BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs

Subject: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 11:30 PM

I've been reading this 2004 book by Michael Christopher Carroll called "Lab 257" which concerns the aging crumbling germ warfare laboratory located on Plum Island just off the coast of Long Island and very close to the Hamptons. It is no longer used but it was open for business long after it was decrepit and very unsafe as a containment unit for the germs and viruses it stored and experimented with. In fact, they can't knock it down because of the danger of agents escaping.

The book details how such diseases as Lyme, West Nile Virus, and Dutch Duck Plague likely arose. All started in the general vicinity of Plum Island. Lyme was transmitted via tick and Plum Island worked extensively with ticks as vectors for carrying disease (and finding them extremely effective). In fact, Carroll visited Plum Island six times and once retured infested with ticks which he frantically removed and could do nothing but wait a few agonizing days to see if he had any unusual symptoms but nothing happened. Dutch Duck plague wiped out the many duck farms for which Long Island was once famous in the late 60s. I also wonder about Legionaires' Disease which Carroll does not discuss. How did that arise so sudden in so specific a locale as a single hotel in Philadelphia? It still occasionally crops up mysteriously. For that matter, what about AIDS? That too seemed to suddenly crop up.

But what really scared me in the book was the revelation of just how easy it would be to bring the United States to its knees by attacking our food supply. It is, in fact, amazing that no one has tried and only makes it inevitable that someone eventually will. This is known in DHS parlance as "agroterrorism."

But what is the Bush administration doing about agroterrorism? Very little because there isn't much that can be done. All kinds of used, cheap lab equipment is available all over the internet and can be purchased quite without anyone noticing. Someone with a little knowledge of germ warfare knows what equipment to get.

Then the germs must be purchased. That must be the real bitch trying to obtain, right? Wrong. Kooks and terrorists have been able to obtain germs and viruses with nothing more than phony letterhead on a handwritten message for various sample germs or viruses. The writer need only claim to be a researcher at some lab and write in the lingo that makes him sound like a legitimate researcher and the samples will more likely be sent than not, no questions asked, no screen or background check. If this sounds too risky just make your own bioagents with the gene recipes available online and have the genetic snippets mailed to you. If this sounds too risky, just go to places in Europe, Asia or Africa and collect your own samples of rinderpest, anthrax, foot-and-mouth disease, Rift Valley fever virus, SARS, Ebola, malaria, bird flu. Whatever is available that can do damage. Agents are more effective if they are zoonotic (can be transmitted from animal to human) but don't have to be and can still work extremely effectively.

You can order various vaccines from feedstores. These are vaccines for cattle but you can inject them into your own body and without much worse effect than a sore arm. That way if you spill an agent on you (and you will), you'll be protected.

The germ or virus will be "bred" in your makeshit laboratory and turned into a liquid slurry and then collected in test tubes, ampoules or vials. Take your dirty bomb someplace no one will be surveilling such as an ordinary truckstop. Wait until a truck hauling pigs or cattle pulls in. Such trucks are very plentiful on the roads and the trailer housing the animals is always open to the outside like a pen or stall. When the driver goes in for a sandwich and coffee, pull up alongside his truck, exit your vehicle, pull out the vial of agent, uncork it and fling it into the trailer, splattering animals like a priest blessing his flock with an aspergillum. Then leave.

Within a few days, the effects will begin to be felt. Something like foot & mouth disease, anthrax, mad cow, tuberculosis, polio, Rift Valley fever and a host of other diseases could devastate our food supply in a very short time. Livestock is transported very quickly in great numbers all over the U.S. in a matter of days. A typical stockyard for cattle usually processes a million head per quarter. Tens of thousands of pigs transported over thousands of miles from all over the country in only a few days are mixed indiscrimately in huge sale barns. The contaminated animals would thoroughly mix with the general population spreading contamination long before anyone knew anything was wrong. A very large number of these animals would be processed for slaughter and the meat distributed around the country to anyone who orders it.

Within weeks, grocery stores, restaurants, delis, etc would be closed and the food rigorously tested or confiscated and destroyed. Meat around the nation would have to be yanked off store shelves and out of freezers. 13% of our gross domestic product would go down the drain virtually overnight. The effects on the economy would be utterly ruinous. The population would panic at the thinning store shelves and buy whatever foods were still available and hoard it. Prices would be exorbitant. Job loss would be staggering. Small farms would be shutdown overnight. Our food-producing capabilities would be utterly halted.

