Ticking?
Good thing they got it stopped.
A robotic deputy from the San Diego Sheriff's Bomb and Arson Unit took no chances with a suspicious parcel full of potentially exploding Mexican beans yesterday, blasting the package with a "cannon" in a "controlled explosion". Local police spokesman Lieutenant Greg Koran told media that a postman making his rounds noticed …
No, no, no, you have it all wrong. According to Hollywood movies, even electronic bomb timers fitted by otherwise silent war ninja's will emit a loud "BLEEP" when enabled, and will proceed to blip every second of their short life away, yet are never heard by the opposing party until they blow up. They automatically become more audible, though, if the official hero is trying to find them.
They come from the same outfit that sells computers that make noises during execution of tasks, moving windows, announcing results and generally bleep with every keystroke - in other words, the sort of machine that nobody in their right mind would buy (ah, hang on, that is *exactly* the sort of machine that would come out a mass procurement exercise by government - it is realistic after all)..
So ticking it is. Or bleeping.
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Oh that poor, defenceless, frightened nation.
Whenever we watch 'The News' in our house (UK), we say 'Let's check what we should be frightened of today'. There was first frost this morning, so presumably it will be 'The Coldest Winter Ever'. Again.
Having said that, though, one of our guys is very late in this morning as he takes the train so....
Stop me if I've told you this before, but may years ago, when limpet mines were the damager of choice in South Africa, I attended a conference on bomb disposal and casualty management, in general a rather gruesome event, but lightened by a bomb disposal guy explaining how they dealt with limpet mines. They positioned a small ring charge of plastic explosive around the flange into which the detonator was screwed, the detonator usually having a ring on the end. They attached a piece of nylon cord to the plastics detonator, with a loop to the main detonator ring. They then attached the other end of the string to a car, accelerated away, and the plastic blew the detonator free of the mine, the loop of string yanking the detonator clear of the mine casing.
It seemed a bit extreme, but one wag in the audience yelled out "Why don't you just unscrew the detonator?" Everyone laughed, and the presenter chuckled and said "Well yes, someone did that once."
He continued "We all took cover, and he unscrewed , and unscrewed and unscrewed for what seemed like forever, and eventually, he turned around in triumph with the detonator in his hand, shouting 'I've got it!' when it went off." He paused for a moment. "Boy, did he need to change his underwear."
There is absolutely no kill like over kill. Then again, if you've got explosives, a license to play with them, and are earning say $100/hr why not go ahead and do the job. You also earn the vital R&R fodder (Ranking & Rating) so that you can prove your worth to the big boss i.e. I safely detonated X suspicious packages last year with no casualties.
Years ago when I was in college, someone found a "suspicious parcel" in one of the buildings. Campus police bravely moved the package over to the Health Center and X-rayed it. The X-ray revealed what looked like cylindrical objects with a lot of wires. Now this is getting serious! So they moved the parcel out to the quad, cleared everyone away, attached a rope to the parcel and gave it a hard yank, breaking it open and scattering the contents.
The parcel contained a couple of large egg rolls and container of chow mien. They had just ruined the janitor's lunch.
Two boys playing street soccer with a vaguely spherical, rust coloured object. Passing veteran recognises a Mills bomb. Confiscate said hand grenade and puts it in his car's glove box (Austin 1100 - tells you how long ago this was).
About a fortnight later the veteran delivers the Mills bomb to his local police station. It is then used as a paper weight for the desk sergeant's in-box for another 14 days until the EOD team are finally summoned.
The team leader decides that the ammunition is so unstable that it must be blown up in situ.
Lost his explosive license!
I don't do suspension of disbelief very well, and my first thought on being persuaded to watch "The Dark Knight Rises" was that the obvious way to deal with a fusion bomb is with a suitable disruptor. Perhaps the arming of the US police with relatively heavy ordnance is to deal with precisely this scenario, various people on the Government not having realised that the McGuffin was a completely fictional device.