Thieves Who Stole Cobalt-60 Will Soon Be Dead 923
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Washington Post reports that the carjackers who set off international alarm bells by absconding with a truckload of highly radioactive cobalt-60, used in hospital radiotherapy machines, most likely had no idea what they were stealing and will die soon from exposure. The robbery occurred as the cobalt-60 was being driven from a public hospital in the border town of Tijuana to a storage facility in central Mexico. While waiting for daybreak at a gas station in the state of Hidalgo the drivers were jumped by two gunmen who beat them and stole the truck. "I believe, definitely, that the thieves did not know what they had; they were interested in the crane, in the vehicle," says Mardonio Jimenez, a physicist with Mexico's nuclear safety commission. The prospect that material that could be used in a radioactive dirty bomb had gone missing sparked an urgent two-day hunt that concluded when the material, cobalt-60, used in hospital radiotherapy machines, was found along with the stolen Volkswagen truck. The cobalt-60 was found, removed from its casing, in a rural area near the town of Hueypoxtla about 25 miles from where the truck was stolen. Jimenez suspects that curiosity got the better of the thieves and they opened the box. So far the carjackers have not been arrested, but authorities expect they will not live long. "The people who handled it will have severe problems with radiation. They will, without a doubt, die.""
They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
or gain superpowers.
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
and be the syfy movie of the week.
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
Now that is a fate worse than death
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, death implies an end. Syfy shows rarely have a proper ending.
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
and be the syfy movie of the week.
Unlikely. Syfy prefers animals as the villains of its Saturday-night original movies, not people.
Now, if it turns out that a shark or octopus (or, even better, both) stole the cobalt-60, then you'l have the network's attention. Expect Sharktopus II: Nuclear Boogaloo any week now.
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:4, Funny)
I saw "Sharknado" on SyFy. That isn't just jumping the shark on SyFy the shark jumps you!
So once you are hit by a tornado with teeth, a mere hybrid Sharktopus is kind of tame in comparison.
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:4, Funny)
and be the syfy movie of the week.
Unlikely. Syfy prefers animals as the villains of its Saturday-night original movies, not people.
Now, if it turns out that a shark or octopus (or, even better, both) stole the cobalt-60, then you'l have the network's attention. Expect Sharktopus II: Nuclear Boogaloo any week now.
"Atomic Sharktopusnado" Anyone?
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
Expect Sharktopus II: Nuclear Boogaloo any week now
The second and third Sharktopus movies are already in the works [dreadcentral.com], so this one would be Sharktopus IV: A Nuclear Hope.
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
Cobaltacabra!
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
Probably not. Radioactive is a necessary but not sufficient cause for superpowers.
You are going to need to combine that with spiders, toxic chemicals, a DNA X-factor, experimental drugs, or something else to kick off the process.
Re: (Score:3)
.
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:4, Informative)
I think it (gamma rays) was all that was needed to turn Bruce Banner green (when angry)
There was also an 'Invisible Man' series where it was caused by radiation. (starring David (UNCLE) Macallum)
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
http://marvelvscapcom.wikia.com/wiki/Amingo [wikia.com]
*snicker*
Re: (Score:3)
Nope. In the film continuity, he received a super serum, a la Captain America.
The Hulk is the result when you add expose a super serum recipient to gamma radiation rather than Vita rays.
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
Film continuity doesn't apply to the real continuity.
Do you mean the real continuity described in the excellent historical references published by Marvel Comics?
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Funny)
Well if you consider projectile vomiting and diarhea a superpower.
Re:They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:4, Interesting)
What about Speedy Gonzales [wikipedia.org]?
Tough luck.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Instant Karma is gonna get ya...
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely and utterly disagree.
You clearly haven't been the victim of any robberies at gunpoint. It is terrifying and life-changing and most victims usually end up with some sort of PTSD. It takes a sick and depraved mind to commit such acts, and those responsible fully deserve death. There are far too many people in this world to allow people who are willing to kill to continue to breathe the same air as the rest of the population.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Informative)
And yet, this seems to be the very premise of America these days.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just curious - how do you know the motives of the thieves? Don't believe I've seen any interviews with them where motive was discussed...
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:4, Insightful)
OTOH, a Mexican Cartel might have threatened to kill their families if they didn't get a lot of money.
