Eideard

At a Colombian National Police base in the outskirts of Bogota, the nation’s capital, a new recruit is being trained.

This new recruit is unlike any other. It stands on four legs, has white hair all over its body and weighs slightly less than a pound. Its name is Rattus Norvegicus — but it’s more commonly known as a lab rat.

During a recent training session, trainers set the white rat on a patch of grass where they had hidden an explosive device underground. It took the rat less than a minute to find it. The rodent was showered with praise. Its trainers also gave it its favorite reward, a treat.

Though safer than a decade ago, Colombia is a country where landmines and car bombs are still a threat. Earlier this month, six people were killed by a car bomb targeting a police station in the town of Villa Rica in the southern province of El Cauca. The day before the February 2 bombing, nine people were killed and 70 were injured by another explosion in the neighboring province of Narino…

In the past, Colombian police used bomb-sniffing dogs; but the dogs’ weight would often trigger the explosives. That’s not a problem for lab rats that weigh slightly less than a pound.

And according to the trainers, their sense of smell is just as good as a dog’s…

Ramirez says that the only disadvantage he can think of about using rats is their short life span.

“These animals live only three to four years, which is a relatively short period of time from a human perspective. On the other hand, they’re very prolific. They reproduce themselves exponentially in a very short time,” Ramirez said.

So far, the rats have been trained to detect seven different kinds of explosives including ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, gunpowder and TNT…

Mendez also says the rats are much more cost-effective than their canine counterparts. “With the money it takes to feed a dog per day, you can feed seven rats for seven days,” Mendez said.

The money-savings alone is enough roll this project along. Nothing makes a bean-counter bureaucrat happier than saving a whole lot of 9′s. Having obedient rats instead of lovable dogs would be a plus, as well.

Four elderly men from the US state of Georgia have appeared in court charged with plotting to murder officials using explosives and the lethal toxin ricin.

Court documents say the group scoped out federal buildings and asked a contact to produce ricin. The FBI used a confidential informant to record the group’s meetings. You have to wonder if this was the “usual” level of informant. Like, some drug dealer trying to get a reduced sentence.

The men were arrested on Tuesday days after a laboratory test found trace amounts of ricin in their possession, the authorities said.

The four were named as Frederick Thomas, Dan Roberts, Ray Adams, and Samuel Crump, all ranging in age from 65 to 73.

The bespectacled accused appeared to have trouble hearing the judge at the federal court in Gainesville, even though she was using a microphone…

Mr Thomas allegedly wanted to model the group’s actions on the online novel Absolved, which involves small groups of citizens attacking US officials.

The novel’s author, Mike Vanderboegh, wrote on his blog on Wednesday his book was fiction, and was sceptical the group could have ever carried out the attacks…He appears often enough on Fox News that he’ll probably make a bundle commenting on the case.

According to court documents, Mr Thomas told the group he had a “bucket list” of politicians, employees and others he felt needed to be “taken out”…

Mr Crump and Mr Adams were allegedly assigned to try to obtain or make ricin.

As a grayhead who has occasionally been accused of being a terrorist by the sort of dimwit who would be a willing volunteer in a Georgia militia, I will be following the case with the sort of skepticism an FBI sting involving “confidential informants” deserves.

Maybe the case is legit. Maybe not. It speaks volumes of how most folks disrespect official Washington that the only people enthusiastically covering the purported plot are TV talking heads.

Security officers at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport confiscated a jar of baby food and a juice box when they tested positive for trace amounts of explosives, officials said.

“It just didn’t clear,” said Transportation Security Administration spokesman Luis Casanova. “We tried to clear it because we wanted to give the baby food back to the mom, but it wouldn’t clear. The only alternative was to hold it…”

“She was understandably upset,” Casanova said.

He said the food and drink were pre-packaged and did not appear to be tampered with, so it appeared the alert was a false positive…

The woman and her baby went on to their flight, he said. The TSA threw away the food and juice.

Apparently, TSA has the authority to toss materials into the trash that test as dangerous – but, not return them to the mother and infant transporting the terrorist commodities. Am I the only one who sees a bit of a contradiction here?

