Utopia Talk / Politics / allah ackbar!

sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 11:38:37 That was a seriously large explosion in beruit...
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 11:39:21 Not a nuke. Most of the city is still standing unfortunately :(
Rugian Member	Tue Aug 04 11:43:25 Were the bombers wearing masks at least?
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 11:49:27 Possibly a munitions ship or fertilizer ship?
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 12:01:08 You can see a hotel or office building by the docks disintegrate in some of the videos. I dont think it looks as bad as the halifax explosion...
Dakyron Member	Tue Aug 04 12:10:06 Claiming it was a fireworks explosion. Seems doubtful. Hopefully it was full of Hezbollah rockets.
Paramount Member	Tue Aug 04 12:20:29 It was probably jews.
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 12:24:16 Not nearly as bad as halifax. Looks like a standard ship / warehouse explosion. Lots of secondary small explosions so munitions or fireworks were involved, though the main explosion could have been many things.
tumbleweed the wanderer	Tue Aug 04 12:26:46 some videos since no one else posting any :p http://twitter.com/BestTweet___/status/1290674572073644034
tumbleweed the wanderer	Tue Aug 04 12:26:59 and http://www.instagram.com/p/CDeQtmNpJEU/
tumbleweed the wanderer	Tue Aug 04 12:27:41 alleged aftermath video: http://twitter.com/ConflictsW/status/1290699977333841925
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 12:39:00 Guess the dead 200?
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 12:48:51 Changing to 100. Pretty inudstrial area. That building i thought had windows was purely industrial on further looks.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 14:09:51 Clearly the big bang is not a bomb, chemical store or munitions store. Looks like a fire before hand, possibly a bomb set that off. Some initial OSINT analysis says blast is about 250 tonnes of TNT equivalent. Not a nuke but not hugely far off a tactical nuke scale (w54 was somewhere between 10T and 1KT)
Hrothgar Member	Tue Aug 04 14:20:16 Stunning video in those links tumbleweed. Yeah a lot of people had to have died anywhere near it. And then there are going to be a bunch more with concussions and long term hearing damage from the sound wave impact. Really awful for anyone near it.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 14:52:52 Ammonium nitrate shipment that was held for seven years awaiting disposal someone's suggested. This is a good shot. http://twitter.com/borzou/status/1290675854767513600?s=19
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 14:53:36 Hrothgar - near being within a km.
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 14:57:14 Theres going to be 10s of thpusands of flying glass injuries. A few residential structures failed but most of the high end damage is in an industrial area.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 15:00:31 You can see 12s in to the vid I just posted the shock wave just tearing up some residential blocks.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 15:01:21 Proper anime style bits of concrete being sucked up into the air explosion.
Paramount Member	Tue Aug 04 15:02:52 50 dead and 3,000 injures as of right now. I’m guessing they are gonna find more dead.
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 15:04:01 True good observation.
Paramount Member	Tue Aug 04 15:08:10 It looks like a mushroom cloud http://twi...tatus/1290670583651405825?s=20
Paramount Member	Tue Aug 04 15:23:37 It could be fireworks. Fireworks from China? Does anyone remember the Tianjin explosions in 2015? It killed 173 people. Some Americans were filming it from their hotel. They shat their pants and at the end of da video they are running for their lives. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch-g5shlGxw
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 15:23:58 http://twi...tatus/1290677067646894085?s=19 Initial firework explosion.
tumbleweed the wanderer	Tue Aug 04 15:36:16 closest view i've seen: http://www.liveleak.com/view?t=CTXpf_1596561446
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 15:38:24 Paramount, first one is fireworks. The second blast too big and too intense too be fireworks I'd think. Ammonium nitrate looks a good fit as aparrently a shipment was confiscated and left in a warehouse for years and years.
Paramount Member	Tue Aug 04 15:44:46 So who lit the fireworks? Maybe some worker threw a cigarette there?
Habebe Member	Tue Aug 04 16:18:30 Seb guess seems to be the best explanation. There is definitley a 2nd much larger explosion.
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 16:24:39 so they stored 2500 tons of fertilizer/explosive next to a fireworks warehouse? What could go wrong?
Wrath of Orion Member	Tue Aug 04 16:30:36 I don't always store explosives in a warehouse for years, but when I do, it's next to fireworks.