Like what was said 'Motives unknown' at this time.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Interesting)
My mother was a drunkard and crazy. I was 12 and had to feed her and my two brothers.
Yeah, I stole. Robbed bread trucks, soda trucks, I would go into busy pizza places and just grab a pie off the counter and walk out.
It was always a last resort, it was always about basic survival.
And if I had to do it again, I would.
You clearly had other avenues to get food and shelter.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:4, Insightful)
My mother was a drunkard and crazy. I was 12 and had to feed her and my two brothers.
Yeah, I stole. Robbed bread trucks, soda trucks, I would go into busy pizza places and just grab a pie off the counter and walk out.
It was always a last resort, it was always about basic survival.
And if I had to do it again, I would.
You clearly had other avenues to get food and shelter.
You know if you sold one of your brothers you would of made enough money to live off for awhile, till you sold the remaining brother.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Funny)
How many cranes did you steal to feed your family?
Usually about one each week, which is how long the meat would last before going bad.
They're slender birds so you'd might not think that one could last a family of four (myself, my mother, and my two sisters) that long, but in desperate situations people learn to make do.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you see, but you're being rational about it. Others seem ready to be driven by unabated hate.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Being the one beaten is one thing.
Being a friend or relative of the one attacked usually is far worse. Stuff like having a friend's son whom you grew up with tasered to death (the thieves wanted to know "where the valuables were", and kept pulling the trigger until the victim's heart gave out) makes one not really empathetic with violent criminals who do this sort of stuff.
it doesn't have to be painful and horrible... (Score:5, Insightful)
they have guns right? It's up to them how painful and horrible it is.
it can be quick and painless if they like.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think stealing a van and hitting someone warrants death, you are an unhinged individual (or more likely, an internet tough guy). Even the Old Testament said "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"- that is, the punishment should match the crime. If someone takes your eye out, you're entitled to take up to one eye- not the whole head.
And I don't think there are many people who would argue that the Old Testament was too lenient...
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think this one was karma but rather Darwinism. I'm sure the containers had plenty of warnings. They were crooked and DUMB.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a difference between wanting them killed and finding them dead as a result of their crime a convenient outcome.
Every time a would-be-criminal ends up killing themselves because of their own stupidity, I smile.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This, right here.
There is no call for capital punishment on a carjacker. However, if a couple of them die painfully after giving a couple of innocent folks a severe beating, doing so at gunpoint, and all because they were too dumbassed to ignore the warnings splayed all over the container?
I really cannot bring myself to feel bad about the outcome.
For those who feel otherwise, look at it this way: When you use a lethal weapon to commit a crime, you state to the world that you are willing to kill innocent people in order to get what you want, no matter what. From the moment when you point that gun at someone, your life is automatically forfeit should you die as a result of committing that crime. It doesn't matter if you died instantly because the victim shot back, or because every orifice you have is slowly bleeding out of your swollen body due to radiation exposure... you got what was coming to you.
Oh, you're dying a painful death from the stuff you stole and some bleeding-heart type on Slashdot says I should show you some sympathy? Okay: you'll find sympathy in the dictionary between "shit" and "syphilis".
On the plus side, maybe the next person contemplating violent acts to get what they want will think twice because of these two Darwin Award winners?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you ever wonder what motivates people to take such extreme and risky actions? It isn't because they are evil or "bad guys".
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't always because they are evil or "bad guys".
FTFY.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you ever wonder what motivates people to take such extreme and risky actions? It isn't because they are evil or "bad guys".
Really? You're saying that the single best course of action they had available to them was to beat those guys and steal the truck? That, in addition, any rational person put in their situation would choose the exact same course of action?
Sort of makes you wonder why they chose to beat the two guys instead of just force them at gunpoint to be tied up. They must have had literally no other choice.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheesh? All I was suggesting is that asking why they choose one method of theft over another is, well.... because they are likely dumb and it didn't even occur to them.
It might be worth considering that just because a person is wrong doesn't mean that is the end of the story. Criminals are generally a symptom of larger social issues. Morality is nice and all, but, just stopping at the morality of it and deciding they were wrong; is simultaneously correct and useless. You may as well be pointing out that water is wet.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How badly would the drivers have had to been beaten for it to be more proportional?