All this independent of what the disease will do to the population assuming it is zoonotic. Rift Valley fever, bubonic plague or a particularly virulent strain of flu could kill thousands and even millions nationally or globally (swine flu killed 25 million worldwide in 1918).

One could also sprinkle dairy cows with agent in an open pasture. Would you be seen? No. Sale barns, stockyards, grazing lands, processing plants, etc. don't have very good security, especially against acts of agroterrorism. In fact, it is fair to say it is non-existent.

And this is with just a single vial of agent manufactured in your own home. Emptying, say, four vials--one on cattle, one on pigs, one on poultry and one in milk (very desirable because agents thrive very well while suspended in milk and it would be easy to contaminate dairy cows as I have pointed out)--would be utterly stoppable and monstrously devastating in just about every way imaginable.

Thanks to Bush's invasion of Iraq, al-Qaeda has evolved into a rather sophisticated organization and we know they are testing out various forms of biowarfare such as smearing agents on doorknobs. One confiscated videotape in a raid of an al-Qaeda cell showed two dogs being injected with an agent that caused them to die agonizing deaths in a few minutes time.

I think attempting limited nuclear war might unleash such a fate upon us. But it could come at any time. If enough people try to destroy our food supply, one of them is bound to succeed sooner or later.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Amergin
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 11:43 PM

Some one needs more aluminum foil for their head.....

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 12:41 AM

Certainly looks that way

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 01:07 AM

No - the alum foil helmets CONCENTRATE the evil alien brainwaves in the brain - I found a site on the internet that said so!

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 12:30 PM

And just to take him seriously for one second...

There are such things as vegetarians. I notice it was only animals that were talked about. Would it hurt the UAS to go on an enforced diet?

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 01:41 PM

I would think an organized terrorist cell would unleash agents that decimate field, orchard, grove and vineyard produce simultaneous with livestock. But even if they don't, can we possibly produce enough fruits, veggies, grains etc. to feed the entire nation now unable to consume meat (along with Canada and Mexico likely catching a fair amount of the fallout)?

Then imagine other nations in the Coalition being similarly struck. We know from laptops recovered from captured terrorists that the subject of poisoning America in this fashion is discussed fairly routinely. It is actually the easiest way to potentially kill millions and destroy a nation.

We are utterly vulnerable to it and anyone can do it who really wants to.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 02:18 PM

Yes, that was first discussed by the OSS in the Second World War. I read somewhere that some concentration camp survivors had made plans and had the toxin to poison Germany's water supply after WW2 but were talked out of it.

For a REAL fright, crawl around in the restricted sewers of Ft. Dietrich, Maryland.

And "dirty bombs" have been discussed since the 1950s.

What else is new?

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST,old soldier
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 07:03 PM

wHAT GUEST AR 282 SAID IS CORRECT. read any of the following Plague Wars by Goldberg, The killing factory, by Parker, The secret life of Germs tierino, Biological weapons- Lederberg, The Comming Plague Garrett, The Killing winds-McDermott,, A higer form of Killing Harras and Paxman Germs- Mille, The Biology of Doom-Regis,,
Biohazard, Ken Alibek
Alibek was the head of Biopreparat the Russian biological warfare program before he defected to the US. They had weaponised Ebola, and Marburg virus w/ smallpox.   One of the problems was that once a vector was infected there was no way of stopping the spread around the world. We were also involved in this type of research starting back in the late 1940's

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: michaelr
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 07:42 PM

Seriously as this is as a potential problem, did you have to tell them how to do it?

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 08:08 PM

Everybody who already WANTS to know does... even me...

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST,old soldier
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 08:45 PM

Those russian scientists are now working for other countries probably those seek the downfall of the west. just pray that it is never used..All that info is easily avalable

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 08:48 PM

Technology Review has much of the March/April issue devoted to this issue, and it is a very real concern. At this link, click on the magazine at the left, or the table of contents link there, to browse some of it. Click the article titile "The Knowledge" to go to an extensive article. The article is based in part on interviews with "Serguei Popov, who for nearly two decades developed genetically engineered biological weapons for the Soviet Union, …now a professor at the National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases at George Mason University,"

A link at the beginning of the article offers a "rebuttal" view.

