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"Don't Be Evil" motto ... But how large a portion of "evil" is Google now comfortable with?

You know the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock? Let's do something similar with Google.

Let's have Google change their homepage so that the more evil they get, the more UPPER CASE LETTERS appear on their search page.

And the best thing is: it's hosted by GOOGLE so we KNOW that it's accurate! (...or was that too subtle?)

Onagawa plant article is very insteresting.

It explain how a more stressed nuclear plant on the sea shore hadn't catastrophic consequences after the tsunami:
Safety culture impulsed by a man.

Onagawa was only 123 kilometers away from the epicenter—60 kilometers closer than Fukushima Daiichi—and the difference in seismic intensity at the two plants was negligible. Furthermore, the tsunami was bigger at Onagawa, reaching a height of 14.3 meters, compared with 13.1 meters at Fukushima Daiichi. The difference in outcomes at the two plants reveals the root cause of Fukushima Daiichi’s failures: the utility’s corporate “safety culture.”
[...]
Yanosuke Hirai, vice president of Tohoku Electric from 1960 to 1975—a time period that preceded the 1980 groundbreaking at Onagawa—was adamant about safety protocols and became a member of the Coastal Institution Research Association in 1963 because of his concern about the importance of protecting against natural disasters. With a senior employee in upper management advocating forcefully for safety, a strong safety culture formed within the company.

See what they did in Onagawa in the article: plant built on higher ground, five times the estimated average tsunami height, plus tsunami response aware teams.
Tepco did the oposite: "to make it easier to transport equipment and to save construction costs, in 1967 [they] removed 25 meters from the 35-meter natural seawall of the Daiichi plant site" !!!

This is a great article that discusses the physics behind energy storage, and why hydrocarbons are so hard to beat in some areas.

http://www.thebulletin.org/limits-energy-storage-technology

Would the United States ever actually use nuclear weapons? http://thebulletin.org/would-united-states-ever-actually-use-nuclear-weapons# would suggest that targets and reasons for the use of the US nuclear weapons are rather limited and the perhaps the US has an over abundance of kit in the post Cold War era.

This is the kind of "scrutiny" they're talking about, BTW.

http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/lessons-not-learned-insider-threats-pathogen-research

Both determined that intrusive monitoring of microbiologists engaged in unclassified research would not necessarily increase protection against insider threats and rejected broad adoption of procedures that scientists and military personnel who work with nuclear weapons and fissile material must endure, such as random testing for alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, or amphetamines; observation of off-duty behavior; video monitoring of laboratory activity; annual psychological assessments; or mandatory privacy waivers to allow supervisors to review mental health treatment records.

Since you didn't read the articles posted, lemme try again. The whole point of this post is that Reif is saying they would make us safer.

RTFA NOOB

As others have said, hydrocarbons have a great energy density. This excellent article discusses the issue.

http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/kurt-zenz-house/the-limits-of-energy-storage-technology

http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/kurt-zenz-house/the-limits-of-energy-storage-technology

The maximum theoretical potential of advanced lithium-ion batteries that haven't yet been demonstrated to work is still only about 6 percent of crude oil."

The term "anthropologist" and its modern context and funding in the USA can be very interesting.
Terms like "Human Terrain program" should offer some counterinsurgency warfare insight vs the projected "global humanitarians".
http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/hugh-gusterson/the-us-militarys-quest-to-weaponize-culture
The "deep hanging out" "earning their trust" "getting them to tell us about their worlds" are the classic opening moves.
David Price has a good book on this called Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in the Service of the Militarized State that might help.
What was once seen as college hacking, computer games, a better door lock, old movie quotes, 6 years of French and an interest in Lua, a better wheelchair interface, faster servers, community wifi, crypto is now seen by many in the US military as a new front on an internal political battlefield, - great for funding, contractors and advancement.
First you get the funding for understanding. After understanding comes influtration.
Another aspect to understanding is for internal testing. You do not want your next young crypto expert back home or in the field to ever have doubts no matter the material they are exposed to.
You want to keep your geeks happy and enjoying a living wage. Cash or an understanding of humanity from foreign embassies might fill the void in their lives wrt contractors pay or one too many night raids.
It took some time for the UK and US to understand their staff and just how and why they got turned.

Just signed up this morning (Saturday).

Same here.

