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Thieves Who Stole Cobalt-60 Will Soon Be Dead
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Washington Post reports that the carjackers who set off international alarm bells by absconding with a truckload of highly radioactive cobalt-60, used in hospital radiotherapy machines, most likely had no idea what they were stealing and will die soon from exposure. The robbery occurred as the cobalt-60 was being driven from a public hospital in the border town of Tijuana to a storage facility in central Mexico. While waiting for daybreak at a gas station in the state of Hidalgo the drivers were jumped by two gunmen who beat them and stole the truck. "I believe, definitely, that the thieves did not know what they had; they were interested in the crane, in the vehicle," says Mardonio Jimenez, a physicist with Mexico's nuclear safety commission. The prospect that material that could be used in a radioactive dirty bomb had gone missing sparked an urgent two-day hunt that concluded when the material, cobalt-60, used in hospital radiotherapy machines, was found along with the stolen Volkswagen truck. The cobalt-60 was found, removed from its casing, in a rural area near the town of Hueypoxtla about 25 miles from where the truck was stolen. Jimenez suspects that curiosity got the better of the thieves and they opened the box. So far the carjackers have not been arrested, but authorities expect they will not live long. "The people who handled it will have severe problems with radiation. They will, without a doubt, die.""
or gain superpowers.
Instant Karma is gonna get ya...
Even by Mexican standards.
Apparently the "RADIOACTIVE YOU'LL DIE IF YOU OPEN THIS!!!" markings aren't that universal (fortunately).
Now if only we could put more cobalt 60 into those drug shipments and clean out the cartels in such a tidy manner.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
nice
Problem solved.
with satellites, big doses of uncontained radioactive materials? Shouldn't such materials be "glowing" to sensitive sensors from the space or something ?
Title says it all.
Who knows they might mutate and gain super powers.
Here comes Taco Man to defeat the evil Gringos and pave the way for the Reconquista.
See subject!
On my lunch bag when I put it in the fridge at work I put
"Strontium-90 - RADIOACTIVE" on one side
The other I put
"LIVE SPECIMEN - BIOHAZZARD"
Sure they committed a crime, but nobody deserves to die like that. My condolences to them and their families.
that cobalt-60 is used in hospital radiotherapy machines.
I nominate these guys for the Darwin award!
If so, they deserve to die.
I wonder, in your car, having some properly shielded container looking precious with that kind of stuff in it would take care of car thieves for good?
"Kiss Me Deadly".
They could have lived long enough to sell the material to someone nefarious.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
*Everyone* will, without a doubt, die.
Except maybe Sergey Brin.
Microsoft?
Every one of us will, without a doubt, die.
Is this a confirmation that the undead exist and after being exposed to Cobalt-60 you lose all your chances to turn undead?
Because AFAIK, every one of us - without a doubt - will die.
By any chance was it a 1964 Chevy Malibu?
I am going to stencil "Cobalt-60" on every thing that I own that could be of interest to the thieves.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Are you sure about that? We can identify radiation sources in the sky with pinpoint accuracy. It seems unlikely that we don't have radio telescopes pointed in the other direction, considering the geopolitical importance of nuclear materials.
Sometimes thieves strike it big and sometimes they get caught, and sometimes they wind up dead. Hopefully they won't suffer for too long.
All too aware of Cobalt -60. Iron 59 will undergo neutron proton reaction and become cobalt 60. It's the most common isotope of concern in reactor compartments. It has a long half life but it's decay produces a gamma of 7 MeV (mega electron volts).
If this is really source material for X-ray equipment, then why wasn't it well marked and locked in a relatively difficult container requiring a blow torch to cut through?
This is basic supply-demand curve dynamics
This isn't difficult stuff; If a job or task produces $8/hr output, why the fuck would a company pay someone $10/hr to do it? Answer: They won't.
Furthermore, who is to say that because a job or task doesn't produce $10/hr in output that job or task isn't a perfectly valid and useful job? ...ohh, right, the same government who says that your healthcare plan isn't good enough. Motherfuckers.
The difference with about 100 Americans on the road today, is that at least they know it in advance.
Ted Nugent disagrees.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"Whatcha got in the trunk?"
"Oh, you don't want to look in there."
Best damn car on the lot.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I know Cleveland BioLabs is working on bacteria which impact acute radiation sickness. Would be interesting if they could try it on these thieves if they would turn themselves in.
