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Explosives Quotes

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Explosives Quotes

“Here is the recipe to blow something up: a Pyrex bowl; potassium chloride—found at health food stores, as a salt substitute. A hydrometer. Bleach. Take the bleach and pour it into the Pyrex, put it onto a stove burner. Meanwhile, weigh out your potassium chloride and add to the bleach. Check it with the hydrometer and boil until you get a reading of 1.3. Cool to room temperature, and filter out the crystals that form. This is what you will save. [...] You need 56 grams of these reserved crystals. Mix with distilled water. Heat to a boil and cool again, saving the crystals, pure potassium chlorate. Grind these to the consistency of face powder, and heat gently to dry. Melt five parts Vaseline with five parts wax. Dissolve in gasoline and pour this liquid onto 90 parts potassium chlorate crystals in a plastic bowl. Knead. Allow the gasoline to evaporate. Mold into a cube and dip in wax to make it waterproof. This explosive requires a blasting cap of at least a grade A3.”

ScienceExplosivesFirefighterBrian Fitzgerald
Book:My Sister's Keeper
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“A RIB is a rigid inflatable boat, and this has an engine at the rear which pushes the nose up and out of the water as it bounces along at a great speed. This was a good-sized one and I realised that it must have an antigrav component because it never sank in the water though the team of Neptunians got on with us. The marine engineer steering it took us out to the dive boat, a large – to our eyes – vessel over a mile offshore. We sat back and gripped the rope lacings along the sides and breathed in salt spray air, grinning foolishly at our friends and each other. The RIB engine was so noisy that we couldn’t really talk but we were relishing being right down at water level, streaking across the Thames estuary, heading for the most dangerous boat in the world.”

BoatExplosivesDivingThames
Book:Dining Out Around The Solar System
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“Something, which the police called a bomb, had exploded in his shed. Investigations were begun, and the efforts of the authorities were soon to be categorized by the appropriate officals as "feverish", for bombs began to go off all over the place. The police collected fragments of the exploded bombs, and the press, anxious to help the police in their work, published impressive pictures of the fragments as well as a drawing of a reconstructed bomb together with a very detailed description of how it had been made.The police had done a really first-rate job. Even my brother and myself, both of us extremely untalented men in technical matters, could easily grasp how the bomb makers had gone to work. A large quantity of ordinary black gunpowder, such as is the be found in the cartridges sold for shoutguns, was encased in plasticine; in it was embedded an explosive cap, of the type used in hand grenades during the war, at the end of a thin wire; the other end of the wire was joined to the battery of a pocket flashlight -- obtainable at any village store -- and thence to the alarm mechanism of an ordinary alarm clock. The whole contratation was packed into a soapbox. Of course my brother did his duty as a journalist.He published the police report, together with the illustrations, on page one. It was not my brother's doing that this issue of the paper had a most spectacular success and that for weeks men were still buying it; no. the credit for that must go to the police; they had done their bit to ensure that the peasantry of Schleswig-Holstein would have a healthy occupation during the long winter evenings. Instead of just sitting and indulging in stupid thoughts, or doing crossword puzzles, or assembling to hear inflamatory speeches, the peasantery was henceforth quetly and busily engaged in procuring soapboxes and alarm clock and flashlight batteries. And then the bombs really began to go of.... Nobody ever asked me what I was actually doing in Schleswig=Holstein, save perhaps Dr. Hirschfeldt, a high official in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, who had recently taken to frequenting Salinger's salon. Occasionally, and casually, he would glance at ne with his green eyes an honour me with a question, such as: "And what are the peasants up to in the north?" To which I would usually only reply: "Thank you for your interest. According to the statistics, the standard of living is going up -- in particular, there has been in increased demand for alarm clocks.”

HistoryTerrorismGermanyExplosivesWeimar Republic
Book:Der Fragebogen
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“And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty and paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division. Rae is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia despair, and distrust. In short, a candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy (p. 107).”

Has BeensTwoMatterFactsRealityForceSocialLevelsEffortRacePovertyDemocracyIssuesProduceConflictDespairProjectsCrisisFundamentalsDemocraticCorePersistenceTragicDivisionDistrustHistoricExaminationParanoiaAmerican LifeExplosivesCandidAmerican DemocracyEscalation
Book:Race Matters: With a New Introduction
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“The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope 'this will ensure peace'. But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we're in God's hands. But He does not look kindly on Babel-builders.”

IfsMenWorldGivingWritingWellsLooksMayDoeWarHandsTodayPurposeMoralOughtNewsIntellectualDestructionGood ThingsAriseFollyBombsJapanConsentCavesPhysicistLunaticBuilderFirearmsExplosivesAtomic BombStunnedInmatesBabel
Author:J. R. R. Tolkien
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“Human beings need community. If there are no communities available for constructive ends, there will be destructive, murderous communities... Only the social sector, that is, the nongovernmental, nonprofit organization, can create what we now need, communities for citizens... What the dawning 21st century needs above all is equally explosive growth of the nonprofit social sector in building communities in the newly dominant social environment, the city.”