Be nice if they could post the reminder by the beginning of the day, rather than after 5 PM. Maybe we should be happy they didn't wait until 5 minutes before midnight?

"A friend of mine, who worked in the emergency room, saw me in the waiting room. He took me aside, gave me 500 grams of pure alcohol, and told me to drink that. I drank it and washed it down with water. Then I called my wife and told her I was O.K. Later on, the doctors told me that the alcohol, which I drank on an empty stomach, helped me a lot". - Nikolai Gorbachenko, a Chernobyl plant radiation monitor in http://www.thebulletin.org/files/May-June%201996_Chernobyl-Kiselyov.pdf

Look at the current "doomsday clock". They claim that we are closer to nuclear annihilation today than we were in 1960, at the height of the cold war.

The Doomsday Clock doesn't always count down, you know.

I wonder what effect this will have on the Doomsday Clock?

The future of nuclear power, if there is any, is something like a pebble bed reactor...

The trouble with pebble bed reactors is that the pebble removal system wears and jams. In most reactors, there are no moving parts inside the reactor vessel other than the control rods. Pebble bed reactors are continuously adding and removing billiard-ball sized "pebbles", making for a much more complex mechanical system within the hot, corrosive and radioactive environment inside the reactor core. The German AVR reactor failed for this reason.

The good thing about pressurized-water reactors is that what's inside the reactor is mechanically simple and uses non-volatile materials. There's no extremely flammable liquid sodium (as in sodium cooled reactors), no liquid fluorine (as in thorium reactors), and no flammable graphite (as at Chernoybl).

* Turkey is one of five European nations that continue to house U.S. tactical nuclear weapons allocated for NATO.
* The weapons, however, are no longer integral to the NATO military mission. In fact, their readiness posture is such that it would take months to prepare them for battle.
* Nonetheless, it will be difficult to remove them from Turkey given Ankara's concerns about the Iranian nuclear program and its somewhat strained relationship with the United States.

And they'd be hard to remove from Turkey precisely because of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Remember how everyone was panicking about the 151 deaths from swine flu when it first started? Everyone trumpeted that number. You don't hear them being equally loud about admitting that the number was totally bogus, that the actual death toll was 7! Gee, I wonder why? Oh, maybe because it would make them look stupid and ruin their credibility the next time they tried to pull some more numbers out their rectums?

A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.

Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease.

"Unfortunately that [150-plus deaths] is incorrect information and it does happen, but that's not information that's come from the World Health Organisation," Ms Allan told ABC Radio today.

All the numbers since then have been equally unreliable. For example, its been admitted that in many subsequent "H1N1" cases, no test was done to verify if the patient actually had swine flu, because of the cost and time involved. This isn't just in the developing world, either - the US has stopped counting.

Also, there's no indication that H1N1 is any more fatal than any other flu - indeed, the worst estimate puts it the same as any other flu, and that may be over-hyped because many people may get a mild case of H1N1 and recover on their own, further lowering the death rate. It's extremely unlikely (to the point of flat-out impossible) that every person who got it went to a hospital and was tested. Tose most at risk - the fat slobs, the morbidly obese who are already most at risk, and will probably die of something else if H1N1 doesn't finish them off, but the true cause of their demise isn't H1N1 - it's that extra 13 meals a day.

Of course, it's been all hype right from the beginning, as others have pointed out, to deaf ears: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Stirring up "swine flu" hysteria http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/laura-h-kahn/stirring-swine-flu-hysteria

People simply don't want to know the truth, because it doesn't give them that frison of fear - this "epidemic" isn't any worse than a regular flu outbreak, and it's certainly not either swine or avian flu, based on its' genetic code, so really, let's all take a chill pill, follow the money to see who's benefiting from the hype, and kick them in the nuts.

" ... So far US, UK, Russia, France, China, and maybe Israel all have nuclear weapons capability. ..."

US, Russia, France, the UK, and China built and tested nukes around 50 or more years ago; the testing is considered important when you talk about who has and who does not have the capability to wage nuclear war. It's not a coincidence that these are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council ... it was essentially the card you needed to be invited to the party (China was invited late).

Since then, three others have tested weapons, which is the gold standard for whether they have nukes ... in other words, you can't lie about it. That is India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

I see you include Israel, which is in another category where they are widely believed to have nukes, some people in high places actually know the answer for sure one way or another, but they deny they do and have not tested a weapon, making it clearly possible to lie about it.

