10:13 – I can’t remember for sure the last time I saw any of a presidential debate. I may have seen part of the 1980 debate, but the last time I remember for sure seeing part of a debate was Kennedy versus Nixon in 1960. I watched a few minutes of last night’s debate, and now I understand why I waited so long. I don’t intend to watch another for at least 56 more years.
I watched it on the Roku box on CBS (I think; I installed the ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox/PBS channels on the Roku yesterday and then just picked whichever one was at the top of the screen). What immediately struck me was that Trump seemed normal while speaking, while Clinton’s mouth was moving out of sync with her voice. I suspect someone was standing behind the curtain with his hand up her back, making her mouth move. It reminded me of Chuck and Bob on Soap, except that Chuck and Bob had better lip sync. I suppose Clinton’s rictus was supposed to be a smile, but she reportedly actually smiles so seldom that she was in danger of breaking her face.
UPS showed up yesterday with my Walmart.com order. One of the boxes was only slightly dented, which for UPS is doing good, but the second box was crushed and ripped. We opened that one while the UPS guy was still there. Surprisingly, given the condition of the box, nothing was missing or damaged. There were two one-gallon plastic jugs of pancake syrup, two five-pound paper sacks of corn meal, and four four-packs of 16-ounce canned chili beans. As usual, Walmart used a box that was too large for the contents, giving those four-pack bowling balls lots of room to bounce around and crunch anything else in the box. They made their usual concession to packing materials by tossing a small piece of bubble-wrap and one small air bag into the box. Just enough to be gratuitous without actually helping to pad the contents.
Not for the first time, Barbara remonstrated with me for ordering stuff from Walmart, asking why on earth I’d order from a vendor who did such a horrible packing job. I told her that sometimes they packed stuff well. For example, the last time I ordered Bertolli Alfredo sauce, they packed all dozen of the jars individually within the box, presumably because they’re glass and even a moron knows what’s going to happen if you ship a dozen glass jars loose. But the real reason I order from Walmart is that they offer a lot of things that aren’t available elsewhere, and that their prices are considerably lower on many items. Amazon might carry the same stuff, and they would pack it well for shipping, but they’d also charge a lot extra, often 50% or more.
Email overnight from Jessica, which is the first email I’ve gotten from her other than her request to get her hooked up with Jen and Brittany. In the past, it’s been her husband, Jason, I’ve exchanged email with. Since Jason and Jessica are both on-board with prepping, that’s unusual. Most email I get from newbie preppers is from women, I think because they’re much more open to asking questions about things they’re not experts on.
Jessica said one of the things that she’s concerned about that hasn’t been talked about much here is nuclear radiation emergencies, whether from a nuke plant meltdown, a terrorist dirty bomb, or a full nuclear attack. I sent her links to several useful on-line documents. She asked specifically about potassium iodide or iodate tablets, and I recommended that, given their ages, these are something they should stock. Iodide or iodate tablets protect against one very specific risk: thyroid cancer caused by ingesting or inhaling radioactive iodine. The tablets provide an excess of non-radioactive iodine, which floods the thyroid and prevents uptake of the radioactive iodine. Because thyroid cancers are very slow-developing and because there are downsides to high doses of iodine, authorities recommend taking iodide/iodate tablets only if someone has been exposed to radioactive particulates and only if that person is under 40 years old. There are also considerations for taking them during pregnancy. I sent Jessica links to information about all of these issues.
I didn’t actually watch the debate, but my first thought after reading your comment was Botox.
My wife says the modern regimen is botox above the nose, fillers below. The “smile” went away over the course of the debate, so I don’t think it was DUE to botox.
I think she just doesn’t have access to a normal range of emotions, and was told to smile. She remembered for a while, then back to normal.
Or it was a side effect of whatever they used to get her going. The bug eyes were certainly abnormal. Both the eyes and smile faded toward her normal face with time.
By the handshakes at the end, she was barely able to lean over and shuffle her feet. She’s clearly putting weight on a audience member at one point. She’s a tired, sick, old hag.
n
Note: I have not checked if this is actually True or not!