At page 2 of the article:

"In 2002, after all, a group of researchers built a functioning polio virus, using a genetic sequence off the Internet and mail-order oligonucleotides (machine-synthesized DNA molecules no longer than about 140 bases each) from commercial synthesis companies. At the time, the group leader, Eckard Wimmer of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, warned that the technology to synthesize the much larger genome of variola major -- that is, the deadly smallpox virus -- would come within 15 years. In fact, it arrived sooner: December 2004, with the announcement of a high-throughput DNA synthesizer that could reproduce smallpox's 186,000-odd bases in 13 runs."

So smallpox has been eradicated – but a terrorist could "create it" essentially from scratch using equipment and biochemicals you can get by mail order. FACT.

An extract from Biohazard, the autobiography of Ken Alibek, Biopreparat's former deputy chief, its leading scientist, … described how, in 1989, Alibek and other Soviet bosses had attended a presentation by an unnamed "young scientist" from Biopreparat's bacterial-research complex at Obolensk, south of Moscow. Following this presentation, Alibek wrote, "the room was absolutely silent. We all recognized the implications of what the scientist had achieved. A new class of weapons had been found. For the first time, we would be capable of producing weapons based on chemical substances produced naturally by the human body. They could damage the nervous system, alter moods, trigger psychological changes, and even kill."

Serguei Popov affirms he was that "young scientist."

" The "new class of weapons" that Alibek describes Popov's creating in Biohazard is a case in point. Into a relatively innocuous bacterium responsible for a low-mortality pneumonia, Legionella pneumophila, Popov and his researchers spliced mammalian DNA that expressed fragments of myelin protein, the electrically insulating fatty layer that sheathes our neurons. In test animals, the pneumonia infection came and went, but the myelin fragments borne by the recombinant Legionella goaded the animals' immune systems to read their own natural myelin as pathogenic and to attack it. Brain damage, paralysis, and nearly 100 percent mortality resulted: Popov had created a biological weapon that in effect triggered rapid multiple sclerosis. (Popov's claims can be corroborated: in recent years, scientists researching treatments for MS have employed similar methods on test animals with similar results.)"

One of the experiments on which Popov worked in Russia was the combining to infections bacteria with genetic material that would flood the victim's system with endorphins – apparently intended to "pacify" populations.(?)

Popov recently says: "To cause amnesia, schizophrenia -- yes, it's theoretically possible with pathogens. If you talk about pacification of a subject population -- yes, it's possible."

Other scientists agree. No one knows whether such agents have been produced.

(Question: would a perfectly pacified and tractably obedient population necessarily follow their fundamentalist preachers?)

" ... The recent report by the National Academies described many unpleasant scenarios: in addition to psychotropic pathogens, the academicians imagine the misuse of "RNA interference" to perturb gene expression, of nanotechnology to deliver toxins, and of viruses to deliver antibodies that could target ethnic groups." This seems to be something for the future – but not too far in the future.

In all, 12 (web) pages of pretty scary stuff, from – I believe – credible sources.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Apr 06 - 09:20 PM

"would a perfectly pacified and tractably obedient population necessarily follow"

Well, drugged out hippe 'pacified' - Ha!

now a 'road rage pacified' population like the USA... wait on, isn't the USA military in Iraq?

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 06:23 AM

GUEST, old soldier,

What was the colour code for NATO Chemical and Biological weapons?

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST,old soldier
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 10:06 AM

That must have been after my time 1953-1955

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 11:17 AM

>>Seriously as this is as a potential problem, did you have to tell them how to do it?<<

A terrorist already knows this. I'm sure he knows a hell of a lot more than I do about it. For instance, I never mentioned that you need to test your slurry on test animals to make sure it is deadly enough for your purposes--things like that--but, again, terrorists and kooks already know that they have to do this.

What the public needs to be aware of is how easy it is to do this. If they are made aware of the terribly vulnerable condition we are in, funding for measures to at least minimize it will never be considered important enough to justify. Bush certainly won't spend it if he doesn't have to since his war is slowly bankrupting us as it is.