*Disclaimer* I own CBLI stock and would obvioiusly like their stock to rise, but more importantly would like them to succeed as risks to radiation exposure from old nuclear power plants grows.
But now there's an international news story about cobalt-60, how deadly it is, and how amazingly simple it is to steal from Mexico.
So we can expect a dirty bomb any minute now.
Thanks MSM!!!!
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Machete 3 - Repo'death'ed starring Danny Trejo Estevez ...or Repo Man 2 - Dose Dos Muerte!
the punishment is certainly dire, but mexicos lack of preventative efforts should be called into question. Was the vehicle marked as carrying radioactive cargo? why was there a layover of such dangerous material? were there warnings in multiple languages? pictographs from local health and safety agencies are surely readily available. the GHS is surely used in Mexico
https://www.osha.gov/dsg/hazcom/ghs.html
two people are dead and numerous others exposed because they either did not know what the truck contained, or could not read the ample warnings. Mexico has a 93% literacy rate. there is no excuse for this accident.
Good people go to bed earlier.
cured their cancer and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.
Think X-Files did a take on this but it was fungal infection instead of radiation
The all new 2015 Toyota Camry with nuclear anti-theft aka pandora's box protection (pbp).
Physics pays no favorites.
Nature is not a friend.
Perhaps others will learn by their mistake.
Unfortunate, but I've little sympathy for them. I am sorry for their families and hope they don't contaminate them.
Peter AI6PG
I too furiously ignore all risks that have a lower death rate than highway traffic.
Trampolines? IGNORE RISK!
Asteroids? The same!
Biking without helmet? I don't need no stinkin' helmet!
Sharks? Harmless!
Shady part of town during a blackout? Nice place for a stroll!
You really shouldn't be talking about stupidity.
They were stupid - so they died. That is the way. And it is good.
Two guys showing up at a hospital asking for radiation treatments are pretty easy to find.
This could have been a major heist if they had pulled it off. That would have been a lot of moolah for them for sure along with the kind of lasting infamy they make movies about!... What? They are an instant aesop: Dead men walking, killed by the very treasure they coveted. To ridicule at this point is almost literally beating a dead horse... or theif in this case.
Who needs explosives, for a few weeks at least they can just mix in with crowds and radiate them....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If they had strapped it to a quadcopter and flew it to the homes of rival cartel members.
Lots of spiders, in Mexico...
it was a 'bad thing'.
Didnt know slashdot had so many racist tards...
"Refried beaners, mexicans over 14 of course they have children" :/
Come on I thought we in the tech world are smarter than the lowest common denominator of our society aka trailer trash neo Nazis.
Do the thieves deserve death? Maybe, but not by the slow and agonizing way that they will be facing..
It's nice to see these armed thugs die.
If only all such cases could end this way.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
A worse punishment would be for them to have to live the rest of their lives in Tijuana. I'd say they got off easy.
and he will be warm for the night. Give him Cobalt-60, and he will glow the rest of his life!
they have guns right? It's up to them how painful and horrible it is.
it can be quick and painless if they like.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
It gets a bit more complicated when you consider that all minimum wage labor is being subsidized by the government through public transit, housing subsidies, food stamps, and a myriad of other government programs -- not to mention private charity.
Many people are willing to pay $60/month to take a bus to their minimum wage job, but do you think the same people would be willing to walk 1.5 hours each way or pay $20/day for transit? I doubt it. These subsidies have the effect of reducing costs to workers, making these jobs more appealing than they would otherwise be.
I have a good job and I don't necessarily mind if some of my tax dollars go to help the poor, but the idea of my tax dollars going to subsidize the sort of jackasses who hire minimum wage workers ("A customer stole something, so it's coming out of your pay cheque." , "Work free overtime or I'll get someone else.", "I'm paying you with a prepaid card instead of a cheque.", etc...) disgusts me. A minimum wage at least has the effect of reducing the amount of worker subsidies that low-wage employers can extract out of the government. Personally, I think a better approach would be a special "subsidy recovery" payroll tax. This would make it cheaper to hire one full-time employee than a few part-timers and would have the effect of reducing the use of handouts by people who have jobs.
