Georgia Tech officials have lifted the academic suspension of a student accused of making a bottle bomb that exploded and led to the evacuation of two dormitories.

Georgia Tech did the right thing. Lets hope the Grand Jury follows suit.

11Alive.com: Atlanta News - Tech Suspect's Suspension Lifted

Memeing "Prosecutor who ought to be run out on a rail" watch for easy reference.

The latest is that the idictment is being sent before a Grand Jury. No plea bargain was "reached" (because Hollot did not commit a crime, duh)! My understanding is that the Grand Jury process is rather broken and they almost never fail to approve a prosecution, so this will go to trial. If the Grand Jury does rebuke this idiot prosecutor it will great day for our justice system.

Several press outlets are continuing to milk this thing sensationally. One website specifically pointed out the Hollot was "unemployed," others underline the fact that the janitor was taken to the hospital for "injuries" (his ears were ringing) and talk about "explosive devices" and "homemade bombs." Dry ice in a plastic bottle is a "homemade bomb" in the same sense that a super soaker is a "rifle."

Not one press report has mentioned the prosecutor's name. Who is this guy who would ruin someone's life over a prank?! The people have a right to know!

Google Search: theodore hollot

Theodore Hollot, an 18-year-old engineering major, appeared at two separate hearings Wednesday morning on a felony charge of possessing a destructive device and a misdemeanor of reckless conduct.

So, it turns out the Georgia Tech student was putting dry ice with water in bottles and throwing them out the window of his dorm. A few of them didn't go off and one blew up when a janitor picked it up later.

They went on national television and called THAT a TERRORIST ATTACK!?@#!@ Now that the smoke has cleared they are charing him with a FELONY!@# Somebody has their head planted firmly up their ass.

I put dry ice in a scope bottle and blew it up in the exact same quad when I was a freshman. Of course I was careful to clean up what was left. The cops showed up because they thought the noise might have been a gun shot. When they realized it was just some kids fucking around with dry ice they left. That was it. No national news. No felony charges. No night in jail. No terrorism warning. No big fucking deal. Its really really hard to hurt someone with dry ice and plastic bottle. Its certainly possible, but its no more dangerous then umpteen billion other stupid things college freshmen do.

Give me a fucking break!

DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST THEODORE HOLLOT

The discovery of two suspicious devices on the campus of Georgia Tech Monday led to the evacuation of some student residential dorms and a terrorism investigation into who left the explosives.

Occam's Razor would suggest a chemistry experiment gone ary, but given recent events this cuts rather close to home.

Bomb found at Georgia Tech

This commercial is badass. I don't know much about Areva. But this commercial is just really fucking cool. Reminds me of something Edward Tufte would do.

I guess this is part of the campaign to build new nuclear reactors. You know what? It worked. I'm now pro-nuclear. That pretty cartoony happy-fun nuclear commercial has me sold. Also, I want to play sims now.

Areva TV Ad: Super Cool

Among respondents who described themselves as conservative, 58 percent said the Miers pick was excellent or good, and 29 percent thought it was only fair or poor. By contrast, 77 percent of conservatives in a July poll thought the Roberts nomination was excellent or good, and just 13 percent found it fair or poor.

What I find interesting about this is its the first time in a long time that I recall a large swath of conservatives breaking ranks instead of towing the party line. Blogs like powerline and instapundit that are constantly running the Republican spin are opposing this nomination because they don't think she is qualified. Clearly the Republican party hasn't drunk as much of it's own koolaid as I had thought.

CNN.com - Poll: Support for Miers not as high as that for Roberts - Oct 5, 2005

President Bush, increasingly concerned about a possible avian flu pandemic, revealed Tuesday that any part of the country where the virus breaks out could likely be quarantined and that he is considering using the military to enforce it.

Yikes! Pandemics, Natural Disasters, Terrorists, Recessions. If I was an evangelical I'd be preparing for the rapture.

Military Quarantines of Cities Planned

This is a highly opinionated discussion of Able/Danger. However, it has some additional information about the sort of data mining that was going on:

According to military sources familiar with the Able Danger legal
side, the effort stepped over the line when LIWA contractors purchased
photographic collections of people entering and exiting mosques in the United
States and overseas. One source says that LIWA contractors dealt with a questionable source of photographs in California, either a white supremacy group or some other anti-Islamic organization.

"There are records of who goes where regarding visits to mosques," Shaffer told Government Security News. "That was the data that LIWA was buying off the
Internet from information brokers." It was stuff no one else bothered to
look at, says Shaffer.

LIWA purchased an open-source, six-month data run, Shaffer
says, and analysts developed a set of eight data points common to 1993 World
Trade Center bombers and associates. With advanced software, including facial recognition software able to track individuals from the collected photographs, Shaffer says contractors "made the link between [Mohammed] Atta and [Sheik Omar Abdel] Rahman, the first World Trade Center bomber."

It also includes a link to a reminder, from the Pentagon, about why the Pentagon has rules preventing the Pentagon from collecting information on US persons, (because intelligence agencies where used for political purposes only 3 decades ago), and exactly what those rules are.

The real story here is how another renegade intelligence effort subsisting on hyper secrecy ran afoul of regulations first implemented in the Ford administration when U.S. intelligence agencies were caught collecting information on community, religious and labor leaders, civil rights protestors, and anti-Vietnam war demonstrators... 

"What began as a force protection mission for DOD organizations, evolved, through mission creep, lack of clear rules, and the lack of meaningful oversight, into an abuse of … Constitutional rights…," William Dugan, Pentagon chief of intelligence oversight, said last week. He was describing the experiences of the 1960s and 1970s.

Early Warning by William M. Arkin - washingtonpost.com

The Federal Communications Commission thinks you have the right to use software on your computer only if the FBI approves.

No, really. In an obscure "policy" document released around 9 p.m. ET last Friday, the FCC announced this remarkable decision.

According to the three-page document, to preserve the openness that characterizes today's Internet, "consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement." Read the last seven words again.

Thankfully the FCC doesn't have that kind of power.

FBI to get veto power over PC software?

Gov. Sonny Perdue has asked public schools around the state to cancel classes on Monday and Tuesday of next week, an effort to conserve gasoline supplies.

Atlanta may run out of gas ][: Bernie's back.... and he's still dead!