Mushroom Cloud Reported Over North Korea 2001
cbrocious writes "Yahoo! News is reporting a mushroom cloud over North Korea that occured on Thursday in Yanggang province near the border with China. 'The explosion in Kim Hyong Jik county blasted a crater big enough to be noticed by a satellite, the source said.'"
Re:Its a nuke. (Score:5, Interesting)
like the way all bad experiences are always "harrowing".
Re:Well....From the TFA- (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I saw that one in school too. Then we all went into the cloak room, got our coats, then marched into the school basement to practice ducking and protecting ourselves by holding our coats over our heads.
You weren't paying enough attention in class though, it wasn't a WWII era movie. It was. .
A Korean Conflict era movie.
KFG
More Korea (Score:2, Interesting)
US aided South Korea experiments put pressure on North to develop nuclear technology.
Oh fuck (Score:4, Interesting)
-=Memo to Bush=-
___________________
Wrong country, dude.
Re:Well....From the TFA- (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Lots of things can cause mushroom clouds. It may even be the case that NK is blowing up something (lots of TNT) to impress their own people and keep morale up while scaring everyone else. It may also be the case that they just detonated a nuke.
2. Why are we hearing about this today? Any large explosion can be detected through vibrations. You can't set off a nuke without the world knowing.
3. Clinton and the democrats safely contained these crazy dictators. I don't think the "war on terra" is going to scale up very well to nuclear war. That said I hope people would think twice before they vote for Bush again this year.
allowed nukes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Its a nuke. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's a good thing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Terrible bad.
World War Two bad.
All of the US forces are not in Iraq, but for a war with the DPRK, the mobilization of the Guards and Reserves would make OIF look like a camping trip.
All the Guards and Reserve units in the western states of the US at a minium would be called up, as well as the Japanese Defense Self-Defense Force.
It'd ugly.
Yeah, right... (Score:5, Interesting)
The U.S. official said the cloud could be the result of a forest fire.
Damn, we must look stupid to gov't officials.
Cheers,
Erick
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:allowed nukes (Score:1, Interesting)
they are ours for our NATO obligations but
american's released control to our government.
Just like israel!
- AC
Re:Misleading (Score:3, Interesting)
Forest fire? Don't think so. (Score:5, Interesting)
This CNN story [cnn.com] claims that a US official suggests that the mushroom cloud might be caused by a forest fire. A little bit of physics knowledge [layman/common-sense] makes this suggestion laughable: a mushroom cloud is caused by a large amount of superheated gasses, concentrated and hot enough to rise miles into the atmosphere before dissipating enough to break the cap. Unless they have had a multi-year drought and a forest dense enough to flash to many thousand degrees C in a very short period of time, there's no possible way the mushroom cloud was created that way.
Now, it's entirely possible that it is not a mushroom cloud, as it sounds like all the indications of its presence so far are satellite shots. AFAIK very few, if any, satellites can shoot pictures at a sufficiently low angle to actually get enough outline to confirm a mushroom cloud. Basic physics again: too low and angle, you get a massively distored image because there's a) more air in the way, and b) angle of incidence causes wild refraction.
If anyone can elaborate on (or correct) these two issues, please comment. I'd be glad to be proven wrong in some way, as a verified nuclear N.Korea is not a good thing. However, what we know so far is not promising.
Re:Its a nuke. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:2, Interesting)
The explosion happened last Thursday. The fact that this is still a minor story with no confirmation is interesting.
KFG
Re:China is the differnce here (Score:5, Interesting)
And don't, for a second, think that the US or the PRC really want to do that... ever.
This ain't the cold war. Our economies are so intertwined that a war between us would result in huge economic depressions, job losses, people going hungry, cats and dogs living together, etc.
Put it this way, if you lived during the cold war, you'd never pick up a piece of merchandise you bought from the store and see "Made in USSR" on the bottom. "Made in China" is farily common, last I checked....
