Slashdot Mirror
"H-Bomb Secret" Now Online
DrDNA writes "In 1979, the US Government sued Howard Morland, Erwin Knoll and Sam Day at The Progressive Magazine for prior restraint over the planned publication of 'The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It--Why We're Telling It,' citing national security. Six months later, a Federal appeals court vacated the restraining order on publication, and the article was published. There's an interview about the case with George Stanford, of Argonne National Lab, Illinois, a technical adviser for the Progressive Magazine. After all this time, the Progressive article is now online (4Mb pdf)."
Someone set them up the bomb.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
For the Orange alert. Thanks for helping the terrorists!
FYI Americans, we are now at Orange Alert. There is a higher level of indication now than ever that SOMETHING is going to happen. Before, we were on Yellow Alert, so it was possible that something was going to happen, but now we are Orange, meaning that it is slightly more likely that something is going to happen. When something happens, we will go to Red Alert, indicating that something has happened, but until that time, we will remain at Orange alert.
Be Prepared Americans, Something May Happen Today!
"After all this time, the Progressive article is now online"
Not for long.
It's one thing to crush the server, but the least we can do is look at some ads while we do it.
Yawn.
If you read only the first page of only one article posted to Slashdot this year, make it this one. I don't think I've ever seen a more eloquent, and relevant, defense of the First Amendment.
Somebody will eventually post that we should not publish this information because other countries will get it and thus be able to create nuclear weapons.
Of course, this is bull. But I found this quote from the article puts it best:
GS: It should by now be clear to everyone that in the past we
relied far too much on secrecy. We arrogantly assumed that we
were the only ones who could develop nuclear weapons, and that
therefore we could retain our monopoly. That kept us from
pursuing international arrangements that might have held the
nuclear arms race under some sort of control.
I don't wanna dive into a political rant here, but I think the balance of power, combat, and international discussion is vital to keeping the world safe from the threat of nuclear war.
Speaking of the history of the H-Bomb, a great read on the subject is the mammoth Pulitzer Prize winning book The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. He also wrote Deadly Feasts which I enjoyed even more.
Seemed kinda slow... So I mirrored it. Go ahead and /. it as much as you want. Fortunately, I managed to grab it before you bastards killed their server.... Now I have to RTFA.
Check it out!
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Now we'll have some smartass high school student making an h-bomb in his toolshed, just to show how smart he is. Some things are better left secret, and I think this is one of them. I'm all for the freedom of information in most cases, but I do not believe my neighbors and the billions of people across the world that hate the United States should have access to this kind of information. I know everyone will have nukes eventually, I just hope it doesn't happen until my (future) children can grow up and lead productive lives. Let's not blow the planet up just yet. I happen to like it.
There are plenty around the world you are "free" to move to if you wish to be a possession of the state. May I suggest China?
of the preface to the article.
Yawn.
the feeling of destroying national security in the name of freedom.
Some principles are worth living and fighten, some are even worth dying for.
I see that three years of brainwashing finally paid off.
It's certainly better than destroying freedom in the name of national security.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
Of the Radioactive Boyscount who built a nuclear reactor in his shed from uranium paint you find on antiques
meridian at tha.net
GA: At the end of the trial, the Progressive magazine lost a
small fortune, even though it managed to get the Morland article
published without censor. Essentially, it was a case of limited
private funds versus a bottomless pot of Government gold
I'm not sure where I stand on the article and its attempted censorship, but I am somewhat amused that one of its authors said the above. Doesn't it sound *exactly* like a typical right-wing diatribe against the government? The article in question was in the well known *leftist* magazine "The Progressive".
Re-tooled as an introduction to Microsoft's linux survey:
It should by now be clear to everyone that in the past we relied far too much on secrecy. We arrogantly assumed that we were the only ones who could develop computer operating systems and software, and that therefore we could retain our monopoly. That kept us from pursuing international arrangements that might have held the upsurge on linux under some sort of control.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
You are ?15? years too late. That movie has been done...
Best use of dishwashing detergent and remote control cars that I have ever seen...
