The Stuff Of Legends
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010Author Linda Brady Traynham
I haven’t written much lately because both the financial and political news, at best, look like the very thin libretto of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, while the worst was surely written by a particularly bad Japanese comic strip writer. The only “transparency” in government these days is the gauze-thin cloaks of invisibility being turned out. Nobody loves a good fairy tale more than I do–you know that; I try to live one–but even fairy tales need to have some grounding in reality. Cinderella can’t marry the Prince if she is fourteen when he is born.
Take the tale of Farfetced Sinai, or whatever his name is. Once upon a time there was this warrior of Islam, see, who wanted to strike a mighty blow at the Great Satan. So off he goes to the nearest terrorist diploma mill for five months, which is probably when he got arrears in his mortgage payments. Of he goes to the marts of trade of foolish Americans who sell the ingredients for improvised explosive devices so freely. For whatever reason (perhaps he forgot the lectures?) this modern ah…uh…alleged terrorist picks up a couple of hundred pounds of fertilizer (ammonium nitrate source), several cans (either bright red or olive drab) of gasoline (well funded operation), several cannisters of Propane, and 38 big firecrackers. Even the most willing suspension of disbelief has fizzled by this time, and we haven’t gotten to the convenient Tom Clancy circumstances that always cause his villains to fail. Had he written this, the plot would fail because the terrorist had forgotten to get change for the parking meter.
The big problem I have here is that everybody knows you don’t drive a privately owned vehicle in NYC. You walk, take the subway, or call a cab. Be that as it may, Fizzle Shoddywork “finds” a parking place in Times Square, right under a security camera. I am quite certain the tape has been wiped long since, because it would surely show an accomplice who had been holding that place for hours, or even days.
Foozie parks, doubtless so excited everything he learned in bomb-making school has flown out of his head. Even if he remembers the fertilizer isn’t any good without diesel, he can’t go get any because he would never get a parking place again. No problem, on to the propane? Did he discover he had nothing to open the valves with, or was he still not thinking? Not to worry, we still have gasoline and any idiot one would think can set gasoline on fire. At least, if they take off the caps to get some good fumes…but, no, our fouled up beyond belief guy starts lighting firecrackers with nothing more flammable than the seat covers.
I admit freely that I know little about firecrackers. I’m afraid of them. I like the little tanks that shoot two or three tiny balls, Roman candles, and sparklers. I do know that with everyone I have ever seen handling small devices that go BANG the method is to light one and throw it quickly. I have great difficulty imagining this guy standing on the sidewalk (surely even this clown wouldn’t light firecrackers and then attempt to get out of the car?) without arousing any interest, even if this was New York. As the story goes, he manages to light however many miniature explosive devices he deems necessary, and off the would-be bomber goes, to catch a ‘plane.
And he almost makes it. He’s inside (despite paying cash and having no luggage and going to a terrorist stronghold) and taxiing down the runway before someone finds him on the no-fly list. And the bomb? Someone looks inside (either the shock of a POV on the street or looking for something to steal?) notices sparks, and sounds the alarm. Back to the previous question…do they make fuses that long-burning now?
What about the card on the seat that says, “This is what we could do any time we feel like it, and the next one will explode?” There should have been one. It’s a joke. A farce. It’s of a piece with the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber. This sort of thing could make a laughing stock of terrorists.
Related posts:
admin says:
May 12th, 2010
3:28 pm
I couldn’t agree with you more regarding the execution of the plan. If this is the best they have to throw at us then there isn’t much to worry about. As I see it, those who are already in the US rhetoric aside know that being here alive is much better than being in another country and dead. The majority of car bombings are successful on foreign soil precisely because those who are responsible perish during the execution of the act. The primary reason is that the bomber has nothing to lose and everything to gain, with their day to day existence one of little chance of improvement except through the belief that they will go to a better place.
If the Times Square Attempted Bomber was really convinced of his beliefs he would have stayed with the car and proven his convictions. That being said I am glad that he was a coward or at least shaky in his beliefs in the afterlife. There may come a day however where conditions here are bad enough to cause those who live in our country to become weak enough in mind and spirit to be subverted by the perversions of religion, any religion, that preach superiority or intolerance. We have already seen the seeds of this type of behavior in our youth in Columbine and several other institutions of higher learning, not to mention Oklahoma City. While I hope that the day never comes where disenfranchised citizens of our beloved country feel their only recourse is to show their convictions by going out with a bang, it seems more likely as time passes.
lynne says:
May 12th, 2010
6:18 pm
Thank goodness this man wanted to live and not great education. I go walking with my mom every morning and I told her with a remote sparker and opening up the valves of the propane tanks and filling the vehicle with gas he had the makings of a fuel air bomb. About the closest thing you can get for destructive power outside of a nuke.
I don’t many “Great Captains” that relied on the other sides ignorance to win a war.
Oilwelldoctor says:
May 13th, 2010
2:52 am
Hi Linda,
I am quite surprised at America. At least what I mistakenly thought America was. I was in the Dallas airport right after 9/11, returning home from a hitch in Venezuela. I couldn’t believe how empty the place was! I mean this was DFW and it was empty! I then realized two things: 1) that the terrorists had indeed accomplished their mission… America was afraid. And 2) many of our rights and freedoms would be taken from us in the name of protecting the nation from terrorist attack.