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:5, Interesting)
Not likely. If it was a real nuke, our sats would have picked up the gamma burst and we would have picked up the distinctive seismic signature. Those in power know as of right now whether or not it was a nuke, the question is - what will they tell us?
Re:Looks like Bush finally found... (Score:3, Interesting)
We invaded Iraq because:
1. We were already there.
2. They couldn't do shit about it.
We don't invade N. Korea because:
1. S. Korea
2. Japan
If the battles in Iraq spilled over into Iran or Syria, we didn't care. Saddam proved in Gulf War I that scuds aimed at Israel were a joke.
Kim Jong Il's missiles aimed at Seoul and Tokyo are a completely different matter.
N. Korea could be sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world and we wouldn't invade.
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:5, Interesting)
One interesting ordinance is the fule-air explosive devices. Take two gases that are explosive when combined and ignigted and put them in two big tanks at a great presure then release it all at once and a split second later when the expaning mix covers a football field, but is still at very high (80+ atmospheres iirc) detonate them.
When first developed generals and such warned that thier use might be mistaken for an neuclear weapons.
If you've seen the movie outbreak the bomb they were going to drop to stop that plauge was a FAE munition.
The tell tale in this case of course would be the gamma radation signature as well as other factors, by itself a mushroom cloud just means a very big bang.
Mycroft
Mycroft
Re:The Time Frame (Score:3, Interesting)
Possibly volcanic? (Score:5, Interesting)
If I remember correctly, Mt. St. Helens wasn't expected to erupt either, except by geophysicists, and in comparison was a relatively unprecedented event (being that the only volconoes to erupt in a US territory within recent history were in Hawaii).
Re:Possibly volcanic? (Score:5, Interesting)
Look up seismology during the demolition of the Seattle Dome, for example, there's a massive amount of data collected from dozens of miles away. Same goes for the WTC attacks. The WTC amounted to approximately a 1 kiloton blast when the towers fell.
Now on the other hand, there's S. Korea, China, and Japan, all have extensive seismic networks in operation. They should have shown *something* by now.
don't be so innocent (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No, the time is wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that I want it to be a nuke but I would say the odds are leaning that way. Sep 9 is the aniversery of N. Korea going to the commies. What better way to show they have a big dick than to set of a nuke for the birthday party.
Re:I was thinking the opposite (Score:2, Interesting)
"This is a prime example of the Bush Administration's incompetence. We have 135,000 troops in Iraq, we're pulling troops out of South Korea, and now it turns out that North Korea - our sworn enemy - was allowed to develop nuclear weapons."
He might even throw in some semi-facts about how Seattle and Los Angeles are now within range, and that a country that is starving to death might not think twice about selling nukes to Osama bin Laden. Now that's fear.
That's so wrong it's almost laughable (Score:2, Interesting)
You go on with the ridiculous suggestion that "everyone believed the WMD lies"?
There were only 2 intelligence agencies that actually believed the Iraqi's had WMD, the US and the UK.. And as we now know, nearly all of that was based on the lies and forgeries by members of Chalibi's Iraqi National Congress dissidents. In fact, MOST of the world's intelligence agencies thought Iraq had No WMD. You can exempt the US CIA, but even our own State Department was incredulous. Why? Because there was only a single source for all these intelligence lies, and all they had was verbal assurances. There were no photos, videos, or any kind of hard proof. Even newspapers try to find dual sources for their stories. The CIA never bothered.
Even Saddam's biggest enemies, the Israeli's were humming the "no WMD tune" until 9/11 of '01. Mossad had been keeping track of all industrial imports to Iraq, and told the US prior to 9/11 of '01 that no significant shipments of WMD components or duel use technology had been imported. Sure, the Israeli's tune changed after 9/11 when they saw the possibilities of getting rid of Saddam. But they knew the truth, and that truth was ignored as it conflicted with the goal of invading Iraq.
Because of this, most of the world's intelligence agencies saw right through this charade. Our CIA and the Brits were alone among the major players in believing Chalibi's crap. And I think a lot of that was due to expectations set by Bush administration. They told the CIA to find proof of WMD in Iraq, so the CIA found someone willing to say there was proof.
