Posted on 12/30/2015 5:41:36 AM PST by Kaslin
Metallic sodium is commonly used in synthetic labs as a counterion source in syntheses where you don't want or can't use an alkoxide or other base. We had some in my lab in grad school. It's not some weird, wild chemical that only terrorists or drug makers would use.
I don't know. The only details about the shipment from the available information is that it was contracted for ground shipment.
A lot of federal crimes now are “strict liability,” that is, you are guilty if you did what they say, even if you didn’t know that you did anything wrong or even if others actually did it, if their actions can be attributed to you.
An example is that someone can be prosecuted by the feds for trying to sell an old family piano on Craigslist because it has ivory keys, even if you didn’t know the keys were made of ivory or the reason you are selling it was it was your recently deceased grandmother’s and you are just trying to clear out her stuff.
In the seventies my former barber was arrested for having a stuffed owl on display in his barbershop. The shop was named the “Owl Barbershop” and he had probably had the owl for at least 50 years. But once owls went on the endangered species act, it then became illegal to own anything that had owl parts in it. They eventually dropped the charges, but he never got his owl back.
We used to have sodium kept stored in mineral oil in high school chemistry class.
The story is told of how one of the teachers supposedly wanted to dispose of some old sodium. He rigged some contraption out on the football field where he would pull on a cord and then a bucket of water would be dumped on the block of sodium.
Apparently, the mushroom cloud could be seen for quite some distance.
As far as I can tell without reading pages of court stuff the packages were marked clearly. UPS uses aircraft on shipments from/to Alaska for “ground” and his shipments wound up on the aircraft. Like I said upthread they guy needs to sue UPS. More on the story:
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=17088
Many places in Alaska, air is the ONLY way to ship something!
Or dog sled!
Alaska is still a pretty awesome place and relatively untouched by civilization. Even the capital, Juneau, is not accessible by automobile (unless you take a ferry). Only by air or sea because it is surrounded by impenetrable mountains and glaciers. I learned that fun fact in a trivia game.
So true. Last time I was up the bush pilot blew a tire on landing. Interesting ride! There is a show - Building Alaska about people building in the tundra. $6,000 to get a load of lumber in on a Cessna 208. Yikes!
We have a two-tiered government these days folks. One for them and one for us.
That sounds about like it
From what I understand, the UPS process for air vs. ground transportation has more to do with pricing than anything else. If you mark a package for air transportation and UPS can get it there faster on a truck due to airport schedules or other factors, they'll send it on a truck. And for Alaska, it works the other way around (since UPS probably ships almost nothing by truck out of Alaska even if the customer pays the truck rate).
I believe UPS requires shippers to complete a specific form if the package absolutely requires ground transportation for aircraft safety reasons.
Then the Government should rightly keep people like you from owning or handling it. (not everybody, just people like you)
What part of Illegal do they FAIL to understand?
Deporting is a LOT cheaper than INCARCERATING!
Great tagline!
LOL! How true.
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