Seeking a weekend break from his campaign rallies; Donald Trump
jetted to his yacht, which was docked off the coast of Italy.
He invited Pope Francis and the press corps on board for a Saturday
afternoon cruise. It was a rather windy day. The Pope’s little hat,
his zucchetto, was blown from his head and into the water.
A crewman began lowering a boat to retrieve the zucchetto. Trump
told the crewman not to bother. Trump climbed down the yacht’s
ladder; walked across the waves, picked up the zucchetto; walked
back to the yacht and handed it to the Pope. The Pope and the press
corps were amazed! Donald Trump could actually walk on water!
Speculation immediately began as to how ABC, CNN, NBC, ABC, The
Washington Post and New York Times would report this miraculous
event to the rest of the world. The next morning the New York Times
headline read “DONALD TRUMP CAN’T SWIM!!!”
… from my aunt.
Sadly, we missed the “debate” up here. Glad we did. What a total waste of bandwidth, resources and time.
I watched the Atlanta Falcons run roughshod over the New Orleans Saints in New Orleans, which was OK with me, esp. after the constant hype and blather throughout about how the city heroically came through Katrina and is now a sparkling and brilliant city on a hill for the entire solar system to worship and emulate. Only one funny commercial making the rounds nowadays; the guy who casts off his boat rather than submit to the in-laws coming over to use it on his NFL Sunday.
Drove a total of 360 miles yesterday between here, Montpeculiar, White River Junction VA Med Center, etc., while my leg and knee were on fire. Got some pills now that might do the trick for me, increasing the dose over the next several weeks and getting an MRI and X-rays on the 6th and possible epidural shots after that. I took one last night along with two other pain pills and finally managed to get a full night’s sleep in the recliner and already notice a difference this morning. The VA docs think I probably have arthritis back in there and it’s pinching the sciatic notch nerve pretty good and causing pain to radiate down through my pelvis, hip, knee and now leg and ankle.
Damn. I never thought I’d be old and whining about my ailments and meds. Please. Kill. Me. Now.
No rest for the wicked
no pause in their toil
many more years ‘for
their return to the soil
pressed by their burdens
crushed by degree
the wicked they prosper
and out-live you and me
-with apologies as appropriate
n
“I Score the First Debate”
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151007796236/i-score-the-first-debate
“Clinton won on points. She had more command of the details and the cleaner answers. Trump did a lot of interrupting and he was defensive. If this were a college debate competition, Clinton would be declared the winner. I call that victory on the 2D chess board. But voters don’t care about facts and debating style. They care about how they feel. So let’s talk about that.”
“Clinton won the debate last night. And while she was doing it, Trump won the election. He had one thing to accomplish – being less scary – and he did it.”
Amazon might carry the same stuff, and they would pack it well for shipping.
Depends on the warehouse. Something shipping from Las Vegas? Fuggedaboudit — expect the item to arrive damaged and be surprised if it isn’t. Heck, I even received one book with a coffee ring on the title page. (A staff member doing a little self education between pulls?)
I watched the Atlanta Falcons run roughshod over the New Orleans Saints in New Orleans, which was OK with me, esp. after the constant hype and blather throughout about how the city heroically came through Katrina and is now a sparkling and brilliant city on a hill for the entire solar system to worship and emulate.
The NFL press members are generally so left wing that they probably had Che posters on the wall in college. The most obvious Cankles voter among their ranks is Peter King from SI/NBC, but they’re all probably working out their rationalizations over the next month.
I’m guessing they didn’t cut to Gruden’s face while the BS rolled about New Orleans. Ol’ Chucky probably had a scowl for the ages.
“-with apologies as appropriate”
Ha, none necessary; fits my brother’s and my feelings very nicely this week. He’s also toiling at drudge and scut work around the house while suffering from neck and back issues and is at the “fuck it all” stage.
“She had more command of the details and the cleaner answers.”
Because she was spoon-fed the questions in advance and drugged up so as to be able to manage the robot responses accordingly.
“Trump did a lot of interrupting and he was defensive.”