You should do some research for yourself. Not just parrot everything you hear from the right (or left) leaning press. Use your brain, don't be a lemming.
Re:Its a nuke. (Score:1, Interesting)
sounds like a coverup to me
Re:I was thinking the opposite (Score:2, Interesting)
"This is a prime example of the Bush Administration's incompetence. We have 135,000 troops in Iraq, we're pulling troops out of South Korea, and now it turns out that North Korea - our sworn enemy - was allowed to develop nuclear weapons."
Bush turns around and blames Clinton, Japan, China, Putin, whoever. "Heck, boys, I put Korea on the axis of evil list, but I-raq had to come first."
Kerry shouldn't be campaigning on the fear ticket anyway - I reckon people are sick of fear
Whatever, I'm Canadian, WTF do I know?
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:5, Interesting)
The truth. There is more than one government in the world, and they can't seem to agree on any single thing. How could they keep a secret among themselves?
Besides that, there are plenty of civilian radiation detectors out there. A guy I know who worked at the Forsmark nuclear plant in Sweden told me that back in 1986, they found out about the Chernobyl accident way before anyone in the Swedish government. (And quite some time before the Soviet authorities admitted anything had happened)
Although they did have a few worried hours trying to figure out where the radiation was coming from, before they realized that it actually had come from outside the plant. The isotope composition told them pretty quickly that it was a reactor failure, and not a bomb. Calculating backwards from the prevailing winds then gave them a pretty good guess of which reactor it was.
Re:It's a good thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is probably too late to get modded up, but I spent a year in Osan, Make no mistake, we weren't there to to protect South Korean. In fact, after arriving at Osan, we were briefed that we were, literally, nothing more than speed bumps, preventing the North's troops from advancing too quickly through the South. We were there to hold off the North's attack until reinforcements could arrive from Japan.
To get an idea how large their army was, they gave us a rough estimate that we would be outnumbered 100 to 1. Needless to say, during exercises, we would be laden down with about 15 pounds of ammo; Not because we didn't need it, but because it made us aware of what we were up against.
Hello, Korean BBQ? do you deliver? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:5, Interesting)
Which means that the "ho-hum" we're publicly seeing might simply be Washington's response. "Oh, that was supposed to be your bomb? It was kinda hard to tell. See, we thought you guys were working on nuclear weapons over there, and... well, shucks, we've seen bigger conventional explosions."
Re:Well....From the TFA- (Score:3, Interesting)
NK broke the reactor seals under Bush.
Actually, we don't know that, since we never had any confirmation that the reactors they were actually using for weapons research were ever "sealed" to begin with. The PRK's assurances were taken at face value. The breakdown in talks was due in no small part to years of PRK refusals to allow outside experts to confirm that they had dialed down their weapons program at all.
NK lauched long range missiles under Bush.
The PRK has had missle programs for decades, and their long-range missle development began long before George W. Bush became president. The notion that they developed such a program in three years is laughable. You obviously have no idea of the technical challenges involved.
Saddam disarmed under Bush I and Clinton
The many thousands of Kurds and Iraqi Shi'ites gassed during Bush I and Clinton would beg to differ with you. Most likely many of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were transferred to the Syrian desert, much like contraband oil exports were.
countries who really have WMD survive and don't get invaded.
Actually, most nations believed that the Iraqis still had WMDs, in no small part because Saddam hinted they did, so you logic fails. Of course, I suspect your argument is more politics than logic to begin with.
How about a meteor strike? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe this is a meteor strike, like the one in Tungusta, Russia in 1908? [wikipedia.org]
According to this article [spartechsoftware.com], the Tungusta blast was around 40 megatons. The Hiroshima bomb was only 13 kilotons.
I'm not saying this is a meteor strike, but I am saying we should keep in mind that there are other explanations. Let's wait until we see some radiation readings before we reach a conclusion.
