The "Acid Bomb" Hate Attack On A Mosque*
*Except It Wasn't Acid, Wasn't A Bomb, Wasn't Hate, And Wasn't A Mosque

Acid bomb? No. An acid-base reaction bomb-- similar to the orange juice and baking powder "explosive" used to power so many 5th grade volcanoes (well, the orange juice and baking powder partly caused them to erupt, but the effects of global warming cannot be discounted).

At any rate, this non-acid-bomb was thrown at one of the Flyin' Imams in what seems to be a non-hate attack. Given that there were five other victims of similar bursting-bottle "attacks," and none of those were religiously-motivated, I'm having trouble seeing this as an attempt to "intimidate" Muslims.

Were the five other recipients of the bubble-reaction bomb attacks similarly meant to be intimidated? Seems unlikely.

Bonus! It wasn't even a mosque. Well, not so's you'd notice, at least.

The incident occurred about 1 a.m. Monday when a bottle with a swimming pool chemical and a reactant was tossed by a passenger in a red car and landed on the street outside the structure, a converted mobile home with no outside markings identifying it as a mosque, Toomey said.

Feel the hate!

Thanks to Drew.

Worse Than That? Alex writes:

I thought the stuff that goes into these kind of contraptions was a lot more caustic than OJ or vinegar & baking soda -- i.e., drain cleaner or swimming pool acid or something along those lines. Sure as hell wouldn't want a bottle of that shit blowing up anywhere near me, especially if I were facing the thing without eye protection when it went off.

Not to say I buy the "hate crime" angle here without more evidence. But even if it is just random yahoos, they need to be spanked pretty hard for fucking around with that stuff around people as a prank. Chemical burns & blindness -- ha ha, real funny, mother-F'ers.

Well, when you say it like that...

My orange juice/baking powder analogy was prompted by this description:

"Calling it an 'acid bomb' is kind of misleading," Officer Barnett said. "It was a plastic bottle with pool cleaner that expands and pops and squirts the pool acid. It's kind of like the Menthos [mints] and Coca Cola thing you see [on YouTube] -- the pressure mounts and it pops. It's not like a stick of dynamite was placed there."

I wasn't envisioning a reaction of highly caustic chemicals, and it doesn't sound like he's describing one. Though now that Alex stresses the "chemical burns" thing I'm focusing a lot more on "pops and squirts the pool acid."

*Except It Wasn't Acid, Wasn't A Bomb, Wasn't Hate, And Wasn't A Mosque&bodytext=Acid bomb? No. An acid-base reaction bomb-- similar to the orange juice and baking powder "explosive" used to power so many 5th grade volcanoes (well, the orange juice and baking powder partly caused them to erupt, but the effects of...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 09:15 PM

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