IfsNeedsHumansEndsSocialGrowthCommunityHuman BeingsCitiesEnvironmentCenturyBuildingCitizensOrganizationAvailableDestructiveDominant21st CenturyConstructiveExplosivesNonprofitsSocial EnvironmentBuilding Community
Author:Peter Drucker
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“Among the words that can be all things to all men, the word "race" has a fair claim to being the most common, most ambiguous and most explosive. No one today would deny that it is one of the great catchwords about which ink and blood are spilled in reckless quantities. Yet no agreement seems to exist about what race means.”

MenMeanSeemsTodayCommonRaceBloodFairsAll ThingsClaimsDenyAgreementQuantityInkRecklessAmbiguousExplosives
Book:Race: a study in superstition
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“Intervention in Syria is not an option. President Obama has already helped foment this civil war and supported the al-Qaeda jihadists. This is an explosive region, and more US intervention means more people will die. We should be choosing peace - not a new conflict. More so than anyone else, my supporters know that America cannot afford another unlawful, immoral war in the Middle East. Stand with me and tell President Obama to stay out of Syria.”

PeopleKnowsShouldMeanWarAmericaDiesPresidentMiddleConflictEastCivil WarRegionsAlsPresident ObamaMiddle EastSyriaSupporterImmoralInterventionAl QaedaExplosivesUnlawful
Author:Ron Paul
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“[A] world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet. Not to have a national anthem would be logical.”

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Book:The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: As I please, 1943-1945
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“In fact, a very similar phrase was invented to account for the sudden transition of wood, metal, plastic and concrete into an explosive condition, which was "nonlinear, catastrophic structural exasperation," or to put it another way--as a junior cabinet minister did on television the following night in a phrase which was to haunt the rest of his career--the check-in desk had just got "fundamentally fed up with being where it was.”

WayFactsNightCareersConditionsTelevisionAccountsFollowingWoodsChecksMinistersPhrasesFedsTransitionMetalsConcretePlasticDesksAnother WayJuniorsCabinetsExplosivesFed UpExasperationNonlinear
Author:Douglas Adams
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“Today, we will hear from federal law enforcement agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, who will discuss the problem of ELF and ALF and law enforcement's reaction to their dangerous and destructive tactics. It is these tactics, particularly the widespread use of arson, which makes ELF and ALF the #1 domestic terror concern over the likes of white supremacists, militias, and anti-abortion groups.”

UseProblemTodayLawWhiteGroupsDangerousConcernTerrorAlcoholLikesReactionsAgencyAbortionDestructiveInvestigationLaw EnforcementEnforcementTacticsTobaccoFirearmsExplosivesMilitiaAnti AbortionArson
Author:James Inhofe
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“coincident with the explosive growth of research, the art of writing science suffered a grave setback, and the stultifying convention descended that the best scientific prose should sound like a non-human author addressing a mechanical reader. ... We injure ourselves when we fail to make our discipline as clear and vibrant as we can to students - prospective scientists - and to the public who pay the taxes.”

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Book:Boojums All the Way Through: Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age
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“Love is the great intangible. ... Frantic and serene, vigilant and calm, wrung-out and fortified, explosive and sedate -- love commands a vast army of moods. Hoping for victory, limping from the latest skirmish, lovers enter the arena once again. ... Love is the white light of emotion. ... Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one can agree on what it is.”

LightWhiteLove IsEmotionWonderfulLoversVictoryArmyAgreeCalmMoodCommandArenaSereneExplosivesVigilantIntangibleFranticWhite LightLimping
Author:Diane Ackerman
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“This is, if not a lifetime process, it's awfully close to it. The writer broadens, becomes deeper, becomes more observant, becomes more tempered, becomes much wiser over a period time passing. It is not something that is injected into him by a needle. It is not something that comes on a wave of flashing, explosive light one night and say, 'Huzzah! Eureka! I've got it!' and then proceeds to write the great American novel in eleven days. It doesn't work that way. It's a long, tedious, tough, frustrating process, but never, ever be put aside by the fact that it's hard.”

IfsWayWritingLongHardFactsLightNightProcessNovelPeriodsToughLifetimeWaveDeeperPassingPassingsWiserFrustratingOne NightElevenNeedlesTediousTime PassingExplosivesGreat AmericanTime PassesObservantPassing It
Author:Rod Serling
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“The profession of magician, is one of the most perilous and arduous specializations of the imagination. On the one hand there is the hostility of God and the police to be guarded against; on the other it is as difficult as music, as deep as poetry, as ingenious as stage-craft, as nervous as the manufacture of high explosives, and as delicate as the trade in narcotics.”

HandsDifficultImaginationMagicStagePoliceTradeProfessionNervousCraftsDelicateMagicianHostilityIngeniousGuardedExplosivesSpecializationNarcotics
Author:William Bolitho
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