USA might be Christian, but Slashdot is most likely Atheist, Agnostic, Spiritual and Humanist. You know, full of rational people who seek refuge from those who not only imagine wizards in the sky doing shit for them...but want everyone else to do the same. In any case, this seems like a suitable death for these fools.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
They will, without a doubt, die...
Or at least 93% of us, since 7% of all humans who have ever existed are alive today.
Seen leaving the scene of the crime here: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bI0WbLHBXyY/Tix4ZFMCZ_I/AAAAAAABoSM/1YqK064jHsY/s640/back+to+the+future+whitewalls.jpg
and I think they need to get their engine checked.
Those two idiots.
These guys who knowingly broke the law and stole the truck deserve to die of radiation poisoning, along with any leftist faggots who think it was someone else's responsibility for not providing adequate warnings against unlawful behavior.
If the loot starts to glow, just say "No"
I am just a simple Computer Science Engineer, but for my experience in the English-speaking world, I'd say not even that is an excuse not to return what has been stolen. Obviously the way they return it could be a matter for a different discussion. And I don't think any twin towers could be interested at all in being involved.
By the way, (un)fortunately I have experience working in COBOL, but I can assure I have nothing to do with that theft. Though I could probably have to agree that in fact in the English-speaking world (Rome 2.0) it does kill...
Just not in the Simpsons anymore
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
This is typical straw man garbage. Paying fast food workers a living wage would not require Burger Death to pay more for labor than they get for their burgers. And it won't cost jobs either. Raising the minimum wage always helps the economy - look it up.
We all know the dangers of radiation, but with the right precautions, you can prevent accidental death, or even... ugh... Ghoulification. Keep your eyes on those Geiger Counters, kids. "Tick-tick-tickity" means "run your ass outta there", and pop some RadAway for good measure. If you do need to head into the heat, be smart: give yourself a nice boost of Rad-X first. Remember: only you can prevent human flesh fires.
(sorry)
Furthermore, who is to say that because a job or task doesn't produce $10/hr in output that job or task isn't a perfectly valid and useful job?
People who are forced to live on $10/hr. The minimum wage ensures that people who work hard for a living aren't forced into poverty just because competition for work turns wages into a "crab bucket" situation where people undercut each other just to have *something*.
You can see this especially today in the wake of the 2007 financial collapse. Poor people used to be able to / have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. They might end up working 50-60 hour weeks, but they could make ends meet. Today, however, with labor oversupplied and jobs in high demand, employers are able to demand "continuous availability." Not only will you not get a job if you want to have a specific day off or not to work on holidays, but you also can't get a job if you have another job that might want to schedule you at the same time. So people are forced to get by on single jobs that won't schedule them for full time and won't let them fill the hours at another job. You think minimum wage is somehow generous? Try living on it with only 30 hours a week. It's a large part of why the economy isn't recovering.
Besides, if a job is worth less than minimum wage, then it will be replaced with a solution that allows one person to do multiple people's jobs (aka increased productivity), or it will be brought up in value by charging more to the customers. Before you jump on the latter as making minimum wage hikes pointless, note that labor isn't the only factor in any goods' or services' costs, so the effect of raising wages isn't negated by raising the costs of goods and services, and this is a net benefit to the poor.
In other words, the minimum wage is possibly the single most important tool in ensuring that the income gap doesn't generate civil unrest and violence, like it did in the 19th century.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
They stole a truck with no idea of the cargo's value or importance, and probably didn't even care if someone else could die if they stole it. It might have been medical supplies, vaccines, food rations, anything. And if they'd gotten involved in a high speed pursuit they could have killed someone just running away. Not to mention their willingness to threaten deadly force in the act, which would have given the driver grounds to use the same in self defense, even without the cargo being lethal.
Which would itself only increase any self defense fatality in being justified if the thieves had gotten shot.
They jacked a rig, had no concern for the value of human life, and it bit them in the ass. To be blunt, they had it coming.
The fact that the authorities aren't even going to be responsible for punishing them means they have nobody to blame but themselves.
I guess they are getting what they deserve. It does not pay to commit crimes. It is just unfortunate that curious thieves are going to die from it instead of murderers....
It sucks enough hearing your doctor say you're going to die, but to hear it on the worldwide news? Damn.
I'll also bet that all the truck thieves in Mexico is getting a call from their mothers today, worried sick, wanting to know if they're OK.
