The Register? Really? I haven't been able to take them seriously since they ran Andrew Orlowsky's crazy anti-Google rants as straight reportage.

Posted August 18, 2006 2:38 PM by Avram

If one takes the War On Terror to date as a precedent, Bush's next move should be to order the carpet-bombing of Walthamstow.

Also Venezuela.

Posted August 18, 2006 2:40 PM by James D. Macdonald

Well, speaking as an organic chemist whose hands-on expeience with explosives stopped with his high-school basement lab (I scared myself often enough there), I know that there are lots of substances that you can make explode, some of them quite unintentionally. We had numerous explosions in the lab I worked in for my PhD, none of them intended, and some of them involving materials that were supposedly safe.

As for me, I was always leery of anything that involved peroxides; some of them are treacherous and extremely sensitive to heat, shock, or even mild scratching. To make them deliberately on a scale large enough to bring down an airliner requires someone not only suicidal but also willing to take the large chance that his suicide will be waaay premature. The reagents to manufacture these substances on the spot in an airliner are corrosive, volatile and/or highly inflammable, hardly the "benign" liquids so casually spoken of in the first news reports.

This is not to say that explosive liquids can't be brought onto a plane; that's what the "Bojinka" plot involved -- nitroglygerine in a contact-lens-solution bottle. But those liquids could also be caught by a bomb-sniffing dog, by quadrupole magnetic resonance detectors, or by other currently available technology.

Posted August 18, 2006 2:42 PM by theophylact

I acknowledge Andrew Orlowsky as The Register's biggest soft spot. I keep telling myself they're just keeping him as a pet.

Posted August 18, 2006 2:44 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Hmmm, just don't believe anything 'The Register' tells you about upcoming unreleased video cards...

...and yeah, Marxists often come up with interesting analysis because, well, they seem to have a tradition of actually bothering to *do* analysis and also have a framework for it, however much you may agree of or disagree with that framework. Interesting, right up until the point where they suddenly make the bewildering leap over the logical grand canyon and conclude that given all this the inevitable working class revolution of the proleteriat is at hand. You just have to hope they limit to a few vestigal reflex 'Cathage must be Destroyed' sentences at the end, rather than starting a quarter of the way in and taking up most of the article.

I testify to WSWS as having been in my past experience -- tho' I haven't read them recently -- pretty good at keeping that sort of stuff down to the concluding paragraph.

Posted August 18, 2006 2:51 PM by SKapusniak

And let's not forget that the response to the mythical threat of binary explosives is to pour the contents of all "threatening" bottles into, let's not mince words, a big vat at security.

Posted August 18, 2006 2:58 PM by Will "scifantasy" Frank

James Macdonald: I anticipate the bombing of High Wycombe, together the mispronunciation of the same.

(Anyone who says 'nuclear' correctly helps terrorism, pass it on.)

Posted August 18, 2006 3:08 PM by Fragano Ledgister

The description of how to make TATP on your (presumably long) flight had me just about ROFLMAO. At work.

(I would bet that few, if any, of the people talking up binary liquid explosives have even had high-school-equivalent chemistry, let alone anything more advanced. Journalism lets you get a good job with essentially no background in anything, including English.)

Posted August 18, 2006 3:39 PM by P J Evans

More skepticism from Craig Murray, who has some insight into British security theatre, and subsequently points out how it did change the Media Narrative via Bloggerheads.

Posted August 18, 2006 4:17 PM by bellatrys

As someone who flunked their college intro chemistry lab (I had a good grasp of the concepts and math, but I'm a klutz), I was immediately suspicious of the liquid explosives story.

At least Mohammed Atta was a professionally trained architect and the WTC bombers did attend flight school.

(stands back from possible sub-thread about WTC as conspiracy)

Posted August 18, 2006 4:30 PM by sara

sara, I'm standing back too, but one thing no one denies about 9/11 is that Bad Things Happened. With the Liquid Sky Delusion, nothing did, and probably nothing would have.