Re:Misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
The PRK is covered with military installations. This JInterest states that we should use "strategic nuclear weapons against the PRK to destroy every military installation." Yes, because nuking a country of 22 million people is the right thing to do.
You think WWII was bad? I agree, it was. But if you start a nuclear war in this day and age things will be much, much worse.
"Never underestimate the instinct of most tyrants for self-preservation." Which is why North Korea would never use a nuclear weapon unless attacked to begin with. They would be utterly and completely wiped out. There wouldn't be half a dozen North Koreans left alive.
I still can't believe a post basicly promoting the genocide of a population of 22 million people has been modded up!
What is wrong with you people. I watched the movie the gray zone the other night and I was amazed at what people would go along with in those circumstances. I thought how did that happen.
But all JInterest had to do was say OMG there is a big scary guy over there and he's bad and might hurt us and people are willing to go nuke a country. WHAT THE FUCK!
Burn my Karma, I don't care. This needed to be said. Fucking Sheeple.
I guess you don't live in South Korea? (Score:5, Interesting)
As the poster above suggested, any move by the US would be met with decimation of the South Korean capital.
The North Koreans have enough artillery and incendiary weapons to make Seoul look like post WWII Dresden. Neither the US nor the South Koreans have enough weapons to destroy all those artillery positions before they've done their work. Yes, the US would eventually win. But it would take at least 1 to 3 months to fight North Korea to a standstill. Perhaps longer, as most of our forces are committed elsewhere.
You may be able to accept a few hundred thousand South Korean civilian casualties and the reduction of their capital to rubble. But it shouldn't come as a surprise that the South Koreans are not so anxious to risk that possibility. And that's just the conventional weapon threat. If the North managed to lob a single nuclear device towards the south, the casualties could run to millions.
I suggest you do your tough talking when it's the lives of your family on the line. In this case, the South Korean's have every right to drive the direction of these negotiations. It's their families only 50 miles away from the DMZ, not yours or mine.
Re:Well....From the TFA- (Score:3, Interesting)
Haliburton
run by DICK CHENEY
Vote appropriately.
Check Again (Score:1, Interesting)
The 9 minutes is an effect of teleseismic wave delay(Don't ask me, my wife is the geologist!) She quoted 20km/sec, Seoul is roughly 10,000km so thats ~8.5 minutes of delay...
Basically if that bump on the graph is from North Korea: It happened right at midnight!!!
Re:Misleading (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect he is very wily but certainly not insane.
Re:Checking of facts? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That's so wrong it's almost laughable (Score:3, Interesting)
My point is, dont blame the CIA for getting the facts wrong, blame bush's intelligence(committee)
Re:Well....From the TFA- (Score:5, Interesting)
The logic is fairly obvious, actually. Governments create crises to remain in power, increase their power, and to quell protest against the amassing of that power. Crises are an excellent way to oppress your own citizenry while justifying your actions to the more gullible members of your nation.
There is no profit in a solved problem. Unsolved problems are the method by which politicians remain in power, along with those who support them. The worse the problem, the more one can profit on the fear and uncertainty of the citizenry.
If you want to create a problem, openly targeting three hostile nations as "the axis of evil" is a great way to do so. If they don't act quickly enough to fulfill their role as 'the enemy', invade and conquer one of them. That'll get the other two moving at double-time to present a credible threat, if only to prevent the invasion and conquest of their own countries. And by doing so, they become exactly what they've been labeled: dangerous enemies!
The logic is beautifully Machiavellian.
Max
Re:Forest fire? Don't think so. (Score:1, Interesting)
Looks like a mushroom shaped cloud caused by a forest fire to me. Layman/Common sense to the rescue!
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:4, Interesting)
I would think that correcting a post that misstates that my country doesn't have an army is very much on topic.