The man accused of turning his North County rental home into a makeshift “bomb factory” initially denied to authorities last week that he had anything explosive in his backyard, according to a search warrant affidavit returned Tuesday morning at Vista Superior Court.

Authorities who were called to the home on Via Scott on Thursday said George Djura Jakubec, 54, “appeared evasive and nervous during his conversation” with an Escondido fire captain, despite the fact that a gardener had just been injured in an explosion there, the warrant said…

After continued questioning, investigators got Jakubec to admit to possessing additional explosives and bomb-making materials that were in the backyard and inside the house, the court documents said.

The nine to 12 pounds of chemicals — hexamethelyne triperoxide diamine, pentaerythritol tetranitrate and erythritol tetranitrate — turned out to represent the largest such find in a single location in the United States, prosecutors later said. Thirteen grenades wrapped with shrapnel and nine detonators also were found.

Bomb technicians were still determining Tuesday how to clear the home of the highly dangerous and volatile cache of chemicals, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Jan Caldwell. The house remained sealed off, and the residents of two neighboring houses have not been allowed to return home.

Jakubec remains jailed in Vista on $5 million bail. He has been charged with 26 counts of manufacturing or possessing explosives. He also was charged with robbing two banks in San Diego this year…

The gardener who was injured, Mario Garcia, was recovering from his injuries at home and said Tuesday he gives thanks every day that he survived the blast. He and his wife are staying with their daughters in Fallbrook after losing their home to foreclosure a few months ago.

RTFA. One of those cautionary tales that suggests you treat your neighbors with due respect – but, keep an eye on what they bury in the backyard.

An inquest into the case of a Ministry of Defence scientist killed in a top-secret bomb test was stunned when an American witness produced examples of the chemicals that caused the fatal blast from her handbag.

Sitting just feet away from Terry Jupp’s shocked relatives, the explosives expert showed the court small vials containing small quantities of the bomb-making materials in unmixed form.

Mr Jupp was engulfed in a “fireball” that left him with 80 per cent burns, leading to his death in hospital, when he mixed the substances together during joint US-UK trials to replicate the homemade bombs used by terrorists.

The coroner, Dr Peter Dean, admitted the witness’s actions had caused a “rapid reaction” among lawyers present at the hearing in Southend, who included the Prime Minister’s brother, Alex Cameron, QC.

Summing up the four-week case to jurors on Friday, the coroner said: “We will certainly remember her production of vials of chemicals from her handbag.

Associates applauded his foresight at including spare unsoiled knickers in his briefcase.

Visitors to the court are checked by metal detectors and have their bags searched by security guards, and it is not clear whether the witness had permission to bring the chemicals – known only as Substance A, B and C for national security reasons – into court…

Har! Casual assumptions made by national lab scientists are notorious. I’ve joked before about a tech I worked with mentioning that he’d left his 6-pack of sodas next to plastic containers in the refrigerator from some religious project.

The fridge was marked “Trinity Site”. Google it if you don’t get my smile. And why I suggested he move his soft drinks.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology offers up this article with a straight face:

With summer travel season hard upon us, specialists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have helped create two new standards designed to increase safety as we rush from gate to gate in crowded mass transit centers. Their efforts will help to fortify against potential bomb threats in the nation’s transportation centers…

In case you considered worrying about this.

While industry has been producing blast-resistant trash receptacles for years, there were no widely-accepted specifications for judging a manufacturer’s particular claims of product safety. The Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and several manufacturers began working with NIST in 2007 to address the lack of standards for blast resistance among trash receptacles. The results of the DHS-funded work now have been published by the standards development organization ASTM International…

“In practice, this means a transit center manager can make a purchase with confidence in the performance of the unit, the specific threat level anticipated and cost,” explains Chris White, a researcher in NIST’s Building and Fire Research Laboratory. “If, for example, you know you can, at a minimum, detect the trafficking of five or more pounds of plastic explosive, you can purchase trash receptacles that will redirect the blast at up to that level of explosive force.”

You can also pour endless amount of taxpayer dollars down every rathole paranoid profit center the government can think up.