I thought the US was supposed to be a christian country and slashdot was supposed to be am mostly american site (I say mostly because I am actually british)?
Didn't Jesus say:
'You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.'
So in other words even though there are shitty people in the world then anyone who considers themselves a christian should strive to not seek revenge against such people by killing them or wishing them to be killed. Instead they should forgive and leave any judgment for the lord. Wishing an agonising death upon them would then surely never be proportional, no matter how harshly they beat their victims.
But of course nobody in the US seems to actually give a shit about this part of Jesus' teachings or else you would not have the death penalty.
Re: Tough luck.. (Score:5, Funny)
There is no way Jesus said that, my gardener can barely speak two words of English.
Re: Tough luck.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me Euroweenie. The death penalty is about as direct eye for an eye and you are likely to see. This punishment is reserved for the worst of the worst.
Do you not remember John 7:53-8:11, the story of the adultress to be stoned? Jesus was not in favor of capital punishment ("Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."), and was in favor of forgiveness as a general principle.
At that, it's is almost totally unused in the states, with the exception of a few states. An in the cases where it is applied, this is always after numerous expensive appeals.
The death penalty is still in effect in 32 out of 50 states and at the federal level. 3 of the states which banned it recently have not done so retroactively, leaving prisoners still awaiting their execution. While Texas is an extreme outlier for executions, 10 states have had an average of 1 execution per year or more since the penalty was reestablished in 1976. The South as a whole has executed over 1100 people since then.
So we may disagree on this, but to characterize the US as a bunch of death penalty fiends is completely absurd.
And yet we're the only Western country that still has the death penalty; most of the civilized world has given it up. We're also the Western country with (by far) the highest rate of incarceration and the longest prison sentences. We're also one of the few that allows the use of plea bargaining to compel guilty pleas, and many of our states disenfranchise felons, which is also rare in Western democracies. Gallup polls show that 57% of Americans still support the death penalty (down from a peak of around 80% in 1994.)
Over all, we're a very harsh regime when it comes to law enforcement, and the death penalty is just part and parcel of a nation that believes on some level that criminals aren't human and don't deserve to be treated as such. Punishment is part of our culture, not rehabilitation, and certainly not Christian forgiveness.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
This is a Sophists' phrase, and it is an unnecessary constraint. Why would a man who failed to pray on $holy_day be prevented from punishing a rapist? Both men are sinners.
I, personally, do not worry if the judge is a sinner. The only requirement is that he judges fairly and by the law. I do not care if he has plans on the wife of his neighbor, or that he stole a cookie when he was 5 years old. Some say that it's hard to be honest from 9 to 5 and not so honest from 5 to 9. It may be so. However if a person can do the job, that's the only thing that matters.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to Mexico, where the highs and lows in life are disproportionately higher/lower than what first-world countries are used to.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Forget Karma, this is natural repercussions of actions.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is defined as Karma, for your convenience.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't agree. I think the karma is spot on. The karma is not for what they did but what they could have done with it.
That would only make sense if they knew what they were stealing, and they knew the implications of stealing it, and they stole it anyway.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Informative)
They could have been intending to use it to make dirty bomb what could have exposed hundreds, if not thousands to such an ugly death.
The dirty bomb, as a weapon of mass destruction, is a myth. Disperse the radioactive material far enough to affect a large number of people, and you disperse the radiation as well. The concentration of radioactive material decreases as the square of the radius of the area of dispersal.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The dirty bomb, as a weapon of mass destruction, is a myth.
Absolutely correct, however a dirty bomb isn't really a weapon of mass destruction, it's a weapon of terror. Given the fear economy that has been driving the US for the last decade or so, I imagine it would be a highly effective weapon too.
If the material is mobilized in dust, (Score:5, Insightful)
doesnt the danger remain? The total rads you get is not as important is not as important as how you get those rads. If you inhale a particle, your body cannot dispel it and it will mutate your genes and kill you with cancer. Even minimal radiation, if constantly directed at you by an internalized particle will still kill you.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The karma is not for what they did but what they could have done with it.
Good point. And your mom should be charged with prostitution, because she could do it.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I looked at a datasheet for cobalt 60 apparently you have to come into physical contact. Looking at it shouldn't do them much harm.