Re:I guess you don't live in South Korea? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's funny how touchy-feely lefty types don't seem to care about the MILLIONS of people who are killed by their own tyranical governments. How many millions of North Korean civilians have been starved to death by Kim Jong Ill's insanity? Where's you touchy-feely empathy for them? Or are you a sociopath? How many millions more will die under Kim Jong Ill's regime in the decades ahead? Do you know how many tens of millions of civilians were killed by their own governments in the 20th century while the 'International Community' sat on its ass because it didn't want to get its hands dirty? The only hope for the future of humanity is the eradication of tyranical dictators. The UN is effectively the body that keeps them in power.
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:3, Interesting)
Japan already cares. That's why they are aiding the US in provoking the North with ship interdictions and harassment of the NK ferry. They are also joining the US in "interdiction exercises" in October. The Japanese have decided that a war between the North and the US which ruins their trade competitor South Korea is good for business. Of course, if the North sneaks a nuke into Tokyo Bay in one of their infiltration subs, the Japanese will be informed otherwise.
And any notion of North Korea selling nuclear weapons to terrorists is a joke. Dictators do not sell nuclear weapons to terrorists - too risky for them personally. And the North doesn't nearly have enough nukes to be selling them to anybody - not if they want any deterrence against the US.
Re:Online seismometers (Score:5, Interesting)
If anybody is interested there is a way [llnl.gov] to determine if the seismic activity is from an explosion or from an earthquake, or nuclear blast.
Re:Possibly volcanic? (Score:2, Interesting)
Radiation Increase on September 10th (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:CNN: "North Korea cloud 'not nuke blast'" (Score:1, Interesting)
Accurate? Probably not, but entertaining reading none the less.
i have a better question (Score:3, Interesting)
where is osama? why aren't the bulk of our forces still looking under rocks and in caves in afganistan?
fuck bush and fuck the idiots who will vote for him again, you all get what you deserve i just wish i didn't have to share it iwth you
eat my karma
Re:Gekiganger theorem of North Korean nuke detecti (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the number of wars Britain manages to fight on that budget, I can't help but wonder what the pacifist Japanese are spending it all on. Giant robots might not be so implausible...
Re:Well....From the TFA- (Score:2, Interesting)
Geeks here like to think that by mirroring the american hatred of the rest of the world, they can be part of the intellectually superior and socially sophisticated crowd (and hopefully get laid at the same time).
These days it is 'hip' and 'cool' to be anti-American. They fail to see the long term goals in Iraq. Installing a successful liberal democracy in the heart of the middle east is the only way to bring lasting peace to the region and the world. I call these people liberal conservatives. They are afraid of change, they want things to stay the way they were pre 9/11. They think that by pulling back from the world the terrorists will leave the west alone. They think the only reason the terrorists attack is because of grievances, not because they want to take over the world (only the evil zionist amerinazi bushitler conpirators want to take over the world remember?). Those who doubt the Iraq mission are no different from those who doubted America's efforts to rebuilt post WW2 Europe and Japan. Back then they said it couldn't be done, was a waste of money and that the people would not be able to handle US-style democracy.
For those who doubt that we are suceeding in Iraq I suggest you go and read IraqTheModel [blogspot.com] (an Iraqi blog run by Iraqi brothers) and other Iraqi blogs linked from that blog.
Your example of the AIDS help that America gives to Africa is just one small example of the terrible hypocrisy that plagues the American hating world. No other country has sacrificed so much and given so much for complete strangers and yet you only see protestors in NYC protesting Bush's 15 billion dollar AIDs policy but you never see them protesting Europe's 0 dollar AIDs policy. You will also see them come from all over the country to protest democracy in action (the republican national convention - see this [poweroftheindividual.org] and this [36echo.com] for an example of their "peaceful" ways) but you never see them stay just one day longer to protest the kidnapping and cold blooded murder of over 400 school children, parents and teachers in Russia by Islamic militants.
The world is in deep shit. Europe is being complacent about an impending danger (yet again) and the American hating socialists in America are allying themselves with radical islamics under the guise of "peace groups" such as international ANSWER (see this [protestwarrior.com] for an idea of what they're really up to). It really gives new meaning to the term "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". America has been here before, and America has suceeded before but it will take strength and visionary and determined leadership -- and despite the fact that I don't like many of his policies (or his religious tendencies), I believe the only candidate which can offer the security the world needs at this vital point in history is Bush.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing - EDMOND BURKE
Oh, and BTW, I'm not American. I'm a Vietnamese New Zealander.
