The Toy Robot that Brought Denver to it's Knees!

Originally posted by whitewave
Priceless! Very well told story, PT. Just the right amount of facetiousness to be playful and the right amount of sarcasm to make a point.

Thank you White Wave, I think the reporter who did the article I based it off of, had a difficult time trying to feel a true sense of seriousness based upon their own interviews where pretty much everyone on the scene thought the whole charade rediculous.

Unfortunately what can you do when a bunch of armed henchmen show up and start closing down the streets?

People go along with it because they have too, not because they want too.

Thanks for posting my friend.

Originally posted by FewWorldOrder
Proto - I just couldn't agree more, nor express better, your analysis of this.

And thisguyrighthere's first reply tends to smack one in the face also.

Cheers, for spotlighting this absurd theatre.

You are most welcome my friend, and thanks for giving it a read and chiming in.

I think we have seen the vast majority of people posting to the thread really do see all this as absurd with just a small aadamant minority supporting these insantities, now if we could only get the politicians to consider the true majority.

Thanks for chiming in!

A related story from the UK:

A businessman has been charged under the Terrorism Act after he broke through a police cordon and tipped open two suspect packages to prove they were harmless.

James Mullan ducked under police tape and emptied old clothes and shoes from bags left in Ipswich town centre after become frustrated by the lengthy wait for a bomb scare to be resolved.

Link

"These aren't the droids you are looking for."
"You can go about your business."
"Move along"

reply to post by harrytuttle

It's easy for us (and me) to look back in hindsight about this toy robot and laugh, but we weren't the ones whose job it was to put our lives on the line and HOPE that the robot was just a robot toy, and not a bomb planted inside a robot.

I'm sure this post will have been crucified by the time this reply lands, but its got 2 stars as I read it so here's some vinegar on a sponge:
Have you actually thought about the scenario? An 8" plastic robot. It had legs, arms & a head. The only bit that could contain a bomb was the torso. Lets assume a very sophisticated control mechanism that could be housed in the peripheral bits. It still needs a power source & a detonator. Lets also assume a brisive explosive like RDX which wouldn't need a metal casing to be potentially lethal. Just how lethal could it be? No more & probably less, since it had no proper shrapnel, than a handgrenade.
Oh, but thats lethal, right? Still takes balls of steel to approach, right?

Lets consider what the word "terrorist" means. Does it mean "someone who is intent on harming people in a manner which creates terror", or is it just a pejorative word that means anything we dont like or find contemptible (for instance "too stupid to realise their efforts would be far better used in the bar the public retreated to than in some random street")?
Think! If you wanted to kill people with something that couldn't be any more powerful than a handgrenade, where would you put it? Personally, I'd put it somewhere that people are crowded together, like waiting to get into somewhere, so that the tiny amount of explosive would injure the most people. Hey, perhaps I'm just sick. Perhaps terrorists dont have the capacity to think as sickly? Er... just get a grip will you? You can capslock HOPE all you like, it doesn't trump reason.

I read this yesterday. Then I read about the guy in England who emptied those bags of clothes because they thought they were a bomb.

What is it with these people? How paranoid can you get?

Well, let's up the paranoia a bit.

If I wanted to blow something up, I wouldn't make it obvious.

I would put it in a rubbish bin. Just walk past and dump it in. No suspicion, nothing.

They are too busy looking at the obvious...

MM

Originally posted by PeasantRebellion
A related story from the UK:

A businessman has been charged under the Terrorism Act after he broke through a police cordon and tipped open two suspect packages to prove they were harmless.

James Mullan ducked under police tape and emptied old clothes and shoes from bags left in Ipswich town centre after become frustrated by the lengthy wait for a bomb scare to be resolved.

Link

I have a funny feeling some police departments pay officers on a gradient scale where they recieve something equivalant to 'combat' pay. The City of Miami has such a system for it's officers.

It's entirely possible that officers responding to a bomb scare earn a couple to a few more dollars or pounds an hour up to even double pay. So every hour they stand around at a 'bomb' scene investigation probably pads their paychecks signifcantly.