Interesting then that the cobalt 60 machines used in medical therapy don't put the patient in direct contact with the stuff. It must be magic. Cancers can detect the boogeyman at the door and die from fright, never getting actually touched by this magical medical miracle.
Re:Tough luck.. (Score:4, Informative)
> I looked at a datasheet for cobalt 60 apparently you have to come into physical contact. Looking at it shouldn't do them much harm.
You need to throw away that datasheet and get a better one. :)
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/isotopes/cobalt.asp [cdc.gov]
Cobalt 60 emits gamma radiation, fairly energetic, which means you only need to be in proximity to it to suffer ill effects. I saw a chart on another site a while ago that said standing within 1 meter of the Co-60 for longer than a few minutes would result in a serious exposure. Being that close to it, without touching it, for more than 30 minutes to an hour would almost certainly be fatal.
The sad thing is, the guys probably didn't know what they were handling and are almost certainly dead by now. I'm frankly surprised that they didn't find the bodies near the site, because after about 15-20 minutes of direct exposure to that much Co-60, they would have already begun feeling the effects -- severe headaches, nausea and diarrhea.
Evolution in action.... (Score:3, Funny)
Title says it all.
radioactive markings (Score:5, Funny)
On my lunch bag when I put it in the fridge at work I put
"Strontium-90 - RADIOACTIVE" on one side
The other I put
"LIVE SPECIMEN - BIOHAZZARD"
Re:radioactive markings (Score:5, Funny)
Re:radioactive markings (Score:4, Funny)
"Strontium-90 - RADIOACTIVE"
"LIVE SPECIMEN - BIOHAZZARD"
The hell kind of deli do you shop at?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:radioactive markings (Score:4, Funny)
Both sides would have been stolen equally, since they would have been attached to each other.
Darwin (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Darwin (Score:5, Informative)
I nominate these guys for the Darwin award!
These guys are amateurs compared to the Mexican scrappers who sold hospital equipment containing 6,000 pellets of cobalt-60 for scrap. The machinery was then processed into rebar which was in turn was used in god knows how many homes in Mexico and the USA as well as metal furniture that ended ups as far away as Canada. The Mexicans even found pellets of cobalt-60 embedded into the asphalt surface of roads in Sinaloa and 109 houses had to be torn down and disposed of as radioactive waste. All in all some 5000 metric tons of steel were contaminated ... as far as is known. According to a documentary I watched about this incident there is a good possibility that there are still contaminated houses and furniture out there. The incident only came to light when a truck with a load of contaminated rebar drove past a Los Alamos laboratories radiation checkpoint and set of a whole bunch of alarms. One person died of bone cancer, another 4 were injured and least 10 individuals received significant exposures and some scrapyard workers became sterile. There is also a good chance that many more people either will, or already have, developed cancer since it took about a year to discover this snafu and even longer to track down all the contaminated material already in use. This story made me think about how US Homeland security worries about 'dirty bombs'. The only thing that still amazes me about that particular contingency is that it hasn't happened yet because highly radioactive material is apparently very easy to come by. The Juarez incident caused radiation sensors to be installed at all major border crossings but one wonders if this has been extended to every single crossing along the US/Mexican border. Either way, I'd be worried.
Re: (Score:3)
I am reminded of the final scene in (Score:3)
"Kiss Me Deadly".
Re: (Score:3)
...or several of the scenes in Repo Man!
What was the make and model of the get away car? (Score:5, Funny)
By any chance was it a 1964 Chevy Malibu?
Re:What was the make and model of the get away car (Score:4, Funny)
Seen leaving the scene of the crime here: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bI0WbLHBXyY/Tix4ZFMCZ_I/AAAAAAABoSM/1YqK064jHsY/s640/back+to+the+future+whitewalls.jpg [blogspot.com]
and I think they need to get their engine checked.
OK. This is it. Making stencils right now. (Score:3)
Re:OK. This is it. Making stencils right now. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
And stencil your Cobalt-60 canister "Delicious cupcakes." You know, all this stenciling is making me hungry. I could sure go for some delicious cupcakes.... Uh oh.
"They will, without a doubt, die." (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference with about 100 Americans on the road today, is that at least they know it in advance.