Re:Well....From the TFA- (Score:2, Interesting)
Hard to dispute because you put fingers in your ears and sing 'I can't hear you' I suppose?
I am so tired of the U.S.-bashing I'm losing faith in humanity. Despite one of the largest deficits in our history, the U.S. came up with 15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa
Those 15 billion were almost exclusively intended to buy drugs from U.S. companies who manufacture them at less than 1% of that price. So this was only a thinly disguised attempt to subsidize the US pharma business and look like benefactors at the cost of the millions dying in Africa.
Black Ops, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm just speculating, Tom Clancy style, about a joint American-Japanese-South Korean sortie, you know, James Bond-ish sort of thing. And on Kim Jong Il's grand celebration, to boot. Now THAT would be quite an embarassment to the Illuminated Leader.
Then, the well trained western media calls it something ludicrous, like a forest fire, a classic techno-thriller wrapup.
Now that I've read the end of the book, I'd like to go back and read a bit of character development, the romantic interest, etc.
Re:Well....From the TFA- (Score:2, Interesting)
The companies that have managed to do the same in the field of AIDS treatment, and provide it for less come from for instance The U.K, France, Germany and Switzerland. None of these would have been included in the 15 billon deal proposed by the the US government.
Re:Troop numbers... (Score:1, Interesting)
I know a couple of people from Afghanistan, and I can tell that the country is still a hell-hole by any reasonable standards, but it is a lot better than under the previous "government". Everyone but the Taliban seems to agree on this. The same is apparently not true for Iraq.
Of course, life in Afghanistan could not get a lot worse in the first place. Schools, western goods, and some caricature of a medical system are godsends there. Six people a day still step on Soviet landmines, but the country feels like it has a future now.
Most of the constructive work is being done by the UN, and most of the destructive work was done by the North Alliance, but the US did make a good contribution.
Re:I guess you don't live in South Korea? (Score:3, Interesting)
incredible, what you can read into something, when you have a fixed preoccupation in your head about something.
the op's primary point seemed to be that NK would be a larger threat later than it is now. so, if you accept his premises, it would save more lives to deal with NK now than later.
you can argue over the validity of his premises, but you expose your ulterior preoccupations with this "supremacy" and "obedience" and "will" drivel.
Re:No, the time is wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:5, Interesting)
I've actually worked there, and I remember that day. Now I really wish I hadn't spent a good part of that day outside in the rain. For years afterward there was a bit of a "hotspot" just north of Stockholm where that rainstorm had washed a bunch of stuff out of the cloud and onto the ground.
As for the possibility of civilians detecting a nuclear test - that depends on a lot of variables such as how the wind blows. Given the geography of the location, the cloud might go out over open ocean or over China, in which case you won't hear anything from civilians. Or it could blow over Japan, in which case some university scientists might notice something.
Certainly the U.S. knows if it was a nuke thanks to our satellite systems; but the current regime may not wish to publicise such a failure of their anti-proliferation policy just before an election.
In any case, I would have thought that the North Koreans would make an announcement if they had actually had a successful test. Why wouldn't they? I know they certainly trumpeted up their attempts at a space launch.
U.S. strike? (Score:4, Interesting)
Could this cloud have been the result of a U.S. strike against a North Korean nuclear facility? Maybe we located the place where they keep all of their bombs and just took it out?
#end tinfoilmode
I know, I can think of a million reasons why we shouldn't do something like that, but maybe we did anyway. It's not like this administration is beyond acting like cowboys...
Move along.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's not Nuclear (Score:2, Interesting)
if Bush thought he had any chance of passing this off as a nuclear test, he would be infront of the cameras right now telling everyone how we must bomb them back to the stone age.