They probably do milk the system for time to maximize their pay, even knowing all the while that the odds of a discarded bag of some vagrants clothes containing a bomb are one in a trillion.

We have seen big cities like Los Angeles publicly advertise for citizens to report suspicious or potential 'terrorist' activity. Similar to the 'block' systems used in Communist Nations they look for and promote that 'concerned' citizen who is advised to call when ever unsure to let the 'experts' then decide.

This is probably a big part of the problem, as we see in those few cases where proponents of this maddness saying well what where the police supposed to do, someone likely called it in.

Someone may have, and chances are they are someone the police had previously targeted though some outreach program or jr. police training to do just that.

I know my little incorporated town in Miami beach has a 'Jr.' police auxillary where the culmination of a two week course is watching a swat team in action. The town is one square mile and has no Swat Team, but the officers borrow a Swat vehicle from another department and get out all their toys and gear to put on a show anyway, even though their most dangerous task is running a speed trap that nets the town hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

The whole point of the Jr. police auxillary though is to cultivate 'informants' otherwise known as 'concerned citizens' who's concerns of course might range from gaining favor, to recieving rewards.

There are many layers to the War on Terror that the public is not informed about.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Word is that the toy robot was demanding 1,000,000 triple A batteries and a can of WD 20 or
he was going to push a button on his control panel and ignite a bunker buster directly under the
local police station.

reply to post by Bunken Drum


A great and very logical and factual assessment of the situation regarding explosives.

What many people to realize is that explosives themselves pretty much just displace air at a tremendous force unless they actually contain something inside of them to propel.

Serious bombers like in the IRA typically use tacks or small nails, bee bees or small ball bearings, broken glass shards or ragged pieces of tin inside their bombs to cause maximum damage. Those intent on doing the most damage will soak those items in rat poison which has an anti-coagulant to make victims bleed out from blood loss.

Typically they surround a plastic explosive charge many times bigger than that robot with those items when carrying out a bombing.

Once you design a bomb for maximum effect you have to place it for maximum effect and as I pointed out earlier that robots location ontop of the base of that pilon would have blocked the blast radius from hitting the most populated part of the street.

You would have to be a seriously stupid bomber to place a bomb there. Bombers aren't seriously stupid people though as it requires a pretty good knowledge of chemistry in order to make one.

Ignorance becomes the government's preferred thing to prey upon when it comes to pushing these excesses that deny us liberty and inflict the masses with fear.

Knowledge overcomes the ignorance.

The government knows this too, and so do the corporations and nations who benefit the most from the "war on terror" and they always have their little lackeys promoting blind fear which is all about ignorance.

It's sad when we see it here on ATS when these people try to tell us the 'intelligent' thing to do, is to abandon logic, and reasoning and common sense, and knowledge and to give in to blanket fear and reliance on and complete faith in the state.

That is so not what the United States was founded to be.

The day when dissent becomes criminal, when common sense, reason, logic, and study are replaced by this blind alegiance to fear and the state, is the day we can pretty much all wrap collars around our necks and attach cowbells to them and start saying moooooooo!

Great post my friend.

Originally posted by ArcheoAstronomer
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

Word is that the toy robot was demanding 1,000,000 triple A batteries and a can of WD 20 or
he was going to push a button on his control panel and ignite a bunker buster directly under the
local police station.

My God man Lithium markets would have sky rocketed!

I think we need to contact the SEC and see who was betting on Lithium futures on the 1st to get to the bottom of this one.

We better pray that 100,000 people don't buy toy robots and try to fly for the holidays!

or even worse ... they ride greyhound!

Originally posted by xuenchen
We better pray that 100,000 people don't buy toy robots and try to fly for the holidays!

or even worse ... they ride greyhound!

One thing is for sure, I think most people who have read this thread, will never look at a toy robot the same again.

Some are bound to just bust out laughing, while others, are likely to call the bomb squad.

Thanks for posting my friend.

