[Doc HM]

BBC News - 'Bomb detector' maker Jim McCormick arrested

Apparently the "bomb detectors" used by troops in Iraq and sold by a UK company work as well as those Thetan detectors that Scientologists use.

At $40,000 a pop they've been an expensive purchase by the Iraqi's although western forces appear not to have been taken in.

As a result hundred of people have probably died due to bombs not being detected. Do governments not actually CHECK this stuff before buying it?

[tooki]

But the website is so professional it HAS to be legit, what with the page title "widescreem2.gif"! Look at these impressive quotes (my emphasis):

PORTABLE ADVANCED EQUIPMENT OF DETECTION OF EXPLOSIVES AND NARCOTICS.

Substances Recognition:

Black Powder, Used Weapons, Fireworks, all types of Ammunition,
Ammonium Nitrate (ANFO-ANNIE), Chinese Czech and Russian Semtex, Plastic (C4, C1, ...), Dynamite, RDX, TNT, Nitroglycerine, Tetryl, Grenades, Mines, Amphetamine, Cocaine, Crack, Heroine, Marijuana, Cannabis, Morphine, Ivory, Human research, Bank notes, …

Additional substance Available (possibility of encoding new substances

Because new weapons are clearly chemically different from secondhand ones, and those Chinese Czech are more dangerous than those American or European Czechs, and who wants a female hero coming into a Sharia country, anyhow? And what is a human research?

ADE651™ is the first remote portable substance detector to incorporate the long-range electrostatic attraction of highly charged ions for the effective identification of even the most difficult substances. The ADE651™ is able to detect programmed substances at long distances safely and without the need to have actual physical contact with the substance (No needs of calibration with a sample). It is extremely easy to aperate and delivers fast detection of the programmed substances in a small lightweight package..

So it can find anything, even things it hasn't seen, with just a TV antenna on a swivel? Impressive! And it's so easy to aperate!

With such a site, who needs silly time-wasters like "field tests"?

[Spheric Harlot]

There's Chinese, Czech, and Russian Semtex.

But that's just amazing.

[Eug]

The article puts blame on the vendor, but I'd put more blame on the idiots who bought the thing.

[Cold Warrior]

I wonder if someone in the Iraqi government got bribed to send the contracts their way.

[moonmonkey]

The guy looks like a crook.

In my experience bomb detector company bosses are usually clean shaven.

[turtle777]

Brother:



-t

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by moonmonkey 

The guy looks like a crook.

In my experience bomb detector company bosses are usually clean shaven.

Um...



Asia is a little different with beards (at least, Japan is - only artists and "rebels" wear beards there).

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Um...



Asia is a little different with beards (at least, Japan is - only artists and "rebels" wear beards there).

Umm, is Sir Richard Branson's company in the bomb-detector-making business?

If not, the fact that he has a beard is NOT a relevant comparison in response to moonmonkey's post which articulates a correspondence between facial hair and "bomb detector company bosses".


Having said all that, I would have to agree with moonmonkey. I've never seen the founder/head of a weapons company be anything but slickly dressed and impeccably groomed. At least from what I have seen of these folks in the news and in company reports. I think the fact that many weapons manufacturers hire retired military officers for their caché, and (likely) access to folks still in the service, has a lot to do with where this image came from; The military, certainly at the officer and flag officer levels, is a clean-shaven, well-pressed, well-presented bunch and that attitude translates into the private sector.

As for the guy in the pic, his beard is not well-groomed (like Branson's), his tie looks a bit askew, and he doesn't "present" a confident, assertive presence. (Look at his rounded shoulders and slightly slumped posture. That does not present an appearance of assertive confidence.)


But apart from all this talk about appearance and what one expects from the head of a weapons/weapons detecting manufacturer, how could anyone not due any kind of basic testing of this device before committing to buying $80,000,000 worth of the devices? That just boggles the mind. Even if bribery were involved, at some point someone who knows about bomb detecting would actually use the device and know it is a fraudulent piece of equipment.

[Eug]

The context is different, but nonetheless this reminds me of the investigation into Canada by the Pentagon, because someone was putting Canadian spy transmitter coins into the pockets of American security contractors in Canada.

U.S. warns about Canadian spy coins - msnbc.com
Video - msnbc.com

What a bunch of frickin' morons.

FOXNews.com - Canadian Poppy Quarter Caused 'Spy Coin' Warning

The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.

The silver-colored 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy — Canada's flower of remembrance — inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors' accounts.

The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy's red color from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada's 117,000 war dead.

The Defense Security Service never examined the suspicious coins, spokeswoman Cindy McGovern said. "We know where we made the mistake," she said. "The information wasn't properly vetted. While these coins aroused suspicion, there ultimately was nothing there."

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

There's Chinese, Czech, and Russian Semtex.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, and not getting the joke that by omitting the comma, it went from meaning "Semtex from China, the Czech Republic, or Russia" to "Semtex made by Chinese Czech people or Russian people".

[Spheric Harlot]

Okay, okay, along with misreading the beard post, I'll concede a loss of this day to...well, everything.

A little under the weather in the past few days, I'm afraid...

Germany surrenders and goes to bed.

[Chuckit]

I remember Phil Plait wrote a piece on this a few months ago that described the device as "dowsing for bombs." Seems like a pretty accurate description.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

I've worked as a contractor plenty of times. I always see how companies usually hire us in a panic when they are late on something. They just throw a chunk of money out there for someone to fix the problem and don't give much thought into what they are getting for what they pay.

[SpaceMonkey]

Security contracting is shady, shady business.

Reminds me of Custer Battles LLC.