Effective Censorship???

Poststructural Pub
1

Okay, this morning my five year old son asked me what dynamite was made of and why it exploded.

Ah, okay, I don’t know (I’m a woman who’s never really been interested in things that blow up, so I didn’t know) “Let’s go to Ask.com and look it up” I say.

So we type in “What is dynamite made of?”

(BTW: We found out it’s made of nitroglycerine with some stablizing stuff. Then he asked “What is nitroglycerine made out of?” Gave up about the time he asked “What are atoms made of?” for by that time he was laughing, meaning he was only joking around at that point . Anyhoo…)

So we ask this question and proceed down the list of websites. Much to my surprise, one was listed as:

\\CENSORED/// Publication of this page is prohibited by USA Patriot…

and clicking on it brought up a blank page with a similar message on it.


Oooookay.


The web address contained the word “cookbook” so I’m guessing they were telling you how to make something like, um… dynamite? (That’s a scarey thought.)

However, just up the page was a website that was also a “cookbook” telling how to make dynamite and it didn’t appear to be the only site talking about homemade explosives. (Goodie :roll: )

(I really didn’t want to know how much of what ingrediants went into dynamite, only what made it go boom in the very general sense. Yikes!)

:astonished:

Sooooo… the only reason I could think of that the one website was censored is that perhaps it mentioned some kind of terrorist stuff in combination on it. But if some terrorist wanted to find out what ingrediants they needed to make dynamite, all they had to do was hop to another page or find some other source of assistance… wouldn’t they? Guess whatever it was was deemed unfit for the general consumption of stay at home moms and their curious kindergarteners, for terrorists will find out anyway. Guess they gotta try something though? Mmmmm…

Don’t you just love internet censorship? I am sooooo confused. :confused:

Considering how explosive nitroglycerine is, wouldn’t a person have to be more than a few fries short of a happy meal to want to mess with it in experimenting with their own homemade explosives? Course, anyone who think it’s a great idea to fly planes into buildings are already messed up in the head to begin with. yuck, shudder


What a wierd morning, feel like I just had a brush with the twilight zone or something.


:boggle: Sara (who realizes today is April Fool’s Day… but is not joking here)

2

I’d read somewhere that McVeigh & Nichols learned the secret to their truck bomb was discovered via some similar ways.

Why else would anyone think about and publish documents related to mixing fertilizer and diesel fuel, and how to ignite it?

3

http://education.jlab.org/qa/atom.html

Atoms are made of electrons protons and neutrons
Those are made of quarks and Gluons.


Quarks Names

Up
Down
Charm
Strange
Top
Bottom

Gluons hold quarks togather

Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense. :laughing:

4

Geesh! All this time I thought that those were the names of the TeleTubbies!


Tom

5

There’s plenty of reason to want to know all the details in creating and using dynamite…
it’s the most common explosive to be used legally, for road building, stump removal,
quarrying, building demoliton, and of course, movie effects. A person doesn’t have to
be a terrorist to be interested in explosives.

Even if you didn’t want to make your own, understanding exactly why dynamite -is- stable
when nitroglycerin is so unstable is something I’d want to know in detail if I had to work
with the stuff.

The fertilizer bomb, I think, was not documented -as- a fertilizer bomb, but rather, it
was noticed that the primary active ingredient in a certain chemical fertilizer was the
same as that in a certain explosive. I’m not up on the details of -which- fertilizer it
is, but the information is out there… but they do closely track who buys large
quantities of the fertilizer these days.

And then there’s the ‘because I can’ factor. People like to make things
because they can, like the jet-powered Guinness cooler ( http://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer/ )

Build a jet engine in my shed isn’t on my agenda, but, y’know, it’s a kind of neat project
all the same.

(Making explosives ‘because you can’ is essentially illegal in any state that outlaws fireworks,
though; in states where fireworks are legal, I don’t know where they draw the line
between ‘fireworks’ and ‘dangerous explosive’… not that making small quantities is
precisely ‘safe’! :astonished: )

–Chris

6

If you think that is horrific, you should see what Homeland Security, the FBI and the Patriot Act are doing to and in your public libraries in the United States.

Your librarians are fighting an open war against the FBI, Homeland Security and the Patriot Act, that at times is just is just as intense as being in Iraq.