Anybody remember all the mutant clover?
http://www.uselessmoviequotes.com/umq_m005.htm
In 1979, The Progressive publishes an article on how to build H-bombs, and our courts hold that our right to free speech is so strong that the government can't do anything to stop the article. Barely 20 years later, Dimitri Sklyarov is arrested for publishing a program that reads copy-protected PDF files. Clearly, copyright infringement is a greater threat to humanity--or at least to politicians' campaign contributions--than H-bombs are.
Can you really stop people thinking ??? Do you really take the rest of the world that retarded that no other physicist than the US could come up with the "recept" ? If you read the article you might see that *FOUR* nation came up *INDEPENDANTLY* onto the recept.
Frankly once you know this *IS* feasible, as a physicist then you can come up with a solution. that then the engineereer can work upon and come up with an effective device.
Secrety is worthless in nuclear weapon run. Only experience and engineering is somethign worth.
As the article author I wish US , France , Russia and China would have worked together on stoping nuclear proliferation thru treaty , because as we may now observe every country which have money to spend on engineering can get the bomb (Pakistan, India, N-K maybe and whoever else).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets
After actually downloading the article and reading the forbidden pages it seems to me that there are many things that need to be made a little clear to those who will comment without ever reading an iota of the article itself.
First off, Osama Bin Laden does not celebrate christmas. Christmas is a christian holliday in which the Muslim community does not celebrate. This does not mean that all Muslims are terrorists just as it means not all catholics are repbuclicans. While Osama Bin Laden himself has been behind some of the worlds worst acts of terrorism, this should not reflect on all Muslims, and a bit of respect for other religions should be in place, but that would be a matter of decency and humanity.
Secondly the article itself states that this is in no means a "how-to". Reading this article will do nothing in comparison to going to school to learn about physics and chemistry. The article helps put in lamens terms what exactly is done with the creation of such devices. If you notice this article was supressed during the peak of the cold war. At a time when the US Government was playing shadow games by providing tidbits of information for mass consumption but never enough meat to chew on.
The government supressed this to make it seem that there was a large amount of complicated procedures and research being placed in their weapons of mass destruction and that they could load these weapons on the same rockets that sent men into space and ahniliate an entire Soviet city at will. Fair to say that creating an H-Bomb is in fact something that is not at all an easily accomplishment to undertake. While it may be possible to obtain the parts neccessary it still requires someone with a vast amount of knowledge to place all the ingredients together.
I don't think that Al Qaeda or any other terrorist faction will ever be able to design such weapons. I do however think that with the fall of the soviet union and other countries in massive recession that are in fact nuclear that they may be able to purchase said nuclear weapons of mass destruction. So did this article send us to code level orangish red? Nope, but something sure did.
I am not a sympathist by any means for terrorists or freedom fighters who surpass diplomatic measures to accomplish their goals by bringing death and destruction in its place. These people have lost a sense of equality and humanity and are in fact extremely horrible evil people. Should science be supressed because of fears, should we stop manufacturing cars because they are accessories to crimes (bank robberies, car bombs, etc.) NO.
Scientific innovations can be used for good or can be used for bad, it is a matter of the beholder of the information as to what will happen with it. This article meerly suggests that there is a procedure and massive science behind weapons of mass destruction, which is apparent that they are not meant to be used for good, yet will be used for killing and destruction. Think of the good the reasearch itself could be done if only the knowledge was used for good, and not as a weapon to bring death and destruction.
I think this is a prime example of how science for the sake of death is not good, but without the nuclear program we wouldn't have nuclear power. Without a means to deliever said weapons of mass destruction, we wouldn't have a space program. How a redundant communication line for launching said weapons could be used to create the network which has become the worlds internet. There is obviously positive ramifications for the research and design of these technologies, but does that excuse the original intent of the death and destruction even if it was never used to date for such a thing?
Short of WWII with Japan there has never been a nuclear attack on anyone from anyone in the world. Yet we as americans with our democratic control are responsible for this destruction of property and life, and we did it through our research and science.
Will our children forgive us, or curse us?
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
With all the whining about national security, I was expecting to see detailed blueprints. But instead we get poor quality diagrams. Hell, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, real plans for tested models are probably available on the international arms market for the right price, or even surplus parts. Or you can just pick them up from France, Sudan, or on the black market in Iraq.