His first-ever one-on-one public debate and he was himself interrupted at least 40 times by the impartial moderator while she only got that half a dozen times. Like Pat Buchanan says, even if he wins the election, the MSM will be on him far worse than they ever were with the hated anti-Christ Nixon.
Adams is right about the primacy of “feelz” versus facts and debating style, however. That pretty much defines Murkan derps these days; their feelz.
Cue up Barry Manilow.
“I’m guessing they didn’t cut to Gruden’s face while the BS rolled about New Orleans. Ol’ Chucky probably had a scowl for the ages.”
No doubt, and at one point he rattled off a standard-issue worshipful litany right after McDonough’s spiel and you could tell he was REALLY sincere about it, and got it OVER WITH asap.
I across this site today:
http://SurvivalCaveFood.com/
Here is a YouTube about one of their products (sorry, it auto plays)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL1WixxvReE
Any of you have any experience with them? Comments? They say they are at many gun shows but I have never seen them.
whew, I haven’t been this sick since I got back from China. STILL messed up and don’t want to be away from home for more than a few minutes. I’ve got shipping to get out, and groceries to buy though, so I’m going out. I’m going to try some probiotic stuff too.
Would be a completely different experience grid down.
nick
one thing I noticed about the debate.
Hillarity had to reach back decades to find personal attacks on Trump. She went all the way back to 1973 to call him a racist, and to the late 90’s to call him a sexist.
And she’s still arguing about support for the gulf war. Fuckers. They were ALL in support of it.
You don’t have to go back more than a few DAYS to find objectionable things on hillarity.
n
They’re GROSSLY overpriced. A 28-ounce can of Keystone ground beef at Walmart is $6.28. These guys charge $15 for a 14.5-ounce can, more than four times the Walmart price. My guess is they’re just private-labeling Keystone product and charging four times as much. Their prices on other items I looked at were also ridiculous. Looks like another place taking advantage of the prepping phenomenon.
“She went all the way back to 1973 to call him a racist, and to the late 90’s to call him a sexist.”
Applying this to myself: In ’73 I was stationed at the mountain radar site in northern Kalifornia between multiple deployments to SEA. I smoked doobies and tripped with some of the brothers, black and brown and Asian. We skipped out on Nixon’s World War III alert and disappeared way off-site. And we all got ready for SLA and Zebra attacks on the radar domes. I rode down to Redwood City in an AF van, only white guy on it, to see Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald; on the way through downtown SF, I hollered out the windows that I was being kidnapped. Good times.
Does that mean I’m not a rayciss? Can I run for office?
Late 90s: Remarried and moved to northern VT, hating everything about Maffachufetts and the commutes; got a bellyful of state gummint malfeasance and incompetence; rebooted the PTSD and boozing, and became even more of a cis-hetero, gun nut Roman Catholic wack job.
I guess that sorta cancels out the earlier stuff, huh.
And as Mr. nick says, you can go back days or even hours sometimes to find Killary’s shit stains all over the media. From what I can gather about peoples’ reactions to the “debate,” she came across as a doddering, robot-like old bat spouting the same Party inanities and lies she’s been drooling for decades now, and Cheeto-Head barely held his own and didn’t make any huge fuckups.
It’s come down to a choice between being gutted like a fish, crucified and set on fire…and eating a shit sandwich. Mao or Mussolini, take yer pick.
It’s come down to a choice between being gutted like a fish, crucified and set on fire…and eating a s*** sandwich. Mao or Mussolini, take yer pick.
Um, I’ll take Mussolini. At least he made the trains run on time.
Ditto, Mr. Lynn. And he had Ezra Pound for his radio announcer! So an appreciation for the arts and artists!
Viva il Duce!
Jessica said one of the things that she’s concerned about that hasn’t been talked about much here is nuclear radiation emergencies, whether from a nuke plant meltdown, a terrorist dirty bomb, or a full nuclear attack.