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 16:32:04 Lol nice
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 16:32:21 And next to big to cities
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 16:33:57 Nitrous oxide is orange/red IIRC, so that red smoke afterwards fits with the amonium nitrate. Sam: They probably have all the explosive stuff in one warehouse that is set up to handle super dangerous stuff that needs special handling/storage conditions. Plus side, generally more secure. Downside, when it goes wrong, it goes wrong catastrophically. Bigger issue is why have two and a half thousand tonnes of ammonium nitrate hanging around for the best part of a decade. Ample time to get rid of it.
swordtail Anarchist Prime	Tue Aug 04 16:47:23 http://twi...us/1290747417298518017/photo/1
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 16:56:03 yowza... all those people taking videos that close and you see this shockwave powering towards them, I wonder how the liveleak one survived he seems so close it would have collapsed the lungs.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 16:57:04 Swordtails thread seems to nail it: source for the reported amonium nitrate, and also notes the smoke colour.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 16:59:52 http://twitter.com/DavidADaoud/status/1290744515897241609 Though apparently the govt denies this...
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 16:59:53 http://twitter.com/DavidADaoud/status/1290744515897241609 Though apparently the govt denies this...
Habebe Member	Tue Aug 04 17:00:40 http://youtu.be/ESVE4u9CsUM Howling was this fire going on that so many people filmed the explosion?
Wrath of Orion Member	Tue Aug 04 17:06:17 The liveleak video is interesting because about 1-2 seconds before the explosion, fire starts pouring out of those windows (instead of smoke). Just interesting to see the timing. I agree that it seems unlikely that person would survive - maybe it was being streamed live?
Wrath of Orion Member	Tue Aug 04 17:08:20 Also, I suppose from Seb's tweet it's possible the welding was going on in the fireworks warehouse and set that off. That certainly isn't beyond reason.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 17:14:21 WoO: Ammonium nitrate can burn too. I suspect they were both being stored in one warehouse: both are volatile and very dangerous to get too hot / on fire - so while we can all go "hur hur , fireworks and ammonium nitrate, what could go wrong", in reality it's probably more "these explosive things are super dangerous and will cause a massive catastrophic incident, they all need to be kept in a thick walled, cool place where we don't let ignition sources anywhere nearby, and only trained / authorised people go in". The idiocy is to do welding anywhere near them.
Dakyron Member	Tue Aug 04 17:16:48 And not having fire suppression in that building housing all the dangerous stuff? Not evacuating when the building caught on fire. You can see in the video cars driving by while the warehouse burns.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 17:17:46 Habebe: Not that long by the looks of it: all the videos seems to show less than a minute of the first fire and then the explosion. A firework fire is going to be very loud, lots of bangs etc. and lots of smoke. So everyone immediately turns on their phone, points it, gets in focus, messes with the frame... and then boom.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 17:25:41 Dakyron: Probably sloppy procedures etc. But it also might have had fire suppression, but that won't necessarily help ammonium nitrate and some kinds of fireworks once they get going: they have their own oxidising source. In the texas city disaster (1940s) they tried to stop the fire in the cargo hold by pumping steam down which would have worked for most fires, but for ammonium nitrate, it just warmed it up. Looking at the vids, the fire may not have burned very long at all, all the vids seem to show the first plume moving very quickly upwards, whole thing may have only burned a few minutes. I also wonder whether Beirut is a deisgnated point of entry for fertiliser. If the shipment was impounded there and unloaded for safety reasons, it may be that the facility it was being held in wasn't really equipped to handle it, and with nobody taking responsibility for the costs of repairing the ship and discharging of the cargo, it probably just got left there as a short term measure, which became a long term measure, and the longer you leave these things without incident the more people think it is safe when it's a literal powder keg. If it's been there three month, why not another? If it's been there six, well there is no need to bite the bullet and take the budgetary hit to deal with it now. If it's been there 5 years, well, those plastic sacks have always been here, safe as houses. If its' been there seven years, "sure, use the welder to fix that hold in the door kid".
