Saturday, October 27, 2018

Florida Man Constructed His Mail Bombs à la Wile E. Coyote

Now that the would-be mail bomber has been caught, and he turned out to be a juicehead who was - literally - living in a van down by the river, I'm curious about where he got his concept of a mail bomb. What was his mental picture of what a mail bomb should look like?

His packages have a real cartoonish quality to them, as if he was trying to make them look like what Wile E. Coyote would send to the Road Runner. Where did he get that stereotypical image of a mail bomb?

Maybe he got it from the U.S. Postal Service. Note the strong similarity between this USPS mail bomb recognition poster and the handiwork of the Florida Man. The same excessive postage, tape, printed address label with misspellings and all. It looks as if he wanted to put all the warning signs in each of his packages.

Here's what the U.S. Government tells you to be suspicious of in mail or packages:



































And here's what the Florida Man put together. Any similarities?
















Here's an x-ray image of one of the pipe bombs inside the packages. Again, utterly stereotypical of what a pipe is supposed to look like.














He did everything short of putting an Acme Bomb Company logo on them.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am very suspicious of this thing. There's way too many things just too pat.
JH

TSB said...

JH: I can't believe someone so flaky could be part of a plot. According to the Miami Herald: "Along the way, Sayoc racked up a long rap sheet for everything from grand theft and battery to making a bomb threat against Florida Power & Light. He was also accused of domestic violence by a woman who appears to have been his grandmother." The FPL bomb threat was back around 2002, IIRC. He was a loose cannon from way back.

Anonymous said...

TSB: Brilliant! Sounds like jail is preferable to washing dishes at restaurant and living in a van down by the river. I'd hate to get kicked out of mom's house at that age. I'm still upset about the time mine quit doing my laundry when I was in college. She probably figured he would try to kill her next. gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB,
You're probably right, but I'll remain suspicious. People like him if handled right make pretty good catspaws.
JH

Anonymous said...

TSB:Speaking of Saudi Odious stuff, Juan Cole has a good piece on the US sudden about face on Yemen: ‘This has Got to End’: Trump Admin. Gives Saudis 30 Days to Start Yemen Talks Juan Cole 11/01/2018 Besides helping the Dems in the elections the arrival in Riyadh of MBs' uncle who intends to remove him.

Of course a Coup in SA would go a long way toward bringing an end to the war crimes there. It will be interesting to see how fast the Republicans jump on board this bandwagon. gwb

TSB said...

GWB: It will be a good but unintended outcome of the Jamal Khashoggi killing if we successfully pressure the Saudis to end their war in Yemen. The Kingdom might have too much trouble elsewhere now and wants to find a reason to drop that problem.