I’m sorry but I am not concerned about this very much. First, you’ve gotta work at it to mess up a nuclear facility. The only real problem that I see with nuclear facilities is the dadgum used fuel rod storage ponds going dry. That also requires some real screwups. The ongoing radiation releases from Fukushima are almost all due to the used fuel rod ponds on TOP of the freaking reactor buildings. That was an accident waiting to happen.
And, I think as long as our subs are deployed, no one is stupid enough to throw nuclear bombs at the USA. Without receiving 10 for 1. The Norks and Iranians are stupid but not that stupid.
My real concerns are:
1. Financial meltdown of the dollar – I think that we are 10 to 20 years away but many people are talking that this is going to happen soon as they raise the interest rates
2. One to three large many megaton nuclear bombs going off in orbit, EMPing the USA where we lose the three national electrical grids in the lower 48 and the internet backbones
Ditto, Mr. Lynn. And he had Ezra Pound for his radio announcer! So an appreciation for the arts and artists!
Viva il Duce!
Oh yeah, I forgot. Mao had all of the college professors, white collar workers, and artists ??? shot or starved in the so-called cultural revolution. I’ll pass.
“My real concerns are:
1. Financial meltdown of the dollar – I think that we are 10 to 20 years away but many people are talking that this is going to happen soon as they raise the interest rates”
I’m gonna say from now to about five years from now; they can’t keep this house of cards from toppling much longer. But it’s not only your and my real large concern; it’s evidently the same for most folks who pay attention to stuff. More people can see what’s going on in their daily lives, let alone the Wall Street financial nooz pages and what various gummint liars are blowing up their asses.
“2. One to three large many megaton nuclear bombs going off in orbit, EMPing the USA where we lose the three national electrical grids in the lower 48 and the internet backbones”
If anyone tries to pull that off, they’ll be considered immediately available for nuking by us. But I don’t think the Russians or Chicoms will go that route, even if they can; maybe the Norks, but they’ll be immediately obliterated completely. After having left CONUS in pretty terrible shape for a good long while.
My fear is that someone will light off one or more dirty nukes in major cities around the country; that will certainly stir the pot a bit, and we can then look forward to martial law immediately at home and more wars abroad. Which we may get anyway with a Killary regime.
Speaking of which, one of her campaign PR organizations, the NYT, is today cheering her brilliant debate performance and slamming Cheeto-Head every other line they printed. Maybe the Klinton Foundation can bail them out before they go under.
Chump did himself no favors today by ranting and raving again, including whatever he said about a friggin’ beauty contest winner! Jeezum Crow. How stupid is that.
Neither psycho asshole said anything whatsoever about plans to get us out of our various awful messes, of course.
But like Barnhardt says, who in their right mind would want the job? With everything about to blow up or fall apart? So maybe he’s getting ready to torpedo himself.
“Mao had all of the college professors, white collar workers, and artists ??? shot or starved in the so-called cultural revolution. I’ll pass.”
Same deal in the old Soviet Union and the former Cambodia. And also to a certain extent in the early Nazi regime. Totalitarians don’t like egghead and artistic types.
The Norks and Iranians are stupid but not that stupid
I am not so sure about that.
someone will light off one or more dirty nukes
I don’t think it would be a nuke proper as that takes some real specialized equipment, knowledge, and technical expertise. Nuclear material is not easy to get it to go bomb critical.
What I think is more probable is that someone on a suicide mission from some country will detonate a regular bomb, say a rental truck filled with explosives, with nuclear waste material mixed in with the explosives. The massive dust cloud would make several city blocks unusable for years.
“…someone on a suicide mission from some country will detonate a regular bomb, say a rental truck filled with explosives, with nuclear waste material mixed in with the explosives. The massive dust cloud would make several city blocks unusable for years.”
Yeah, I can picture that, and I tend to lump it in with my dirty nuke scenario. Probably about the speed of the usual suspect musloid geniuses. One of the “beauties” of such terrorist acts is that we can’t really pin it down on a specific nation or otherwise sovereign state actor/s. The musloids are all over the globe in many dozens of countries, including the ones already here, obviously. So who do we retaliate against? My target inclination, given the source of much of the international terrorism for a long time now, is for the major cities and bases in Saudi Arabia.