MarkB

7

One of my favorites is mixing chlorine bleach with lye. I learned about that as a kid and wanted to test out my protective mask. I heard that the gas liberated was similar to the gas used in WWI and that the only way it could kill you was if you were in an enclosed area or if there was so much of it you couldn’t get away from it. I made a small amount outside and caught a wiff of it. Man it was painful. Why am I telling you this?

Three years later I was working with a lady at subway. Typical teen job, I saw a girl going back to the bathroom with, you guessed it, bleach and about a dozen other things. After questioning her on how she was going to use the chemicals it was obvious that she was just going to splash what ever worked into the jon. My nefarious knowledge kept her from gassing the whole store. No one would have probably been hurt, but it would have set back business.

I read MSDS sheets and those tell you what may explode and why. I need this information.

From what I remember the Patriot act Cannot censor this information, however, they can hold the person that provides information to people that commit crimes accountable for how the information is used. As for the libraries, the rules that cover that is that investigators can look into the libraries records to see who reads what and the librarians cannot tell any one that the agents are doing this.

I look at the trajectory that America is choosing. It feels like we are getting prepared for something. I do not think that we are choosing wisely the direction of our laws and who has power. Don’t have any specifics, just a gut feeling like when you are using power tools and you think “this isn’t safe” right before you have an accident. End parinoid rant. :stuck_out_tongue:

8

Well, at least someone’s got their priorties straight. :slight_smile:

But I visited that site, and was disappointed to see that they only brought in one can of Guinness to be cooled. For that amount of effort, they should have had a 1/2 barrel keg at least! Otherwise, drive that MGB to the local and enjoy it off the tap there! :slight_smile:

9

If I recall correctly, there is a book out there called something like “The Terrorist’s Cookbook” or “The Anarchist’s Cookbook” that, among other unsavory suggestions, teaches one how to make a nuclear bomb. That may be the document that was censored. It’s been around for a while, that much I know.

Redwolf

10

It was the Anarchist’s cookbook, and yes it had how to make a nuclear bomb. Although it never told you how you were suppose to get a hold of plutonium 239 and 100 kg of plastic explosive. :laughing:

Pre-internet had many books like the “Worst Case Scenario” and if you bought them, the FBI probably was keeping tabs on you in some database that even they didn’t look at.

11

Well, the idea is that it’s a rapid-cooling system, so you have a whole -stack- of Guinness
and you cool one off when you’re ready for it. I mean, think about it, you’d have to be
nuts to keep that jet turbine going the whole time! Just light it off for a quick chilling
action, that’s the ticket… :wink:

12

I grew up with explosives. I had a distant relative (my father’s step-father’s nephew) who owned a fireworks factory in Houston. twice every year, once before New Years and once before the 4th of July, I would receive a large box containing M-80s, blockbusters, cherry bombs, baby giants, sky rockets, Roman candles, sparklers, and all kinds of firecrackers and aerial salutes. My friends and I had great fun blowing up toy cowboys and indians, sending tin cans flying into the air, and building a variety of pipe cannons to shoot marbles and nails.

All things considered, I’m lucky to have eyes, fingers, and eardrums. A friend lost his eyebrows when we disassembled an aerial bomb and he leaned over the pile of reddish powder and dropped a match into it.

This relative’s factory exploded in the late '50s. A college friend who lived a couple of blocks away said that it broke windows in his house. I don’t think anyone was killed, but it resulted in a law being passed outlawing fireworks manufacturing in Houston.

When I was in high school, I was pretty interested in explosives and highly flammable items. I made up batches of gunpowder, set mixtures of powdered aluminum and airplane cement on fire, and did really clever things, like taping a 12-gauge shotgun shell to the muzzle of a BB gun. I tied the BB gun to a tree and tied a string to the trigger. The first time I tried to fire it, the gun slipped and ended up aiming pretty close to me. Fortunately, it didn’t fire. After tying it down more securely, I did get it to fire. The entire cardboard tube containing the shot simply disappeared.

I built a zip gun, but went off to college before I got a chance to test it. I was also tempted by nitrogen triiodide and gun cotton, but never got that far.