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 17:45:11 http://twitter.com/tom_nemo/status/1290777867236802560?s=20 What a still.
tumbleweed the wanderer	Tue Aug 04 17:50:59 surrounding that tweet: " Asked if he's confident this was an attack and not an accident, Trump says, "It would seem like it, based on the explosion." He says he met with some "great generals" and they "seem to feel" that it was an attack. He then adds it was a "bomb of some kind." Note of caution: The president has repeatedly fabricated alleged conversations with "generals" and many others. " ~ Daniel Dale (fact-checker) & i can fact-check Daniel... Trump indeed would make-up that exact kind of conversation w/ alleged generals
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 17:52:27 Yes, that thread has some fanatstic wag about how the generals he spoke to were: General motors, General hard drive failure, and General direction.
tumbleweed the wanderer	Tue Aug 04 17:56:07 a street view... w/ a brief glimpse of that building on right getting wrecked (allegedly cameraman died) http://twitter.com/abdulqadeer03/status/1290764927796379650
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 18:04:54 Yeah, that's the one I said yowza at... didn't notice the text until you posted - I can fully believe he'd be dead, he's right in front of the blast with no real cover and you can see how it tears up the building only a hundred meters or so away at most I'd guess - there are a few of these vids where I can't imagine the person survived. There's one on liveleak which is on the building next door. http://twi...tatus/1290678590133030918?s=20 This one shows the initial explosion, so you can see how fast moving events might have been.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 04 18:06:21 (second post down, twitter is being annoying)
sam adams Member	Tue Aug 04 18:50:36 Some of those people that were a sound second away definitely got fucked up.
Allahuakbar Member	Wed Aug 05 01:09:41 Car driver got hit http://twitter.com/MoyTorres1/status/1290811029824438289
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 01:48:03 Apparently that big concrete building next to the blast is the biggest grain silo in the middle East. So that's not great news.
State Department Member	Wed Aug 05 02:08:32 Should've happened to a certain part of Wuhan last year.
sam adams Member	Wed Aug 05 07:08:40 Morning aerial shots show a 300 to 450 foot wide crater that had been land, now filled with water, where the blast was centered!
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 07:16:36 http://www...t_the_day_after_the_explosion/ 130m!
Average Ameriacn Member	Wed Aug 05 07:19:06 For me it looks like a bomb of some kind. It looks like a terrible attack. I have met with some neighbors who feel the blast was not “some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event.” My neighbors seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 07:30:21 There was 2700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate in that warehouse. In a big pile of 1 tonne bags. Manufacturer specs suggest an equivalent of 500tonnes of TNT. So yes, it looks like a huge bomb, because that's effectively what 2.7kt of annum nitrate is when it catches fire. The only man made weapon that would be equivalent to this (other than a big pile of high explosives) is a tactical nuclear weapon. Was it an attack? Well yes, the fire could have been the result of a smaller bomb, but industrial accident looks more plausible. There have been plenty of similar incidents. But it is amazing they left that much ammonium nitrate in a non specialist facility for so long. This is an accident waiting to happen. https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1290795532701425664?s=19
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 07:30:44 http://twi...tatus/1290795532701425664?s=19
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 07:37:49 Some of the pics of the bags in the warehouse are terrifying. Looks like to layers in there so you have compression, heat... clearly not specialised facility so particularly mad to put fireworks next to them.
sam adams Member	Wed Aug 05 07:41:07 Comparing the magnitude of the quake(3.3) with known surface blasts in literature gives an estimated explosive yield of 800 tons TNT.
sam adams Member	Wed Aug 05 07:44:56 Which is close enough to 500 tons from the manufacturere to be in good agreement. This places the beirut explosion at some 10-20% or so of the great halifax explosion.