Plum Island gives us an idea of what could happen since it appears that agents have escaped from the island through Lab 257's crumbling safetly system. Dutch duck plague was never before seen in the U.S. for example before the late 60s. Suddenly, there it was on Long Island which is just a couple miles from Plum Island and it completely wiped out a once thriving duck farm industry on Long Island--in fact, Long Island had been fairlyfamous for its duck farms. The evidence indicates the disease was transported to Plum Island where it got loose or got loose en route two Plum Island (Carroll has two true cases where a researcher carried highly lethal agents to the island in a little package he carried with him and accidentally LEFT IT AT THE PIER when he boarded the ferry to Plum Island and made the skipper turn around so he could retrieve it and luckily it was still there. Then there was the package of agents that were washed overboard from the ferry during violent seas AND WAS NEVER RECOVERED.). Let us remember that Plum Island (officially part of the USDA but always really under Army auspices but now part of DHS) handled some of the most virulent agents to be found anywhere in the world no differently than Fort Detrick and had them stored in a freezer that once thawed during a hurricane that blew out the overhead lines (the Island officials never considered an underground emergency cable necessary).

Plum Island is so rundown it does not have any security to speak of and could easily be a place for terrorists to obtain samples or to take hostage. One major terrorist suspect caught in Pakistan had a complete layout of Plum Island in his possession (it also still has an active laboratory on it, Building 101).

Just blowing up a building on the island could do it. If agents are exposed, air currents, birds, ticks, fleas, deer, mosquitoes and other vector animals would spread it to the mainland before anything could be done about it.

So terrorists already know the damage they can do but the public does not. The first several reponses I received on this thread demonstrates how unaware, unbelieving and ignorant the public is of this type of terrorist attack. AND IT IS THE EASIEST TYPE OF ATTACK TO BRING ABOUT MASS DEATH. No matter what Bush says, he is not keep ing us safe from attack. As bin Laden said on one of his tapes, there has been no new attack on the U.S. solely because no one is currently carrying one out. I believe him a lot more than I do Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 11:59 AM

The best protection from a so-called "dirty bomb" is to simply stay indoors -- get under cover, limit your exposure. The radioactives available ARE dangerous, but the quantity such a device could spread is very limited, even if wind drift is used. Now, a full-blown nuke is another story -- consider what would happen if (and this is known to the movers and shakers of both sides) a small, artillery-shell-sized warhead was loaded into the hold of a tanker and anchored in a port -- say, Seattle or San Diego or Baltimore or Boston. The shell is exploded -- not much damage (compared to the Big Bombs) is done, but the oil becomes radioactive and....

The dirty bomb will kill more by panic than by either blast or radiation because people are ignorant about radiation and have been fed, well, crap, about it for a long time. The other scenario will kill by blast, but moreso by radiation.

Biological warfare is stupid -- you WILL kill your people along with the enemy. Think instead of the release of a bacteria genetically altered to devour petroleum.... Whoops! That already exists and is in use.

Besides, how would stop these things? With a treaty?

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 12:38 PM

As Rapaire says, how you gonna stop it? Mine may be a head in the sand approach but things that I truly cannot do anything about I'm going to ignore.

As Shel said, You're still gonna die.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 12:42 PM

There is a continous threat to every nation, that some terrorist organization will be capable of using these kinds of weapons. Finding and handling supplies of these materials is getting harder as we progress with international controls on production. Obviously there are possible

Most countries realise it is a no win situation if bio terrorism gets unleashed. Disease would backfire on the users when nations supporting their cause are unable to control or contain epidemics caused by terrorist cells. Fanatics would not be stopped by this threat, but it makes it more likely they would not be supported by rogue states if they threatened using this form of warfare.

As for Al Queda, it is a very fractured organization, and has very little of it's former capability. Most actions are now by uncoordinated wanna be's and splinter groups. Since it has been targeting innocent arabs and stirring up tribal differences in Iraq it has fallen from favour with many. (rather like the Taliban)
Perhaps these fanatics will wake up to the fact that noone will win WW3, at best it will just level the playing field (no pun intended)for WW4.

Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 12:51 PM

You're applying logic to something illogical. Simply pronouncing biowarfare stupid and suicidal will not only NOT deter someone hellbent on doing it, it might even encourage them.

While Mideast terrorists concern me, I'm far more concerned about the American citizen who does this. They're hard to spot because they are normally white men that no one suspects or doesn't fit a criminal profile. Frequently these people don't care if they survive or not and oftimes do not intend to survive.