He's called Captain Mexico.
You can see him shouting and flying here
http://bit.ly/1d1KsAL
Disclosure: I'm also Mexican
doesnt the danger remain? The total rads you get is not as important is not as important as how you get those rads. If you inhale a particle, your body cannot dispel it and it will mutate your genes and kill you with cancer. Even minimal radiation, if constantly directed at you by an internalized particle will still kill you.
I don't have any sympathy for those thieves. Nor I believe their motives was starvation.
However, sometimes I wish Mexico could enact legislation for capital punishment for certain crimes...
I know certain comments are sarcastically fun, and as a joke that's ok.
BUT, can't never understand another society if you have never set foot out of your comfort zone, speak another language, much less If you never traveled to those places. May I suggest watch less FOX NEWS.
Minds are like parachutes: they need to be open for it to work.
Just saying...
I know Cleveland BioLabs is working on bacteria which impact acute radiation sickness.
I initially read that as
I know Cleveland BioLabs is working on bacteria which impart acute radiation sickness.
I thought "WTF? Biological+radiological warfare in America AND it's not a state secret? WTF?"
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Slow-motion biological warfare may be more plausible.
Sooner or later some hostile country is going to figure out how to modify the flu or common cold so it sets the stage for massive (10%+ fatalities) cancer over a 10-20 year time frame, and combine it with a "trigger" so the cancer part only affects people with certain gene markers, such as a particular family, clan, or ethnic group.
Imagine if North Korea figured out a way to make and distribute a cold virus that killed 10% of infected people of European descent within 10-20 years? Or what if, instead of causing fatal cancer in 10% of victims with certain genes, it causes infertility or loss of sexual desire in 50% of that group or (by manipulating egg cells and sperm-generating cells) the future children of that group, resulting in a greatly reduced population a generation or two down the road?
The hard part will be 1) getting it right, 2) making sure it doesn't mutate and kill you or others you hope will survive 3) make sure you don't get caught, and 4) make sure it's not easy enough to copy-and-modify that one of your enemies uses it to create a cold that will kill "you and yours."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It was a DeLorian. Needed fuel.
Where do you think we learned it?
Don't just eat the taco: be the taco?
Is 1563649 a prime number?
but recently there have been lots of Giant Mutant Seagulls cropping up in all the traffic video cameras in Seattle recently. ... maybe they're hungry?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm at least going to want to do it... On the Beach.
What's wrong with hate for such a transgression? Are you one of these pussies that thinks the world would be fine if everyone rolled over and took it in the ass? Screw them and screw you. Hate is a natural and reasonable emotion for such an event. Deal with it.
I say, live and let live. Violently assault me without provocation and I say; DIE!
These fuck nuts when where they should not have. They stole. They robbed at gunpoint. They brutally beat the drivers. Pure delicious karma now rains down on them.
Seems to me that the device itself had to be relatively harmless unless you managed to actually crack it open and get directly at the cobalt. Maybe this was a very old device, but after previous deadly incidents of ignorant people getting their hands on such things, I would think they would be manufactured such that it would be REALLY difficult to get at the cobalt inside. Maybe if you stare into the bore of the thing for a while though?
If the cobalt had actually been accessed/exposed then I would expect them to have a nasty hot clean-up exercise on their hands, but the Mexican authorities seem awfully unconcerned.
I suspect they are just trying to scare the shit out of the thieves, perhaps to motivate them to turn themselves in hoping for some sort of treatment.
G.
Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year! They oughta have 'em, too.
You still don't get it.
Minimum wage == minimum skill. Why do you hate the unskilled?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I am no nuclear scientist, but I thought radiation sickness and death was a factor of emission of the source and well as time exposed and distance.
The exact details of the source can be found here(111 TBq):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt-60#Safety
However all they did was find the material, unshielded. They don't know how long the thieves had been exposed to it. Unless the level was high enough that any unshielded exposure would lead to insta-death (which I find hard to believe). It could be that their exposure was reduced to opening it, discarding it, and leaving, so on the magnitude of minutes. Anyway they seem to be missing 2 or 3 variables to make such a assured claim.
I don't know how to calculate a lethal dose from the indicated source strength to figure out the amount of time needed. Looking into it, calculating TBq (or Curie) into Gy/h (or rads/h) looks pretty complicated. Found an online tool, but it doesn't seem to work.