Posted August 18, 2006 4:42 PM by Xopher

I have a pretty solid background in chemistry (up through second-year organic at a major university), and I wouldn't try to mix up a liquid explosive in an aircraft lavatory -- not because I'd be worried about dying, because that'd be about the only likely result -- but because the only way someone else would die would be if the old guy in seat 14A had a heart attack when he heard there was a terrorist on board.

It's like Teresa keeps saying: the Bushites hold us in complete contempt.

Posted August 18, 2006 4:51 PM by James D. Macdonald

I've worked with those chemicals on a daily basis for over 25 years. You'd trash your bathroom if you mixed them together, but I don't know how much the damage would extend beyond that.

Sulfuric peroxide is a great way to take metal and organic contamination off silicon wafers, but it cools down and loses its effectiveness in less than half an hour. I've been in labs where people have mixed the wrong chemicals. Boom, yes, but not enough to knock out a wall.

Posted August 18, 2006 5:00 PM by Berni

Deal is, the Cheneyites are pushing the meme of the Sinister Dr. Fu Manchu, and the American people, heaven help us all, are buying it.

In one of the articles Teresa links to, we read:

The al-Qaeda franchise will pour forth its bowl of pestilence and death. We know this because we've watched it countless times on TV and in the movies, just as our officials have done. Based on their behavior, it's reasonable to suspect that everything John Reid and Michael Chertoff know about counterterrorism, they learned watching the likes of Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Vin Diesel, and The Rock (whose palpable homoerotic appeal it would be discourteous to emphasize).

And by thunder, it's true. I think I can even name the movies they saw. (The Rock, with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage, is one of them. Executive Decision, with Steven Seagal and Kurt Russell, is another.)

Michael Chertoff is a complete incompetent. He fits in perfectly on Team Bush.

Posted August 18, 2006 5:21 PM by James D. Macdonald

Also, Die Hard With A Vengeance. Certainly that's where I first heard of binary liquid explosives.

Posted August 18, 2006 5:56 PM by Will "scifantasy" Frank

Not that I want to give terrorists any great ideas, but wouldn't it be much easier to cause an airline crash by bringing aboard some liquid sarin, which would outgas easily enough once opened, and in the closed air circulation system of the plane get a high death toll -- it's probable the pilots would be just as affected, IIRC the cockpit is on the same air system.

Posted August 18, 2006 6:40 PM by Connie H

I'm a big fan of The Reg too - it, Making Light, and about a half dozen other blogs constitute my "morning newspaper" - but that liquid explosives article bothered me a bit:

Wasn't the bomb that blew a hole in a Philipine Airlines plane and killed one passenger in 1994 using just this sort of technology?

If so, an article that talks about the impractibility of this sort of attack should nevertheless acknowledge that it has been tried once and it *worked*.

But I don't know heaps about this stuff - if anyone can tell me I'm wrong, and why, I'd be glad to hear it.

Posted August 18, 2006 7:31 PM by Steve Taylor

Connie H --

There's a dump valve; airliners aren't closed systems. (They'd have to be much more strongly built = heavy = expensive to operate if they were.)

Steve --

That was a nitroglycerin bomb. The timer was assembled and attached on board, but the explosive was pre-existing when the bomber boarded.

So, no, no binary compound liquid explosives, just a good old fashioned smuggled bomb that happened to use liquid nitroglycerin.

Posted August 18, 2006 7:51 PM by Graydon

I thought the Philipine Airlines bomb was straight nitro glycerin? Frozen, a faint memory tells me, but maybe that's something else....

Posted August 18, 2006 7:59 PM by NelC

Following links from above: This would make a dandy new template for phishing letters:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/18/paypal_terror_ban/

Posted August 18, 2006 8:07 PM by James D. Macdonald

I suppose one "benefit" of this is that sizable quantities of acetone or peroxide on the plane are bad enough.