I refuse to let these people, cowards, scare me. As for forfeiture of rights under the constitution, we continue to lose those to the increasingly socialist government we choose to elect.
David Franklin says:
May 13th, 2010
5:32 am
A chemical scientist in Denmark found explosive residues in the 9/11 dust.
As his work was reviewed by other chemists, it becomes scientific evidence by way of peer review. The presence of nano-particles of thermite and the quantities measured in the samples prove large amounts were present and detonated in the twin towers. The scientist estimates approximately 100 tons were used.
As one of my daughter’s T shirts reads: “9/11 was an inside job.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyCDzvZ4i-4
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/explosive_residues.html
oldmanriver says:
May 13th, 2010
6:23 am
It was indeed strange how inept this fellow was. When I was in jr high, my brothers and I made more effective “bombs” out of model rocket engines. what is strange is that this guy had the know how to make a timer to set fire crackers off but used the equivilant of M60 fire crackers to try and ignite the gasoline and propane. I wonder if he almost wanted to fail? It made me wonder how dedicated to the cause this guy was. It is easy to see a scenerio where the true believers in this guys homeland make some threats against family members or perhaps take a hostage or two in order to get someone to do something like this. The guy was living the american nightmare already so maybe he had lost faith. I doubt we will ever know.
oldmanriver says:
May 13th, 2010
9:33 am
David,
Im no chemist but isnt thermite just rust and some other powdered metal? I dont know that I would consider it an explosive like TNT. Its more like a incendiary. I would think that anytime you have flames hot enough to burn metal you will have nanoparticles of what looks like thermite. I dont know if that is proof or not of a prepared thermite bomb.
Desertrat says:
May 13th, 2010
10:07 am
Thermite is a mixture of iron filings or such as lathe turnings, mixed with the same of magnesium. There is no such single melted-together material as “thermite” as an identifiable item. Identification comes from estimates of the flame temperatures necessary to accomplish certain types of damage.
ANFO, five percent diesel by weight, well mixed, needs a trigger to set it off. Commonly, a stick of dynamite works quite well. That’s what I’ve used for cracking rocks. The old fuse caps seem to be no longer used or made in the U.S., per what I was told at the Boom Store a few years back. All electric caps, nowadays.
As far as the WTC, the design of the steel framing itself seems to have created vulnerability. All those tons of jet fuel burned hot enough to allow some warping of the steel. Once that happens, the sheer mass of the concrete begins the Big Oopsie. Think about it: Any steel pipe/bar/beam expands in length with heat. If both ends are confined as in a structure, it is forced to bow in the middle. That bending where the steel is used as reinforcement then begins breakage of the concrete. Ergo, collapse.
FWIW, in one of his video tapes, bin Laden stated that he didn’t expect the total collapse of the WTC. And he was educated as an engineer, remember?
‘Rat
oldmanriver says:
May 13th, 2010
10:30 am
Rat,
Im always amazed at what an expanding length of metal can do. I have seen rail tracks that look like spagetti just from being heated by the summer sun. We had to get the cars in right away so I just had the guys take a water hose and cool them off to let them straighten back out. Long term we had the rail road come in and trim the tracks on each end to give them expansion room. I remember seeing a video of an I beam suspended over a pool of burning diesel, didnt take very long for it to bend and fail. I think it was on youtube, myth busters or something like that.
Skeptic says:
May 15th, 2010
6:10 pm
So oldman and DesertRat just what bought down Building 7 then? It had a tiny fire and wasn’t even hit by a plane. You do know about Bldg 7 don’t you? You do know 3 buildings went down that day don’t you, all at free fall speed.
Oldmanriver says:
May 16th, 2010
10:06 am
Skeptic,
I have no knowledge or opinion about building #7, nor do I particularly care about it. I was just pointing out that the mere presence of burnt metal powder does not constitute a bomb
Kurt says:
May 18th, 2010
10:31 pm
We’ve had inside jobs since the country was born. Remember Benedict Arnold? I would be surprised if it were proven that 9/11 was not an inside job, or had no inside help. What concerns me is 1) that those in power seem to be helping the terrorists more and more, 2) there is a rumor that some of the terrorists have bought suitcase nukes on the Russian black market, and 3) the insiders seem to be hell bent on taking the US down a few notches for a reason. Now I won’t argue whether or not they do in fact have any nukes already. I do not know for sure. But they do have the money to buy them. They do have the motivation to use them. Insiders in our own ranks would probably sell them to them if they don’t, just to create the needed fear to get what they want out of the American people.
Nope, the American people are about to experience something real bad regardless of who is behind it. They just don’t know it yet.
Desertrat says:
May 19th, 2010
2:46 pm
Back when I was a little kid, I’d traipse around behind my grandfather, “helping” him with farm chores. He often proffered some homily, prefaced with, “Like the Old Darkie said…” I came to believe that the Old Darkie had to have been the wisest man who ever lived.
Fast forward to folks who worry about the Bilderbergs, the Trilats, the CFR and “they”. The conspiracy theory of world domination is a major worry, I’ve noticed.
Like the Old Darkie said, “We’s all graveyard bound. Worryin’ jes’ puts de whip to de hoss.”