SwiftVets.com

[FreeFall]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBI9R63B1E.html

I wonder what this is about? Who is stealing scores of propane tanks in Denver and why?

[rb325th]

Have you seen the price of Heating Fuel lately? Just a thought
_________________
U.S. Army 1983-1995, 11C1P/11H2P NBTDT

[FreeFall]

rb, I hope that's all it is. But the FBI has been called in.

[Chuck Z Ombie AC2000]

Look at it this way, if it was some terrorist organization they would be more likely to legally purchase the propane than steal it causing attention to be drawn to themselves. Plus why would they steal propane now that winter is coming instead of during the summer when it is warm?
Sounds like thieves who wanted to keep warm cheaply.
_________________
John Kerry, R.I.P. (Rot In Paris)

[Digger]

Yeah. It was just some poor bastard who coldn't pay his gas bill. It would be a shame to waste all that heating fuel just to make a bomb when there are so many people who need it to keep warm up there in Denver.
_________________
Hey swifty, I'm with you, Just watch you don't get "Kerry'd away in the propwash

Sgt. Maj. Seamus D.D. MacNemi R.M.C. Ret.

[rb325th]

I'd be more concerned with diesle fuel and ammonium nitrate based fertalizer, much easier to purchase or obtain.
Hope it is just someone trying to save some money on their heating bill.
_________________
U.S. Army 1983-1995, 11C1P/11H2P NBTDT

[noyesj]

Most likely large meth labs

[msindependent]

Look, you can make a lot more money stealing propane than you can rustling cattle, plus the tank doesn't crap all over the place.

[Kimmymac]

Yeah, but on the other hand, cows don't explode.

But then, on the other hand, you can't make meth out of cows.

Can you?


_________________
The last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism; it is finicky liberal humanitarianism.--Martin Paretz

[dcornutt]

They use it to make "meth" with. Common in rural areas (ie..meth labs).

[msindependent]

[The Balloon Artist]

After you've cooked your methamphetimine these empty propane cylinders make great barbecue pits and grills. And then you cook the cows. hmmmmmmmm
_________________
What about John Kerry's four months in Vietnam qualify him to be president?
Al Gore was there for five.

[Digger]

I know...it's going to be a humoungus barbicue....They're going to roast liberals That's why they need all the gas. Can anyone guess how much fuel would be needed to cook a Michael Mooreon
_________________
Hey swifty, I'm with you, Just watch you don't get "Kerry'd away in the propwash

Sgt. Maj. Seamus D.D. MacNemi R.M.C. Ret.

[MJB]

Might not be so innocent....

http://www.michellemalkin.com/

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000820.htm
_________________
MJB
USAF '85-'92

[FreeFall]

This is from Michelle Malkin's site;

MISSING PROPANE CYLINDERS
By Michelle Malkin · November 08, 2004 04:52 PM
From Denver's 7NEWS, a disturbing homeland insecurity report:

The FBI is contacting its Joint Terrorist Task Forces in Washington and around the country after 7NEWS Investigator John Ferrugia asked federal officials about hundreds of gallons of missing liquid propane gas.
About 100 propane gas cylinders have been stolen since July and so far, none of them has been recovered, Ferrugia said.

The missing tanks could pose a serious threat because the propane in just one of the cylinders can take down a small building.

The missing tanks are not the small cylinders people use on their barbecue, or the kind that would be stolen for meth labs. These are larger cylinders that contain liquid propane to power forklifts and for other commercial purposes.

But what's disturbing is that, in a post-9/11 world, neither local law enforcement nor federal Homeland Security officials have been tracking this potential threat, Ferrugia said.

The commercial propane tanks weigh 33 pounds, contain 7.8 gallons of liquid propane...


More from the AP here, which ends with this not-so-funny paragraph:

Bob Fridlund, a plant manager for Mountain West Printing, said police did not seem concerned when he reported the theft of seven propane cylinders.
"I said 'What are these people doing with these bottles? Are they going to make a bomb or something out of them?"' Fridlund said.

"And he just laughed at me and said he didn't know," he said.


It isn't just what's inside the containers that may be a problem. As Ken Timmerman noted in an Insight Magazine report last January on captured al Qaeda operative Marwan Ben-Ahmed in France:

In his apartment, police found packages of iron perchlorate and other chemicals which, when mixed together, can make a powerful explosive. They also seized two empty propane canisters, $5,000 in cash, fake passports and a computer with coded instructions. During a second search two days later, they found timers and detonators hidden in a washing machine. Police also arrested Ben-Ahmed's wife and two accomplices, identified as Mohamed Merbah and Ahmed Belhoud.
But it was the discovery of a military-issue nuclear-biological-chemical (NBC) protection suit and bottles of toxic chemicals that most alarmed investigators, leading to speculation that Ben-Ahmed and his network were planning a chemical attack or had gained access to nuclear waste and were hoping to make a "dirty bomb" that would irradiate the greater-Paris area...

Osama bin Laden has spoken repeatedly of his desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction and to use them against the West. Two years before Sept. 11, 2001, the Arab press was ripe with speculation that he had gained access to 20 nuclear "suitcase bombs" that were feared to have gone missing from the stockpiles of the former Soviet Union. Bin Laden's intentions never have been in doubt -- only his capabilities. So when the French discovered the NBC suit in Ben-Ahmed's tiny apartment in La Courneuve, they feared the worst and immediately ordered a thorough chemical analysis of every ingredient seized at the site.

In testimony the day after the arrests, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told members of parliament that Ben-Ahmed and his cell were in contact with another al-Qaeda operative named Rabah Kadri, arrested in London on Nov. 5 "on suspicion of planning a chemical attack" on the London subway system. Kadri eventually led them to Ben-Ahmed and his network in France. The French counterterrorist police arrested "19 persons in November alone who were working with terrorist services," Sarkozy revealed. Because of the risk of a chemical attack, "it was better to arrest them sooner rather than later," he added.

On Christmas Eve, the French suspicions were confirmed when police raided the Minguettes housing project outside the central French city of Lyons, where they found four more alleged al-Qaeda operatives along with lists of chemicals needed to make cyanide, the same chemical agent al-Qaeda networks were planning to use in London. They now believe Ben-Ahmed was planning to fill the propane canisters with a deadly poison gas in hopes of killing hundreds if not thousands of people and was coordinating his efforts with al-Qaeda cells in Britain and elsewhere.


The best-case scenario, according to the FBI, is that the tanks were stolen to power farm equipment. Sure hope so.