For some time South Africa was in the same category, but they have voluntarily dismantled the six bombs they had at one time assembled, and like Israel they have never tested a weapon. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have relinquished the bombs they inherited as a result of their owning collective property, including military equipment, in the old USSR.

The above list is the one agreed upon by the US State Department, amongst others. But, there are other lists with other criteria.

Then there is the list of countries that are considered capable of building and deploying a nuclear weapon within six months time or less (1), but for whatever reason have not built any. That includes nations with mature domestic nuclear industries and large amounts of weapons-grade material like Japan, Germany and Canada, and a few that have might be able to build one, or might not, like Brazil, which has voluntarily moved all it's weapons-grade material out of the country (less than 1 Kg remains, not enough to build a nuke).

There are currently 40 non-nuclear nations with available bomb-making material on hand in the form of highly-enriched uranium, and that includes at least one in every continent save Antarctica. Some consider any nation with nuclear power facilities to be nuclear capable, which is a bit of a stretch in my mind, but if you agree, that's 44 nations.

Pakistan is the source of most of North Korea's nuclear bomb-making ability, and it's well documented, not Iran as at least one poster here suggested. Pakistan recently (9th February 09) released Abdel Qadeer Khan, the architect of Pakistan's nuclear program, from house arrest, which he was under for five years as punishment for selling nuclear secrets to North Korea (as well as a few others). At roughly the same time the United States imposed sanctions on Khan, 12 other individuals, and three companies. The United States claims that these individuals and companies are part of "an extensive network" under Khan's direction that offered or may still offer in exchange for money "one-stop" shopping for countries aspiring to have nuclear weapons.

There are about 27,000 built and presumably working nuclear weapons on Earth with around 2.000 deployed in missile launchers available for immediate use worldwide.

(1) According to the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists based at the University of Chicago, the same people with the Doomsday Clock. You know they've been at it a while because they use "Atomic" instead of "Nuclear" in their name ;-)

Links:
http://www.thebulletin.org/
http://www.cnsnews.com/Public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=43235

People have proposed something similar as a solution to global warming, e.g. aerosol geoengineering. Basically, artificial volcanoes. It would work insofar as it can be used to modify the global average temperature (which is not the whole of climate). It has a number of potentially severe drawbacks (written by the same guy whose nuclear winter research I linked).

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and their Doomsday Clock, it is 5 Minutes to Midnight:
http://www.thebulletin.org/minutes-to-midnight/

They also mention the main non-nuclear threats like global warming and the other WMDs.

http://www.thebulletin.org/minutes-to-midnight/

How many of you folks actually remember this thing?

I'd really like to see him disable the 7800 warheads Russia is rumoured to have all at the same time. http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn= ja04norris

I wonder why...

Exxon-Mobil announces that PEAK OIL is coming in 5 years:
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj0 5cavallo

Mind you, this is a major oil corporation, not some environmentalist "whacko" group...

You only have to look at Hiroshima & Nagasaki to know that countries with nuclear weapons are extremely dangerous. There's a reason that the Doom's Day Clock exists and stands at seven minutes to midnight and that reason is to remind people that are deluding themselves that eventually someone is going to use these things. We all are on the edge of extinction. So please, don't make light of the harsh reality.

Bush has actually reduced US nuclear warheads by about 25% since coming into office. That's why there are no MX missiles (aka 'Peacekeeper' missiles) anymore. link

Of course, it's not really mentioned in the media. People opposed to nuclear weapons don't want to say anything that could be construed as favoring Bush. And at the same time, the Republicans don't want it mentioned either, since to their political base they could appear weak on defense.

The ROK does want unification with the DPRK, as seen for their support for the Sunshine Policy. However they do realize that an instant unification would be an economic disaster. Germany likewise took an economic hit when it unified. Even today, the east still lags behind the west in economic growth. With the DPRK being in a much worse situation than the GDR was in 1990, we could expect the impact on the ROK, both immediate and lasting, to be far greater.

I don't believe Japan sees the ROK as a military threat. Furthermore, it is unlikely that a nuclear democratic unified Korea, would remain nuclear for long. The ROK does have a nuclear weapons program., however it is primarily focused at countering the nuclear threat from the DPRK. If unification would occur with the ROK absorbing the DPRK, that the ROK would denuclearize.

