I think mt delete button wires are crossing.....
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sterling K. Webb" <[email protected]>
To: "JoshuaTreeMuseum" <[email protected]>;
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2010 11:12 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] OT: Dowsing is real,but exoplanets are
dubious?!
If the devices seem to work for the Iraqi's, I can propose
a simpler explanation for why the worthless wands do
anything at all.
What they do is make those with good reason to not
want to be stopped and especially not to be searched
nervous, because even the best-educated terrorist
probably believes in these impressing-looking but
worthless Gizmo's.
And there is no cop in the world that can't "smell" a
nervous perp. Even the worst cop can do that. Even
if you're only nervous because you're in the hands of
a bad cop. So the device has a "high rate" of detections
which will include among the many false positives,
most if not all of the true positives.
So, yeah... it actually works. Dum cops and dummer
terrorists make twitchier suspects and better detection.
What a racket!
I wish I'd thought of it...
Lesee, 1500 ADE-651's at $16,500 each (in bulk) is
$25,000,000. $50,000 to have the Gizmo made in
China and shipped. Pay off the Ministry of Internal
Security in Bagdad for the contract... How much
does that come to?
Ain't Free Enterprise great!
Sterling K. Webb (with thanks to William of Occam)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "JoshuaTreeMuseum" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2010 7:18 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] OT: Dowsing is real, but exoplanets are
dubious?!
Hi Mike,
I think the point of the article is relevant to what's being discussed
here. People that know for scientific reasons that dowsing doesn't work,
can't dowse because it won't work for them. Dowsing only works for the
ignorant like myself and dumb construction workers and plumbers. The
Iraqis believe in these devices and they work for them. And we're talking
about life or death here, surely the devices work, they're staking their
life on them. The experts make the exact same arguments in the article
that I've heard hear. Scientific test show the devices give no better
than random results, etc. etc. Everybody keeps telling them they don't
work, when obviously the Iraqis know that they do work, otherwise they'd
be getting blown up. Unless the Iraqis are so dumb, they're getting blown
up, yet still insist on using the dowsers. If that was the case, surely
the article would have reported it. This is the NY Times after all. I
like at the end of the article where the naysayer can't get the dowser to
work, but it works perfectly for the believer. It's like that Monty
Python episode where everybody has to believe in the apartment building
or it falls down. A non-believer moves in and the building starts
collapse, until the believers convert him and the building goes back up.
Every time he has doubts, the building starts to fall down, then he
recants and the building goes back up. That's some funny stuff!
And even though these guys are putting their lives on the line every day
with their dowsers, they of course can't pass the fraudulent Randi's
impossible requirements and cash in on his stupid million dollar con.
Click on the link for pictures of the overpriced, phony dowsing devices
that can't possibly work, yet still do
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/middleeast/04sensors.html
BAGHDAD - Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears
of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq's security forces
have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United
States military and technical experts say is useless.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Times Topics: Iraq
Enlarge This Image
Johan Spanner for The New York Times
The sensor device, known as the ADE 651, from $16,500 to $60,000 each.
Iraq has bought more than 1,500 of the devices.
The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being
used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works "on the
same principle as a Ouija board" - the power of suggestion - said a
retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who
described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.
Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices,
known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every
police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the
devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of
vehicles.
With violence dropping in the past two years, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal
al-Maliki has taken down blast walls along dozens of streets, and he
contends that Iraqis will safeguard the nation as American troops leave.
But the recent bombings of government buildings here have underscored how
precarious Iraq remains, especially with the coming parliamentary
elections and the violence expected to accompany them.
The suicide bombers who managed to get two tons of explosives into
downtown Baghdad on Oct. 25, killing 155 people and destroying three
ministries, had to pass at least one checkpoint where the ADE 651 is
typically deployed, judging from surveillance videos released by
Baghdad's provincial governor. The American military does not use the
devices. "I don't believe there's a magic wand that can detect
explosives," said Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe Jr., who oversees Iraqi
police training for the American military. "If there was, we would all be
using it. I have no confidence that these work."
