
September 12, 2007
Gun ban needed, not school metal detectors: McGuinty
Responding to concerns after a student had been stabbed to death at a Toronto High School.
[Via Phil. Many of the comments to the article are just as nonsensical. These people have mental problems.–Joe]

Cultural or Drug Induced Behavior?

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It seems there are a lot of people stopping nearly a full car length behind the broad white line at traffic lights lately.  This was once a rare occurrence (old people who can’t see, stoned kids, etc.) but I’m seeing it every day now as I drive through town.

Is this some new cultural phenomenon, or do we suddenly have more pot smokers in Moscow, Idaho?

Cop Threatens to Fabricate Charges, Then Lies

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I found this at Say Uncle.

The video pretty well speaks for itself (the audio anyway– there’s not much to see).  Full transcripts are provided also.  I  truly did not believe what I heard the first time through: The cop actually threatened to fabricate charges against an innocent man because he dared to ask questions.  The cop then lied to a fellow officer, saying the motorist had been weaving and had failed to signal (he was driving perfectly and the signal indicator is clearly visible in the video).

Cops have to put up with a lot of really insane crap.  Having worked in the late-night music scene for many years, I’ve seen cops put up with the most outrageous behavior from people, and do it with amazing patience.  LEOs need to present a far more calm demeanor than the average person.  This cop on the other hand is a fight picker– a frustrated, undisciplined prick with a chip on his shoulder, and that is a disaster in the making.

The fact that our LEO said what he said, knowing he was being recorded, suggests he had reason not to worry much about being disciplined for it.  On the other hand, it seems the recording taken from his cruiser has turned up missing.  Put those two facts together and what do we have?  Was he contemplating the destruction of his victim’s recording?

Understand that when you’re out in the middle of the night this sort of thing is far more likely.

On a broader point: Our foolish “war on drugs” has led to far more abuse, as cops are looking out for drug deals and the like, with full knowledge of current forfeiture laws.  In this environment, “probable cause” has morphed from that-which-is-required-to-obtain-a-warrant-from-a-judge, into whatever-the-cop-decides-at-the-moment-is-cause-for-a-warrantless-search.  As with much of our Leftist speak, “Probable Cause” has taken a meaning opposite to its original.  It is now used to enable the exact abuse it was intended to prevent.

My experience with city and county law enforcement (north Idaho/Eastern Washington) has been pretty good over the years, and in most cases, very good, even when I was clearly in the wrong.  Lets hope it stays that way.  You get one retarded mayor or one bad sheriff at the next election, and things could go to hell fast.

Quote of the day–Clayton Cramer

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…it does seem as though when you want corrupt politicians by the bushel, Democrats are a more reliable supplier.

Clayton Cramer
September 10, 2007
New Jersey Corruption
[Yup. I suspect it has to do with the lack of fundamental political principles.–Joe]

Doublespeak from an airport police chief

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First a refresher course.

I don’t know if he actually believes this or not. Maybe he does and just doesn’t have a good imagination. Or maybe it’s just that it’s part of his job to comfort the sheepeople even if he knows he isn’t telling them the complete truth:

Chief Troyer has been a driving force behind all of the airport security changes that has especially been focusing on removing items from people’s luggage that could be used to make explosives.

But we get this doublespeak and I just get annoyed with him:

“I don’t necessarily see it as being stricter as it is begin responsive to the threat,” Spokane International Airport Police Chief Pete Troyer said.

Whatever. The guy is just an actor in a security theater. What can you expect from someone like that? He reads his lines and he entertains the public.

Playing in the dirt

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This last weekend Caleb and I went out to the Boomershoot site again. I needed to move some dirt and the bulldozer was going to be less than a quarter of a mile away so I borrowed it for a couple hours.

The photos with me in them are by Caleb. The others were taken by me.

The prime objective was to smooth some dirt we had roughed up putting in the “well”:


This is where we frequently park when working at the Taj.


It’s now much smoother. We also planted grass and raked the seeds into the dust to wait for the fall rains.

The secondary objective was to make the outdoor assembly line area more hospitable. The ground is uneven and if it has rained recently it can be muddy.


We put up a table in the foreground area and assemble targets here.


A close up of the signs above the door.

I moved more dirt in so there would be less of a step between outside and inside:


That old bulldozer is old enough it could retire. I think it is 63 years old now. I wonder if we could sign it up for Social Security benefits or something.


Here Caleb is putting the “decorative stones” in place where we walk and stand while assembling the reactive targets.


This is, essentially, the final result of our work.

After taking the last picture above we put in three more “Roman Cobblestones” for the legs of the canopy, spread grass seed around and raked the seeds into the dust.

I thought of one more thing that needs to be done before next spring. There needs to be some steps made to get from this top area down to the “well” pump. It’s a steep area that will be slick when it’s wet.

After playing in the dirt we tested out the new explosive grade ammonium nitrate.

All previous Boomerite was made with AN from a farm supply dealer. The explosive grade material has much smaller prills than the older stuff and the one batch we mixed up was not as sensitive as previous tests indicated with the old material. We’ll have to do some more tests sometime. It is probably good enough however.

It would not detonate with Federal American Eagle .22 LR ammo at a distance of 10 yards. This corresponds to an approximate target velocity of 1175 fps. It would detonate every time with CCI Stinger .22LR from 30 yards away which corresponds to an approximate target velocity of 1450 fps.

