It's not just for the fields anymore. From the New York Times, :
PARIS, May 4 -- French police are scrambling to locate 1,100 pounds of fertilizer that could be used to make a powerful bomb after the material was discovered missing on Monday in northern France.The fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, is believed to have been stolen over the Easter weekend from the port of Honfleur near the mouth of the Seine river, according to officials quoted by local media. The officials said large quantities of the fertilizer were stored at the port without any particular security measures.
Ammonium nitrate is highly explosive when mixed with diesel or fuel oil and has been used for some of the most destructive terrorist bombs in recent history, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the bombings that killed 62 in Istanbul last year.
Sales of ammonium nitrate are strictly regulated in the European Union, where rules require that the fertilizer be produced with large, dense granules to prevent it from absorbing oil and being transformed into bomb material. But the granules can easily be broken up with commercial grinders.
The theft comes at a time when European security forces are on alert for terrorist attacks following the deadly March 11 training bombings that killed 191 in Madrid. ...
In late March, British police seized more than half a ton of the fertilizer in West London in a raid on suspected Islamic terrorists. Earlier this month, Turkey joined the European Union in regulating sales of the fertilizer because of fears that it could be used again for bombings there.
Oh my, missing fertilizer! It must be a Muslim plot! Round up some Muslims, put hoods over their heads and subject them to torture and sexual abuse!
Of course when you confront armed Muslim men who are defending their homes and women, things go a bit differently. Perhaps you cowards should stick to searching for fertilizer.
Allahu akbar
The time has come to accept that Islam is not a "religion of peace." What is portrayed outside of the mosque is completely different from what is preached inside the mosque.
Women's rights? I've had two close female friends who are Muslims. One was severely mistreated by her husband (U.S.), and one (from Africa) had been subjected to female genital mutilation as a young girl.
The time has come to move Muslims in the UK and US into security zones, and search the mosques for the weapons that are undoubtedly stashed inside.
I must be missing something. I have seen two photographs, both of which reminded me of fraternity hazing photographs. I also read in the paper about one Iraqi who claims that he suffered the intolerable "humiliation" of being kept without his clothes for 15 minutes.
Is there other information that might possibly justify the extraordinary breast-beating about "abuse" and "intolerable" and "unspeakable" acts committed by Americans?
The argument of "Tu Quoque" sometimes cries out to be invoked. But in this case it should be "Tu Quoque -- only you are much worse." In Egypt and Syria, headlines scream over those photos "Shame!" and "Scandal!" This reminds me of an article by the late Tibor Szamuely, in the London Spectator, back in the 1960s. He recalled how, when he was in a Soviet camp in the 1950s, he and the other prisoners had tears of laughter streaming down their cheeks as they read about the Soviet government's solemn complaint to the United States about its "horrific treatment of political prisoners." As they all sat there, crammed in one cell, with a bowl of watery gruel as their only food, they howled with laughter as they read about Soviet indignation over the living conditions of American prisoners.
Should we not, at a time when the Arabs hail those who methodically murdered, one by one, a mother and her four little girls, as "heroes," just as they did the Jordanian army officer who killed the six little Israeli schoolgirls on an outing to that "Peace Garden" a few years ago,just as they hailed those who dragged two Israeli boys into a cave and beat them to death. And similar examples, over many decades, could fill many pages. Should not countries that practice torture routinely, which is why it is believed, and it is indeed verisimilar, that particular "problem" cases of Al Qaeda operatives are sometimes given to the Egyptians or the Jordanians to deal with in ways that the squeamish Americans never would. Their indignation is farcical; our indignation is, at this point, self-consciously and unconvincingly exaggerated.
Just a note:
I grew up on a farm and spent my entire adult life working in agribusiness, so I know a little bit about fertilizer. The story is about ammonium nitrate, which, if mixed with another ingredient in the right proportions, can be turned into an explosive akin to TNT. The bag of fertilizer pictured is 12-6-6, which I do not think contains enough nitrate to explode.
As to Reza's making fun of the search for the missing ammonium nitrate, I suggest that he go get a 50 pound bag, mix it with the other ingredient (if his IQ is high enough to find out what it is), then sit on the bag in the middle of a large open field and light a cigarette.
Rick, I think he knows what it can do that is why he is laughing he wants to see people die that is his way look at all this Web sight and you will see the death all over the world that the muslums bring they have done nothing through their history but kill and steal that is what Mohamad is a thief they will try to tell you they built the pirmids well look at history it was the Jews and if you look at the rest you will find that it was the Greeks and Romans from lands that they stold the Arabs have built nothing but stoled from others and their selfs they are trying to take over the world well we can not let them forgive youself or do whatever you have to do but harden you hart they want to kill you and yours!
Of course when you confront armed Muslim men who are defending their homes and women, things go a bit differently...
Were these the same armed muslim men in the iraqi army that were surrendering to TV newscrews during the first gulf war...lol..ya real brave...of course the "brave" muslim men really redeemed themselves when they shot the 4 little girls and their pregnant mother...must have taken alot of arab guts to do that, an unarmed lady and 4 little girls, what bravery!