Re:Impossible (Score:5, Interesting)
With sophisticated facilities, extensive work done in neutron reflectors and fission enhancing substances (Tritium for example), it would be possible to construct such a weapon.
Think of it this way, the Manhattan project wasn't interested in a target yeild, they just wanted to make the concept work. All three of their first generation nukes tipped the scales around 15-20 kt. For all intents and purposes, it's fair to assume that 15-20 kt is the default size of your average nuke unless you engineer it differently. If N. Korea is trying to build the "lets see if this works" nuke, it's likely going to fall into that range.
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:3, Interesting)
Keep on having strange, massive explosions at worrying times until eventually the media get bored about conjecturing whether they're nuclear or not and then one day you really do set off a nuclear bomb. And the media just goes "Yeah, whatever..."
The media is currently the biggest threat to global security. It encourages acts of terrorism (it simply can't help giving oxygen of publicity - until an atrocity is no longer newsworthy, and then more serious atrocities are invented to compensate), and also encourages tricks like this one of NK to deliberately make massive explosions unnewsworthy.
What's the solution? Maximise the ability for downtrodden minorities with grudges to vent their issues to large and relevant audiences - before they seek out 'oxygen of publicity' via other means.
It's better to communicate with the bitter and twisted BEFORE they attempt to communicate with you.
Re:Craters and forest fires (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to understand that crown fires (so named because they are hot enough and violent enough to burn the whole tree at once, not just the litter on the ground and the bark/limbs at the base) are one of the most violent natural disasters, outhshown only by the big 3: Typhoon, Earthquake and Volcano, and are FAR more powerful than the largest nukes we've deployed to date.
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:3, Interesting)
Actual write-up with a real picture:
No Wing F15 [uss-bennington.org]
Re:Do we have any choice but to play ball? (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, they're trained to shoot first and ask questions later. They are absolutely not intimidated by somebody holding a gun to a hostage's head--that's precisely the situation where they'll shoot without thinking, because any delay in applying lethal force could endanger the hostage even more.
I think the original poster had a good analogy, but he got the details wrong. It's a point for pre-emptive attack on North Korea, not against. In any case, Kim Jong Il is most definitely not crazy, or if he is crazy, he's crazy like a fox. It's fairly obvious that what he's doing is working, isn't it? What a great reason to vote for Bush 2004, our exalted commander-in-chief who is scared of war and terorrists but will gladly send the soldiers off to die for his pet causes, and who has promised to keep us safe from WMD by ignoring North Korea. *sarcasm*
Re:Online seismometers (Score:2, Interesting)
(Yep, from age 8 or so until now I've been buying or studying whatever I could legally get my hands on about subs. I haunted the library, read a number of "accounts" of sub warfare and naval warfare in general, designed notional nuke subs (and frightened the hell out of my prospective recruiter in 1982 when he saw a 7-bladed prop on one of my drawings. I was covered: a Japanese diesel boat's stern was in one of the Proceedings mag and I promptly incorporated the fact into my drawing, especially when a few people calle my stuff "garbage" I went on to improve it and at one point, on my second command/ship, the ship's Cheng or maybe it was the MPA (Main Propulsion Assistant) tried to encourage me to go to naval drafting. I decided against it, as I want to design my work withoug exposure to or constraints imposed by classified or sensitive material. I designed 5 attack boats, and 2 boomers. I designed about 5 surface ships for NATO or US types of duties, all as hobby work. I recently designed a ship to supplant the DDG-51, and she can carry some 2,300 tons of fuel, has a range of some 10k nm, and can burst to 38-42 kts. She carries an array of real equipment, plus ducted thrusters near the bow, a keel fin set astern, and 3 telescoping auxiliary thrusters. She carries more helos than the DDG-51 flight II (DDG-79, if I recall correctly), has a successor radar to Aegis SPY-D, and carries more crew. All in only 562' lenght and 62' beam. It's for littoral warfare/defence, not mainly for transoceanic crusing. It is the 11th version of my modifications of the Burkes, the design of which I had a love-hate relationship, especially since the "Nav" politically deprived the first flight of hangar facilities to keep the DDG-51 from competing with the CG-47 program.))
