OT: The WMDs have been found

Quote: The samples were in containers that ranged in size "from small vials to tubes the length of a pen," Okabe said.

Q: How much MD can a pen-sized tube of phosgene do?

It doesn't matter. The article was directed at readers who only read the subject line.

Note followups.

Damned little actually.

Gunner

Kill everyone in a subway system. All sorts of mayhem.

Don't you remember what happened in Japan ?

Mart> "Camilo Ramos" writes:

So what was the deal on these? From what I was able to read through ignorant-reporter-speak, these are just ampules of calibration samples?

And from the 90's - note how that isn't related at all to anything currently going on.

BFHD! Samples of "an industrial chemical" that just happens to be toxic? - Small ones at that. Next they'll claim hydrazine as a WMD. This headline is a Bush plant.

Ampules is a massive amount of many of these poisons. If it were bio - then it would be enough for New York as it grows in time as well.

An ampule if broken is a mL or so and in chemical talk that is something. It isn't much booze or gasoline, but of some chemicals yep.

Think agent orange or nerve gas or .... good enough for a lot.

Mart> >> Kill everyone in a subway system.

Phosgene isn't nearly that dangerous, by many orders of magnitude.

I made some accidentially when I was a kid by burning carbon tetrachoride on red hot nichrome wire in a heater. When I smelled the "new mown hay" odor mentioned in my parent's chemistry textbooks, the lightbulb went off, and I left the area and allowed the gas to dissipate. I did cough for awhile.

Joe Gwinn