Posted August 18, 2006 9:22 PM by C. Wingate

The reagents to manufacture these substances on the spot in an airliner are corrosive, volatile and/or highly inflammable, hardly the "benign" liquids so casually spoken of in the first news report

What do we use to make TATP? Acetone, Hydrogen Peroxide, Sulfuric Acid.

What do we use to make nitroglycerine? Nitric Acid, Sulfuric Acid, Glycerine.

What are the sinks made of in most planes? Stainless steel, aluminum, or polycarbonate (with a stainless or alloy stopper, no less.)

You want to dump what into what? As my mailserver would put it, 550 O RLY?

(Oh, and on most sinks, it is a damp sink. Not that water would do anything to sulfuric acid...)

Posted August 18, 2006 10:14 PM by Erik V. Olson

Hollywoodism is just a symptom; the disease is magical thinking, untethered to any actual expertise in the relevant subject matter.

This is what you get when you not only have a profoundly anti-knowledge Administration, but a profoundly anti-knowledge population. The Bushies can spin their magical thinking fantasies because not enough people know even the basics of the sciences/technologies involved.

It's a source of constant astonishment to me that America is, after Japan, the most tech-gadget obsessed culture on the planet while at the same time so ignorant not only about science but about how science works. It's all magic, from cell phones to "binary liquid bombs." Doesn't auger at all well for our chances in the long term, I'm thinking.

Posted August 18, 2006 10:22 PM by CaseyL

A friend of mine, when explaining why an international graduate student in her department was delayed in arriving, referred to "the exploding shampoo plot."

I have decided this phrase aptly summarizes everything about the situation.

Posted August 18, 2006 10:29 PM by Caroline

The Exploding Shampoo Plot. I like it.

Posted August 18, 2006 10:54 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Graydon, NelC -

thanks. Who would ever have dreamed that journalists could have got their facts wrong?

Posted August 18, 2006 11:22 PM by Steve Taylor

CaseyL:

It's not so much "magical thinking" but a rather robust reliance on the Almighty Specialist. Most of us lack the aptitude (and willigness) to be deeply initiated in every field of human endeavor and inquiry. So, at some point, most of us are going to be able to be led by the nose by a smooth-talking specialist when it comes to something that is outside our own personal realm of knowledge and training.

Which is what makes Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds' Army of Davids such a useful starting point in this discussion; I, for one, am perversely proud to say that I am incapable of differentiating truth from baloney on the question of liquid binary explosives. BUT, I am more than happy to listen to the horde of experts that have come out with their suspicions on the practicality of the plot, from a lab-tested chemist's point of view. It does help me make up my own mind on the question and define the scope of my ignorance.

Being an expert at everything is rather impractical, and it's the nature of the limitations of the individual human experience that we will be unable, in a given instance, to differentiate the banalities, the half-truths, and the outright lies. But then again, I could be wrong, and if you like, I'd be delighted to have in depth discussion with you about the practicalities of machine gun use and maintenance, or perhaps the nuances of information technology in dental practices.

Just because individuals do not know how hard it is to make TATP, does not make them starry-eyed, mouth-breathing morons.

Posted August 18, 2006 11:30 PM by Dave Klecha

I feel slighted. We're Americans, dammit. We're supposed to be worth the trouble it takes to generate a few first-rate new deceptions.

Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from a TV show, ever, from the very first episode of the superb, like-Buffy-level-good Homicide: Life on the Street:

"You're saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I'm just a doughnut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here. Wait until that big guy comes back. I'm probably just his secretary. I'm just Montel Williams. You want to talk to Larry King... I've been a murder police for ten years. If you're going to lie to me, you lie to me with respect."

Posted August 18, 2006 11:52 PM by Stephen Frug

It does help me make up my own mind on the question and define the scope of my ignorance.

Well said. It seems to me that a non-reliance on experts has been a major problem with this administration.