A prime example was Andrew Kehoe of the Bath School Disaster of May 18, 1927. A consolidated school was built in the town of Bath, Michigan near Lansing. It caused property taxes to go up but people figured it was worth it because of the benefits to the children of Bath. Andrew Kehoe, however, felt that he was being harder hit than most people and fought to get the taxes reduced but failed. He was installed on the Bath school administration and also acted as a sort of caretaker/janitor as well. He had access to the entire school and was there all the time so no one ever questioned his presence.

On May 18, 1927, Andrew Kehoe murdered his wife and set her body ablaze. He set fire to his farm. He girded all the trees on his property, he tied up his farm animals so that they could not run away and set the barn on fire.

As people poured into the street at noon seeing the smoke from the blaze, the town of Bath was rocked by a tremendous explosion. Half the school had just been blown to bits with classes in session. As people ran to the school to set up a search & rescue operation, Andrew Kehoe pulled up in his model T. He had loaded the trunk with all kinds of scrap metal--links of chain, bearings, pieces of farm implements, bullets. He had a couple of hundred pounds of dynamite and pyrotol in the back seat and a rifle next to him. He parked amidst the frantic and panicked crowd, picked up the rifle and fired into the explosive. The resulting explosion killed nearly everyone standing there. The metal pieces dismembered victims including survivors maimed for the rest of the lives. Some children were cruelly killed in the explosion having just crawled from the wreckage of the school. One house was pierced with so many holes from metal fragments that it had to be knocked down. In all, some 45 people died--most of them children from about 6-12.

Police went into the basement of the school and found another 500 lbs of explosive and 8 blasting caps. Why this material failed to detonate is not known but it likely would have destroyed the town of Bath if it had. The school had been rigged with hundreds of pouonds of dynamite and pyrotol and the basement. Kehoe must have been transporting it in bit by bit for at least a year and keeping it well hidden. He set it off with an alarm clock set for noon.

Why did he do it? We'll never really know. Apparently the tax increase had caused a foreclosure on his mortgage. Yet, he was such a bad farmer and his wife so ill with TB and practically lived at the hospital that it seems unlikely the taxes were the cause of his problems. Moreover, the Kehoe farm was crowded with all kinds of expensive fancy farm machinery Kehoe had bought but never used (he wanted literally to not break a sweat when he worked because he couldn't tolerate wearing even a slighly dirty shirt according to all who knew him and when the new machine failed to free him from the tyranny of toiling for a living, he would stop using it and just let the crop sit unharvested). If Kehoe had sold off this unused equipment, he could have easily paid his mortgage and had plenty left over to stick in the bank or in a mattress. So it wasn't money. In fact, $300 cash was found in a box next to his wife's charred corpse.

Stuck on the fence at the burned out farm was a message that read, "Criminals are made not born."

So what made a man decide to murder an entire town including himself? We'll never really know. But there are many Andrew Kehoes out there right now and they aren't going to be satisfied to dynamite a small farming community. They want to wreak havoc on the whole state, the whole country, the whote world for the terrible wrongs done them--and they have no intention of survivng themselves or don't care if they don't. There are more people like that than we think and one of them soemday is going to pull something like Andrew Kehoe except he's going to do it with germs and viruses. And god help us if he's a farmer.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: pdq
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 01:02 PM

STILL GONNA DIE

So you're takin' better care of your body
Becoming more aware of your body.
Responding to your body's needs.
Everything you hear and read about diets,
Nutrition and sleeping position and detoxifying your system,
And buying machines that they advertise to help you exercise.
Herbs to revitalize you if you're traumatized.
Soaps that will sanitize.
Sprays to deordorize.
Liquid to neutralize acids and pesticides.
Free weights to maximize your strength and muscle size.
Shots that will immunize.
Pills to re-energize you.

But remember that for all your pain and gain
Eventually the story ends the same...
You can quite smokin', but you're still gonna die.
Cut out cokin', but you're still gonna die.
Eliminate everything fatty or fried,
And you get real healthy, but you're still gonna die.
Stop drinkin' booze, you're still gonna die.
Stay away from cooze, you're still gonna die.
You can cut out coffee and never get high,
But you're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.

You're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
You can even give aerobics one more try,
But when the music stops playin', you're still gonna die.
Put seat belts in your car, you're still gonna die.
Cut nicotine tar, you're still gonna die.
You can exercise that cellulite off your thigh.
Get slimmer and trimmer, but you're still gonna die.
Stop gettin' a tan, you're still gonna die.
You can search for UFO's up in the sky
They might fly you to Mars where you're still gonna die.