A big thing back in the late '50s was model rocketry, and quite a few folks were killed trying to produce solid fuel from sulphur and powered magnesium. You have to heat the mixture enough to melt the sulphur, but at just a few degrees above the melting point of sulphur, every atom of sulphur combines with every atom of magnesium virtually simultaneously, and it produces one heck of a bang. If you’re stirring a big pot of the stuff, there may not be much of you left.

My high school physics teacher claimed that he and some friends once filled a 6-foot weather balloon with natural gas, attached a length of dynamite fuse to it, lit the fuse, and let the balloon go over Houston. It got pretty far up before it exploded. There were lots of UFO reports as a result, but the FAA was looking for the culprits, too.

I recall that Thomas Edison was deafened as the indirect result of his creating a batch of nitroglycerin as a kid. He was working on a train, and in his spare time he was fooling around with chemicals in the baggage car, without really knowing what he was doing. He combined nitric acid, glycerin, and sulphuric acid, and mentioned it to someone else on the train who recognized the recipe. It was tossed off the train and exploded, and the conductor boxed Edison’s ears, leading to his deafness. This is based on a TV show, so it may not be entirely accurate.

Dynamite was invented by Alfred Nobel as a way of safely handling nitroglycerin. Dynamite contains three parts Nitroglycerin, one part diatomaceous earth and a small admixture of Sodium Carbonate (soda). This mixture is formed into short sticks and wrapped in paper.

13

Darwin - my kids would be in awe of you…

The ex reloads, so there’s always black powder, etc. around. The kids have tried to, ah, “help” Black Cats be more like M-80’s, blown up Hot Wheels and other model cars, etc.

Ever make a potato gun? :smiley:

One of the “fun” things we’ve done:
I can get dry ice pellets anytime at work. I brought home a cooler full one summer. One of these and just a tiny bit of water, in a 2 liter bottle, in the sun or heat makes a truly awesome BOOM! The only problem is timing - it can take several to over 15 minutes to go.

Missy

14

These laws are probably designed to keep the public at ease and not worry so much about things that can happen.

The facts are that anything can happen.

Example: Nuts & Volts magazine has an advertisment from Amazing Devices that offer Green laser pointers that have 10,000 ft range. This is perfect for blind pilots in the landing pattern that are usually at or below 10,000 foot.
Or how about, high power laser that can set things on fire from a good distance.

If you’re a terrorist, log onto Microsoft terraserver and get aerial maps of airports, military bases, water towers, amusment parks and then you can study vulnerabilities.

Make explosives illegal you say… A little gasoline and little draino and bom. How do you stop or track that.

Or guns in schools, this never happened when the paddle used to reign high - Dr. Spock failed us…

Then there is those who want to make firearms illegal. Criminals don’t follow the law. If you want a weapon bad enough, you make it yourself.

Dynamite contains three parts Nitroglycerin, one part diatomaceous earth and a small admixture of Sodium Carbonate (soda). This mixture is formed into short sticks and wrapped in paper.

Diatomaceous Earth (Silicon Dioxide) can be found at lowes stores, nitro can be made and so what stops anyone from making explosives from common household chemicals?

You can’t make everything illegal, you properly punish people who do the wrong thing.

15

Yep. In the good ol’ days, it was mostly knives, and they were generally limited to use outside school. Do you remember [u]Dracula and the Umbrella man[/u]?

City kids who wanted their own guns–especially pistols–in those days often had to build their own. Things have improved a lot since then.

I have the impression that even pocket knives are forbidden in most schools these days. That’s kind of sad. How’re you supposed to play mumblety peg or territory? Mass murder isn’t really feasible with a pocket knife, so what’s the problem?

Regarding the paddle, http://www.nospank.net/maurer1.htm makes some interesting points. Even more interesting is http://www.nospank.net/welsh3.htm .

A [u]Web page of the National Institute of Mental Health[/u] says, “There is evidence from many studies that parental use of physical punishment may play a direct role in the development of antisocial behavior in their children.”

Some of the meanest kids I knew growing up received frequent and severe physical punishment from their parents.

Check out http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/chicago_sun_20001016/case15.htm which includes: “Robin Robinson, 13, Lanett, Ala., Oct. 15, 1978. After a disagreement with a student, he was paddled by the principal. He returned to school with a gun; when told he would be paddled again, he shot and wounded the principal.”

