New York Times posted:

Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense, said the center had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.”
...
“I don’t care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them,” General Jabiri [head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives] said. “I know more about this issue than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world.”
...
ATSC’s promotional material claims that its device can find guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction,” ATSC says.

To detect materials, the operator puts an array of plastic-coated cardboard cards with bar codes into a holder connected to the wand by a cable. “It would be laughable,” Colonel Bidlack said, “except someone down the street from you is counting on this to keep bombs off the streets.”

The Candyman posted:

That's terrifying

quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html



The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

a handful of dust posted:

Homeland Security and various law enforcement agencies have similar programs:

Earth posted:

I do not understand this picture.

Earth posted:

I do not understand this picture.

The Candyman posted:

That's terrifying

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:

Having the same brand of boots as cops makes you a cop??? Conspiracy theorists have never heard of surplus stores.

Oompa-Loompa Union posted:

{Excellent summary of the Mao situation}

Soon after, Deng Xiaoping came to power. He had been arrested during the Cultural Revolution for being one of those rightist capitalist-roaders who wanted to oust Mao after the Great Leap Forward. He'd be the one responsible for the non-proletarian market-socialist export economy that China has today. So maybe Mao was right?

China today is still largely socially conservative as far as I am aware.

Here's Mao's grandson, Mao "Dim Sum More" Xinyu.

Mr. Wiggles posted:

We had the same JROTC in our public high school in California - I thought it was pretty common. We had a competative rifle team, too, though.

TapTheForwardAssist posted:

So we should avoid mentioning other, private youth organisations like the Young Marines (ages 8 and up)?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:

Having the same brand of boots as cops makes you a cop??? Conspiracy theorists have never heard of surplus stores.

dphrag posted:

This was very much proven to be the police, and they admitted it was. There is no conspiracy theory. Of course they denied it was for provocation, and only for doing undercover work.



Look at them. No wonder they got spotted so quickly. They were identified before the shoes too, just so you know.

quote:

Details about the Metropolitan police's undercover tactics first emerged when it was revealed that Mark Kennedy had offered to help the defence in the case of protestors arrested while planning a demonstration against a Nottinghamshire power station.

Married Mr Kennedy, it emerged, had had sexual relationships with two of the activists he was sent to spy on.

Using his position as the campaigner's van driver, the long-haired, tattooed policeman convinced his targets that he was in fact climber Mark Stone.

quote:

Jim Boyling, posing as Jim Sutton, a committed member of the Reclaim the Streets campaign, was arrested and prosecuted for his part in the protests. He allegedly maintained his cover even when questioned in a court of law under oath. Other former secret policemen have approvingly said that this was a normal procedure to build up the credibility of an undercover agent.

quote:

Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring, the Guardian can reveal.

In both cases, the children have grown up not knowing that their biological fathers – whom they have not seen in decades – were police officers who had adopted fake identities to infiltrate activist groups. Both men have concealed their true identities from the children's mothers for many years.

One of the spies was Bob Lambert, who has already admitted that he tricked a second woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an intricate attempt to bolster his credibility as a committed campaigner.

The second police spy followed the progress of his child and the child's mother by reading confidential police reports which tracked the mother's political activities and life.

dphrag posted:

This was very much proven to be the police, and they admitted it was. There is no conspiracy theory. Of course they denied it was for provocation, and only for doing undercover work.



Look at them. No wonder they got spotted so quickly. They were identified before the shoes too, just so you know.

bawfuls posted:

Sorry for the lovely camera phone picture quality, but I spotted this on the freeway last week.



If it's hard to read, that's a crosshair and the sticker reads "This is my peace symbol." Oh the joys of living in a military town.

LP97S posted:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:

Having the same brand of boots as cops makes you a cop??? Conspiracy theorists have never heard of surplus stores.

Moist von Lipwig posted:

The boots were kind of the icing on the cake, I didn't see as much as someone like BattleMaster did, but there were definitely agent provocateurs there.

Keshik posted:

It's a French term, so to pluralize it you write 'agents provocateurs'

ekuNNN posted:

Neptr posted:

quote:

A ban on the display of American flags by residents of a Massachusetts town’s housing authority was reversed Thursday.

Residents of a public housing complex in Wrentham, Mass., were outraged Wednesday when Housing Authority officials taped a letter to their doors, banning the display of U.S. flags outside their homes.

A day later, the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development issued a statement calling the notice a mistake.

“We were not aware of this decision when it was made, and it was a mistake that is being corrected immediately,” department spokesman Jason Lefferts said. “The agency’s policy for local housing authorities includes not allowing displays of private materials in public areas. This does not extend to respectful and safe displays of the American flag.”

Wrentham Housing Authority Executive Director Nancy Siegel said she was told by the department to distribute the letter to residents after multiple complaints from one tenant over the Fourth of July Holiday.

“As a result,” the letter read, “all American flags must be restricted to the interior of your apartment. Flags may be visible through the apartment windows but may not be displayed on the exterior of the buildings or on the ground around the buildings.”

Barbara Marshall, 82, whose brother took part in the D-Day invasion of France, was among the residents angered by the ban.

“All of my family is so indebted to the veterans, to that flag,” she told The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro.

She said she kept the flag flying outside of her home even after receiving the letter.

The ban even drew the ire of Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, who lives in Wrentham.

In a statement, Brown said he was “deeply disturbed” by the housing authority’s “misguided decision.”

“Flying the American flag should never be controversial, and no citizen should ever be prevented from doing so,” he said.

Lamuella posted:

Entertainment for Kim Jong Un features performers dressed up as Disney characters:

quote:

From left: John Cleese, Penn Jillette, Bill Nye, Stephen Hawking, (above) Frederick Nietzsche, (below) George Carlin, Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Adam Savage, Michio Kaku.

serewit posted:

gently caress, this is some combination of DnD and... I don't even know.




The title is 'Champions of Reason', btw.

LP97S posted:

Wanna see Hitchens and Dawkins chunk fall below and rest go inside for some coffee and/or tea.

Xandu posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq1ZC1N6AK0

We're basically like US government assassins who target and kill people, except with stocks.

serewit posted:

gently caress, this is some combination of DnD and... I don't even know.




The title is 'Champions of Reason', btw.