You're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
And all the Reeboks and Nikes and Adidas you buy
You can jog up to heaven and you're still gonna die.

Drink ginseng tonics, you're still gonna die.
Try high colonics, you're still gonna die.
You can have yourself frozen and suspended in time,
But when they do thaw you out, you're still gonna die.
You can have safe sex, you're still gonna die.
You can switch to Crest, you're still gonna die.
You can get rid of stress, get a lot of rest,
Get an AIDS test, enroll in EST,
Move out west where it's sunny and dry
And you'll live to be a hundred
But you're still gonna die.

You're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
So you'd better have some fun
'Fore you say bye-bye,
'Cause you're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.

~Shel

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: pdq
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 01:16 PM

KILLED BY A COCONUT

He just had a stress test, and he was fine
His cholesterol level was down to 209.
He saved up his money, retired to the tropic sea
There he was resting contentedly underneath a tall palm tree

When he was... killed by a coconut
Killed by a coconut
Just when things were lookin' up...
He happened to be lookin' down.

Yeah, he was... killed by a coconut (and you could be)
Killed by a coconut (that's why you never should be)
Sittin' underneath a coconut tree
When the coconut come down.

After five years of beggin' and pleadin'
She finally said yes.
They slipped into his apartment,
She slipped out of her dress.
He lit up some incense, and unplugged the phone
And was just about to enter the twilight zone

When he was... killed by a coconut (oh, what a feeling)
Killed by a coconut (it came through the ceiling)
The people upstairs were havin' a luau
And one fell through the floor.
And you'll be killed by a coconut (if you ain't protected)
Killed by a coconut (they come unexpected)
So never be lyin' in bed at night with the one that you adore.

He got the promotion, he felt great.
He took everybody in the office out to celebrate.
He ordered up pina coladas all around,
And they made a toast, he drank it down and made a gasping sound.

And he was... killed by a coconut (a great big cold one)
Killed by a coconut (he swallowed a whole one)
The young bartender was just out of school
And put the whole damn coconut in

He was... killed by a coconut (it ain't no joke)
You could be killed by a coconut (gasp and choke)
So never be drinkin' in a bar at night
Surrounded by all of your friends

He came back from Vietnam without even a scar (guy was a hero)
Started drivin' them demolition derby cars
He joined the police force
Survived a shoot out or two (uh oh, I think I see what's comin')
Now he was heathily joggin' down the avenue

When he was...
Killed by a pineapple (they were out of coconuts)
Killed by a pineapple (felt just like a coconut)
The A&P truck hit a telephone pole and fruit went flyin' everywhere
So, if there's plans you got (big, big plans you got)
Just make sure you're not just not (just make sure you're not)
Joggin' down the road on a sunny afternoon
'Cause coconuts are lurkin' out there

And you'll be...
Killed by a coconut (what a way to die now)
Killed by a coconut (everybody cry now)
Fate has a way of makin' you pay for all wrongs you do
And all the plans you got (all the plans you got)
Ain't gonna mean a lot (ain't gonna mean a lot)
When you meet up with the coconut
That's out there waitin' for you

Yeah, the plans you got - will not mean a lot
When you take a shot - that don't feel so hot
And ready or not, you come to the spot
Your coconut's waitin' for you.
(Somewhere there's a tropical fruit with your name on it)

~Shel

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: pdq
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 01:20 PM

STANDING ON THE OUTSIDE OF YOUR SHELTER

I'm standing on the outside of your shelter looking in,
While the bombs around are falling ev'rywhere,
Inside you look so warm and safe and oh so happy,
Have I ever told you that I care?

Have I ever told you that you're wonderful?
And it hurts me so that we have grown apart.
I'm standing on the outside of your shelter, dear,
But I hope I'm on the inside of your heart.

~Shel

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: pdq
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 01:23 PM

DROP THE BOMB

I only wish they'd drop the bomb tomorrow
To teach you a lesson for runnin' away from me,
And then I'd helter-skelter.
To our cozy family shelter
And I'd lock you out and throw away the key...

I'd be on the inside eatin' up both our rations
While you'd be on the outside gettin' thin
Yellin' and a-screamin' while you're catchin' radiations,
But I'll never never never never never never
                        Let you in!

