It would be quite attractive to
stick Donald Trump with the bill in this case.
My flock of trained stinging hummingbirds don't seem to be getting the idea, they keep swarming after Boris Johnson - not that that isn't entertaining as well
A software consultant in California has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after he embarked on a spree of armed bank robberies and amassed a huge stockpile of homemade explosives at his home, residues from which blew up and injured a local gardener and necessitated the total destruction of the building on grounds of …
Unfortunately, if the house next door goes up (highly unstable, remember?), taking you and yours with it, the mindset of the bloke making the explosives has no effect on the level of Death inflicted......
He's well into the "too dangerous to be walking around unsupervised" category in my book.
From http://www.merriam-webster.com/
terrorism, n: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
While you /might/ be able to shoe-horn "lone nut bank robber" into this definition, traditionally, this has left to cover people and groups who target civilian targets who are usually only peripherally associated with the decision makers in question. Or, if you want it in simpler terms:
"Do X or I/we will blow up a random target." = terrorism
"Do X or I/we am going to kill you, right here, right now." = direct assault related to another crime, such as bank robbery.
From what we can tell this man didn't want to change U.S. policy, he was just driven over the edge and went on a rather strange crime spree. I must say, it's one case where minimum sentencing may not be too bad - I wouldn't want him back out on the streets any earlier than 30 years unless a legion of qualified doctors said it was safe to do so. That's not a case of being punitive, however, it's a question of protecting the rest of society. There's already one innocent who will suffer from this for the rest of his life.
-d
Even pitiful teenager stuff (which theoretically can be upscaled) gets charged as "mass destruction" attempt, have no fear.
And here the unnoticed residue cause more damage than the shoebomber, so there'll be a fiery list of charges.
/Having just re-seen "The Rock", I hope they destroyed the house with a thermite bombardment; F14s or F22s over suburbia is always photogenic.
There is a wide variety of lovely stuff like RDX which is way easier to make than PETN while being more potent. It makes an even more satisfying bang.
And indeed, we were quite careful with the quantities we used to mix up in high school in my days... The fact that we are still alive is a testament to that (and we did not need a freaking H&S act to make us careful).
Anon, because, well... if UK law is to be obided strictly I should be in jail for the mere contents of my brain... Viva the ThoughtCrime...
I must admit, I'm at a loss to figure out why terrorists don't just make RDX by the simple and well known method of mixing a certain type of camping fuel with a certain acid readily available from the net.
Lewis? Know something we don't? Is it detonating RDX something terrorists find really difficult or something?
The answer is that you need to do something with the certain acid to make the recipe work. This bit is usually omitted (on purpose) from the descriptions of how to make RDX in non-specialized literature (specialized "unabridged" chemical synthesis literature has it). Otherwise RDX is contaminated which makes it as bad as peroxides if not worse.
This is a sufficient hurdle to make "four lions" class muppets go for peroxides instead.
This is probably as much as I can say before it becomes a thought crime under UK law.
Ah, that explains a lot. Yes, if that method of creating RDX is off the table then it explains why they go for one of the other less potent explosive types. I can understand a terrorist not being willing to try and brew up other high explosives like Nitro, given the slight(!) instability of the stuff.
... Lewis haters, who are eagerly pointing out how this article is once again being derogatory about the Eurofighter, and that he has a love love relationship with the US equipment, also mentioned repeatedly in the article?
Oh and that NUKLEAR IS DANGEROUS!!!!!!!!!! even when it turns out not to be.
Many explosives will burn quite nicely as long as the combustion products are not confined, so the hope was burning the house down would ignite but not detonate the explosives. Another part of the low order technique was putting up a barricade in case the low order suddenly became high order.
One thing not covered in the article was whether the owner of the house was reimbursed for the loss - Dumanis was originally threatening to collect the demolition fees from her.
FWIW, I used to drive by there daily on I-15 before moving to the coast.
"Explosions are NOT controlled.
Ask anyone who has tried to stop one halfway through."
I'll assume that you forgot to select the joke icon. Otherwise:
Lightning cannot be controlled; ask anyone who tried to stop it half way through...
Although buildings with lightning conductors do seem to be struck far less often that would otherwise be the case, and when struck, they seem to come off much better than would otherwise be expected...
Oh and I've never actually tried to stop the explosions that occur in my car engine, but they do always seem to occur at exactly th eright time, and always in the right place and usually the right amount (although sometimes not enough :)