Habebe Member	Wed Aug 05 07:47:57 Aa, The thing is that it can be both an accident and a bomb. I mean its essentially a giant fertilizer bomb.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Aug 05 07:53:48 It would be a free bomb in that sense, just light it on fire. The only ones with motivations for such a thing are sunni terror groups. In order to destabilize Lebanon and make it the next battleground.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 08:00:48 Sam: In the thread someone says it looks like a knock off product, the 15% factor figure comes from one suppliers product sheet. Other similar products go as high as 32%. Grain size, impurities, fuel (who knows what else was in that warehouse), the fact the bags look to be layered on top of each other will affect that figure. The product spec is probably for what happens if one bag catches fire, and is probably somewhat conservative (worst case scenario for one bag) but also assumes partial combustion and a slow deflagration to detonation transition, whereas then you have bags that are tightly compressed on the other side of the pile that get hit by a shockwave which would push it higher. For an actual nuke, 1kt would give a fireball around 40m radius, that looks about right for the still of the fire ball which looks about that radius. But fireball dynamics might be different for nukes. We are looking at hundreds of tonnes tnt equivalent, and I would think at the moment higher half of that range. But it's entirely consistent with a giant pile of ammonium nitrate for sure. We know there was a giant pile of ammonium right there, and the clouds colour tells us nitrogen oxide compounds. The spherical shockwave, mushroom cloud and white mist is just what you get with a big explosion of any type in humid air and tells you nothing beyond the oblivious. Which is just to say the conspiracy theorists suggesting it was Israel missile and or a nuclear attack are barking up the wrong tree - at least on the physical evidence. And it wouldn't make sense politically. Meanwhile the port was controlled by Hezbollah so it wouldn't have been them. Likeliest scenario is accident. Nitrate explosions happen a fair bit. As do firework explosions. Seven years is a long time to keep such a stockpile so dangerously and not have an accident.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 08:05:22 Sam: You posted while I wrote: yes, we agree, good agreement. Nim: Sunni terrorists are always possible, but I don't see any particular reason to invoke them having seen the pics of the warehouse before the blast. They are extremely lucky not to have had this happen in the seven years prior. And the fireworks.... I know I said it made sense to have them in the same building if it was a dedicated facility, but this clearly, clearly wasn't. So it definitely adds a huge risk.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Aug 05 08:15:53 I don't actually have any good reasons to believe it was anything other than an accident waiting to happen, but you know, if..
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 08:25:22 They are about the only group it would make sense for it to be. But the equivalent of nuking a port is... balsy.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 08:44:47 http://mob...11G7?__twitter_impression=true Judiciary ordered it stored and refused permission to re-export.
CrownRoyal Member	Wed Aug 05 09:39:24 Don't ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Unless of course, it turns out it was malice :)
Habebe Member	Wed Aug 05 09:59:28 " Seb Member Wed Aug 05 08:05:22 Sam: You posted while I wrote: yes, we agree, good agreement." I think you just broke UP.... Quick mean, median, UK and Alabama....
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 11:01:22 Habebe: When Sam isn't factually wrong, racist, obtuse, engaging in blatantly flawed motivated reasoning or obnoxious, I'm perfectly happy able to agree with him. That's one of the ways you can tell I'm generally more credible than he is.
sam adams Member	Wed Aug 05 11:56:45 Lol habebe you flipped sebs crazy switch. He was doing so well...
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Aug 05 12:03:41 *sigh*, now everything feels like normal again. It was scary for a while, I didn’t know what to think anymore. I was anticipating sam’s next post would say ”BLM has a point” and seb would say he supports Trump. Don’t ever do that again.
sam adams Member	Wed Aug 05 16:47:07 Whoever designed those grain elevators deserves a raise. The fact that even some survived is impressive. Perhaps after cutting off the heads of the port administrators, the designer of the grain towers can get some of their salary.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 05 17:05:28 Sam: More complicated than that. The ports authority have been trying to get the stuff removed for years. The nitrate was under a court order removing it from the ship, and various hearings have been heard from both the ports authority and the customs agency to get it re-exported but it's been held up in some sort of legal limbo as both the owner of the ship and the shipment have been become clear. In some ways very American to my mind: kagakaseque legalism over obsession with private ownership. Sadly public officers were not allowed to act for the public good and dispose of the stuff due to obsession with private sector rights.
Rugian Member	Wed Aug 05 17:50:07 "When Sam isn't factually wrong, [or] racist" Interesting that being racist is considered different from being in error on the facts. Bit of a Freudian slip there eh Seb?
sam adams Member	Wed Aug 05 21:40:40 I think seb actually does know that some supposedly racist things are truthful. But hes afraid if he admits these inconvenient truths he goes to jail or gets divorced. "Sadly public officers were not allowed to act for the public good and dispose of the stuff " Wierd... now why does that remind me of a british grooming gang?
Paramount Member	Thu Aug 06 01:09:18 Maybe the owners were Ukrainan and Russian jews, so they could not act because they would have been accused of anti-semitism if they did.