Anyway far from "They will, without a doubt, die.", unless it is of that insta-gib variety.
Here is a mortality chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome#Signs_and_symptoms
2-6 Gy seems bad but possibly treatable, while 6+ means you are probably going to die regardless of what you do.
This sounds a lot like Numb3rs s1e10 (first aired 2005-04-22).
“And now, young cobalt-60 thieves...... You will die.”
Truckload sound like a lot of Cobalt 60 ...until you read that there were only 40 grams of that stuff in the box.
I"m more worried about the scum that thing Justice for stealing a truck is death then I am about people who steal trucks.
Take it up with God, you bleeding heart idiot.
It really depends on what happened, and some idiots on /. are too stupid to do anything but break an issue into 2 parts. Don't commit any crime at all/Die of you commit any crime.
Try to steal from me, and I will personally ensure your pathetic, worthless life comes to a violent and ugly end, you god damn parasite. You are a piece of shit.
I hope that would be the case.
He was twelve, you sociopathic git. Do you really expect him to know what resources are available to him at that age given his background? What the fuck is wrong with you?
I want one. Steal my car, get curious about what's in the box, die.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
With that user id? It's a troll account.
wait, I found some cobalt paint at the home improvement store. So the paint is radioactive?? Or maybe cobalt is just the name of the color?
Serious question: doesn't the case that has the cobalt have any warnings or labels on it? Just wondering.
Foooom!!!!!
And a pair of smoking boots......
Apologies to Steve Goodman
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
They had no idea what they were stealing. Otherwise, they wouldn't have opened the cargo and given themselves a lethal dose of radiation poisoning.
Guilty of crimes not even committed. Gotcha.
They beat up the drivers, not shot them.
To be blunt, you're a bloodthirsty authoritarian thinking with his lizard brain. No, people who commit assault and grand theft cargo do not deserve to die. You wouldn't be from Texas by any chance, would you?
What's in the booooooox?!?!?!
Minimum wage == minimum skill. Why do you hate the unskilled?
Kind of a ridiculous question. I don't. I just want better opportunities for them.
You might as well ask me why I hate children for not supporting their ability to work for a living.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It would not feel like normal metal...perhaps curiously warm normal metal.
Uh, everyone is going to die. I assume they meant the thieves will die "soon".
Think of it as evolution in action.
The cobalt source is said to have been found in a rural area. What about the exposure of the people who found it?
"I thought the US was supposed to be a christian country" Suppose to and "is" are not the reality.
And this outdated idea that just leave the bad guys alone and let them do as they will, because God will punish them in the end, is child like in its understanding of human nature.
At some point a persons actions will determine if they have right to live in a society.
If you wish we could start shipping all of our serial killers, rapist, murders, degenerates to your country so you can handle them in a truly Christian way.
"The life of a repoman is always intense."
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
You obviously should qualify your statement. "Always helps" is provably false, given the unbounded nature of numbers.
So, what is the maximum level to which it should be raised? Somewhere between its current rate and "the GDP of the United States per hour"... but that's uselessly imprecise.
And no, I'm not going to do this research myself because I am instead choosing to call you on your incorrect statement. Your call whether you want to redeem your error.
The punishment for a rapist of an unmarried young girl (from infancy to adolescence the word describes) is he keeps her as a little woman of his (bride) and pays her father. Pedophile rape = marry adorable young girl.
Deuteronomy 22 28-29 (hebrew)
That is good because the man gets a nice sweet pretty young girl he wanted. It is bad for feminists.
Where they snort the isotope thinking its coke. You are dead and there is fuck all they can do about it. Tylenol overdose does the same thing too though if its not treated in time. You get mildly ill first. Then you get better and suddenly deteriorate since your liver is cooked. Very freaky shit.
These guys wouldn't hesitate to shoot you or your family in the face for the chance to steal a truckload of something.
Nonsense. They are local heroes, fighting against the corrupt officials who run the hospital, and their crooked minions who are stealing much needed medicine from the people.
Why, my own daughter would be dead were it not for them stealing insulin back from old Patrón Puerco.
Ghandi said "An eye for an eye and soon we will all be blind." meaning you should forgive, not even measured revenge is worth it. However I am pretty sure Ghandi was a Pussy and I prefer to side with Judge Dredd, you break the law, you will be Judged.