I saw better diagrams in highschool textbooks from that era. Go to a use book store. The theory has been out there, but the precision parts and the highly toxic and radioactive components are just a trifle hard to come by.
I know that you alarmists believe that the local militia is going to hurry over to Ace Hardware and get all the supplies tonight to be the first one on the block to have their own H-Bomb. Can't let those Pinkoes and Furriners beat them to it.
fcuk you, you fcuking sob
With the internet, and the abililty to transmit knowledge anonymously, without repercussions, people will be able to leak information about things like genetic engineering, and eventally some madman will create a horrible disease that will kill everyone and everything.
This secret getting out is just a sign of what is to come.
Slashdot did what the gov't couldn't, they've censored the site. The site is down now, is the document mirrored anywhere?
Radioactive Boy's Cunt?
...right clicking on PDF link....saving as...
DAMN IT!!! Slashdotted already. Oh well, should have known.
I would be nice if Slashdot had it's own P2P program available for all to share the goodies.
Life is not for the lazy.
..is no secret....you need to smart/rich enough to develop, anyone thinking the H-bomb being a secret (or any nuclear/biological/chemical bombs) is kinda stupid.
Damn, just thinking...
are the alert levels rising because pherhaps someone will "give back" some of those NuclearBiologicalChemical weapons to the US (which is among one of those "rich/smart enough" to have developed and sold those weapons besides France and Germany)
?
Damn, many US administrators, I guess, can not comprehend you should not make money off of everything
(maybe selling those Weapons of Mass Deception is a lot less harmfull).
Merry Xmas
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
"Orange alert? Are you absolutely sure sir? It does mean changing the bulb!"
I don't think the founding fathers made the 1st amendment so we could legally blow the earth fucking up.
To give up our principles is to give in to the terrorists. Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld and Blunkett are the most serious menace facing western democracy at the moment. I don't know the mind of Bin Laden and his evil helpers, but it is entirely possible that the World Trade Center would not have been attacked if signatories to the project for the new american century were not in control of the world's most powerful military and commercial machine.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
I annyone survives the prosses of makig an a bomb using that as a manual i be suprized. its more an way of saying that its not likley annyone can ewer can make annything like an a bomb in ther basement. I salute the men who made this article to get the public what its all about. ( and there is no way in hell you nebor is making one) PS you can however still get on on the black market.
I for one would rather be dead that to put up with this nonsense much longer. Life is short, I'd rather enjoy it than be building a bomb shelter or masking my house with duck tape...
...you beowulf cluster of insensitive clods.
cmon guys, we need more slashdotters to crush their server into dust...
One of my professors was sued by the riaa for trying to publish a paper on SDMI. When they were threatening to sue he would always joke that he should have just been a physicist and published a paper on how to build a nuclear bomb, because we all know that at least that is legal.
--aiee
you mean just as fucking dead as all those Iraqi policemen killed by US soldiers?
I think you must be living in a time warp. The only 'rouge' states left are Cuba, China and N. Korea. It's nonsense to think of any of them attacking western democracy. If you mean rogue states, I am sorry to say I live in one of them; Blair completely flouted international law when he joined Bush on his crusade in the Persian Gulf.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
I don't know if I would care. After all I would be dead. I don't know if I care anymore period. I for one am getting kind of sick of this weak minded administration. I can't wait until they get the FUCK out of "my" country...
Even if this particular article hasn't previously been available you could always visit nuclearweaponarchive.org to find out the principles behind a Teller-Ulam bomb (and much else, besides). It won't give you the non-deducible R&D results, but neither does this article (in fact, even the Progressive argues that these should not be publically divulged).
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
People always get that quote wrong.
Captain: What happen?
Operator: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
I know it doesn't sound right, but that's how poorly translated it was.
is this:9 /235522 5&mode=thread&tid=99
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/2
which references www.portchicago.org
The howtos of thermonuclear are all out there in userland; this _old news_ Progressive article doesn't help much. The above links are _FAR_ more useful, IYAM(AIAAP). (If You Ask Me, And I Am A Physicist.)
NT
Aha! What more perfect a way to protect the article from downloads than to slashdot it! Brilliant plan by the governmment!