Posted August 18, 2006 11:53 PM by Will "scifantasy" Frank

Dave, we've been fighting like cat and dog for nigh on a decade.

And every so often, you remind me why I plan to hang about and fight with you for at least another decade.

Posted August 19, 2006 1:18 AM by Marna

Starry-eyed mouth breathing moron here. But at least I know what I don't know. Also, I'm not in charge of any country's security. I think I deserve a little slack for not knowing how to make TATP -- do you really want me to know? -- but that doesn't excuse the people in charge who are trying to scare us.

I'm with CaseyL that this is all about magical thinking. We are engaged in a collective mass exorcism of the liquids, because some liquids almost threatened us.

Posted August 19, 2006 1:25 AM by TomB

In other words: Just because some liquids almost threatened us is no reason for us to expel the liquids from our bodies into our pants.

Posted August 19, 2006 2:21 AM by Glenn Hauman

mouth-breathing morons

... God, I love that one... Excellent point BTW...

John:And by thunder, it's true. I think I can even name the movies they saw. (The Rock, with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage, is one of them. Executive Decision, with Steven Seagal and Kurt Russell, is another.)

John, I think you missed the one that has perhaps had the most influence on the Bush Administration... The Joker's acid-squirting lapel flower in Batman... Maybe in the remake we can cast a shotgun-weilding Cheney as the Joker ("Bob? Gun!")...

Posted August 19, 2006 3:00 AM by Edward Oleander

Does anybody know where this binary explosive meme originated from? Certainly none of the major news sources I've looked at have said anything like it. The plan, as reported by the BBC, the Guardian, and even Wikipedia, was to bring pre-made explosives onto the flight in a drink bottle with a false bottom, then assemble a bomb during the flight with an improvised detonator (probably made from a flash tube).

In the words of Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson (as reported by the BBC):

"We believe that the terrorists' aim was to smuggle explosives on to aeroplanes in hand luggage and to detonate these in flight."

No mention of manufacturing them in-flight. From another BBC article:

"One theory is that the attack may have involved liquid explosive being carried on to a plane in either drink bottles or cans."

This is what the more reliable news sources have been reporting from the beginning. Why is everyone now talking about something entirely different?

Posted August 19, 2006 7:06 AM by Jules

Jules, binary explosive liquids actually exist. It's just that the Hollywoodized version of how they work is like using a teakettle as a steam engine.

Posted August 19, 2006 7:29 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

There's also a strong motivation to ratchet up the fear; if there are screening mechanisms for normal explosives, the explosives have to be unusual to make the plot really scary.

The whole point is to threaten people with some abstract potential of death; the less they can imagine the specific mechanics, the less they can imagine being protected from it, and the better it serves the purposes of your lords of misrule.

Posted August 19, 2006 7:36 AM by Graydon

I can think of at least two binary explosives that people I know have had close personal experiences with. There's the guy I know that dropped the sodium in the high school toilet (I've always admired (in an awful sort of way) his coolness in remembering to run towards the explosion, instead of away from it).

And then there's one of the ways we entertained ourselves as kids; vinegar bombs. Take a margarine tub, put baking soda and vinegar in it, close the lid, and toss it out over the backyard. Get your timing and amounts right and it'd explode mid-air.

Of course, one of my brothers liked to experiment with kitchen sink chemistry, and being about 7 or 8, - well - it really was kitchen sink chemistry. He decided to make a vinegar bomb that exploded with more force. For some reason he concluded that mustard, pepper, salt, paprika, worcester sauce, and some other things, would do the trick.

We don't know exactly what he put in that last one; he always claimed not to remember. But where it landed the grass never grew again. It was still bare when I left for college. Mom declared a moratorium on vinegar bombs after that.

Posted August 19, 2006 8:25 AM by Margaret Organ-Kean

Reichstag fire.

Though it's older than that, of course, oldest trick in the book -- think of the attack on the herms during the Peloponnesian War, or Pisistratus faking an attack on himself to make himself tyrant.

