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Here's Your Plutonium... Where's My $17?

A Siberian man turned up to a local gun amnesty program to turn in some plutonium. I figure as soon as he said the magic word, the cops' brains went into overdrive and didn't comprehend the next bit - it's industrial grade, not weapons grade.

So they went a bit nuts at the guy, who couldn't understand why he hadn't got his $17 yet (the going rate at the gun amnesty program). He put the isotopes in a lead sleeve and left it on his porch for them to collect. When tested the isotopes proved to be industrial grade, as the man had said - not radioactive enough for use in a dirty bomb, even.

Story over, right? Not according to the Russian media, who got leaked a hysterical semi-accurate story and gave the whole nation a scare - reports of a pound of weapons-grade plutonium stored in this guy's garage...

Anyway, the funniest thing is that according to the nytimes.com website, the guy is still waiting for his $17, and is still entirely convinced that the isotopes (he got them out of an old x-ray machine from his work in 1996) are really very similar to an old shotgun.

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It hasn't been a good start to the week, I had EDS meeting yesterday and had put on weight - which is a good thing, ha ha, and don't you feel good you are on the right track towards health? Well, maybe the small logical part of me does, but the rest of me is disgusted and terrified. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa! No weight! None! But I have to! No! Aaaaaaaaaaa!

My mind is such a comfy place to be at the moment...

On the bright side, Giffy's friend is going to come by this morning :)

Therapy and DHB in the arvo. I seem to accumulate appointments and acronyms like small dusty children. They pepper my week and make me sneeze productively.

Posted by phreq at November 23, 2004 07:10 AM | TrackBack