Will C. botulinum release gas and inflate/explode the tank? How about smell, look, or taste weird once I open the carton? If it's still in a tanker, then the milk has not been put into cartons yet. I'm sure there is testing at the bottling facility. No?
Not for C. bot, and not for any particular toxins. We'll screen for antibiotics, pesticides, and aerobic (and facultative) organisms. C. bot is an obligate anaerobe, which makes it a pain in the ass to detect. You'll lose about 5 - 7 days from the product shelf life while the testing proceeds.
And it takes a while for it to get to high gas levels. Plus, tankers usually have headspace, and the product isn't in transit for very long. Just enough time for a few generations.
Optionally, you could just throw in a couple of kilograms of the toxin and have at.
EDIT: I misspoke when I said the toxin survives pasteurization. I meant that C. bot itself can survive pasteurization - it forms heat-resistant spores - and it will later grow and produce the toxin. You need to add a lot of pure toxin in order for enough to survive to be dangerous.
And it takes a while for it to get to high gas levels. Plus, tankers usually have headspace, and the product isn't in transit for very long. Just enough time for a few generations.
Even if the gas wasn't enough to explode the tanker, it would still release some. What if you had a little gas valve on top of the tanker, and you tested the gas itself before unloading the milk?
What if you had a little gas valve on top of the tanker, and you tested the gas itself before unloading the milk?
Perhaps a manual test, but only if there is a credible threat as detected by our global intelligence network?
It's pointless to guard against every "engineer-terrorist" scenario at all times. Increase intelligence, and use targeted defense against expected attacks. We can't harden everything so long as people are free to travel, own cars, take pictures, use public spaces, or consume commercial products.
What if you had a little gas valve on top of the tanker, and you tested the gas itself before unloading the milk?
Congratulations, you found carbon dioxide. That doesn't mean anything.
So in a nation with untold thousands of extremely viable soft targets, we spend ludicrous amounts of money hardening one single already hard target?
That's already been targeted for attacks. That's why we don't harden proactively; we harden reactively because it delays the onset of new trouble. Because we value freedom, we must be reactive.
If you use the shield that protects the entire ship it will just overload and explode.
You need to use the shield that only protects three small spots at any one time. Then you have three cute girls look at the incoming missiles, and use track balls to move the shield into the spots that are about to get hit.
We need to increase intelligence gathering so that we can see incoming attacks. Then move the shield into the spot where that attack is coming. That's exactly what we did in the recent attempted attack against a cargo plane. That shit went right through security screenings. Only because of intelligence were we able to do anything.
9/11 was an intelligence failure. They had the information, they just didn't get it all together and act on it in time. If they had, they could have prevented it. Would backscatter have stopped 9/11? Most likely no, but the sealed cockpit doors sure would have helped.
That's why we don't harden proactively; we harden reactively because it delays the onset of new trouble. Because we value freedom, we must be reactive.
Except that we're over-reactive. One man tries to put a bomb in his show, and now every single American has to take his shoes off every time he flies forever?
What will we do if someone ever attacks the large lines outside of the security checkpoints? Have a checkpoint before you get in line for the checkpoint? Defilade the lines? Speed them up by removing unnecessary delays in the process?
I'm not confident the US would handle it appropriately.
Congratulations, you found carbon dioxide. That doesn't mean anything.
Yeah, but doesn't the ppm mean something? If it starts out at X PPM at the beginning and is way up at the end of the trip, then something is up, no? What if we vacuum seal the tanker, or fill it with nitrogen or something like that?
If you have seen the Mighty Boosh then think Spider from the Beast and the Priest episode.
God, I loved that episode.
9/11 was an intelligence failure. They had the information, they just didn't get it all together and act on it in time. If they had, they could have prevented it.
Pretty much, yeah.
Would backscatter have stopped 9/11? Most likely no, but the sealed cockpit doors sure would have helped.
Actually, Backscatter machines would have stopped 9/11, because it is trivial to detect a box-cutter on a person using them. Unless, of course, you're talking about the machines featured on the video above, which are millimetre wave radar scanners, which would be much more likely to miss them.
I'm not confident the US would handle it appropriately.
Actually, Backscatter machines would have stopped 9/11, because it is trivial to detect a box-cutter on a person using them. Unless, of course, you're talking about the machines featured on the video above, which are millimetre wave radar scanners, which would be much more likely to miss them.
An air marshal would have provided even better protection than that, and you wouldn't have to wait in line for someone to look at your junk. Every El Al flight has badass motherfuckers hiding in little closets with guns bulletproof vests, etc. If someone tries to hijack, they come out of there and it's game over. As long as people can't take guns or body armor into the cabin, it's ok. I think we can find guns an body armor without backscatter.
Actually, Backscatter machines would have stopped 9/11, because it is trivial to detect a box-cutter on a person using them.