Lynn wrote:
“And, I think as long as our subs are deployed, no one is stupid enough to throw nuclear bombs at the USA. Without receiving 10 for 1. The Norks and Iranians are stupid but not that stupid.”
The Norks might do it – if they can make it work. The Iranians won’t – they’re not that stupid.
Ray wrote:
“I don’t think it would be a nuke proper as that takes some real specialized equipment, knowledge, and technical expertise. Nuclear material is not easy to get it to go bomb critical.”
It’s not that hard to do. See The Curve of Binding Energy by John McPhee.
We did it a lifetime ago, using simple machine tools, with 2 completely different designs, AND we didn’t have the benefit of KNOWING that it would work.
The difficulty in retaliation is pealing the onion. Short of someone taking credit, someone credible, how many false flags have there been?
n
We did it a lifetime ago
With some of the smartest people on the planet and a few thousand people helping out, along with some really big buildings to get it all done.
using simple machine tools
With significant precision using machines that cost millions of dollars. I doubt your average run of the mill terrorist would have access to any of that technology. Even the grates that were used in the gaseous diffusion in the 40’s process are still classified. My understanding from what little my friend that worked at ORNL would tell me is that machining and shaping nuclear material was no trivial task. Such shaping critical to achieving critical mass that would go BOOM.
It’s not hard to make a nuclear explosion … if you have the right materials.
There’s the rub. Isolating the U-235 from the U-238 is non-trivial. Shaping it isn’t too bad, but you’re going to die from it unless you have special — expensive — gear.
If you want a plutonium boom, you’ve got a lot of non-trivial problems. Shaping the metal without killing yourself (and everyone around you if you do it just right) is non-trivial, but every other aspect is worse.
That waffly description is just from what I know about the production and processing of fissionable material. What I know is probably about 0.01% of what you need to know, which means that there are most likely a number of challenges to the operation that we don’t even know to think about. If you have nation-state (or major multinational corporation) financial backing and a supply of highly skilled and yet disposable machinists, you might be able to build a nuclear weapon.
If you don’t have that, you’re better off with biologicals. A few years in college or studying the theory and then a couple years OJT in a lab and a million dollars or so and you, too, can be an unlicensed biological researcher. Be the first kid on your block to have a DNA synthesizer!
And which part that is not doable by iran, NOK, etc? Hell Pakistan did it. No one thinks of them as a high tech power.
And if you’re willing to cut corners on safety, things get a lot easier. (And what’s possibly more unsafe than volunteering as a murder bomber?)
n
(I’m not willing to rule it out. I’m also not so sanguine that Iran wouldn’t nuke Israel. Israel certainly thinks they’re capable and willing.)
Or using stuff from stolen or MIA warheads, as the many reportedly gone from the old Soviet storage sites. I still think a group could have the ability to light off a dirty nuke of some kind, including like the one Mr. Ray describes; just blow up a bunch of radioactive material all over the landscape. For an actual nuke explosion, I imagine a quasi-state actor could supply and train the right group of assholes.
I also think Mr. SteveF is correct; far easier to work with and disperse biological agents.
Or like Mr. Lynn posits; use some kind of EMP, or as others have theorized, cyber means, to shut down our grids here.
But the elephant in the room is the world financial system; worse than the 2008 debacle and possibly FAR worse.
In my opinion, the biggest threats to our electrical grid, in order of probability, are:
o a cyber attack
o a coordinated physical attack on the dozen or so critical very large transformers (VLTs)
o a Carrington-class CME
o tramp steamers launching nuclear-tipped SCUDs
Note that warhead yield counts for little in an EMP attack. Three 20 KT war heads would destroy our grid just as effectively as three 20 MT ones. It’s the cascade effect that does the damage, not the yield of the nuke that initiates it.
Those are called dirty bombs, not nukes. Yah, get a bunch of radioactive medical waste, spent fuel rods if you can get your hands on some, any old mildly emitting garbage. Machine it down to filings and tailings, wrap it around any old explosive, and tell the media that you’ve irradiated Manhattan. Hell, you don’t even need explosives: just have disposable mooks drive around and dribble metal as they go. No matter how you do it, the media and then the public will freak. Doesn’t matter if the radiation level is barely above the background and no threat to human lives or health.