Gah.

Posted August 19, 2006 10:52 AM by Jo Walton

It all comes down to our precious bodily fluids, you know.

Posted August 19, 2006 12:32 PM by Kip W

I'm with Jules. There are certainly binary explosives, but where does the suggestion that these guys were going to use them come from?

All the news I've seen has 'liquid explosives' in drink containers - not binary liquids or such.

I'm not saying that's not what the plan was, but I'd like to know the source of the idea we can all agree is ridiculously badly thought out.

Posted August 19, 2006 12:44 PM by Jakob

I, for one, will be watching for a future episode of Mythbusters to settle this once and for all.

Posted August 19, 2006 1:22 PM by RichM

Assuming the terrorists had a workable plot, would you explain it on the news, assuming you were someone in the British police with direct knowledge of it? Also, what if you knew their technique wouldn't work, but also knew of closely-related techniques that would? I don't think we can go from "the stuff that was explained by the BBC wouldn't work" to "there is no good reason for the new screening rules."

Posted August 19, 2006 2:34 PM by albatross

Real honest to god, stable binary explosives.

Posted August 19, 2006 3:41 PM by Steven Gould

It's pretty hollow scientifically speaking, but I'm not sure I could produce a better plot if I was being tortured in Pakistan. Bombs made from water bottles and hair gel! They might even have hung him right way up for a while after that one.

Posted August 19, 2006 7:01 PM by Niall McAuley

I should have known that a primarily fannish audience would figure out a way to turn all this into a story about how People Are Stupid.

Have none of you figured out that, when you do this, you're doing your own tormentors' work for them? No, right, of course not.

Get a fucking clue. This isn't a cozy Heinlein story about how all the people who picked on you are dopey mouth-breathers and (therefore) deserve a degraded culture and a ruined planet.

This is a story about specific people mounting a campaign of lies and fraud against you. Stop taking it philosophically. Get out of the con suite and off of your knees.

Posted August 19, 2006 9:31 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Remember, they don't want to make us actually safer. If we're safer, we might not be so scared. If we're not so scared, we might start paying attention to the man behind the curtain.

Posted August 19, 2006 11:21 PM by Christopher Davis

I'm with Jules. There are certainly binary explosives, but where does the suggestion that these guys were going to use them come from?

All the news I've seen has 'liquid explosives' in drink containers - not binary liquids or such.

I'm not saying that's not what the plan was, but I'd like to know the source of the idea we can all agree is ridiculously badly thought out.

I think the source stems from a misconception. Consider: Innocuous liquids are being banned, and the bombs were going to be assembled on the plane. Therefore, they must have been planning to mix two otherwise innocuous liquids to make the bomb! (Missing the bit about making the bomb by adding the detonator to the explosive.)

--Mary Aileen

Posted August 20, 2006 11:37 AM by Mary Aileen Buss

Jules: the BBC backgrounder here quoted an expert saying "there are also explosives that are made by mixing a solid and a liquid - one being the oxidant and the other being the fuel... if someone was using a backyard laboratory it is more likely they would go for the two component approach".

In context it's obvious that he's envisaging them making the explosive groundside and then carrying it on - but it's an obvious misunderstanding to think of someone actually making the explosives on the plane.

As for the fragility of TATP, Richard Reid had PETN plastic explosive in his shoe with a TATP detonator, and was fine walking on it all the way into the aircraft.

By the way, they've charged 11 of the suspects now. Conspiracy and preparation for acts of terrorism.

Posted August 21, 2006 11:47 AM by ajay

The first reference to a binary chemical based terrorist attack I can remember is the TV film "Binary" from 1972. Heroic Ben Gazzara prevents EG Marshall from doing something unpleasant to a convention of Democrats. I forget the details other than that Michael Crichton has something to do with the original plot and Joseph Wiseman was in it.