Re:"They will, without a doubt, die." (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"They will, without a doubt, die." (Score:5, Informative)
They probably don't. They felt nausea after first handling it, then after that passed they felt fine. They will continue to feel fine for maybe one to three days during what is called the "walking ghost" phase, after which their bodies will start shutting down and they die a very messy and painful death.
They will, without a doubt, die... (Score:5, Insightful)
They will, without a doubt, die...
Or at least 93% of us, since 7% of all humans who have ever existed are alive today.
Theiving Rule #341 (Score:5, Funny)
Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
They stole a truck with no idea of the cargo's value or importance, and probably didn't even care if someone else could die if they stole it. It might have been medical supplies, vaccines, food rations, anything. And if they'd gotten involved in a high speed pursuit they could have killed someone just running away. Not to mention their willingness to threaten deadly force in the act, which would have given the driver grounds to use the same in self defense, even without the cargo being lethal.
Which would itself only increase any self defense fatality in being justified if the thieves had gotten shot.
They jacked a rig, had no concern for the value of human life, and it bit them in the ass. To be blunt, they had it coming.
The fact that the authorities aren't even going to be responsible for punishing them means they have nobody to blame but themselves.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
They're going to die a horrific, slow, and painful death. While I agree they brought it upon themselves, the picture of what they're likely to go through brings me no pleasure or satisfaction.
Re:isn't it possible to detect (Score:5, Insightful)
You've been watching too much tv
Re: (Score:3)
In some cases yes. The L3 band used by the GPS satellite system is used to detect and report nuclear detonations, but I do not know if a small amount of cobalt-60 would be detected by a satellite 26,000 kilometres away.
Re: (Score:3)
The L3 band is the transmission band used to communicate with the base stations on the ground. The disturbances themselves are detected using the satellite's onboard instruments.
The GPS satellites are incredibly sensitive to atmospheric disturbances and can detect anything that causes interference with radio transmissions, such as electron emission from a subterranean nuclear test. It is not necessary to detect the emission source itself, just the effects of the emission.
Re: isn't it possible to detect (Score:5, Informative)
Geiger-Mueller detectors work on the photoelectric effect. Point source radiation is an inverse square law. You wouldn't detect this stuff even a few miles away. Reactors hardly release any isotopes. It's the thermals that show up on satellites
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
That's not really a transaction that you set up on one day's notice.
"Hey. I heard that you were a terrorist and I just wanted to give you a call and offer you some radioactive material that I happened to get my hands on. So is that something you would be interested in?"
Re: (Score:3)
Right, because it's not like there's a plethora of criminal organizations in Mexico already, that they could have walked the material to. No drug cartels, no corrupt local officials, nope, none, nada.
Re:hmmm... (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't an X-ray machine though, but a device for radiotherapy.
Fortunately, X-ray machines are harmless when powered down.
Re:hmmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Goiana was Cesium-137.
There have been several incidents with Cobalt-60 sources, including one in 2010 in Dehli, India, and another in 2000, in Thailand. And in some cases, the radioactive material has ended up being recycled into new products; for example - incidents which actually happened: water-dishes for pets, and belt-buckles sold from discount websites. In these cases, the radioactivity was detected by random spot-checks. There are probably products out there that have incorporated recycled radioactive substances, which made it through spot-checks and are sitting in people's homes, making them sick - and there is no way for us to know.
With regard to the cobalt 60 source: Wikipedia says it was 111 Tbq.
"Example: a 60Co source with an activity of 2.8 GBq, which is equivalent to 60 g of pure 60Co, generates a dose of 1 mSv at one meter distance within one hour."
A 1 Sv dose in 1 hour, is lethal.
Extrapolating 111 TBq to 2.8 GBq; (111,000/2.8 = 39,642 ...); so multiply 1 mSv by that, and you get 39.6 Sv per hour.
If they took it out of it's casing, they'd receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than 2 minutes. (depending on how close they stayed, and how long they stayed near it). Staying at least 400 cm away, would mitigate much of the beta particles, but not the gamma rays. Gamma rays are attenuated by the inverse square law, like any radiant energy. So distance is also your friend, but better still, an inch or so of lead.
They would not start feeling symptoms, until an hour or two later. Dizzyness, headache, nausea, vomiting. Later - worse symptoms appear. It will probably take a few days for them to die, and they may seek medical treatment, which may save them, depending on how long they were in close proximity to the unshielded source.