I agree with RBT’s order of probability for Grid-down attacks.
And sit corrected that it’s dirty BOMBS not nukes that Mssrs. SteveF and Ray are talking about.
In both cases I note that it don’t take much to wreak havoc nationwide and then worldwide.
Coordinate multiple attacks on the grid while strewing radioactive chit all over Manhattan, Mordor and maybe a couple of other big cities. Not that expensive and evidently no shortage of “disposable mooks.” Do it between T-Day and Xmas. For more boffo laffs, light off some suicide-vest bombs in the major shopping malls, too.
The regime would essentially be blind, deaf and dumb in large part and having to cope with multiple horrific scenarios on a mass level; no choice but to zoom on up to DefCon Whatever and nationwide martial law. Because they’d also have to face any one or more of other state actors trying to take advantage while we’re on our knees.
“U.S. owes black people reparations for a history of ‘racial terrorism,’ says U.N. panel”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/09/27/u-s-owes-black-people-reparations-for-a-history-of-racial-terrorism-says-u-n-panel/
I vote that we, the USA, leave the UN. And NATO. And stop giving away $50+ billion per year to other countries such as Israel and Egypt.
We, the USA, are broke. We are spending our seed corn now, otherwise known as “goodwill”. When that is gone, we will be done. And then we will need to rely on our moats, the Atlantic and Pacific, to keep people from coming to our shore and trying to redeem their worthless treasury bills and dollar bills.
“I vote that we, the USA, leave the UN. And NATO. And stop giving away $50+ billion per year to other countries such as Israel and Egypt.”
OFD has been saying that since the 1980s. And leave the IMF, World Bank, and close almost all foreign military bases and bring almost all the troops home.
(we just gave more tens of billions to Israel and more weapons systems to them and to musloid shit-hole countries. Cui bono?) This has been going on for decades. What have we got for it so far?
Speaking of bad investments; what have we got so far for the trillions spent on that certain minority population since the 1950s? How’s that racial healing thing working out these days?
Good question:
http://www.amerika.org/politics/why-does-the-left-always-win/
I’d only add that they all operate from the same playbook, innately; it’s the air they breathe, collectively. We, on the other hand, have dozens of playbooks, and we’re usually very busy fighting each other.
Good question:
http://www.amerika.org/politics/why-does-the-left-always-win/
I would only add that they all operate from the same playbook, as the air they breathe. We run from a dozen different playbooks and fight amongst ourselves constantly.
One thing I’ve learned in my short time on this planet. Don’t bet everything on the assumption that others aren’t THAT stupid.
And what’s possibly more unsafe than volunteering as a murder bomber?
Cankles diaper changer.
At least with the former you get it over quickly rather than continuous torture.
And which part that is not doable by iran, NOK, etc?
None of it. However getting a completed bomb into the US would be almost impossible. Too many checks at all entry points. Even a local truck scale here the trucks have to go through a radiation detection unit. Even missile delivery would be detected and stopped. I think that detonation of such a device is highly unlikely. I think what is more likely is a standard explosive device that has been laced with radioactive material.
Hell, you don’t even need explosives: just have disposable mooks drive around and dribble metal as they go.
Living close to Oak Ridge an even simpler scenario would be almost as effective. Just take a bunch of small boxes, fill them with sand, place radioactive labels on the boxes, and around 4:00 in the morning just drive around and scatter the boxes.
The entire town would be shut down along all the facilities in the area. People would not be allowed to leave their homes, no vehicular traffic. Complete standstill. Every single box would have to be approached with the same caution and examined. It would take days to complete for a hundred boxes.
Or get a job driving one of the low level waste trucks that traverse the area. A few years back one of the trucks developed a small leak when taking a curve on a highway. Highway was closed for days as the asphalt was removed and replaced. Extend that to just opening the valve and let the stuff dribble over as many roads as possible. All vehicular traffic stopped, people locked in their homes, the panic would be significant.