Many "weapons" like these weren't actually prohibited back then. I carried a knife on flights several times without issue, and people had razor blades with them all the time. (There are even still razor blade specific trash slots in many airplane bathrooms).
Had we had backscatter, they would have just carried perfectly acceptable implements.
The one thing we need to do is worry more about gas attacks. I'm not talking about preventing them, since we use the same intelligence we use for everything else. I'm talking about what do you do if there is gas right now? Look around you right now. If horrible poison gas appeared what would you do right now? You know what to do in case of fires, bombs, tornados, but gas not so much. I do think Rym has a gas mask at work, though, but that's rare.
Preparing for gas attacks in this day and age would be like preparing for alien invasion. You can only prepare for so many contingencies before preparations become more costly to time, nerves, and money than the actual attack. You might as well try preparing for pterodactyl attack, a sudden breakout of chemical warfare, laser satellite attack squad, grey goo, or Cuban Missile Crisis 2.
Yeah, but doesn't the ppm mean something? If it starts out at X PPM at the beginning and is way up at the end of the trip, then something is up, no? What if we vacuum seal the tanker, or fill it with nitrogen or something like that?
Measuring the PPM of CO2 escaping the tanker is harder than you think. The equipment is not cheap. Aside from that, the presence of CO2 can be attributed to roughly one bazillion different harmless bacteria which are part of the normal flora of milk. In order for there to be enough CO2 production to really mean anything, your milk would be carbonated or close to it.
What if we vacuum seal the tanker, or fill it with nitrogen or something like that?
That creates a MORE hospitable environment for the growth of C. botulinum and even then the organism grows too slowly to actually produce such obvious spoilage.
The thing with botulism is that the amount of bot toxin necessary to kill you is well below the level of contamination you can detect using "coarse" methods. It won't look or smell bad, but it could contain enough to kill you. We're talking less than 1 ppb LD50; it takes maybe 90 ng of bot toxin to kill a healthy adult.
Except that we're over-reactive.
Maybe not over-reactive, but incorrectly reactive. We respond to the wrong thing with the wrong thing.
And the over-reactive problem goes to everyone. There are legitimate issues with the backscatter x-ray, but look at how much outrage is directed at the non-existent health risk. Fear is a powerful thing, and keeping it in check has been the most consistent problem in human history.
Look around you right now. If horrible poison gas appeared what would you do right now?
I have a gas mask, face shield, and a 20 minute oxygen supply (plus filtration capability).
I do think Rym has a gas mask at work, though, but that's rare.
Yeap. ^_~
It's unlikely that a gas attack could affect me at work, though. Subway attacks are much more of a concern, and I certainly don't carry it with me anywhere. It's just not worth worrying about.
If you are worried, just learn how various old and known gasses work. Many have effective countermeasures you can enact yourself, such as a damp cloth for chlorine.
Every El Al flight has badass motherfuckers hiding in little closets with guns bulletproof vests, etc.
FUCKING WHAT. You are high as a motherfucking kite. That is absolutely not true, and frankly, I'd be fucking thrilled to be proved wrong on that one. While they do have Undercover Marshals on every flight, and they are some badass motherfuckers, They are not stuffed in little closets, they appear to be like any other passenger, and don't wear much if any armour, because any particularly useful level of armour would be pretty obvious. They carry small, concealable firearms, an extra magazine, some Zip-cuffs, so on. I'm reasonably sure that I know someone who works for El Al, if not, I most certainly know someone secondhand who does. I will attempt to give them a shout and ask, just in case - I never worked for El Al.
Every El Al flight has badass motherfuckers hiding in little closets with guns bulletproof vests, etc.
FUCKING WHAT. You are high as a motherfucking kite. That is absolutely not true, and frankly, I'd be fucking thrilled to be proved wrong on that one. While they do have Undercover Marshals on every flight, and they are some badass motherfuckers, They are not stuffed in little closets, they appear to be like any other passenger, and don't wear much if any armour, because any particularly useful level of armour would be pretty obvious. They carry small, concealable firearms, an extra magazine, some Zip-cuffs, so on. I'm reasonably sure that I know someone who works for El Al, if not, I most certainly know someone secondhand who does. I will attempt to give them a shout and ask, just in case - I never worked for El Al.
That might be true. However, I have flown twice on El-Al (once each way) and the tour guide pointed to a tiny closet on the jet and said that the air marshal was in there. I didn't actually see anyone go in out of it as I was in another section of the cabin. Either way, the badass marshal will still save the day from boxcutter dude.
That might be true. However, I have flown twice on El-Al (once each way) and the tour guide pointed to a tiny closet on the jet and said that the air marshal was in there. I didn't actually see anyone go in out of it as I was in another section of the cabin.