Re:hmmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
> better still, an inch or so of lead.
depends. An old friend worked with medical radio-iodine, which emits high energy gammas. Part of her job was introducing new medical staff to the procedures. She would bring in the standard lead drapes and a Geiger counter and ask them all if they understood radiation precautions. They would of course say yes; she was just a little old lady (her own description), after all, and they were Doctors and Nurses.
She'd hold up the Geiger counter near the patient who had taken the radio-iodine dose, and the Geiger counter would click away steadily.
Then she'd put the lead drape in between patient and Geiger counter -- and the counter would roar.
Then she'd smile and say:
"... I know you all understand secondary radiation, and how gamma rays mostly go straight through tissue like you and me without interacting, but if they hit a really dense material like these lead drapes, they knock off a huge number of electrons that become charged particles that will interact far more readily with tissue, that's one of the reasons we call it ionizing radiation.
"So who wants a drape?"
Re:hmmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good to see Justice Prevails (Score:5, Informative)
Now, as for this 'cobalt 60 in those drug shipments' concept, it might expose the mules (who tend to be low level and treated as expendable anyway) to enough radiation to kill them, slowly; but the major effect would be on the customers: ie. the coke-snorting Americans whining about them. You wouldn't be the first to suggest this... particular approach, the winning the war on drugs; but I bet you'd learn some interesting things about who does drugs once the casualties start to pile up.
Re:Good to see Justice Prevails (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet you'd learn some interesting things about who does drugs once the casualties start to pile up.
Indeed, there have been cops, judges, and prosecuters in the news in Illinois in the last year who were busted for cocaine. There are the mayor of that Canadian city and the ex-mayor of DC. Look at Rush Limbaugh.
I look at "war on drugs" politicians like I look at right wing politicians who constantly decry homosexuality, how many of them have been kicked out of the closet?
I don't know if the GP is an idiot, a troll, or a government shill. He advocates a painful death for drug users? I smoke pot and advocate HIS death. Alcohol, tobacco, and coffee are all addictive drugs. Marijuana is not.
All of society's problems that are attributed to drugs are really problems that stem from the laws against them.
Re:Good to see Justice Prevails (Score:4, Informative)
"ie. the coke-snorting Americans whining about them. You wouldn't be the first to suggest this... particular approach, the winning the war on drugs; but I bet you'd learn some interesting things about who does drugs once the casualties start to pile up."
Yes, a lot of Americans and Europeans would die. And I bet a lot of Canadians would as well.
I guess you're too lazy to read up on the subject and instead jump straight to bashing Americans. I know its easy and makes you feel better about yourself. But please try to at least make an effort to sound like a smug, smart ass. Here, I have done the work for you, since you appear to be incapable of doing it yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War#Effects_internationally [wikipedia.org]
Improved cooperation of Mexico with the U.S. led to the recent arrests of 755 Sinaloa cartel suspects in U.S. cities and towns, but the U.S. market is being eclipsed by booming demand for cocaine in Europe, where users now pay twice the going U.S. rate.
OOPS! Bet you didn't see that one coming ... did you?
http://newamericamedia.org/2013/02/mexican-drug-cartels-eye-spain-as-their-new-home.php [newamericamedia.org]
http://www.mexicogulfreporter.com/2013/04/mexican-drug-cartels-have-strong.html [mexicogulfreporter.com]
http://www.irishexaminer.com/analysis/mexican-drug-cartels-eye-europe-238202.html [irishexaminer.com]
Sorry to be a dick but as an American I am tired of ignorant people outside of the USA painting every American as an ignorant slob.
Re: Good to see Justice Prevails (Score:5, Funny)
Shhhhh, here have a bowl.
Re:tragic lack of prevention (Score:5, Informative)
In this particular case, and especially given the amount of crime in Mexico, it does not surprise me that the truck would be unmarked. And it doesn't really matter if the cargo is marked: carjackers aren't going to rob you at gunpoint and beat you up then take the time to look at the cargo and see if it is worth stealing. They are just going to drive off. I am surprised that the hospital didn't at least hire a security service to escort the shipment; I would assume even(maybe even especially) in Mexico contractable security services are common. Maybe they just aren't trustworthy or capabale enough?