Killing our own

I am a Brit (but not by birth) and an ex soldier and totally agree with your point about those who conspire to kill our own forces...

Damn them.

Smiley heart face because I am wondering why we cannot all live together in peace.....

Ahh, Maplin.

The chain of shops left that actually sells cool stuff.

Brits become terrorsits?

This is just scaremongering people to think. That anyone buying any product could be a terrorist.

If Mr Ahemd walks into poundland and buys a big blind man remote hes not a terrorist.

A activation switch can be anything that can generate a current when it is requested to. Anything that beeps. Flashes or even moves can be used.

That explains it.

So running down science education, closing chemistry and physics depts, etc was all a plan to make sure that nobody knows how to build a bomb (now if we can only as stamp out reading)

Of course, some might think that destroying the country's scientific and manufacturing base to prevent an imaginary threat was an over-reaction but you can't be too careful with terrorism, the ads on the tube say so.

(there isn't a no boffin icon)

Terrorist bomb bazaar of DEATH

Genius!

Countrymen

"***Personal viewpoint: One who deliberately conspires to kill British troops, as opposed to being involved somehow but unaware of the intent, is no fellow-countryman of mine no matter what it says in his passport."

Aye there's the rub, because when and if it comes time that you finally have to get rid of these mental, Stalinist fucks in power in the UK, it'll be "our brave boys from the eastern front" that'll be shooting your fellow countrymen to protect them.

Re Silly Part 2

Do the Iranian Maplins have a Jihadi discount scheme I wonder?

Accusations

Aboub 3 years ago 2 cops tried to arrest me in the TCR branch of maplins for buying bomb making equipment

What did I buy a fecking pair of wirecutters, who phoned them a bloody Iranian shop assistant who told the cops that an Irish terrorist was buying bomb making equipment

It was the same day as I was mugged in the TCR and the cops refused to attend cos I could not prove that I had been mugged in the 1st place (they turned negative when I mentioned that they eastern Europeans)

Another non-story

So explosives are really easy to get hold of, but basic electronics are so rare that they have to be bought from far off lands when they go on holiday?

This article is just a stupid leap of conclusions. Terrorists MIGHT be getting friends and relatives to get them stuff. But why bother when it is so much easier to just get them for a fraction of the cost locally (and no risk of being held at an airport for being a middle eastern man with a suitcase full of dodgy-looking stuff).

What is this site coming to?

Stupid FUD

So they get the parts and using the serial nos. traced them back to the UK? Did anyone seriously bother to do that?

Sure it wasn't just the usual clueless politician banter :

DM : "So commander, where do people get these parts from?"

Comm : "They have them sent here or someone brings them".

I mean, what other answer is there?

It's not like China or Mumbai or Iran are closer.

Any idea how many mobiles there are in India? They actually *fix* the there too instead of throwing them away. Electronics are not hard to come by.

@Dark Ian

Surely Involuntary Additional S Syndrome would be IASSS would it not?

Wasn't maplins fictional?

Buying bomb making equipment from a fictional holiday camp? How's that possible?

Oh wait, you mean Maplin.

Knowledge is power

Why bother singling out specialist retailers with an electronics bias?

I cannot speak from first hand experience of every country on the planet, but from what I have seen so far I can safely say all the required 'ingredients' and tools can be found in many a small town supermarket and hardware store.

Paris..because... she can blow my mind any day

Please read again.

The article is able the Telegraph trying to scaremonger you, not about how the stuff is sourced in the first place. Some of you seem to be missing the point and the irony in the headline .

The question is why are such stories appearing in the media?

My option:

May I point you to the previous article of how new laws are created as detailed on this very site.

In this example on a completely different topic but neither the less has some similarities

The quote here from Tim Worstall which is most telling is:

(I've slightly edited):

"But that's how we make law nowadays. We throw in a few demons lie about either their frequency or their activity and hope we've fooled enough of the public so that we can get the new measures into the Statute Book before anyone notices.""

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/04/worstall_s3x_trafficking/

If the troops weren't in someone elses country

They wouldn't have the people who live there trying to kill them.

