The author

September 19, 2000 3:51 PM

The author of The Anarchist Cookbook wants is to go out of print, but his publisher owns the copyright and keeps pumping them out. I had always heard the CIA published it, and filled it with faulty recipies designed to kill anybody messing with bomb materials.
Might be another twist on recent copyright discussions, but what do I know, I paid for my copy of Steal This Book.
via BoingBoing
posted by thirteen (7 comments total)

Steal This Book
I never get these posts right, I am totally not about quality control.
posted by thirteen at 3:55 PM on September 19, 2000

The AC is a book for idiots. Anyone that falls for those recipes deserves what they get. No, really. I used to be one of those "bomb kids" and anyone that does so little research when dealing with explosives should be removed from the gene pool.

Besides which, you'll find much more useful information in the various U.S. military covert ops manuals, which you can find pretty easily on ROTC campuses or near active-duty bases (I always preferred the Ranger books, as they explain ways to make do with inadequate supplies). They're vastly more useful, since they focus on making do with common materials and don't assume that everyone has lab gear. Plus their recipes are safer and more effective, with realistic efficiency estimates, better fusing instructions, etc.

...and don't even get me started on the "drug" recipes. The whole thing is laughable.
posted by aramaic at 4:33 PM on September 19, 2000

At one point this stuff was all noded on everything2 but I have no idea if it's still there. Having read the Amazon entry this comes across as a sort of juvenile power fantasy thing. A publisher publishing a juvenile power fantasy to serve juveniles with low self esteem.
posted by davidgentle at 5:04 PM on September 19, 2000

The only thing the Anarchists Cookbook has going for it is a really snazzy name. No, uninformed who buy books on supposed reputation (dude, every hardcore punker has a copy) doesn't deserve to lose limbs and faces. The more often the book is criticized as being written by an amatuer and is very unsafe the better we are.
posted by skallas at 6:01 PM on September 19, 2000

That book always reminds me of the line from the Illumnatus trilogy, along the lines of:

"We do shit, George. Not like the 'anarchist' who beats off to the picture of the Molotov cocktail he carefully cut out of the New York Times Review of Books..."

Or something like that. It's been a long time since I looked at either.
posted by dcehr at 7:12 PM on September 19, 2000

No, uninformed who buy books on supposed reputation (dude, every hardcore punker has a copy) doesn't deserve to lose limbs and faces. The more often the book is criticized as being written by an amatuer and is very unsafe the better we are.

We didn't say that those who bought it, or read it, deserved to lose limbs and faces...

We said (and I heartily agree) that those *stupid enough to actually concoct or build the stuff they find therein* do.

Cleaning up the gene pool is never pleasant when it's someonte you know and/or love... but it's not optional. Remember all those wildfires earlier this year?

It's not NICE to fool with Mother Nature... a lesson the glow-in-the-dark easter bunny people are going to learn, too.

Wonder how long it takes before we have shampoo that does that to your hair?
posted by baylink at 8:59 AM on September 20, 2000

Wonder how long it takes before we have shampoo that does that to your hair?
done, sort of...
posted by Avogadro at 10:08 AM on September 20, 2000