What is Digg?117 Comments
- lieutenantmudd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+36"Since radioactive plumes move downwind, a person can look up at the trees to see which way the wind is blowing and then flee perpendicular to the wind. Because the plumes are significantly longer than they are wide, moving as little as one to five miles perpendicular to the plume can mean the difference between life and death."
If you remember one thing from this article... - doddilus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28if you would like to try out your own nuclear attack on a us city
nuclear bomb + google maps =
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html
(this was on digg a while back) - Jadix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28*whimper*
please please please don't make me see something like this in my lifetime. - slicky803, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24LA isn't on the list cuz...y'know... Jack Bauer and all.
- saikhan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23It didn't happen, so consequentially, there are no pics.
Maybe that's a good thing, huh? - neave, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22Even more reason to live life for today rather than worrying about what might never happen tomorrow.
- coditza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Actually, all you need is a crowbar, to smash those boxes until you find a biosuit. Then you need to start looking for April.
- SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -12/+32I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but nuclear weapons are real. And they could actually be used against us.
Also, you had better thank the concept of American Lives Saved for that computer you're using right now--Cold War funding was hugely responsible for modern computing. - Bob042, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Yeah, because someone with a bomb couldn't figure "Use it where there's a lot of people".
- Livert, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Someone PLEASE stop Peter Petrelli !!!
- SpeedyG, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18In other news, if an asteroid of any reasonable size hits the planet, we'll all scoff in the face of a simple 550 megatons.
Or if a large volcano eruption takes place.
Where's the planning team trying to be paid to figure that out? - satanatnmtedu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15@ postal21
If you are worried about the plume, then you are still alive and there are still trees around. - godofpumpkins, on 10/12/2007, -21/+36Keep them scared so they don't notice we're keeping them scared.
Soon the UFOlogists (obviously on large government-sponsored grants) will be publishing reports of how devastating an alien invasion would be to major US cities, and how we should all prepare for it and then, conveniently, the administration will propose a space weapons program costing only half a trillion dollars, but it will be well worth it in American Lives Saved™
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/cavafy.html - almondfilter, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Bruce Willis will take care of us
- captainbluebear, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13You know what might help in a nuclear holocaust? Grammar.
- lieutenantmudd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I thought Bush would be sufficiently restrained by American and the world opinion. Then Iran had to go arrest and hold hostage British sailors. I honestly think they want to be bombed to renew their raison d'etre
- spling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10It might.. but probably not..
- yohojones, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Please, oh please, don't let the center of all culture and intelligence, Atlanta, become a smoldering pile of Nascar memorabilia.
- Mousse, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Wow, macktwo, did you forget to take your medication today? Israel has absolutely no motivation to nuke the US.
- orbit1979, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Interesting article that I hope the real facts are not proven. However, I noticed the article spends a great deal of time pointing out the lack of preparedness for such a nuclear attack. Lets face it, any country could never be prepared for the ultimate disaster/catastrophe such as an urban nuclear blast. The article cites there would be an estimated 300,000+ burn victims, that's for a single blast! How could we ever prepare for that?
- enemyofstate430, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Nuke ARE real. What is unreal is this analysis. Only 550 kilotons? Most nuclear weapons that are in storage are in the megatons range, and there are thousands of them. The B53 bomb alone is about 9 megatons and the U.S. made 340 of those back in the SIXTIES. A 500 kiloton weapon is about equal to one of the warheads on a Trident II missile, which wouldn't be a lot in and of itself--except for the fact that there can be EIGHT per missile.
Funny how unaware people are of the most powerful force in the world.
Maybe we don't want to think about it. - kayakertim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Finding a sparse remaining tree in Manhattan would probably not reveal much as the wind would probably blow in unusual patterns due to the canyon effect.
- orbit1979, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5True, but then again, many of the first-responders would probably be victims as well, given that everything within a 10 mile radius would either be ashes or deadly levels of radiation.
- Oatlord, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I see nothing wrong with tax dollars going to study disaster effects, response, and preparedness. Lord knows if one went off in one of our cities, people would be screaming 1) for answers as to how the whatever-administration-was-in-office at the time could let such a thing happen 2) why it wasn't prepared for the aftermath and 3) why they hate black people so much.
- Afreyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Terrorists incinerating a city? Thats nothing. Half of my life we thought ALL the cities were going to get hit. You guys can all try to live through it if you want. If this ever becomes reality, the ones that die in the attack will be far luckier than the ones that inhabit the rest of the planet after the wounded eagle gets done with it, whatever will be left after the descent of the free world into dictatorship, martial law, and non-ending war.
Thats much scarier than dying from being incinerated or crushed under a building. And mark my words, we'll do it to ourselves. The terrorists, even by nuking us, couldn't do as much damage as well-intentioned idiots will afterwards.
We never should have built those things. Having built them, we should have utterly destroyed anyone that tried to build them after us while we still had the upper hand. Now the genie is out of the bottle. God help us. - jamessavik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5>>A 550-kiloton detonation in Atlanta, the least densely populated of the four cities studied, would result in nearly 300,000 serious burn victims. "The hospital system has about 1,500 burn beds in the whole country, and of these maybe 80 or 90 percent are full at any given time,"
In mass causalty situations, patients judged to be too far gone to help are given ODs of morphine. They die peacefully and painlessly. Any patients with massive burns in this situation have had so much radiation exposure that they are already dead and there's nothing anyone in even the most elaborate trauma center could do about it.
- nicktripp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That statement is as ignorant and bigoted as you seem to think Atlanta's citizens are.
- Osjpr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Ahmadinejad's popular support was waning last I read (couple months ago). An attack on Iran should increase his support.
- orbit1979, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That depends on what the reader takes away from the article. If an article of this type lists the consequences of such an event with credible data/research, I do not see the problem with publication.
- lieutenantmudd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I think most major cities should at least do a study of how a nuke would affect their city and brief first responders on what to expect. Like a nuke in NYC, tell ambulances where the fallout would probably be going and not to bother with Manhattan hospitals. You are right, you can't prepare for the 300,000 burn victims, but you can learn how to make the response after a situation like that better instead of worse.
- toomuchcoffee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4macktwo, in regards to your assertion that "Suitcase nukes in stored in Israeli consulate in New York City?", a response I found at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_spyer/2007/02/the_antiisrael_lobby.html#comment-419354 included the following points:
(1) There is no Israeli Embassy in New York, just a consulate (the article refers to an embassy, not a consulate as you maintain)
(2) The article refers to a "stunning peak" with no evidence: as far as I can tell the GAO (part of DHS that did the survey) hasn't released the map. How did they find out about it? What officials are they talking about, and who asked them?
(3) "Potential for becoming" is bad grammar. It should be "potential to become".
(4) This is the only part of the article that refers to "spike" and "peak" which are not really the correct terms to use for hot-spots.
(5) I can find parts of the article verbatim in AP reports like http://wcbs880.com/pages/86759.php?contentType=4&contentId=209765 and http://www.health-chat-online.com/Schizophrenia/298715-ADV-NEWS--Feds-Survey-NYC-for-Radiation--Find-Tainted-Park- but these don't include the "Israeli Embassy allegation".
In addition, the source you got this info from (cleveland indymedia) is from their own website "part of the worldwide network of collectively run media outlets creating radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth. We work out of love and inspiration for the people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity." In other words, it sounds like an anonymous person took an AP report (the "author" is simply listed as "x"), added to it, didn't bother to show sources, and didn't even bother to tell their readers most of the article was lifted verbatim from the AP. - marinist, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5We'd have as much chance against ET as an ant colony would against a can of Raid.
- blankoboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5That was the whole point of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To see what would happen if a Nuke were detonated over a real populated City. Japan was already finished after the constant fire bombing of Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, etc. Just a fun little test that costed hundreds of innocent civilian lives.
- jamessavik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Of course- a nuke is going to knock the ***** out of any city. The big difference is is it a nuke in the kilo-ton range or the mega-ton range.
Believe it or not, we had a little something called the Cold War. It lasted 50 years and we did study the effects of nukes. Teach your granmother to suck eggs eh? - JohnyD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ veurruckte
9/11? That was only ~ 4000 people. How about the approximate 100,000 Iraqies that have been killed by the Bush Administration?