Posted August 21, 2006 1:02 PM by Ken

Blowing a fully-laden 747 out of the sky -- even blowing a dozen fully-laden 747s out of the sky -- wouldn't have created more economic disruption and loss of time and productivity than the BS "everyone empty your water bottles!" response of the Bushites.

Standard, old-fashioned police work and international cooperation will do more to ease the "terror threat" (such as it is) than any number of Upskirt Sniffing Machines at embarkation points.

Is it time to retell the stories of Me vs. Greenpeace, or Me vs. the Unbreakable Password?

This is such BS. If anyone took a minute to think who wants us terrorized and why they wanted us terrorized....

Posted August 21, 2006 1:34 PM by James D. Macdonald

When this first became public, and all the headlines were saying things like 'murder on an unprecedented scale', my reaction was: would it be more or fewer people than those killed on 9/11? They were talking about ten jumbo jets, not a country or a continent or the whole planet.

Posted August 21, 2006 1:47 PM by P J Evans

Ah, yes, thanks for the source ajay - though that sounds like a scientist speculating without knowing what the real attempt was based on. But if respectable scientists are talking about it, then there's a good link to the story starting.

As to the 'murder on an unprecedented scale' question, the 9/11 attacks killed 2,973 people (according to wikipedia). A standard 747 holds 416 passengers, so the ten (if fully laden) would have been a good deal more. But I have no idea how likely it is that they'd get ten full 747s whenever they tried their plan.

In any case, the scale is only unprecedented for certain values - it doesn't begin to compare to the holocaust, for example, unless we mean 'number killed in one day': even then, I wouldn't be surprised to find the holocaust was worse.

That line is just hysteria. And it just adds to the general hysteria, which is doing a huge amount of damage! I'm not sure it's worse than if the plan had worked - then we'd have all this and more. But it's certainly worse than any rational response to this threat, given that that would be "woohoo, we got them!" and on with our lives.

Posted August 21, 2006 4:54 PM by Jakob

Call it a mental quirk, but when the pictures came out of the liquids being dumped into the barrels at the airports did anyone else think "Eel O'Brian!"?

Posted September 2, 2006 12:35 PM by Bruce E. Durocher II

Hey, Wonkette finally spotted the "impossible two-liquid explosives" story. Does this mean we're retroactively cool?

Posted September 21, 2006 7:02 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Update on all this (and thanks to Skwid):

UK 'plot' terror charge dropped

A Pakistani judge has ruled there is not enough evidence to try a key suspect in an alleged airline bomb plot on terrorism charges.

He has moved the case of Rashid Rauf, a Briton, from an anti-terrorism court to a regular court, where he faces lesser charges such as forgery.

Pakistan has presented Mr Rauf as one of the ringleaders behind the alleged plan to blow up flights out of London.

The British authorities say they foiled it with Pakistan's help in August.

They say proceedings against suspects arrested in Britain will go ahead.

'Explosives'

The arrest of Rashid Rauf in Pakistan triggered arrests in the United Kingdom of a number of suspects allegedly plotting to blow up transatlantic flights.

The Pakistani authorities described him as a key figure.

But an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi found no evidence that he had been involved in terrorist activities or that he belonged to a terrorist organisation.

As well as forgery charges, Mr Rauf has also been charged with carrying explosives.

But his lawyer says police evidence amounts only to bottles of hydrogen peroxide found in his possession.

Hydrogen peroxide is a disinfectant that can be used for bomb-making if other chemicals are added.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says the judge's decision has reinforced the already widespread scepticism there about the airliner plot.

...

So, it turns out that there wasn't a liquid explosive plot to start with....

Posted December 13, 2006 3:53 PM by James D. Macdonald

The guy was carrying bottles of hydrogen peroxide -- possibly to disinfect his contact lens cases? That's why I've been known to carry it.

Excuse me while I follow that White Rabbit with the pocket watch down that attractive-looking hole...

Posted December 13, 2006 4:46 PM by Lizzy L