The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. "Whether it's magic or
scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs," said Maj. Gen. Jehad
al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior's General Directorate for
Combating Explosives.
Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security
Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense,
said the center had "tested several devices in this category, and none
have ever performed better than random chance."
The Justice Department has warned against buying a variety of products
that claim to detect explosives at a distance with a portable device.
Normal remote explosives detection machinery, often employed in airports,
weighs tons and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The ADE 651's
clients are mostly in developing countries; no major country's military
or police force is a customer, according to the manufacturer.
"I don't care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them,"
General Jabiri said. "I know more about this issue than the Americans do.
In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world."
He attributed the decrease in bombings in Baghdad since 2007 to the use
of the wands at checkpoints. American military officials credit the surge
in American forces, as well as the Awakening movement, in which Iraqi
insurgents turned against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, for the decrease.
Aqeel al-Turaihi, the inspector general for the Ministry of the Interior,
reported that the ministry bought 800 of the devices from a company
called ATSC (UK) Ltd. for $32 million in 2008, and an unspecified larger
quantity for $53 million. Mr. Turaihi said Iraqi officials paid up to
$60,000 apiece, when the wands could be purchased for as little as
$18,500. He said he had begun an investigation into the no-bid contracts
with ATSC.
Jim McCormick, the head of ATSC, based in London, did not return calls
for comment.
The Baghdad Operations Command announced Tuesday that it had purchased an
additional 100 detection devices, but General Rowe said five to eight
bomb-sniffing dogs could be purchased for $60,000, with provable results.
Checking cars with dogs, however, is a slow process, whereas the wands
take only a few seconds per vehicle. "Can you imagine dogs at all 400
checkpoints in Baghdad?" General Jabiri said. "The city would be a zoo."
Speed is not the only issue. Colonel Bidlack said, "When they say they
are selling you something that will save your son or daughter on a
patrol, they've crossed an insupportable line into moral depravity."
Last year, the James Randi Educational Foundation, an organization
seeking to debunk claims of the paranormal, publicly offered ATSC $1
million if it could pass a scientific test proving that the device could
detect explosives. Mr. Randi said no one from the company had taken up
the offer.
ATSC's promotional material claims that its device can find guns,
ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at
distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or
even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on "electrostatic
magnetic ion attraction," ATSC says.
To detect materials, the operator puts an array of plastic-coated
cardboard cards with bar codes into a holder connected to the wand by a
cable. "It would be laughable," Colonel Bidlack said, "except someone
down the street from you is counting on this to keep bombs off the
streets."
Proponents of the wand often argue that errors stem from the human
operator, who they say must be rested, with a steady pulse and body
temperature, before using the device.
Then the operator must walk in place a few moments to "charge" the
device, since it has no battery or other power source, and walk with the
wand at right angles to the body. If there are explosives or drugs to the
operator's left, the wand is supposed to swivel to the operator's left
and point at them.
If, as often happens, no explosives or weapons are found, the police may
blame a false positive on other things found in the car, like perfume,
air fresheners or gold fillings in the driver's teeth.
On Tuesday, a guard and a driver for The New York Times, both licensed to
carry firearms, drove through nine police checkpoints that were using the
device. None of the checkpoint guards detected the two AK-47 rifles and
ammunition inside the vehicle.
During an interview on Tuesday, General Jabiri challenged a Times
reporter to test the ADE 651, placing a grenade and a machine pistol in
plain view in his office. Despite two attempts, the wand did not detect
the weapons when used by the reporter but did so each time it was used by
a policeman.
"You need more training," the general said.
Riyadh Mohammed contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 5, 2009
An article on Wednesday about a bomb detection device used by the Iraqi
security forces that is considered useless and costly by the American
military misstated the surname of the leader of ATSC (UK) Ltd., the
London-based company that has sold hundreds of the devices to Iraq's
Interior Ministry. He is Jim McCormick, not Mitchell.
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