Bum bomb evolves: the breast bomb 26, March 2010
Posted by thegulfblog.com in American ME Relations.Tags: Boob bomb, Breast bomb, Bum bomb, Fox News, Pants bomb, The sun
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I realise that alliteration can be rather a clumsy tool to use at times, but I’m finding it difficult to resist at the moment. Fox News quotes British intelligence agents asserting that there is a chance that female suicide bombers may be seeking to use
exploding breast implants which are almost impossible to detect
The story seems to be faintly absurd to me for several reasons.
Firstly, it’s Fox News reporting it.
Secondly, what’s worse is that Fox News borrowed this story from The Sun, the most tabloidish of British tabloids, which pays but the scantest of attention to the truth and relies on spectacular sensationalism, exaggeration and…well…breasts. [I love how the Wiki article describes the topless model as ‘tastefully nude’.]
Thirdly, the terrorist expert quoted, Joseph Farah, is, as far as I see it, not at all an expert on terrorism. He hasn’t written one book or published one academic article on the subject of which I am aware. I can only assume that no serious expert would agree with such a notion and so they called the arch-conservative, Limbaugh supporting Birther Farah to add the slimiest and thinnest veneer of ‘rigour’ to the article.
Fourthly, yes, of course, it is technically possible. Many things are technically possible. Yet we need to start to pare down the possible possibilities and come up with a reasonable list of things and threats to guard against.
In any case, as the bum bomber spectacularly proved himself, the human body is a great cushioning and absorbing device. Add to this the fact that the BBC proved quite well I think that a decent sized amount of PETN (as used in the pants bombing) will still NOT break the skin of a plane (even outwith the human body) and as far as I’m concerned I’ll not be obsessively scrutinizing women’s breasts on planes as a sensible safety precaution.
The Gulf blog 
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