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

Just exactly where do you get the idea that simply because the object appears to be a toy on the outside, it cannot contain explosives on the inside. Its has been done before in history:

Customary international humanitarian law: rules, Volume 1
43. Germany’s IHL Manual states that:

International humanitarian law prohibits the use of a number of means of warfare which are of a nature to violate the principle of humanity and to cause unnecessary suffering, e.g…. explosive traps, when used in the form of an apparently harmless portable object, e.g. disguised as children’s toys. 43

Afghanistan under the Soviets: five years - includes other related articles – transcript

For some time, Soviet planes were dropping antipersonnel mines disguised as toys, watches, and other objects that Afghan children or refugees would pick up. These mines were designed to maim rather than kill.

Too funny, my whole take on the War on Terror is that it's the State that is the agent of terror, so what do you dig up to substantiate that toys could be bombs?

A legitimate State using them as agents of terror.

So while you have proven "Governments" violent by their very nature when it comes to imposing their will for resources and control, use such devices you have yet to come up with an example of someone fighting against government tyranny, which is really what our warped view of terrorism is, people fighting back against repressive and violent regimes and their dual standard gunboat diplomacy, who are themselves using such things.

In fact what you have just displayed is when it comes to the governments you can't put anything past them, and I submit to you, that our own government would rather have us fearfully questioning children's toys, than questioning them.

Funny how they would prefer us to question inanimate objects as opposed to our corrupt politicians and officials.

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by MITSwagger

 

The point is that it was suspicious which is why they handled it the way they did. It was not simply some random toy that was just accidentally left laying around as the OP hinted at by leaving out the vital bit of information about it being cemented in place.

It's over reacting and I believe you know that already.
So every single item on roadsides or underpasses, discarded trash, toys thrown from car windows by kids, empty pop cans, bottles, shoes, garbage bags, cardboard boxes, tires, broken down cars, semitrucks sitting on the berm, ALL OF THEM are now , suspect!?
Seriously let's take it to that level,
if were calling it vigilance then lets make it fulltime non discretionary,
we cant be selective in our search for the boogie bomb, because IF WE ARE, we're going to regret it,
Something will slip by, not get the attention it deserves and then BOOM!

It's a win-win if we follow this lead,

en.wikipedia.org...

the system has a total length of 46,876 miles (75,440 km),[1] making it both the largest highway system in the world and the largest public works project in history.[2] The Interstate Highway System is a subsystem of the National Highway System.

There's 46,876 miles just of interstate highway,
If we assign ONE unemployed american to watchover ONE MILE , and we do this 24/7 we've just created
187,504 full time jobs,
We'll use a running timken schedule, dayturn/afternoon/midnight, every 6th and 7th day off,
AND we'll assign ONE road leader per shift per mile as well.
This is only for the Interstate System,
County / Township / City / Boro, roads will have to be staffed accordingly through their legislative bodies.
WIN-WIN
The roadside will be clean of course, since all debris will be inspected and collected,
Every mile of highway will have 2 sets of eyes , real time, real biological eyes set upon it,
JOBS !!! We will once again employ americans, and fittingly so with our new number one export since 2001
FEAR & TERROR,
Mother , Father, Sister, and Brother will once again be working, the money will flow, and
We'll be safe.
Nothing will get by anyone, we'll all be watching eachother, AND getting paid for it !
Hold it (moment of brilliance) *Bonuses* will be paid for the apprehension of questionable characters.

Forget the revival of the WPA from the 30's and 40's

en.wikipedia.org...

The Works Progress Administration (renamed during 1939 as the Work Projects Administration; WPA) was the largest New Deal agency, employing millions to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. It fed children and redistributed food, clothing, and housing. Almost every community in the United States had a park, bridge or school constructed by the agency, which especially benefited rural and Western populations. Expenditures from 1936 to 1939 totaled nearly $7 billion.[1] By 1943, the total amount spent was over $11 billion.[2]

I'm telling you,I think this is the way to go, forget bucking the system, take it over, embrace it, internalize it,
everybody just spy and watch everybody else, and get paid for it on top of that.
I mean why not,
we're on our way to doing it for free now by leaps and bounds, let's get this under control and make some cash !

what was that?
did you hear that?

reply to post by HappilyEverAfter


That's a truly great idea for job creation, and the highways would be cleaner! I think we should expand the program to the biways, but the truth is there is a lot of potentially dangerous trash in our rivers and lakes too that could be used to harbor explosives.