Mexico is going to see a whole lot of trucks with a nuclear sticker soon, if this proves to help being stolen.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
That is why you analyze things in rem (or Sv) not rads. Google ALI (annual limit on intake) and you will get a chart for each nuclide. It will tell you how many rem you get over your lifetime (50 years) from inhaling or ingesting a radionuclide. 1 rem gotten from an external gamma emmitter is the same as 1 rem from ingesting an alpha emmitter. There are some subtle nuances beyond that, but this is an accurate way to conservatively assess your health risk.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
For me, the most disturbing thing about this incident was the number of commentators on the various blogs and websites joking about how we'd just need to find the glowing people to solve the crime.
Radioactive things almost never glow. Looking for a glow is a useless measure of whether something or someone is safe or not and would just mislead people into thinking no glow=safe.
Things glow in movies and TV because it looks good. It has nothing to do with reality.
You want them to never have a job.
Someone without the minimum skill is unemployable.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is a tragedy about to occur.
When you live in poverty, and have no work to earn money, you do what is required to feed your family. You may not have much education, or understanding of the dangers, so, ....
You bring the cobalt home, or to a friend's place, or even to a crowded church where you hide it. The secondary effects of the theft will be the large number of innocent deaths or illnesses.
Sad, sad, sad.
Already, the plans are underway to insure that there is a safer way to transport hazardous material. Why learn what to do with this theft by ignorant people.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Just look for glowing corpses!
Good thing this didn't happen in the U.S.A. Otherwise the families of the robbers would be suing the hospitals for wrongful death.
Are the authorities who allowed this to be shipped without sufficient protection and oversight.
The thieves are scum, and will probably die. I'm ambivalent about that. It's a horrible way to go, but they brought it upon themselves. C'est la vie, or perhaps C'est la mort.But it's just luck that (we hope) the only victims of radiation exposure were the thieves themselves.
What if, as has happened way too often, innocent bystanders had also been exposed? With the thieves down, the people who need to be punished are the owners and regulators who endangered the public by allowing dangerous cargo to be shipped without guards, or at least a relief driver who could take over when the first guy needed a nap in the middle of a bad neighborhood.
No need to vote. The winners of the 2013 Darwin Award (every last one of them) are these two criminal geniuses.
Behind this issue It may lay the excuse for performing a country deep scan in search of radioactivity.
Pehaps inorder to check hidden atomic lab, or similar.
You want them to never have a job.
Someone without the minimum skill is unemployable.
Odd. It sounds like you think people are entitled to never learn new skills, but aren't entitled to be able to support themselves through work. It's a strange world you propose that values ignorance more than life.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Dirty Bombs are not practical for exactly the same reasons why these knuckleheads will be dead soon: it's not practical to construct and deliver a dirty bomb IN PRACTICE exactly because it's simply Epic Fail in a lethal sense to do so. Even if you use sacrificial "sponges" do the work, you can't practical achieve the goal without being noticed or killing the messenger/deliverer.
Darwin Award winners
Fitting reward for their stupidity.
They wont be dead. The true story when it broke about the theft was that these people may be in danger and exposed to radiation. Please come forward so we can treat you before you die.
US Law enforcement is quite remarkable to ask some twit to come forward that according to news reports is about to suffer a painful death.
Radioactivity rubs off on stuff -- including people. They will not be the only ones to die.
Everyone seems to be rejoicing that justice will be served or whatever, but depending on actual exposure, whether they change their clothes, etc., their families, friends, people in the stores or bars they visit, etc. will also sicken or die.
As they touch hands between the trucks window.
He who questions training, only trains himself at asking questions. -- The Sphinx, Mystery Men
Do you think every crime is as black and white as the premise... don't you have the slightest bit of imagination?
Their motive is unknown, and their apparent ignorance of the target's value suggests they are very unlikely to be professional criminals... hmm, petty criminals jacking a truck, how many sorry stories could possibly fit that picture. But by all means feel free to stick with your 3 year old perception of the through and through evil "bad guy" living it up in his evil layer with all the mountains of monies he stole. Or is it the ignorant degenerate that deserves to die? who's morals are we judging again?
For those who feel otherwise, look at it this way: When you use a lethal weapon to commit a crime, you state to the world that you are willing to kill innocent people in order to get what you want, no matter what.