Pakistani officers arrested a man at Karachi airport on Sunday after batteries and an electrical circuit were found in his shoes as he tried to board a plane for the Middle East, an official said…

Mohammad Munir, Airport Security Force spokesman, said the bearded man, whom he named as Faiz Mohammad, was arrested when a scanner sounded an alarm.

The suspect was not found in possession of explosives, but Munir described the circuit discovery as “worrying”.

“He was on the way to board flight TG 507 for Muscat. After the machine gave the alarm, we checked him manually,” said the spokesman. “We have recovered four live batteries and a circuit, with a button to switch it on and off,” Munir said…

“The devices found from the suspect suggested that if he was carrying explosive material, he could have easily blown the explosives up in the plane,” said Munir.

So, what was this dude about doing? Was this a test run checking on the sophistication of Karachi security systems?

Or is he a beta-tester for Nike/Apple?

Guess what’s next?

To the list of instructions you hear at airport checkpoints, add this: “Put your palms forward, please.”

The Transportation Security Administration soon will begin randomly swabbing passengers’ hands at checkpoints and airport gates to test them for traces of explosives.

Previously, screeners swabbed some carry-on luggage and other objects as they searched for the needle in the security haystack — components of terrorist bombs in an endless stream of luggage.

But after the Christmas Day attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit, Michigan, the TSA began a program of swabbing passengers’ hands, which could be contaminated by explosive materials, experts say. The TSA will greatly expand the swabbing in the coming weeks, the agency said…

Under the new protocols, tests will be conducted at various locations — including in checkpoint lines, during the screening process and at gates. Newer, more portable machines make it easier to conduct tests away from fixed locations such as the checkpoint…

Because some legal substances — such as fertilizers and heart medicines — can result in “false positives,” Stanley said the ACLU also wants to ensure that people who test positive be treated respectfully.

“It’s important that the government treat people who do show up as a positive — fairly and with dignity — and not parade them off in handcuffs and treat them as terrorists, but do rational things to investigate what the problem might be,” he said.

How many people out there expect TSA rent-a-cops to behave rationally and not treat you as a terrorist? Raise your hands!

Irish police have released a man held over an explosives find, after Slovakian authorities admitted planting them in his luggage.

The explosive was one of eight pieces of contraband placed with unsuspecting passengers at Bratislava Airport last weekend, broadcaster RTE reported.

The 49-year-old unwittingly brought the material into Dublin when he returned from his Christmas holidays.

He was arrested on Tuesday morning but has since been released without charge…

Airport security detected seven of the illicit items, but the eighth – 90g of research development explosive – managed to escape detection.

Slovakian police alerted their Irish counterparts on Tuesday morning, and the man’s flat near the city centre was cordoned off while bomb disposal experts removed the explosives for further examination…

The Slovakian minister for the interior had expressed his government’s “profound regret” to Mr Ahern.

Did anyone apologize to the fracking passenger who was thrown in jail?

Chopper recovery – after the gang ditched it

The company that owns a cash depot targeted in a daring helicopter raid this week said Friday it is offering a reward of more than $1 million for information about the heist.

G4S said it is offering up to 7 million Swedish kronor ($1.01 million) for information leading directly to the arrest and conviction of the offenders or the recovery of the stolen money…

The company did not disclose how much money had been lost, but the thieves could have gotten as much as the equivalent of several millions of U.S. dollars, according to CNN affiliate TV4.

A group of heavily-armed thieves used a helicopter early Wednesday to land on the roof of the cash depot in Vastbarga, Stockholm, which serves automatic teller machines all across the capital.

They used explosives to get into the building, witness Bjorn Lockstrom told TV4, and later hoisted bags of money to the waiting chopper.

The thieves had also placed a bag marked “bomb” outside the police heliport, meaning Swedish police couldn’t immediately pursue the thieves because they had to first deal with the bag.

TV4 later reported that the bag never contained a bomb.

The thieves had also blocked the roads around the cash depot with metal spikes.

Newspaper and TV Talking Heads criticized the coppers for not opening fire on the helicopter as it lifted off the building – in the middle of Stockholm.

Well, duh! Disabling the chopper or not, there would have been a serious likelihood of shooting up a chunk of the city, as well.