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Mom Arrested After Son Makes Dry Ice "Bombs"
formfeed writes "Police were called to a house in Omaha where a 14-year-old made some 'dry ice bombs' (dry ice in soda bottles). Since his mom knew about it, she is now facing felony charges for child endangment and possession of a destructive device. From the article: 'Assistant Douglas County Attorney Eric Wells said the boy admitted to making the bomb and that his mother knew he was doing so. The boy was set to appear Tuesday afternoon in juvenile court, accused of possessing a destructive device.'" She's lucky they didn't find the baking soda volcano in the basement.
We used to have a lot of fun with these in high school. We would put them under the bleachers during high school football games. Harmless fun... Mostly...
Is popping balloons also illegal in this neighborhood?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
So dry ice in a plastic soda bottle constitutes a "bomb" these days? I mean, I suppose you could "put an eye out" with it, but it's not really what I would call a "bomb". Are the police just stupid, or is the prosecuting attorney delving into hyperbole?
Proverbs 21:19
It does pack a wallop!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
We did something similar in our teen years while working at a recreation center with a soccer ball.
Having found a spare soccer ball and with one of those desktop mounted air pumps we would put an increasing amount of pressure into the soccer ball and then the guys would bounce the thing around the gym. This went in stages, a little more pressure, the guys would go back to kicking the ball around the building, then back for more air pressure...
After seven or eight of these cycles of increasing pressure in the soccer ball it took on a distinct metallic sound when bouncing. The soccer ball had about 115 PSI in it and the guys decided to kick it around the hallway that connected several of the rooms in the recreation center. I was watching the fun and one of the guys kicked the ball and it hit the edge of a table and was bouncing up and down on top of the table. From 25 feet away I could hear brittle cracking sounds coming from the ball... At the last instant I have the picture of one of the guys running away from the ball with a look of fear on his face. Right at that moment the ball exploded like a bomb.
The sound of the explosion just left my ears with a buzzy, ringing sound as the guys are laughing their asses off. Quickly they grabbed all of the soccer ball shrapnel and hid it right as the senior citizens group was pouring out of their meeting room. There were retirees who must have served in WW II who were looking for the 250 pound bomb crater or airplane crash, asking furious questions about where the bomb went off.
To their credit, the guys just looked quizzically at the senior citizens and said "what noise?".
Doing a post mortem on the soccer ball one of the sewn panels failed and ejected the air bladder from the ball. The soccer ball skin was turned inside out. There were tiny little shards of rubber ball liner everywhere.
Kids do stupid stuff. Outlaw CO2 (since it is a greenhouse gas and eeevil too). Adults will not stop the never-ending quest by kids for things that go BOOM!
Tisha Hayes
To a large degree the war was started by (mostly) well meaning people at the end of the 19th century who had just lived through the Industrial Revolution and concluded that interchangeable, standardized humans would revolutionize society (for the better) in the same way that interchangeable, standardized components revolutionized manufacturing. Back then the 20th century's two biggest examples of progressivism, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had not yet seen the light of day. This is back when most people believed in a neat, orderly universe created by the watchmaker god. All living things could by precisely classified into a uniform hierarchy. Their view of the universe did not allow for chaos, quantum physics and ring species. As it turns out, they were wrong but the less-well meaning elements certainly aren't going to let go of the power without a fight (or a collapse).
For chemistry open days at school, we used to run a series of demos. One of the things I would do was chill a boiling tube and put a tiny bit of dry ice in the bottom. I'd then put the cork on and give it to someone in the audience to hold, telling them to keep it held straight and that I'd need it for a demo a bit later. Typically, about a minute later there's be a very loud bang as the heat from their hand caused the carbon dioxide to expand enough to force the bung out at high speed. It sometimes ricochetted and hit one of the other people in the audience.
We also discovered that dipping your hand in ether and lighting it kept the flames far enough away from you that it didn't hurt (due to the fact that it's only the gas that's burning, and it's only burning when it is diluted enough that it can get a lot of air), at least for ten seconds or so. We'd hold a lighter in one hand, reach out to shake hands with the parents of prospective pupils, and light the outstretched hand as it went past. After they jumped back, we'd apologise, saying something like 'that keeps happening today - we're not sure why.'
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Don't delete any photos. Get a copy of The Photographer's Right from http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm, and stick it in your camera bag if you're worried. Just because some rentacop has an attitude doesn't mean you need to change your behavior.