Japan's nuclear intentions are much more indoubt, since it would require a constitutional amendment. The Japanese like Section 9 of their consitituion. However, it many ways it has outlived its purpose. Japan is not a militant culture anymore, and the region has become much less stable. Japan's purpose for a nuke would to counter the DPRK nuclear threat. Once the DPRK nuclear threat is eliminated, then the need would be eliminated, and I suspect Japan would denuclearize.

The truth is, if Japan wanted a nuke, they could have one in a year. The question is whether or not they want one. Even the Japanese don't have an answer to that question.

The key mistake in your nuclear analysis is that you assume that the only consideration for a country is who in their neighborhood has a nuke. It's not. It's who in their neighborhood is likely to attack them with a nuke. The ROK isn't going to attack anyone, let alone Japan, so there's no reason for Japan to nuclearize in light of a a nuclear democratic Korea. There's already a parallel to this with Japan's historic rival, China. China already has nuclear weapons, and yet Japan has failed to nuclearize. Why haven't they? Because, they know China won't attack them.

Does anyone know what effect this test might have on the Doomsday Clock?

We are sitting at 7 minutes to midnight. Will the clock change?

What about China? Current thinking is that China has less than 400 nuclear weapons. However, most of those are based at fixed sites, unfueled and their warheads in storage. In otherwords, China would not survive a first strike (its fixed sites would be hit) and does not have the to capacity to launch an effective first strike.

Those nukes that the soviets had are still out there, and many of them are still pointed at you and I. Man is closer today than at the height of the cold war to global thermonuclear war, and the dated russian computer systems are still on hairtrigger alert. We are one computer error away from ending mankind, or 7 minutes if you take the standard measurement.

Based upon credible assessments from This article china has 18 unfueled ICBMS and a few nuclear submarines (which can launch one warhead each) at its disposal capable of delivering a relatively small number of nuclear bombs against the us. Compared to Russia, Many EU nations, the all powerfull US, china is a weak nuclear power.

Could be worse. FEMA could "practice" Operation SCATANA. LOL

Well, the article got a few little facts wrong, but it was pretty good. It is just a re-write of http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,660700 ,00.html, but this article has more details http://www.mojones.com/news/feature/1994/01/fema.h tml. Here is a less biased article http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=nd0 1schwartz

FEMA will also be conducting tests of GETS 710-627-4387 access codes and coordinating with ham radio shortwave volunteers. (Do not call that number or the FBI will knock on your door) I hope they test NAWAS.

Raven Rock and Mount Weather will not be the only US underground areas busy during the drill. Olney, Maryland, will be busy also.

But, I would be worried if the Russians also have a June 19 drill at Yamantau Mountain in the Urals.

The National Guards and port authorities will also be coordinating efforts.

Odd, I can't find the code name for this June 19 drill and it is not mentioned on the FEMA calendar.

By the way, Iran is not planning on performing a traditional nuking of Washington DC. Iran is planning on performing an EMP attack that will wipe out almost all electronics in the US.

Such disaster preparations are important not just for nuclear attacks, but for events such as pandemic and asteroids. Rumor says that someone at NASA has reopened Project Orion, for lifting the US equivalent to the Tsar Bomba. Bye bye asteroid.

A nice long list under "Laser allure'

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ma0 5boureston

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists should advance its Doomsday Clock toward midnight. The cheaper enrichment of nuclear bomb isotopes just advances the entropic spread of nuclear weapons and increases the likelihood of a nuclear detonation or war.

It is ironically funny that they all justify what they are doing as being for power production. Anyone out of diapers knows it is nuclear bomb technology whether it is being developed by Iran or Australia.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists site: http://www.thebulletin.org/doomsday_clock/timeline .htm

It's been around for over 20 years. What's new is that the Aussies appear to be commercialising it.

The US and France are rumored to have tested Neptunium bombs, and the Energy Department has declassified materials that say it's possible.

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ma9 9rothstein

And bonus; Americium bombs!

However, you're right; things are changing because of that book.

Teller always gets credit for the US fusion bomb, but Stanislaw Ulam is thought my many to deserve it more. Chalk that up to Teller's oversized ego. Here is an interersting article.

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so0 0richelson

and more at

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=nd0 3moore

I wonder how the rest of the world will react to this?
Will they go 'big' and race to the moon?
Or go smart and do more with less?

In capitalist west US military maps moon.
In Soviet Union KGB maps your room.

