Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.
In the interest of comity, Mr Chertoff, I have found that 7 grams of NaHCO3 in 100 milliliters of H2O [or a teaspoon of baking soda in a cup of water, if you are doing this at home] works wonders for “gut feelings.” Oh, cover your mouth when you belch.
These people have absolutely no shame. As Juan Cole writes: Al-Qaeda regaining strength
Al-Qaeda is the strongest it has been since 2001, we are told, and firming up its base in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan.
Could there be a more trenchant critique of George W. Bush’s supposed ‘war on terror?’ Do a calculation of what he has spent on fighting an unnecessary and counter-productive Iraq War, and what he has spent actually trying to bring Bin Laden and the ever more garrulous Ayman al-Zawahiri to justice.
Obviously not enough because CNN reports that Newly released bin Laden video calls for martyrdom.
Jack at Grumpy Forester wraps a ribbon around the stupidity of this week in his post, Where Failure Leads.
Based on what is being leaked to the press by the White House, they should have just reprinted the original story from the summer of 2001: Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US
All of the indignities of travel, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent, the thousands of lives lost, the loss of respect and friendship among the other nations of the world, and the nation is no more prepared or safer than it was on September 10th, 2001.
Nothing they have done has made anyone safer. Rights were not sacrificed for security, they were simply sacrificed. These people don’t have a plan, or program, or concept, or even a hint that will make you safer. Everything they have done was to enrich themselves and their friends, the only group that hasn’t made any sacrifices for the War On Terror™.
8 comments
…just saw “The Order of The Phoenix”. Every member of the Administration within hailing distance of anything to do with the War on Terra and Homeland Security should have to write your last paragraph with Professor Umbridge’s “special” pen…
…except the words should end up on their foreheads instead on on their hands…
everyone’s a chemist. or so they like to think. looks like we’re safe from you too.
That was a great rant, Jack. Stay safe up there. The storms this weekend didn’t help the situation in the Pacific Northwest.
Everyone’s a critic, so it would have been a closer equivalent to say 14 grams in 200 milliliters of water since room temperature saturation is 7.8 grams/100 milliliters. I had Chemistry in 1963, and you don’t need more than a half cup anyway.
Hey, I cleared out my high school making esters when the hood ventilation failed.
hmmm, my scale says 4.5g baking soda per [tea-stirring, not measuring] teaspoon. my internet sources say 5g per tsp, 7g per Tbl. one cup = 250ml for cooking, 236.6ml in the lab. my box of baking soda says 1/2 tsp in 1/2 cup water btw.
we synthesized and um, rapidly desynthesized, a nice little pile of nitrogen triiodide in my high school. evacuated half the building, police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, and purple smoke everywhere. no children were left behind though. i was failing chemistry up to that point [very boring stuff]. straight As afterwards.
i did consider mentioning this little incident in your post below, as it inspired not only me, but several of my classmates, to go into science, medicine, or engineering in college. it really does pay to try to channel kids’ stupidity and exuberance into constructive endeavors, rather than just throw one’s hands up in the air and have them arrested. that’s what no child left behind really means.
If I had stated it as 7,000 mg the brake would have gone on because that is obviously twice the sodium anyone should have in a day. I would have measured but my good scale and measuring stuff have been appropriated by my Mother, since the cats making cooking nearly impossible. Re-heating in the microwave what I cook at her house is all I can manage.
Actually I use baking soda most often to treat fireant bites, as I rarely have stomach problems that an occasional ginger ale can treat.
Ha! I emptied the entire school, although with only 52 people in my graduating class that wasn’t hard. Considering the intermediate step you have to wonder how they discovered that you could make fragrances that way.
Yep, if you what to catch a kid’s attention there’s nothing like loud noises, fires, smoke, and bad odors.
[my school’s bigger than your school]
sodium atomic wt = 23, sodium bicarbonate molecular wt = 84
7000mg of nahco3 would just put you at the daily limit for sodium [is it still 3000mg? i could be confused]
my scale could qualify as a museum piece. possibly it was confused about that 4.5g. and i wasn’t very careful about zeroing it, as there were kittens helping me with the project.
the only two things i miss about the northeast: ice cream stands on the side of every road and ginger beer in every grocery store. i’ve also developed a real liking for crystallized ginger. ginger ale now seems so… spineless.
when my brother and i were deemed old enough, our grandmother gave us dad’s chemistry set that he’d had as a kid [can’t buy that stuff for your kid these days]. we whiled away many a delightfully stinky [and messy] saturday afternoon.
Actually, in my family it’s 2000mg because of a number of people [not me] with kidney problems. Can’t use any of the substitutes because they use potassium which is a 1gm limit for people with kidney problems.
I think you’re right about the 3gm for most people.
I have a electronic food scale which is as accurate as the drug scale I had when I was in law enforcement, and it allows you to zero out a container. I bought it and Euro measuring cups because I had several recipes I picked up in Germany that did work when just converted to the English system, especially when the spices were measured by weight, not volume.
Hell, I’d settle for a Dairy Queen. The last one in the area closed a couple of years ago, and Baskin and Robbins is the only game in town.
The soft drinks are different down here, the Coke is better, but the others are dreck.
The current chemistry sets are so child safe as to be worthless. The child is certainly safe from learning anything.
dude! coke is the only game in town! i wish they’d left old coke alone though. and dairy queen just sucks. i don’t know what that stuff is, but it’s not ice cream.
the kids are safe from having fun, too, it looks like, from reading the box.
i have some measuring implements, but mostly i cook by it’s green enough now, so that must be enough parsley and it smells like bread, time to take it out of the oven. i did once turn out something that even the dogs refused to eat, but so far nobody has actually died.
the worst part is when something works out and all your friends want the recipe. i’ve got a friend whose recipe for bread pudding i begged for for ages. she eventually told me she’d stopped giving it out because nobody could follow it: put stale bread in a big bowl, add just enough milk so that it isn’t mushy, then add enough cinnamon so that it’s beige… a woman after my own heart.