And btw, I'm a Canadian... one who is reading the comments here in disbelief. Terrorists, WMD's, etc... America is the reason for the destabilization of the present world... yet they act like the victims. It's bizzare and quite frightening. - lieutenantmudd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You're right, with a disaster the size you're talking about, plan or not you're *****. But rather inexpensive planning ahead can make a huge difference for smaller nukes. Say the bomb just took out the lower half of Manhattan? It would help alot if you knew which way the fallout was going in advance and which areas would be safe to evacuate to
- drgruney, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I like to summarize it as GTFO!!
- Afreyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What do you want the politicians to do? What do you think they CAN do?
Bush is the best friend Osama bin Laden could have. He's their recruiting poster. Do you really think they're going to accept an apology from the American people? We're sorry we desecrated your holy sites and don't believe in your God? - Veurruckte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hahaha...
Is it just me, or does nearly everything take place in LA on 24? LA must be the center of the world! - Kruse, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Jericho
- lieutenantmudd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't know, I would like if the government laid the groundwork for that kindof epic disaster. I am not talking about massive spending, but planning with an eye to the future would be a good thing. Like if you are going to relocate high value military command centers, move them away from coastal areas. It is paranoid to build a new one because of fear of meteorites, but if you need a new one anyways, what's wrong with West Virginia instead of DC?
- Afreyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah, good luck, you and __all the other survivors__ trying to evacuate... And you thought traffic was bad on a normal day.
- anonym41414, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@enemyofstate430
Yes, there are multi-megaton nuclear bombs in existence. They also weight four tons and are the size of small trucks, making them impossible to smuggle into a city unnoticed.
A nuclear sneak attack, if it ever happens, will have to be carried out with a physically small weapon, one that can be delivered by nothing larger than a rental truck and that can be adequately shielded from the ubiquitous radiation detectors.
High-yield (in the hundreds of kilotons) ICBM warheads are miracles of miniaturization and nuclear physics, making it highly impractical that somebody could build one, and the notion that somebody could steal one is improbable at best. Plus getting them to detonate is damn near impossible. So that leaves an improvised nuclear device built with a small amount of fissile material. Such a bomb, if it detonated perfectly, could easily produce a blast in the 10-25 kiloton range, but no larger.
A very big boom, but not a city-buster.
Also, you have to remember that nuclear weapons were meant to be airburst at thousands of feet in the air, and that an improvised terrorist device would have to be detonated on the ground. Setting off a nuclear explosion at ground level in a major city (where it's surrounded by large buildings) would drastically attenuate its effects, since the buildings around the blast would act to shield buildings farther away. On the other hand, induced radioactivity in the ground-level debris would be a real concern, and clean-up from such an attack could take weeks. - LoopyChew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'd be crushed, on account of the Coca-Cola company no longer existing.
- Veurruckte, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5If 9/11 doesn't convince you that there's twisted people in the world (who would nuke millions of innocent people in a heart beat), then nothing will.
I'm sure people didn't think Hitler would kill millions of people when he first became dictator. Imagine what he would have done with the bomb!
Still, the constant state of fear the media projects is ridiculous. - Crowforge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'll tell you what happens, we then proceed to ***** people up, get ready for stone age pt.2.
- Afreyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No, but they are much more delicate, much heavier, and require more maintenance than the type of tactical warhead likely for terrorists to be able to smuggle. Yeah, its possible, but stockpiles of large warheads aren't nearly as big as stockpiles of the smaller ones which are far more useful in a real battle. Not that that matters much, , 10 x 2 kT, dispersed, is more damaging to a city than 1 20 - kT anyway. If I were a a nuclear terrorist, nuclear weapons would be my hole card, and I'd be saving them until I was either about to lose, or I was sure to utterly destroy my enemy once and for all.
- marinist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Below is diagram showing the thermal impact of a 550 kiloton surface nuclear detonation on New York City"
In the height of the cold war, I'm going to bet Russia had more like 5+ MT targeted each for NYC and DC. And that would be an airburst, which is far more lethal that a surface detonation.
The yields of those nukes was horrifying--does anyone have stats on hand? - pp51doodoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think you mean Macon. Atlanta itself is predominantly black. Most of the memorabilia would be found in the surrounding areas of white flight, and less affected by a blast.
And losing Atlanta would be a terrible loss as there would no more Adult Swim :( - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2My post was sarcasm, jesus!
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