This is the one delivered to CNN. People have been noticing something very unusual: No postmark. So we are being loaded with a cart-full of cow patties or this was hand delivered to the mail room of CNN. But then there is the issue that several “bombs” were delivered the same day to different people in different places.
The FBI better come up with a good set of patsies as the idea of a lone crazy guy pretty much is dead and buried.
Here are other pics of the “device.”
I am no pipe bomb expert, but that would be the first one that I have seen with their wires running to opposite ends. Is it bad of me to think this looks like somebody copying some Hollywood show?
Smells to high heaven
looks like a “bomb” I made for a white elephant gift exchange many (many, many) years ago. I deliberately made it “Hollywood” since it was actually a working alarm clock, and it looked pretty similar to this. Mine had a nicer clock and more tubes and wires, but was basically identical in conception.
Hollywood misses a lot of important parts in a bomb, like an amplifier circuit for the blasting cap (clock alarm triggers amp circuit, which detonates the cap). A typical clock alarm will not output enough power to reliably detonate a standard electric match based blasting cap, so you would need something to boost the signal. That appears to be totally absent here. So either the perpetrator was totally happy with unreliable detonation or detonation was never an actual part of the plan. Either that or the perpetrator was so neat they built their amplifier circuit to fit inside the case of the kitchen timer clock, but I find that hard to believe given the crude construction elsewhere. And of course there is the less obvious bit where if you can build your own amp circuit you can build a much simpler and more reliable timer circuit too, so there is no need to use an off the shelf clock. You would not need to mount anything outside the pipe at all, just power the timer circuit and screw the end cap on.
The wire placement is odd, as noted, but is certainly possible. Having a wire on each side lets you reliably place the cap in the very center of the primary charge, which would give the most consistent fragmentation of the pipe (please note “most consistent” does not in any way mean “consistent”). This also seems to be an unnecessary and unlikely attention to detail, especially (again) considering the shoddy construction elsewhere. I am willing to bet those wires attach to nothing inside the pipe.
So fake bomb false flag? Someone trying to send a “message” without actually endangering anyone? Someone hoping to catch a bomb tech off guard with a working bomb designed to look fake? Who wants to bet this story drops off the radar as anything other than a talking point?
I just looked briefly at what’s on wsj.com about this. Some report that the “devices” contained no explosive. Also, the comments on the article (over 3000 of them) have a large percentage of skeptical reactions in them, with “false flag” comments prominent among them.
My bet is that its a false flag. Right now the “democrats are an angry mob” narrative is taking hold (largely because it has the advantage of a great deal of truth!); someone is trying to turn the narrative to the Dem’s advantage.
Prove me wrong – I’m willing to listen, but that’s my bet. Lack of postmarks – which means hand delivery, at multiple locations, reinforces that theory.
If that looked any faker Obama would invite the maker to the White House and tell him he made a cool clock.
Damn you, stop reading my mind! I just posted that…LOL
Not fair!
A fake bomb from the fake news. This is all a load of utter bullshit. The burden is on anyone left in the FBI with a shred of integrity to sell it to the American public otherwise. The news stations are garbage and I have to assume anything they say is false.
The stamps are not canceled. Had to be hand delivered.
Er, yeah. Wire to each end makes assembly decidedly awkward. Putting the “cap” (more likely, igniter) in the middle can be accomplished without such awkwardness.
Also, I don’t see a battery robust enough to deliver the current for heating up a bridge wire. Nice fat wires coming from that little kitchen timer or whatever it is, but I’m not seeing a place for anything bigger than a coin cell to hold the electrons, and coin cells are not noted for supplying large amounts of current.
It does look a bit theatrical. And… wait…
A timer? WTAF???? Who the SMEG puts a TIMER on a letter bomb? I mean, unless it’s going to be hand-delivered and the bomber knows the target’s schedule in some detail…?
So! Fakety fake fake. Warning? False flag? Serious attempt by a complete idiot (who somehow got ahold of carefully-protected private addresses)?
Like so much in today’s world, This Does Not Compute.
Between your post and some of the comments,
This is a Very Good Summary of why this is BS.
Now for the professionals to find all the unintended evidence and track these idiots down. My money, like most of yours, is on a left wing loser.
But at least it has a red wire to cut, or was that the blue wire? LOL
They didn’t even bother to take off the fake time sticker that comes on the clock in the retail packaging. I can’t say anything one way or the other because I’m not there, but there are a number of things that reek to high hell with these “bombs”. Not that that excuses it, of course. Whether fake or not, it’s over the line. But all the hyperventilating is getting old, especially after the rather efficient job they did burying the story after the Steve Scalise incident.
James: Brett Baier’s report today mentioned that the CNN package was “delivered by a courier”.
Something struck me as curious. The package that went to Debbie Wasserman Schultz was a “return to sender” (supposedly it was addressed to Eric Holder, though the photos shown on TV show a blank address label). But that’s extra processing. If a couple of packages sent to someone arrive at the same day as a “return to sender” package, that return package had to have left at least a day or two earlier. At least if it actually was returned. So it feels more like a collection of hand deliveries, including the one marked up as if it were a return.
Hmmm. Ya know, If *I* was gonna deliver a package via courier, *I* would certainly put a buncha postage on it!
And, I certainly believe that the courier service knows **NOTHING** about how the package came into their possession.
Somebody else commented, elsewhere, that had it been a right-of-center operation, the first inkling would have been explosions.
Reminds me of the adage (I think from Matt Bracken): people who do not know what “sub-MOA” means, probably should not intitiate hostilities with folks that do understand, and likely employ, that term.
Ah, of course: it was Miguel. (hat tip). Had it been ours, it would have gone BOOM!