Flying Toilet Terror Labs

A great article from 2006 detailing the bullsh*t rationale behind banning liquids on planes. Officious rule-making morons at work. . . .  Something to think about when you're next at airport security fumbling with that zip-lock bag of 100ml containers. Here's a sample:

. . . . Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?

We're told that the suspects were planning to use TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive that supposedly can be made from common household chemicals unlikely to be caught by airport screeners. A little hair dye, drain cleaner, and paint thinner - all easily concealed in drinks bottles - and the forces of evil have effectively smuggled a deadly bomb onboard your plane.

Or at least that's what we're hearing, and loudly, through the mainstream media and its legions of so-called "terrorism experts." But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard. . . .

. . . . Making a quantity of TATP sufficient to bring down an airplane is not quite as simple as ducking into the toilet and mixing two harmless liquids together.

Ski Speed Riding

Australia

Sometimes things mustn't look so bad in New Zealand. . . .

Sunday Tune

Campfire OK - Strange Like We Are

The Apprentice: Russian Style

Great essay from the London Review of books:

. . . .Putin’s PR men dress him like a crime boss (the black polo top underneath the black suit) and his soundbites come straight out of gangster movies (‘we’ll shoot the enemy while he’s on the sh*tter …’). . . .

Wave Skiing at Maui

"All of Life is a Wager"

An excellent interview recorded late last month with the sick and (probably) terminally ill Christopher Hitchens. . . It's long, but well worth watching.