Other links on that site are interesting, too.

As for Red Lake, Columbine, etc., [u]the 21 school shootings shown on an interactive page[/u] seem to involve a large percentage of geeky kids who were picked on by others. Several were honor students. A couple were active in church. Most of them probably didn’t ever do much to warrant corporal punishment in school.

Quite a few had a history of trying to commit suicide–and several finally succeeded. It appears that most were currently, or had been, on “psychiatric” drugs, like Prozac and Ritalin.

Many also seem to have shown signs of being more than a tad out of whack. Take Luke Woodham: “In his personal journal, Woodham recorded how he beat, burned and tortured his dog Sparkle, describing the inhumane death as a thing of ‘true beauty’.”

Somehow, I don’t think that any of these guys (no gals, you’ll notice) would have been deterred by a good spanking.

16

Oklahoma is a state with one of the highest rates of paddlings in the public schools (I experienced it firsthand)… behind only Mississippi, if I remember the report correctly (it was in the news a while back). We’ve had school shootings right here in Green Country.

17

Maybe they were spanked more often than the non-spanked kids because they were mean. :stuck_out_tongue:

Up in our area they just had a fairly bad shooting. Without going into details It seems like the school system did every thing they “should” have in these moderns times. School security guards metal detectors a councilor, Prozac, locker inspections, etc.

Without trying to go political, it seems that if a person believes that they have nothing to lose, no amount of government control (back to even censorship) is going to stop even random violence.

18

Actually, I think that there’s more evidence coming forward that being mean–among many other things–can be hereditary. When it became obvious that abused children often grow up to become abusive parents, the first assumption that most folks made was that the causal factor was the abuse itself. However, it may just be that the causal factor is genetic.

The idea that behavioral tendencies can be inherited is not popular with certain “leftists” (especially Marxists), who like the idea that all bad behavior can be fixed by fixing society. It is also unpopular with certan “rightists”, who like the idea that people who are out of line can be whipped back into line. I think the vast majority of my generation and my parents’ generation found The Bad Seed horrifying because the villain was beyond redemption. She was at an age when she should have had some natural degree of innocence, but she was a total sociopath. Nobody likes a child who can’t be controlled. It just ain’t right.

Up in our area they just had a fairly bad shooting. Without going into details It seems like the school system did every thing they “should” have in these moderns times. School security guards metal detectors a councilor, Prozac, locker inspections, etc.

Without trying to go political, it seems that if a person believes that they have nothing to lose, no amount of government control (back to even censorship) is going to stop even random violence.

A phrase that I’ve run across in several places is “suicide by cop”.

In a way, this applies to suicide bombers. They don’t believe that they have anything to lose, because they’ve been guaranteed a place in Paradise. And, many of them are ripe for that message because they live in societies and conditions in which they really don’t have much to lose. However, I suspect that some percentage of them are true sociopaths from the gitgo.

19

Yes, there are convincing twin studies (among others) coming out that show heredity seems to have an effect. I am glad that in your post that you mentioned that it may be one of the factors and not the factor. I would also say that if it is hereditary, it would come from the parents (of course) and lead them to abuse their child.

I did mean the first part as a half hearted joke so as not to drag in the whole Nature Vs. Nurture / Correlation is not Causation debate.

20

Wait… I thought they were named

Allstar

Daffney

Dimmy

Junior

Casey

Galeo



Oh… you meant QUARKS not SNORKS! :wink:


You’re not alone in your “just a gut feeling like when you are using power tools and you think “this isn’t safe” right before you have an accident” type feeling in regards to current Amercian/World trends/events though (even though we might differ on the details, the feeling is the same).



Darwin: My hubby and you would have gotten along very well together had you grown up next door to each other. (After the stories I’ve heard, I’m just grateful he’s alive and in one piece!)

:astonished:



I can totally understand the dynamite perspective in regards to needing to work with it (as a tool in construction, mining, movie making, etc.) Explosives can be really cool given the right context/setting.

It just saddens me that there are people in the world who have other intentions, like blowing up schools, federal buildings etc. :cry:


Anyhoo…

:slight_smile: Sara