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so0 0richelson

and more at

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=nd0 3moore

I wonder how the rest of the world will react to this?
Will they go 'big' and race to the moon?
Or go smart and do more with less?

In capitalist west US military maps moon.
In Soviet Union KGB maps your room.

Care to back that statement up, neocon? As far as I know, they've claimed to develop a peaceful, civil nuclear program to generate power.

I'd say you haven't been paying attention. While it is true that the negotiation stance of the Iranian government has always been to make the (laughable, in light of their specific acquisitions and actions) claim that they are only pursuing peaceful nuclear arms, it is as true that representatives of the Iranian government have been much more direct about their goals when speaking to audiences within the Islamic world:

• Outgoing Iranian President Rafsanjani, in a speech at Tehran University on December 14, 2001, called for the `Islamic World' to develop nuclear weapons for use against Israel, noting that ``"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world''
• Hassan Ruwhani, Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, has stated explicitly that "The reason that Iran becomes signatory to international conventions is to pave the way for access to modern technology which developed countries have made commitments to provide."
• The destruction of the state of Israel, by any means necessary, has repeatedly been stated as a vital policy goal of the Iranian regime, from the first generation of Iranian leaders such as Khomeini (``Every Muslim has a duty to prepare himself for battle against Israel.'') to`reformers' such as former president Khatami (``"We should mobilize the whole Islamic World for a sharp confrontation with the Zionist regime. If we abide by the Qur'an, all of us should mobilize to kill.'') through the current leadership, such as president, Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be ``wiped off the map''.

All of which is pretty much a moot point, however. As you yourself, in a desperate attempt to have it both ways, point out, no one really believes Iran's nuclear aims are purely peaceful. Such groups as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (hardly a bunch of raving right-wingers, after all!) have documented Iran's quest for dual use and purely military technologies at great length. So the question remains, unanswered by you: Do you really believe Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons? Or do you really not have a problem with them doing so? Or are you merely seeking to have it both ways, wanting them not to have such weapons while also wishing to condemn anyone who shares your concerns as being ideologically impure?

Well?

Mayak, where the Soviet Union pumped out tens of tons of plutonium for nuclear weapons. Some info on how the Soviets fixed the 'it got stuck' problems - no fancy robots for them. http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so9 9larin "A complete repair would have taken at least 12 months..." ""That meant that the irradiated uranium fuel had to be pulled up by hand into the central hall of the reactor and placed in a special storage area. Then, when the repair was finished, the elements had to be loaded back into the reactor. Over time, we unloaded and reloaded 39,000 fuel elements. All of the plant's personnel took part in this work and they received huge doses of radiation. The repairs were finished in two months." "several hundred kilograms of freshly irradiated nuclear fuel got stuck--men from everywhere in the plant were called out, and one after another they used long steel rods to push the elements into the apparatus. The only protection they had was cotton overalls and gloves."

Well, he had a worthy predecessor: Nixon and his belief in the Madman Theory of foreign policy. Not that it really worked when tried out. For a fascinating write-up, see this article.

France has consistently rejected the adoption of a "no first-use" posture. Paris sees nuclear retaliation as consistent with the right to self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. It also asserts that countries that do not respect their own non-proliferation commitments should not expect negative security assurances (granted in 1995 by nuclear weapons states to non-nuclear members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty) to apply to them, thus implicitly subscribing to the norms of "belligerent reprisals" that also underpin U.S. and British nuclear doctrines.

We are at a critical moment in human history--perhaps not as dramatic as that of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but a moment no less crucial. Neither the Bush administration, the congress, the American people, nor the people of other nations have debated the merits of alternative, long-range nuclear weapons policies for their countries or the world. They have not examined the military utility of the weapons; the risk of inadvertent or accidental use; the moral and legal considerations relating to the use or threat of use of the weapons; or the impact of current policies on proliferation. Such debates are long overdue. If they are held, I believe they will conclude, as have I and an increasing number of senior military leaders, politicians, and civilian security experts: We must move promptly toward the elimination--or near elimination--of all nuclear weapons. For many, there is a strong temptation to cling to the strategies of the past 40 years. But to do so would be a serious mistake leading to unacceptable risks for all nations.

Just to argue with you a little, you might want to read this:
Exxon Mobil predicts that non-opec oil will be in a terminal plateau or decline within FIVE YEARS. check this report from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj0 5cavallo