RS aren't just mail order

RS have over a dozen "trade counters" too. http://uk.rs-online.com/web/ and follow the not very well hidden link right at the top that says "trade counters". You used to need an account (and therefore perhaps an address) but it's not obvious from their website that you still need any real ID, especially as you appear to be able to pay cash.

Anyone know where I can get hold of a few Ferranti ZN1040E? Nice low power high precision long duration timer, as seen in Practical Electronics twenty odd years ago, back when Maplin meant Maplin Sands, which was going to be the third london airport, and a Maplin catalogue was a little 80-page green-covered thing, free of charge

Mine's the anti-static one with the wrist strap danging from the pocket.

Paranomioid

A silly, immature response to a painful situation by silly, immature politicos who aren't doing any of the hurting. & I wonder how they know the remote controls came from Blighty - all of Maplin's stock is far-east manufactured. We stopped making stuff during La Tatch's rein to concentrate on banking - that was a stroke of genius, wasn't it.

Pyro, because fire made it good.

@Steen Hive

Stalinist?

Who/what would you consider to be RIGHT-wing?

@ AC 22:12

All a precision timer really is, is a Schmitt-triggered NAND or NOR gate (for making a gated oscillator) and a bunch of flip-flops (to divide the frequency down). The division can't introduce errors, so the whole thing is as accurate as the period of the the oscillator; obviously a resistor and capacitor are subject to tolerances but if you use a crystal or a ceramic resonator, it'll be pretty much spot-on. I think I used a HEF4060 last time I wanted a nice longish timeout, but I had plenty of them kicking around. Depending what crystal you use and how long a timeout you require, you might end up needing two 4060s.

Am I now guilty of "disseminating information which may be of use to terrorists"?

now, now, you anonymous cowards (dare I say, "traitors"?)

You're surely not suggesting that the British military would knowingly pump out facile rubbish to credulous media to prop up the failing military/political strategy in Afghanistan, are you?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/21/heroin-seizures-bad-science

http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/a-rock-of-crack-as-big-as-the-ritz/

Oh...

Maplin

I always wondered how Maplin could get away with selling mercury switches after learning from Lethal weapon that this is real professional bomb making stuff.

<<Boom

@Damian Thorn

"1000 damnations even or whatever amount of damnations is suitable."

I'd settle for 101 damnations. Then I can make myself a nice damnation skin coat.......

Maplin "Bazaar"?

I've bought all my Devolo networking kit from Maplin so that I can stream movies from my PC via my son's XBOX 360 to the TV. Will Wacky now label me a Taliban sympahiser if I watch Rambo III (was that the Afghan one ?) ?

@AC

"Who/what would you consider to be RIGHT-wing?"

Nothing to so with "wings" dear, but with authoritarianism. Hmm let's see..

Population subject to the most comprehensive and untrammelled surveillance in history.....check

Suppression of physical manifestations of dissent, limitations of right of assembly .... check

"Thought crime" (see internet censorship) ... check

Complicity, and likely participation, in denial of due process, kidnapping, detention without trial, torture .... check.

A "police" force that is little more than an armed militia that can provably kill with impunity and operates in secrecy ... check

Anything else?

A little poem for Steen Hive :)

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,

The gunpowder treason and plot;

For I see no reason why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

-

But when king's hand is heavy with burdensome levy,

Then is the time to stand tall;

For I see no treason when there is a reason

For tyranny's forces to fall.

-

(The second verse is my own invention, in response to the first :) )

I thought IT people were...

...supposed to be brainboxes. I find it quite troubling so many of the commentators have failed to grasp that this piece is about rubbishing the notion that terrorists are importing significant quantities of domestic electronics fro the UK to make bomb triggers.

The piece argues that even if you were to accept that this is happening it wouldn't prove a conspiracy. He doesn't make the case that this IS happening. What does do is employ the rhetorical device of granting ones opponent part of his claim and then proceeding to disprove it anyway.

This is the best bit of writing I've seen on here for days, sadly this guy isn't a staff writer :-(

I have to say I'm worried for the health of the dear old Reg what with 3rd rate bozos like Orlowski and Dziuba on-board and the preponderance of bone headed opinion in the comments section.