According to whom?... you have no knowledge of the perpetrator's intent, and as a matter of probability the majority of "lethal weapon" wielding criminals will not only lack intent or willingness to kill but also hot have a lethal weapon at all... All that is needed is the appearance of a threat, most people are not willing to bet their life on the higher probability of a false threat... that's why it works, how do you know they weren't using toy guns? can you kill someone with a toy gun or a banana under a jacket? are you still certain that they deserve to die for wielding a "lethal weapon"?
I don't know who they are or why they did it or if there was a real potential to cause lethal harm... and my point is that nether do you. Unknown motives should not default to "Super Villain" and breaking the law or being ignorant !== "morally bankrupt moron that deserves to die", not all crime is committed out of greed..."
He was twelve, you sociopathic git. Do you really expect him to know what resources are available to him at that age given his background?
He is a direct offspring of his parents, right? And wasn't it his parents who utterly failed to raise him in any decent way? And now here he is as an adult, bitching and moaning and complaining and crying a fucking river about these POOR, POOR thieves who stole a truck, beat the drivers half to death, then ended up getting a fatal dose of Cobalt-60 for their trouble. And I'm the one who's "sociopathic" ? Let's face facts: this guy is a total piece of shit. He started that way the day he was born.
Unfortunately it would be a very effective weapon. The more the government tried to explain that the radiation was relatively mild, the more people would say "the government is lying to us to avoid a panic, and to cover up their incompetence" and panic. Many people would flee, but they would be labeled as "radioactive" and would be violently expelled from wherever they tried to settle in. And general lawlessness. It would be ugly.
The whole point of dirty bomb is that the radioactive material is distributed as dust.
The dust particles are radioactive enough that having them on your skin, inhaled into your lungs or ingested through contaminated water and food... your radiation exposure is significant.
Go back to the library and check out the right books this time.
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"Six people tested for possible radiation exposure have been released from hospital but remain under detention as suspects in the theft of a truck carrying highly radioactive cobalt-60, officials said Friday. Of the detained men, ages 16 to 38, only the 16-year-old showed signs of radiation exposure and he was in good health
[...] Hidalgo state Health Minister Pedro Luis Noble said earlier Friday the men suffered from skin irritations and dizziness, but that none were in serious condition. Only one was vomiting, a sign of radiation poisoning.
[...] "It's quite an operation and it is in the process of being planned," he said. "It's highly radioactive, so you cannot just go over and pick it up. It's going to take a while to pick it up."
With nothing inhaled or ingested and with proper treatment, even the 16-year old is likely to be fine. So long as the free radicals are mopped up, the infection is cured, the gut bacteria brings out its dead and recovers... and (remote possibility) some bone marrow is transplanted, it is completely survivable.
As to the real chances of this fellow developing a long term cancer or anemia, Marie Curie died in 1934 from radiation induced anemia some 15 years after WWI where she stood at the business end of many mobile X-ray units (invented by her). Some 30 years after she and her husband had stared experimenting with the properties of radioactivity, even hosting "radium lawn parties" at home. The life long exposure Madam Curie received was immeasurably immense, and yet to survive to the age of 66... well, it should put things in perspective about the resilience of the human body AND the remote possibility of fatal cancers.
Much of our data is based on the health effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors and those who succumbed soon after. While these poor souls' conditions were very well recorded, it is impossible to accurately gauge the total rad-count received as it was a combination of exposure, inhalation and ingestion, their total dose could have been a magnitude higher than was ascribed to their condition, which leads to over-estimation of radioactive danger.
Chernobyl amazed medical science by the number of people who received intense exposures, and survived.
Madam Curie's husband did not succumb to radiation, he was killed when he was run over by a horse drawn cart. So the moral of the story is, don't go nuts worrying about radiation. Watch out for spooked horses.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
I'm not sure karma is just for this lifetime but it certainly seems to be when there's irony involved. Irony seems to be one of the pillars of the human experience - maybe it's the limitations of the human mind - we tend to be too sure and jump to conclusions, and constantly get schooled on this mistake, but never truly leaner from it, or can we?? Nothing is certain. These guys were probably sure it was the authorities that would get the better of them. Instead it's the very material they stole. I hope they're sorry they stole it!