~Shel

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: podman
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 01:34 PM

There was a good show on NOVA or Frontline or something about all the Soviet research and development that went on after they and the US signed non germ-war treaties. The Soviet expert, now in the US, developed something that was easily transmissable and gave minor cold symptoms when you got it, but what you got was decay of brain myelin - yup, instant, transmissable Alzheimer's, uncurable.

Tom Clancy has already devoted no less than two of his great big books to this kind of attack, in one of 'em evil Muslims prepare to attack the US with weaponized Ebola. In the other, evil environmentalists prepare to destroy 99.99% of the world's population with a derivative of Ebola. Makes it look pretty do-able. In the case of the evil Muslims they depend on the will of Allah. In the case of the environmentalists they have already developed an antidote just for themselves.

The problem is not that it's impossible, the problem is that it is possible, and not that expensive either

The reason it doesn't happen is severalfold: Too hard to control, too easy to be retaliated upon, not that much of an accepted terrorist tactic yet, though it has been tried in Japan and upstate Oregon.

Lastly, within reach is genetic biowarfare, synthesis of toxins that kill or cripple only certain genetic combinations. In "Earth, Final Conflict" such a poison was imagineered to take out just one person.

Happy Easter!

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 03:00 PM

she was walking
all alone
down the street
in the alley
her name was sally
i never touched her
she never saw it
when she was hit by
space junk
she was smashed by
space junk
she was killed by
space junk
in new york
miami beach
heavy metal fell
in cuba
angola
saudi arabia
on xmass eve
said norad
a soviet sputnik
hit africa
india
venezuela
in texas
kansas
it's falling fast
peru too
it keeps coming
it keeps coming
it keeps coming
and now i'm mad about
space junk
i'm all burned out about
space junk
oooh walk & talk about
space junk
it smashed my baby's head
space junk
and now my sally's dead
space junk

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 03:01 PM

Whoops, that last post was me.

The lyrics are "Space Junk" by Devo.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 04:06 PM

I can make nerve gas in my basement. I can make 'most any poison gas in my basement Same thing for explosives. Nukes are harder because of the need for fissionable material, but you might read "The Curve of Binding Energy" for how simple they are to make if you have access to fissionable material. Children's science kits are available that will extract DNA.

Hell, I can use germs to kill people off just as was done in the past when dead bodies would be catapulted into besieged towns.

Pessimistic? Me? No.

Take the instant Alzheimer's thing -- let's say it was turned loose. Fine, now you're facing a crowd of psychotics where before you were facing a bunch of reasonably rational people. Stupid move, Jack. Especially when your own people become infected.

I think that lots of people are confusing Hollywood, television, novels (Tom Clancy deals in fiction), and the-end-is-coming books.

Reminds me of what Jerry Falwell was supposed to have done to prepare for The Rapture, which was to occur at midnight, December 31, 1999: he went out and stockpiled ammunition.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 04:33 PM

Everything you've said was already said about the bomb but they built it and used it anyway.

There will always be those who think they're right. There will be those who think they are doing their god's work and they themselves will be protected or will be given special access to the highest levels of heaven or will receive 72 virgins--whatever.

Suicide bombing? That's stupid. You kill your own personnel and then you have to recruit more and they will be less likely to kill themselves, etc etc. But it happens.

Then you have groups who believe they know how to control the spread of the disease such as choosing vectors that aren't on their side of the world or by using diseases that are less contagious, etc.

Then there are groups who could do damage on a limited basis but threaten us with more if certain demands are not met.

As far as giving people Alzheimers, they don't need to invade us. Just watch us run our country into the ground or watch it careen out of control forcing the rest of the world to take some kind of united action against us. They may have to anyway just to try and keep the contagion from spreading.

And yes you can do this on your own with ordinary materials--that's what I've been saying since I started this thread.

Sooner or later, somebody is going to do it and all your insisting how stupid and insane it is will mean nothing to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Peace
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 05:16 PM

Terrorism is quite easy to implement. It's the response to the terrorism that some folks will have to watch out for.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 05:19 PM

And if they do and I contact the disease and it kills me?

The world won't end. I won't be in it, but the ol' ball will keep right on rolling.

We have a tendency to assume that when we die the world ends, as if it couldn't get along without us. Solipsism, true, but there it is.

Trust me: it doesn't matter. The world will little note nor long remember....

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorism, biowarfare and dirty bombs
From: Peace
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 05:46 PM

THAT was a real mistake on his part, no?


"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln - November 19, 1863