Terrorists settle into decadent American lifestyle

Leave it to The Onion. 
“We remain wholly committed to the destruction of America, the Great Satan,” al-Sharif said. “But now is not a good time for us. The season finale of Lost was such a cliff- hanger that we have to at least catch the first episode of the new season. After that, though, death [...]

Testing, testing…terrorists check security at chem plants?

Who’s calling chemical plants asking about security?  We just recently heard about the TSA’s warning about potential “pre-attack probing” with passengers (mostly U.S. citizens with no prior connection to terrorism, BTW) bringing simulated IED materials (i.e., wired cheese) through airline security.  Now the Center for Chemical Process Safety has warned chemical plants that someone claiming [...]

Creepy old ads

There’s a collection of creepy old ads here. This one is more than creepy, really—an old Union Carbide ad from long before Bhopal.
Seen on BoingBoing.

Koran in toilet a felony? I don’t think so.

We live in a country where radical muslims take advantage of their freedom to stomp on the flag in the street, where you can feel safe tearing apart a bible in public and call it art, where you and a hundred of your favorite white supremacist asshole buddies can put on your hoods and march [...]

Saturday hodgepodge

I’ll add links to this post today as I feel like it. Go ahead and comment on anything you like, whether it’s a posted topic or not.
In “A&M lab employee lacked clearance in bioagent case” there’s a fairly balanced discussion of accidents in select agent labs. This one actually took the time to [...]

Bioscavenger again, this time from goats

I’ve posted a couple of times about Bioscavenger, a nickname for recombinant butyrylcholinesterase, a nerve agent prophylactic/therapeutic. In my last post on the topic, University of Arizona researchers were planning to produce enough of it in tobacco plants to meet the needs of the whole U.S. (military, I assume). That was the plan.
Today I [...]

Tripoli Six FREE!

UPDATE – 7/26/07: Woah there! Was the real price for freedom a Libyan nuclear reactor courtesy of France? 
Nicolas Sarkozy faced a barrage of criticism yesterday for agreeing to build a nuclear reactor in Libya as concern grew over the price extracted by Colonel Gaddafi for the release of five Bulgarian nurses this week.
Opponents [...]

G-Men use softer approach to involve scientists in security

C&EN’s story, FBI Reaches Out To Campuses (subscription required) discusses the new “post-Cold War” government outreach to the scientific community. There are lots of reasons for academics and university labs to be on their guard, from espionage (industrial or state-sponsored—which in many cases is essentially the same) to internal threats (the lone kook, domestic terrorists, [...]