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Undertoad · 05-14-2002, 02:23 PM

I follow the news too closely. Now you can benefit!

A pair of drivers were stopped in Washington State when a bomb-sniffing dog detected traces of explosives in their rented truck. This made my radar because they were Israeli -- but it's now all just wierd coincidence, as further tests on the truck turned up negative.

It turns out that a bomb-sniffing dog will sometimes show "positive" on residues of cigarette lighters. It makes sense! But they probably only do that on lighters that make a spark the old fashioned way, by rolling the rough thumbwheel surface against a small flint.

So, if you smoke, and don't want dogs to think you're a truck bomber, use electronic lighters! (The kind with a clicky button, not a wheel.) If everyone converted to these, the dogs would register fewer false positives and maybe make it easier to find actual bombs.

(I'm assuming that the dogs don't alert on the lighter fuel, because butane burns pretty cleanly, so they say. But I wonder if they find the lighter fluid for Zippos, which doesn't burn cleanly. So I've heard...)

05-14-2002, 02:23 PM	#1
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	Don't use flint lighters I follow the news too closely. Now you can benefit! A pair of drivers were stopped in Washington State when a bomb-sniffing dog detected traces of explosives in their rented truck. This made my radar because they were Israeli -- but it's now all just wierd coincidence, as further tests on the truck turned up negative. It turns out that a bomb-sniffing dog will sometimes show "positive" on residues of cigarette lighters. It makes sense! But they probably only do that on lighters that make a spark the old fashioned way, by rolling the rough thumbwheel surface against a small flint. So, if you smoke, and don't want dogs to think you're a truck bomber, use electronic lighters! (The kind with a clicky button, not a wheel.) If everyone converted to these, the dogs would register fewer false positives and maybe make it easier to find actual bombs. (I'm assuming that the dogs don't alert on the lighter fuel, because butane burns pretty cleanly, so they say. But I wonder if they find the lighter fluid for Zippos, which doesn't burn cleanly. So I've heard...)