I very much doubt it - I think the tour guide was either taking the piss, or simply talking shit, both are equally possible, and both more likely than there being a closet they stuff an armed and armoured man into - not to mention that blocking off that closet would quite effectively remove the threat of the badass marshal in that situation, and if they didn't think of that, I'd be very surprised. Though, you're right - Badass armed marshal will save the day from puny boxcutter punk, and I'm a big fan of the Marshals on every flight idea. There are many security situations that even at their worst, at the current state of airport security, would have been prevented by a single subsonic round, apply directly to forehead.
Also, I want them to have lots of working dogs! I like watching the bomb-sniffing shepards!
HELL YES! Down here, they use Beagles mostly, but many other sorts of dogs(Including ludicrously adorable labradors), but the universal thing is that they are all bloody adorable. And - They're really, really effective, too.
By calling something "Security Theater" you have already made a judgment. From then on, you've framed the issue, and you can simply ignore anything in this class. In the same way the TSA says "These are essential measures." It isn't either essential or theater. Come on, forum!
Having been a professional security officer myself I can tell you that most private companies (particularly the one I worked for) train their officers a LOT better than TSA trains their minimum wage mouth breathers. We also were given a lot more discretion as to whether or not an action should be taken or not.
Having been a professional security officer myself I can tell you that most private companies (particularly the one I worked for) train their officers a LOT better than TSA trains their minimum wage mouth breathers.
It's a government department that doesn't make money. What do you expect?
Having been a professional security officer myself I can tell you that most private companies (particularly the one I worked for) train their officers a LOT better than TSA trains their minimum wage mouth breathers.
It's a government department that doesn't make money. What do you expect?
AT A MINIMUM the discretion to say "okay yeah that's a bowling ball candle" and either call in a bomb squad and/or evacuate the area.
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And it takes a while for it to get to high gas levels. Plus, tankers usually have headspace, and the product isn't in transit for very long. Just enough time for a few generations.
Optionally, you could just throw in a couple of kilograms of the toxin and have at.
EDIT: I misspoke when I said the toxin survives pasteurization. I meant that C. bot itself can survive pasteurization - it forms heat-resistant spores - and it will later grow and produce the toxin. You need to add a lot of pure toxin in order for enough to survive to be dangerous.
It's pointless to guard against every "engineer-terrorist" scenario at all times. Increase intelligence, and use targeted defense against expected attacks. We can't harden everything so long as people are free to travel, own cars, take pictures, use public spaces, or consume commercial products.
If you use the shield that protects the entire ship it will just overload and explode.
You need to use the shield that only protects three small spots at any one time. Then you have three cute girls look at the incoming missiles, and use track balls to move the shield into the spots that are about to get hit.
We need to increase intelligence gathering so that we can see incoming attacks. Then move the shield into the spot where that attack is coming. That's exactly what we did in the recent attempted attack against a cargo plane. That shit went right through security screenings. Only because of intelligence were we able to do anything.
9/11 was an intelligence failure. They had the information, they just didn't get it all together and act on it in time. If they had, they could have prevented it. Would backscatter have stopped 9/11? Most likely no, but the sealed cockpit doors sure would have helped.
What will we do if someone ever attacks the large lines outside of the security checkpoints? Have a checkpoint before you get in line for the checkpoint? Defilade the lines? Speed them up by removing unnecessary delays in the process?
I'm not confident the US would handle it appropriately.
Had we had backscatter, they would have just carried perfectly acceptable implements.
The one thing we need to do is worry more about gas attacks. I'm not talking about preventing them, since we use the same intelligence we use for everything else. I'm talking about what do you do if there is gas right now? Look around you right now. If horrible poison gas appeared what would you do right now? You know what to do in case of fires, bombs, tornados, but gas not so much. I do think Rym has a gas mask at work, though, but that's rare.
The thing with botulism is that the amount of bot toxin necessary to kill you is well below the level of contamination you can detect using "coarse" methods. It won't look or smell bad, but it could contain enough to kill you. We're talking less than 1 ppb LD50; it takes maybe 90 ng of bot toxin to kill a healthy adult. Maybe not over-reactive, but incorrectly reactive. We respond to the wrong thing with the wrong thing.
And the over-reactive problem goes to everyone. There are legitimate issues with the backscatter x-ray, but look at how much outrage is directed at the non-existent health risk. Fear is a powerful thing, and keeping it in check has been the most consistent problem in human history.
It's unlikely that a gas attack could affect me at work, though. Subway attacks are much more of a concern, and I certainly don't carry it with me anywhere. It's just not worth worrying about.
If you are worried, just learn how various old and known gasses work. Many have effective countermeasures you can enact yourself, such as a damp cloth for chlorine.
Also, I got the pat down and it is nothing to complain about. So they touched my chest, big whoop.
By calling something "Security Theater" you have already made a judgment. From then on, you've framed the issue, and you can simply ignore anything in this class. In the same way the TSA says "These are essential measures." It isn't either essential or theater. Come on, forum!