I think the fact that we aren't sweeping them hourly for mines is pretty risky.

I think we need a new civilian auxillary navy to do this!

In fact I think we need to consider that civilians too could be turned into exploding bombs, so we should probably check everyone like every other second just to be on the safe side, because you know if we don't and one of them explodes then someone will cry and say we aren't doing enough!

Proto, my good friend. You have probably saved my grandchildren. I had bought toy robots for them, to put under their Christmas trees this year. I wrapped them, put tags on them, of course putting their names on the boxes, along with the obligatory "From Santa" gift tag. Upon reading your informative post, however, I gathered the bright colored boxes up, called our local Homeland Security Office, who promptly came and carried the boxes away. I heard one of them put out a BOLO for a bearded man in a red suit, along with his accomplices 8 standard reindeer and on obvious communist reindeer with a RED nose. I also heard one of them give orders to send Predators to the North Pole, armed with nuclear missiles, to eliminate a terrorist camp called Santa's workshop.

So if there are no presents under your childrens' or grandchildrens' trees this Christmas, understand that Homeland Security has done their job, in eliminating this Communist Bearded Terrorist with a beard, a RED suit, and a LIST of good and bad children. Also understand that those children on the bad list will be placed on a watch list by Homeland Security, and may be subjected to uncomfortable searches by TSA agents.

Happy Holidays Proto. I'm sure well all feel safer now that these threats have been eliminated. Of course, unemployment figures will sharply rise, as all of those sidewalk and department store Santas are arrested, and placed in detention centers indefinitely.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


You know my wise and brilliant friend, this does not surprise me, I kind of assumed all those red suited bearded men were trouble of some sort.

I mean come on, who dresses like that in this day and age.

They always hide in plain site, just like this abominal robot.

It just goes to show you, that you can never let your card down. Imagine what would have happened when all those Christmas presents started exploding all over America and the Christian world?

The terrorists would deny it of course, and say, Santa was 'our' guy, but it's pretty clear, Santa was never with us. Disguised behind that beard, there is no telling who he might be. The real Saddam Hussein perhaps?

Time will tell, I hope they take Santa alive and waterboard the truth out of him.

Let's see him say ho ho ho then.

Great to see you posting my friend.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


Glad you are doing your part, I did mine today, went to my local Toys R Us store and warned them that Homeland Security was on the way to pick up all the plastic toys, as I was leaving they were clearing the shelves, there will be no gifts under Christmas trees this year as you know there is no toy that isn't made of plastic. I left my phone number and address with the store manager, hopefully I will get a reward, I will use it to bail out the innocent children who get caught with plastic toys that got by the screening...

Good to see you my friend...thanks again for doing your part.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler



Exactly !
This entire state of paranoia is an untapped undeveloped revenue stream, THIS could be the permanent solution to a utopian economy,
There will be zero unemployment, 0% !
Unbelievable monetary flow.
Everyone will be assigned to something or someone, possibly a combination of both positions fit into one single universal job description.
Highways, rails, air travel, river and ocean travel, busses,sidewalks, all covered!



EYES EVERYWHERE !



We're being followed, Now!

Originally posted by Aquarius1
reply to post by ProfEmeritus

 

Glad you are doing your part, I did mine today, went to my local Toys R Us store and warned them that Homeland Security was on the way to pick up all the plastic toys, as I was leaving they were clearing the shelves, there will be no gifts under Christmas trees this year as you know there is no toy that isn't made of plastic. I left my phone number and address with the store manager, hopefully I will get a reward, I will use it to bail out the innocent children who get caught with plastic toys that got by the screening...

Good to see you my friend...thanks again for doing your part.

I sure hope no one finds out Proto is none other than the Grinch that stole Christmas!

Ha ha, I knew I would finally suceed!

Dr. Zuess phew!