Anyway, read "Blind Man's Bluff", about the US submarine force and the immense pressures the crews suffered due to keeping secret the fact they were being chased, depth-bombed, and almost destroyed on more than one occasion for making uninvited incursions to tap then-Soviet phone lines, doing dirty and dangerous work at the behest of the CIA, work the CIA should have risked its own ass for, not the sailors' asses.
(I suspect by 84 this was the cause of major sub force attrition. I volunteered for sub duty while in my junior year in High School. I swore in at MEPS (Military Entry Processing Station) Oakland, in 1983, but by 1984 at my second swearing in I was told the subforce no longer need volunteers. By about 1999 or so, I was reading in Blind Man's Bluff that USN sub sailors in alarming numbers conjuring up or creating offenses warranting discharge: claming homosexuality, drug addiction, fear of depth, stress, and more. It worked for some, but not all. After all, it costs a LOAD of money to train a sailor for up to 2 or 3 years before he even gets permanently assigned to a boat. Then, he may serve 3 or 4 more to fulfill obligations, tho some of the time is spent ashore training, assisting in training or as a trainee. Some wash out and are floated to the surface fleet, on occasion. Anyway, I did my 4 years in the surface fleet, almost 15 of my 48 months of it in training: 3 mos in IET (Initial Entry Training, or boot camp), 4 or 5 in BOOST (Broadened Opportunities for Officer Selection and Training, where I didn't want to be, but thanks to my recruiter...), 3 in Radioman School, a about March 86, 3 or so in High Level TTY/Teletype Maintenance, 2 weeks in Low-Level TTY, and a few weeks in liquid and dry toner copier maintenance. I only spent from Jan 85 to March 86 on my first ship, and Oct 86 to March 88 on my second. After all that, I was not sad I didn't get sub duty, and actually years later awoke in a nightmare that I was trapped in a doomed, sinking, creaking, poping, pressurizing sub, water boiling and rushing toward me.)
seyS divaD
David Syes
Re:Calm down (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't necessarily expect them to tell us all the details, but they could at least assert that there is no radiation detected and that's why they think it's not a nuke, if that's the case. This "we don't think it was nuclear" and casual mention of "it could be a forrest fire" is really weak. Why don't we think it's nuclear? It sounds like because it's harder to hide our heads in the sand if it is, or because it throws too big a wrench into the political campaigns.
By the way, while NK can't take over the world they could wipe out between tens of thousands and millions of people in short order and seem to be a bit of a crazy country anyway. And they've been developing missiles that could carry a nuke to the U.S. West coast.
Rereading my post I sound like I am soiling my pants. I'm not, it's just disconcerting that we're getting handwaving instead of hard facts about the report, and that reports of this didn't start trickling out until 2 1/2 days after the event.
Re:Calm down (Score:3, Interesting)
Um... when you look at the effect that knocking down two buildings had, what effect do you think it would have if half of lower manhattan was vaporised? And the whole New York metropolitan area left uninhabitable for years to come?
And remember, with an explosion this big it doesn't even have to make it past security or customs or anything. They could just let it go as far as it will and detonate it the second it is detected.
9/11 would look like a mere bruised thumb if Al Quaida managed to detonate a nuke anywhere near a big city. No matter how many planes they can hijack you can bet a nuke would be the ultimate victory. The psychological effect alone would shut down the whole nation.
Re: Well....From the TFA- (Score:1, Interesting)
Now you've got the USA bullying and throwing its weight around the world justifying its wars on trumped up charges and in the process bombing and killing THOUSANDS of innocents in the process... and shut up about September 11 cause a lot more's been killed by the US in return. I hope the US citizens vote that warmonger out of office.
But really back in the day with the USSR acting as a balance to US tyranny, the situation was less the murkey water it is nowadays. And the stalemate by and large kept the peace.
Re:Little Known Fact (Score:3, Interesting)