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Cont: The sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part VI

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JayUtah said:
She doesn't know the difference between osmium and cesium.
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I think the "Osmium" that Vixen mentioned when she said that the "USA needed Osmium to build its advanced robotic defence SDI" may be a person rather than the element, as the capitalisation indicates that it's a proper noun. Possibly she's thinking of the bloke who used to be on Pointless.
 
JayUtah said:
She doesn't know the difference between osmium and cesium.
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Well that's no surprise, since the difference between osmium and caesium is a thing
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Mojo said:
And then defended it as explained by "elementary chemistry".
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Which I would dearly love Vixen to try to explain to us, since last time she just kept deflecting and then changed the subject.

Which I admit is a pattern in this thread.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
Well that's no surprise, since the difference between osmium and caesium is a thing
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Osmium and other rare metals were indeed procured from Russia by circuitous means in order to disguise that the buyer was American industry. Cesium not so much.
 
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MarkCorrigan said:
Not a fan of Fawlty Towers Jay?
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I love Fawlty Towers, which is why I responded knowingly.

And you're absolutely right about differences between cesium and osmium. They couldn't be any more different, which is why it's ludicrous for someone to mention one when they meant the other.

Osmium is a very hard metal that we use in alloys for lots of different things. As with many rare elements, the highest concentrations of it are found in Russia. During the Cold War, the West generally obtained them from the former Soviet Union through shell companies and other means of disguising the original buyer. It was never smuggled per se.

137Cs, is a product of uranium fission and therefore comprises a large proportion of the waste products of commercial nuclear reactors. It has an energetic decay process. Cesium ignites spontaneously in air. The parody site quoted by Vixen concocted a story by which a truck carrying cesium set the car deck on fire and the crew tried to open the bow ramp to push it out. Vixen bought it hook-line-and-sinker and then tried to bluff her way around it.
 
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Vixen said:
Truth can be stranger than fiction. The USA needed Osmium to build its advanced robotic defence SDI. Sweden in the Spring of 1994 was forced to buy 'unreasonably' large amounts of Russian Osmium, according to one source. <shrug> Who knows, but certainly there was an opportunity for smuggling stuff from Estonia which was certainly taken, as confirmed by the Rikstag.
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Make your mind up.
Was it old radios or was it osmium?
 
JayUtah said:
I love Fawlty Towers, which is why I responded knowingly.
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HA I didn't even pick up on it. Bloody hell. :o
JayUtah said:
And you're absolutely right about differences between cesium and osmium. They couldn't be any more different, which is why it's ludicrous for someone to mention one when they meant the other.

Osmium is a very hard metal that we use in alloys for lots of different things. As with many rare elements, the highest concentrations of it are found in Russia. During the Cold War, the West generally obtained them from the former Soviet Union through shell companies and other means of disguising the original buyer. It was never smuggled per se.

137Cs, is a product of uranium fission and therefore comprises a large proportion of the waste products of commercial nuclear reactors. It has an energetic decay process. Cesium ignites spontaneously in air. The parody site quoted by Vixen concocted a story by which a truck carrying cesium set the car deck on fire and the crew tried to open the bow ramp to push it out. Vixen bought it hook-line-and-sinker and then tried to bluff her way around it.
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Which is why I think I have the same point of view of you on her motives.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
Well that's no surprise, since the difference between osmium and caesium is a thing
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Vixen said:
The common consensus is that there were two.

As you know, see a few posts back, the SHK told Sara Hedrenius, survivor, that they were not interested in that aspect.

Given that the cargo likely holds the key to the entire 'accident' that is rather a glaring omission.
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The average of the claims you prefer to believe may be two but that doesn't help make your conspiracy theorising into a coherent narrative.

How does the presence of two trucks cause an escorting Swedish submarine, which couldn't have kept pace with the Estonia anyway, to leap out of the sea at midnight and hole it above the water line?

By the way, has Russia's ongoing humiliation by the abject failure of its plan to steamroller Ukraine in 3 days put any sort of dent in your imagining the MacGuffin in this story is hyper-advanced and super-secret Soviet military hardware beyond the CIA's imagining? What sort of advanced Soviet tech do you like to imagine was aboard the Estonia but from which Russia now does not seem to gain any advantage?
 
Jack by the hedge said:
The average of the claims you prefer to believe may be two but that doesn't help make your conspiracy theorising into a coherent narrative.
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That's the problem with a compromise between something that's correct and something that isn't.

How does the presence of two trucks cause an escorting Swedish submarine, which couldn't have kept pace with the Estonia anyway, to leap out of the sea at midnight and hole it above the water line?
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As I said, it was forced to travel above the surface in order to keep up. Do keep up.

By the way, has Russia's ongoing humiliation by the abject failure of its plan to steamroller Ukraine in 3 days put any sort of dent in your imagining the MacGuffin in this story is hyper-advanced and super-secret Soviet military hardware beyond the CIA's imagining? What sort of advanced Soviet tech do you like to imagine was aboard the Estonia but from which Russia now does not seem to gain any advantage?
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They don't have it any more. It was all smuggled to Sweden.
 
Mojo said:
What is witnit?
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M: Uh... Nitwit or Dragonfly?

B: Dragonfly! There isn't a horse called...

B: You're the nitwit.

M: What is "wit-nit"?

B: It doesn't matt...

B:could spend the rest of my life having this conversation!
 
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Vixen said:
More satire than parody but the fact remains, the stern-end ramp was also found to be ajar at the top. In Tammes'/Ainsalu's Mayday, the fire siren can be heard in the background, so it is quite possible there was smoke in the car deck or obnoxious fumes, causing the crew to open it slightly for fresh air. The JAIC hasn't explained why that car ramp was open.
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A ferry battling into heavy weather and you suggest the crew might open a ramp to get fresh air into the car deck. This is your example of parody, I presume, as you clearly can't be serious.

Also, you already know the alarm was not specifically a fire alarm and there is no account of a fire alarm being sounded, but don't let mere facts interfere.
 
I thought it was a Russian submarine torpedoing the Estonia at midnight as revenge and a mess 'message' to Western intelligence.

Otherwise the whole exactly at midnight in the middle of the voyage makes even less sense
 
Since it is clearly necessary for Bildt to be the baddie in the story, perhaps he was a double agent and found himself forced to plan both the smuggling of stolen ex-Soviet tech on orders from the CIA and also plan the sabotage of the ferry to prevent the theft on orders from the KGB.

And to plot the secret rescue but then abduction of the ship's officers because although they didn't know anything about his plot, they... no, sorry, I'll think of something eventually.

And also drown lots of Swedish police civilian office staff because, I don't know, parking tickets or something.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
A ferry battling into heavy weather and you suggest the crew might open a ramp to get fresh air into the car deck. This is your example of parody, I presume, as you clearly can't be serious.
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It's someone else's example of a parody—literally. She got it off a parody site and presented it as if it were real. When exposed, she tried to bluff her way around it.
 
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