Chemical weapon used on US soil in Florida...

[alva]

/me is confused as to why the 'lol' smiley way was used in that particular instance.

[axi]

My guess is they used chlorine, which is easy to get by, using home cleaning substances, and is both poisonous and corrosive.

However, our own police forces are frequently using illegal chemical weapons on us, like f.e. the CS gas (which is not a gas btw, but a solid usually dispersed as a cloud). CS is nasty stuff. Your skin burns, your nose and throat do too, your nose is filled with mucus and your eyes with tears. It mixes with all your tears and sweat and sticks on your skin. You can sense it being dispersed from over 200m away. It may settle to the ground, but since it's dust, anything that passed above that ground gets it going again. It sticks on clothes so good, that one has to wash them outdoors, at the end of a stick, with lots of water (and even then it hurts). Using a washing machine is out of the question, it's unusable afterwards. It's effectiveness is reduced by rain and wet ground, but if you've got it on you, you must not wash yourself. Even soap doesn't help much; it can be neutralised however by applying a stronger base solution. One widely used countermeasure is watered down Maalox (which is a medicine for stomach acidity). People having sprayed themselves with Maalox solution stick out from a croud however, since their faces are white. Maalox isn't 100% effective, meaning that one will get a rough time with CS and it has to be renewed frequently. One would argue that using a stronger base, such as toothpaste f.e. would be more effective agianst CS, but toothpaste would burn your skin on it's own, making it even more uncomfortable.

Of course, at the end of the day, I would rather be subject to CS instead of chlorine which causes permanent lung damage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CS_gas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maalox

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs


If this had harmed (or even killed) one of the shop's workers stocking shelves, or perhaps just some poor construction worker trying to finish something before opening day, would you still be splitting hairs?

Splitting hairs? The difference between an act which may or may not have been intended to kill somebody and an act which did kill somebody is splitting hairs?

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by axi
CS is nasty stuff. Your skin burns, your nose and throat do too, your nose is filled with mucus and your eyes with tears. It mixes with all your tears and sweat and sticks on your skin. You can sense it being dispersed from over 200m away. It may settle to the ground, but since it's dust, anything that passed above that ground gets it going again.

Sounds like birch pollen

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
USA has always had the most effective terrorists:

Unabomber
Timothy McVeigh
DC Sniper

That's just a short list

Not to mention that whole lynching/murdering/church bombing thing that was going on in the South a couple of decades ago

Don't forget; Latin Americans would likely also list CIA agents as terrorists.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Splitting hairs? The difference between an act which may or may not have been intended to kill somebody and an act which did kill somebody is splitting hairs?

No, making gradations between terrorists and terrorists is splitting hairs.

[chequita guevara]

The police used chemical weapons in Seattle. They actually ran out of tear gas and began using, AFAIK, a still undisclosed other chemical.

[chequita guevara]

re: protesting the sex shop

[chequita guevara]

And when I told you that the movement conservatives were out to abolish contraception and sex toy, you didn't believe me. Hell, some of these folks in charge of major right-wing Christian groups are opposed to people having sex for any other reason but procreation.

[MrFun]

If people had fun, it would be the end of the world as we know it, as God would destroy all of us with a snap of his fingers.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by MrFun



Don't forget; Latin Americans would likely also list CIA agents as terrorists.

I thought about including that as CIA has trained the best terrorists in the world

Osama what?

[MrFun]

On a sidenote regarding your comment about lyncing in United States; the worst of it was during the period of 1880 - 1930s.

[Kuciwalker]

In Waldo, people have held prayer vigils and protests aimed at an adult bookstore along US 301, trying to keep the "Cafe Risque" from opening its doors on time.

[DRoseDARs]

Yeah, they must've realized prayer wasn't working. It would have been nice if prayer worked. Now that the religious wingnutters are resorting to physical violence in lieu of prayer...

[Dinner]

Jebus told them to attempt to kill people for selling dildos and naughty magazines.

The South