Seb Member	Thu Aug 06 01:24:26 Rugian: If Sam said "I think black people are subhuman", it would not be factually wrong: he does. It would be racist. Happy to help. Sam: Ok the grooming case public officers were not only allowed by explicitly supposed to.
smart dude Member	Thu Aug 06 03:17:55 Naturally, Seb supports this.
smart dude Member	Thu Aug 06 03:25:11 "Industrial accident looks more plausible. There have been plenty of similar incidents." -Seb "Julius Caesar was murdered so all deaths are the result of murders." -Seb "The United States invented the Moon because they were the first to land on it." -Seb
smart dude Member	Thu Aug 06 03:28:19 "Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 spontaneous fell to the ground and did NOT get shot down by Russia." -Seb "I quit my 'science' job to work in a cubicle because sharpening pencils pays more." -Seb "I can't post here anymore because if I do my boss will fire me." -Seb "Be right back, my wife's boyfriend wants me to hold the camera." -Seb
Seb Member	Thu Aug 06 04:30:21 Smart dude: ""Industrial accident looks more plausible. There have been plenty of similar incidents." So, I take it you think it was a terrorist attack? Ok. "Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 spontaneous fell to the ground and did NOT get shot down by Russia." you are confusing me with Jergul. Cut the spam.
Seb Member	Thu Aug 06 05:27:58 Sam: "Whoever designed those grain elevators deserves a raise. The fact that even some survived is impressive." I can't quite tell from the planet labs pictures, but I think it used to be two rows of silos and is now only one row. I guess it's so big that the concrete shell is overbuilt - and such silos are prone to explosions if emptied suddenly (similar to flour explosions) and may have been built to withstand attacks by terrorists.
Habebe Member	Thu Aug 06 17:06:32 http://www...custody-port-a9658541.html?amp 16 arrested in Beirut over explosion.
Seb Member	Thu Aug 06 17:09:19 Fetch the scapegoats!
obaminated Member	Thu Aug 06 17:30:24 Port was run by hezbollah, so trump was right to call it an act of terrorism.
Habebe Member	Thu Aug 06 17:32:44 Fetch the bolt cutters!!!
Paramount Member	Fri Aug 07 01:36:15 Macron of France visited Beirut yesterday and promised to help them. Russia is already there with a field hospital. Why won’t Trump of USA visit Beirut too and speak and promise to help?
Paramount Member	Fri Aug 07 02:29:25 ” Port was run by hezbollah” Source? Anyhoo... the port and the custom had for years alerted and asked the government to get rid off the nitrate, but the government did nothing. The President of Lebanon is a Christian and his party's support base is overwhelmingly Christian. The former Prime Minister, Hariri, is Sunni, born in Saudi Barbaria and holds a Saudi citizenship. The current Prime Minister, Diab, is also a Sunni. The authorities has been alerted about the nitrate and asked to remove it, but they did nothing. To me it looks like government negligence led to the explosion and the blame is on the Christian/Sunni government. So maybe the government should arrest themselves instead of arresting those who alerted the government about the danger. And, the people in Beirut seems to blame the government as there are anti-government protests in Beirut now.
Seb Member	Fri Aug 07 03:39:14 Paramount: There are multiple sources regarding the port being run by Hezbollah. It's also not clear if the govt is to blame: the customs agency is part of govt no? Some of the reports suggest the issue is the courts refusing to lift a court order impounding the material.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Fri Aug 07 05:06:19 "I quit my 'science' job to work in a cubicle because sharpening pencils pays more." I am pretty sure you two have very similair jobs, working as consultants in the tech field. Is the argument that he "sold out"? Bitch please, at least he had something the devil wanted. If the argument is failure, it is actually respectable that you try one path and for whatever reason, failure or otherwise, decide that you are going to switch lanes. It implies has has the ability to make lateral movements. Which is a good thing.
Paramount Member	Fri Aug 07 05:11:54 It seems that the people at the port did what they could, but the authorities and the courts neglected it.
Seb Member	Fri Aug 07 11:58:35 Nim: Strategy with a specialism in tech, data and public sector.
Pillz Member	Fri Aug 07 12:23:42 "Port was run by hezbollah, so trump was right to call it an act of terrorism." Retard
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