Things you maybe didn’t know

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There may be a surprise or two here for some people, Fifteen new things to know about sex, but mostly it’s old stuff or stuff you would figure out if you spent a minute thinking about it. But this, exercise unleashes a bounce bras can’t handle–Breasts fly up and down a distance of up to 8 inches, was new to me:

Scurr recruited 70 women, including students and faculty from the University of Portsmouth, with bra sizes ranging from A-cup to extra-large (DD, E, FF, G, H, HH, J and JJ were included).

Each woman walked, jogged and ran while wearing different bra types. During the exercise, Scurr took biomechanical measurements, including the amount of breast movement in three directions: up-and-down, side-to-side and in-and-out.

During walking exercise, the women’s breasts moved relatively the same amount in all directions. But when participants sped up to a jog or run, their breasts moved proportionally more in some directions than others: More than 50 percent of the total movement was in the up-down direction, 22 percent side-to-side and 27 percent in-and-out.

The overall pattern of the movement resembled a figure-8.

I guess I haven’t been watching enough breasts under a variety of situations. I’ll have to put that on my list of things to do.

Posted in Sex

The middle ground

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The anti-freedom bigots have pushed things so far that people don’t have a clue of where “the middle” is. Example:

What the two sides don’t acknowledge is that reasonable people can oppose civilian ownership of machine guns or .50-caliber rifles so powerful they must be shot using a tripod while still supporting hunting and owning guns for self-defense. Americans can support background checks on guns sold everywhere – not just by licensed dealers – without putting gun companies out of business. The United States can require registration of guns and proficiency tests for gun owners, just as we do with cars, without making it impossible, or even difficult, for law-abiding citizens to buy guns.

The name-calling and breath-holding have made us all forget that a middle ground is possible.

I have long had a hot-button about people that want to be in “the middle” and those who create the perception of “the middle”. People, in general, don’t want to be considered extremists or even a short distance from what they perceive as “the center”. Most people are comfortable only when they are with the majority and when the perception of “the center” moves they tend to move with it. “Wimps” doesn’t begin to express my disgust for people like this who decline and/or refuse to think for themselves.

That aside as a inalterable trait of human nature we now must deal with it and perhaps use it to our advantage.

Perception of “the center” is created in at least three ways:

  1. Labeling your opponent, no matter how “moderate” their stand, as “an extremist”.
  2. Labeling your own position as “moderate”.
  3. Advocates for a position who attempt to “stake out the middle ground” and abandon the extreme position.

The anti-freedom bigots label the NRA as “an extremist” organization and claim they are advocates for “reasonable measures”. Check and check on points one and two. The NRA has, in essence, abandoned class three devices and agreed with the NICS background check. Check on point three. This makes it difficult for us to make progress in repealing oppressive gun laws due to the majority of people who believe “the middle” is somewhere close to the current state of our laws.

This “middle ground” mentality and the desire to stake out a more “extreme position” was an additional motivating factor for me to create Boomershoot. By being an advocate for long range precision rifles and recreational explosives I enable others to feel more comfortable with less “extreme” positions. I push as an “extreme” advocate for freedom to make it more comfortable for others to move in my direction.

But what is really missing in the debate is an identification of where the real extremes are.

Obviously one extreme is a complete ban on firearm ownership with a death penalty for even the slightest infraction for possession of a firearm or any component of a firearm or, plans, documents, or materials with the intent to make a firearm or component of a firearm.

So what is the other extreme?

The anti-freedom bigots would have us believe it’s allowing people to carry concealed firearms or teaching children or young adults how to shoot. But with only a small amount of thought most people will realize this isn’t all that extreme. It’s just that that position has been labeled as extreme.

How about the GOA who claim they are a “no-compromise gun lobby” and who want our gun rights back? Surely they are staking out the extremist position, right?

Wrong. Very, very wrong.

Part of the other extremist position would be where firearms ownership, training, practice, and continuous (24 by 7 with no exceptions) possession of a loaded firearm is mandatory for everyone. The other part of this extremist position would be when government funds are used to accomplish those goals and it’s a death penalty offense for anyone who attempted to avoid or change these requirements.

With those definitions of extremism the “the middle ground” should be pretty clear–“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”. Not infringed in the slightest. No law that places any restriction or ownership requirement on anyone. That is the true “middle ground”.

Quote of the day–Rick Keene

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There are so many ways to game this technology, that’s the difficulty. This is not ready for prime time.

Rick Keene
September 11, 2007
Assemblyman, R-Chico.
Handgun stamping bill sent to governor–Spent shell casings would be imprinted
[Yup. Advocates of this are either exceedingly simple minded and/or just want to increase the difficultly of gun ownership.–Joe]

Mocking the Triangle of Death

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My “triangle of death” post was one of the most linked to posts I have ever made. Now, via Uncle, we find out you can buy your own Triangle of Death clothing, cups, and stickers.

Quote of the day–Melanie C. Brandon

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It was amazing seeing something that was used for so much violence, hurt and destruction, to watch its power being taken away. This really hits so close to home.

Melanie C. Brandon
Fashion statement for gun control Designer Melanie C. Brandon has made jewelry from a machine gun and pistols seized in Phila. and melted down.
[Her tag-line: “With each piece made, another gun is taken off the street.” It must be like some sort of primitive religion that believes spirits inhabit inanimate objects. The “power” is in the gun. Maybe an exorcism ritual would just as well. Or if it’s not evil spirits inhabiting the gun then maybe it’s the shape of the piece of metal. Do wearing crosses or some other shape of metal ward off evil spirits? Maybe putting smiley faces on the guns would make them acceptable. Whatever it is, it’s not about the facts of gun ownership.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Charles De Gaulle

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Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.

Charles De Gaulle
[Which is why they don’t understand when we get all upset after they don’t honor their campaign promises.–Joe]