You don’t have to do much to cause the public to panic in unwarranted fear. And that is the real danger.
Which gets us back to the real problem, the majority of homo so-called-sapiens mostly being a bunch of dumbasses. Tell ya what, you identify the Stupid gene and I’ll develop the virulent virus which targets it.
I started watching Survivors on Netflix. It’s a BBC series dealing with a flu pandemic worse than the 1918 Spanish flu. I haven’t seen enough to say much about it yet, other than it’s depressing.
A dirty bomb is a waste of radioactive material. You end up contaminating a few city blocks, which can be significant if you carefully choose *which* few city blocks, but the real effect is pretty minimal. Assuming you have a reasonable quantity of material, it’s better to solubilize it and dump it in the reservoir that supplies a city’s water.
@Dave
You might also want to watch Jericho on Netflix streaming. It’s the best prepper series I’ve seen. Minor bogosities, but the writers hit all the high points.
A ‘tornado’ took out some vital electricity infrastructure in Port Augusta, South Australia this afternoon and blacked out the whole state. I got power back after three hours, at about 7.30 pm, my sister, who lives in the next suburb, had to wait an extra three hours on top of that. Some won’t get power back ’till tomorrow.
I’m killing mad about this, I’d happily contribute to a bounty on the guilty politicians.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/sa-weather-south-australia-without-power-as-storm-hits/7885930
I thought you could drink water contaminated with plutonium and it would pass straight through. Getting it in your lungs was what I thought was dangerous. Same true for U235?
Getting a single bomb into the country is trivially simple, unfortunately. Counterweight in a sailboat just for one way.
Or you could just make it in the country. No need to bring it in.
The only reparations that “blacks” should receive is a one-way ticket to Nigeria. And while we’re at it ALL mooslems are air-dropped (without parachutes) on Mecca.
Note:
To be considered “black” you are receiving any form of gooberment assistance, and/or have a conviction for anything greater than J-walking, and/or speak ghetto, and/or wears pants below the natural waist, and/or produces spawn without the benefit of marriage, and/or takes a knee during the National Anthem, and/or raises a clenched fist, and/or etc. etc. etc.
To be considered mooslem you believe in keeping your women in a sack, and/or everyone else is an infidel, and/or don’t like bacon or any other pork product, and/or use your left hand instead of toilet paper, and/or intentionally face Mecca more than 0-times a day, and/or etc. etc. etc.
Sorry that these lists are not complete but I believe I have reached my Deplorables limit for the week 😉
“I thought you could drink water contaminated with plutonium and it would pass straight through. Getting it in your lungs was what I thought was dangerous. Same true for U235?”
Where did you get that idea? There is no safe level for ingestion or inhalation of radionuclides. Anyway, both plutonium and uranium are unlikely candidates for a dirty bomb. If I were doing it, I wouldn’t waste fissionables. I’d prefer stuff from used nuclear fuel rods, which is a witches’ brew of hundreds of radionuclides with half-lives varying from small fractions of a second to thousands of years or more.
Tell ya what, you identify the Stupid gene and I’ll develop the virulent virus which targets it.
My wife says I have it. Where do want the DNA sent?
“I wouldn’t waste fissionables. I’d prefer stuff from used nuclear fuel rods,”
but what’s the easiest to get? Medical waste. In the public mind, radiation is radiation.
Doesn’t really matter your source if you want to spread terror, just that it activate the sensors. (which are far more common than people realize. Bridges, tunnels, overpasses, lots of places have monitoring…)
nick
Medical waste would be good, too.
The massive dust cloud would make several city blocks unusable for years.
Not really. There have been dirty bomb tests done in the past. https://strategypage.com/htmw/htchem/articles/20160316.aspx
If you don’t have that, you’re better off with biologicals. A few years in college or studying the theory and then a couple years OJT in a lab and a million dollars or so and you, too, can be an unlicensed biological researcher. Be the first kid on your block to have a DNA synthesizer!
