They found the WMD!
No, there isn’t any WMD in Iraq. But the Army Corps of Engineers believes it has found evidence of a long sought chemical weapons cache buried in my neighborhood during World War I. According to the local paper (PDF):
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has unearthed three broken
glass jugs in Spring Valley that might have come from the longsought
Sgt. Maurer burial pit, according to a D.C. Department of
the Environment official. The pit is believed to hold more than 20 containers
of mustard agent or other chemical weapons materiel…The pit, also known as the “hole called Hades,” was named after Sgt.
C.W. Maurer, who was stationed at American University when it was
the site of the Army’s chemical weapons testing program during
World War I.In 1918, Maurer sent his family a photograph of himself burying jugs.
On the back of the photo, he wrote: “The bottles are full of mustard, to
be destroyed here. In Death Valley. The hole called Hades.” The tops of the glass jars found Monday appear consistent with those seen in the Maurer photo.
Bottom line: Wait ninety years and we’ll find the WMD in Iraq.
Cross-posted at Conventional Folly
5 Responses to “They found the WMD!”
This never would have happened had free parking not been available in Death Valley.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-free-pa…
Someone should post on this…
The six second google claims another lazy blogger…….
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today.
“These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes … they do constitute weapons of mass destruction,” Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.
Yes, and the CEO of citibank still thinks bundled mortgages are a fantastic investment.
You've got the courage to believe thing down, I'll give you that.
An attack on free parking? Either it's an old leftist silliness being revisited or (more likely) a desperate and greedy tax grab. (Same for legalizing marijuana in California. These days, favor the tax grab explanation, even if there's silly leftist posturing involved.)
* * *
Discovering buried ordnance? Even conventional ordinance is not a surprise. In addition to the problems of occasional high winds, flooding, and fires, the development in Southern California, also has featured new housing developments on sites where ordnance was placed.
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-06-13/local/me…
http://articles.latimes.com/1994-05-03/news/mn-…
“Someone should post on this…”
This idiocy has been sought before, in California. In Fremont (Bay Area), for example, when I was younger, some activist fools (and perhaps chiseling developers) wanted an apartment or condo building built with a deliberate, substantial reduction (25 per cent if I recall) of parking spaces from the standard practice (minimum). The blithe remark made by those intending this design “feature” was, “this will induce people to walk, bicycle, or take transit instead.”
Substandard parking facilities will result in spills of additional vehicles onto nearby roads and into other parking areas (leading to conflicts of all kinds), and with new construction or new business, will drive it away to saner locations.
Simply reducing parking to meet someone's idiotic social-engineering lefty goals (to which they won't be subject, of course) won't last forever. Not when other activists will demand that parking be turned into a tax racket and related political-economic racket. First, there will be demands that people who don't drive to work be paid more (the free parking at work being viewed as “subsidized”). Then will be parking fees. Why would venal politicians forego the opportunity of a lifetime, better than lottery or casino gambling (which may not be as stable)? You'll learn again of demands for “peak pricing” and parking charges of other kinds, essentially taxes on parking and parkers, as a ready revenue source.