The problem is how to disperse the bioagent. There are very few highly contagious bioagents and figuring out how to disperse them is the problem. Weaponizing, say anthrax, is not trivial and is probably out of the reach of non-state actors. In the long term, your home DNA tinkering is a threat but it’s doubtful a terrorist group would have the time and patience to pull off such a weapon.
NBC warfare is harder than people think – ISIS tried to use a mustard gas shell against a US base and it didn’t work. And gas shells are a 1910 technology.
Getting listeria into the food supply isn’t too hard. It happens all the time on accident.
As more potential bad actors become part of the population, more will be involved in jobs with exposure to sabotage. Just look at the reports of watch list people who are none the less working at AIRPORTS.
Spritzing something on fresh produce isn’t too hard….
n
Ha! Not the response I was expecting. Startled a chuckle out of me, a rare feat.
Eh? First I’ve heard of that.
… Ah. Fairly recent. Not covered in any of the American news headlines I’ve glanced at in the past week. Odd, that.
US policy for about 60 years has been that any use of weapons of mass destruction against Americans would be met with a nuclear response. I guess there’ll be reports of low-yield nuclear explosions in caliphate territory real soon. … Or that would be the case, if the piece of shit infesting the White House weren’t a dickless islamorrhoid.
I don’t know anything about mustard gas. Well, the basics from the perspective of what to do if you’re on the receiving end, but I don’t know anything about using it. I do know a little something about nerve gas shells produced by the USSR in the 1960s to 70s or 80s, and distributed in limited numbers to their friends. Glass containers within the shell break when it’s fired, letting the binary components mix and become deadly. Relatively shelf stable. Relatively safe for idiot troops to use. Subject to the usual USSR quality control problems. And, as is usually the case, that’s about all I can say on this topic.
@ech, don’t think traditional warfare and the possibilities expand.
for example, it’s not traditional chemical warfare but what would happen if even something as simple as ammonia was released into the air handlers at a ball game? Or 50 gallons of chlorine? One blue barrel looks like any other blue barrel. And the cleaning firms hired to work unsupervised at night aren’t exactly running background checks on minimum wage employees.
Add a couple of people tweeting about poisongas or chemicalattack and you’ve got a right mess on your hands.
Anyway, there’re a million ways to monkey wrench a technological high trust society. We’re fortunate that the adversary doesn’t have a ton of imagination, and usually has difficulty executing on even tried and true techniques. We HAVE seen them begin to combine techniques and that is worrying.
nick
added- counting on the stupidity of your adversary or his continued ignorance and incompetence isn’t a good long term strategy.
All great comments above. The gooberment’s answer to all this: “We need to expande the TSA so we can put goons at train and bus stations.”
One of tRumps moments of lucidity during the debate was “we’ve spent trillions in the Middle East. A waste of money.” So wha’t Odooshnozzle gonna do? 500 more “advisors” to Iraq. More drone strikes. More billions spent with no results.
but what’s the easiest to get? Medical waste. In the public mind, radiation is radiation.
@nick, you do know that there is a 100 kWe nuclear reactor about 10 miles away from your home, right ? The Med Center got one when they had the uh-oh at the TAMU reactor and let the pool dry out.
There was a little one at the first university I attended. I’m not too worried. But I didn’t know about one in the medical center….
I’m more worried about stuff like the huge chemical warehouse fire we had in Spring Branch a few months ago. Huge clouds of god knows what billowing away. Bayou running red with the run-off from fighting the fire. And given the lack of zoning, that metal building in the middle of the block could have literally anything in it…
nick
And given the lack of zoning, that metal building in the middle of the block could have literally anything in it…
The City of Houston has pretty strict hazmat regulations for commercial establishments with setbacks from residential areas, etc.
As for ammonia, a tanker truck full of it ruptured at the busiest intersection in Houston with minimal casualties not caused by the wreck.
I don’t count on the ignorance or stupidity of opponents – but I don’t overlook the obstacles. NBC warfare is still a state actor affair. That could change for the biological side, but the others are hard.
(BTW, anyone see that they have announced that the fertilizer plant explosion in West that killed 15 was sabotage. No word on suspects.)