All your base are belong to us.
please set up more mirrors, for obvious reasons!
At the risk of being labeled off-topic, let me get this straight. Are you saying that "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" can be objectively limited to "automatic assault rifles with clips that hold over ten rounds"?? It's amazing how broadly liberals define the first amendment and how narrowly they define the second one...I really don't see how anyone who supports strict gun control can also wish to publish H-bomb info. It seems sort of hypocritical.
The file is slashdotted. Here is a .torrent so all you bittorrent users (that should be all of you by now) can get it.
The trouble is, now these terrorists will know that they can hogtie the FBI and who knows how many government lawyers in a colossal waste of time simply by threatening to publish news!
We do not need this calamity confounding our precious givernement custodians of truth and prosperity. This is a windfall for the terrorists and a sad day for true Americans everywhere.
Infuriate left and right
Thank God those days are behind us. The 21st century is a much more enlightened time.
Sadly, consolidation of the media and reduced competition will make them more likely to roll over on things like this in the future.
You have to love right-wing reactionaries who absolutely must jump down the throats of anybody who even makes a statement that could be construed as a vague reference to the possibility of gun control.
Please read my post again. I did not, and will not, say anything about the constitutionality or correctness of gun control. I merely stated that "automatic assault rifles with clips that hold over ten rounds" is a completely objective criterion. Give the same gun to two completely different people with completely different backgrounds and they will come up with the same answer to the question, "Does this gun conform to this rule?" Whereas any censorship of speech necessarily comes from subjective criteria; it is inherent in the nature of speech. Subjective criteria are much more dangerous, because they can easily be twisted by the enforcers of the law.
Also, at the risk of starting a flame war, the first amendment is more important than the second. It is more important than the entire rest of the bill of rights combined. Without the right to speak out about injustice, none of your other rights are worth anything. Again, I'm not going to actually go into my position on gun control because that is completely off-topic, but given the choice between the two, I'd choose the first amendment over the second any day, any time, any place.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I dont know if Osama Bin Laden celebrate christmas but a lot of muslims do. Dont forget that Jesus is a prophet to them, only second to Muhhamad.
are you sure it's a chick?
Nowadays we are into multi-culturalism, and besides, there are now many immigrants from India in various walks of life in American society, and then there was George Harrison and all of that, so the comfort level with Indian culture and Hindu religious icons is much better these days. But back then, Oppenheimer was already suspect for being somewhat left-of-center in his politics and for being somewhat of an egghead (to use swing-era slang), and being Jewish in America of that time already made a person suspect of not worshipping the same God, perhaps in the way being Muslim in America does today, and gosh, quoting some obscure Hindu scripture really put a person way in left field.
But the nagging, unanswered question I have is this: isn't "I am become death" ungrammatical or am I missing some fine point. I can understand "I am death" (present tense) or "I have become death" (past perfect? -- I am not up on grammer), but I always thought "I am become death" was the result of some mistranslation on the order of "all your base."
You misunderstand, badly.
I am against censorship. I am not against secrecy.
Secrecy is saying, "I do not wish to publish my personal information."
Censorship is the government telling you, "Publishing your personal information is illegal, and we will put you in jail if you do so."
Secrecy is fine. If the government wants to keep secrets, that's fine, up until the point where it uses censorship to do so. Keeping secrets with encryption, lockboxes, barbed-wire fences, and armed guards is fine. Keeping secrets by forbidding publication of material gathered from public sources is not fine.
Until and unless you understand the difference between secrecy and censorship, and how it is possible to be completely against one while accepting of the other, there is no point in responding.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I know it's slashdot, I know it's custmary to insert foot first and maybe not ever think, but pay attention here ... this is a lesson that applies to all sorts of things in life.
If something is easy to do, like making an H-bomb, then you don't need fucking articles in magazines to fucking blow the place up. The people who want to do that will already know how. Then the question is, what prevents them from doing so, and the answer is real simple, gosh, maybe it's not easy after all.
So then you have to ask yourself, why would the government want to suppress an idea that doesn't have any practical idea?
And that's when you realize the first amendment is a fucking good idea.
It's not the popular ideas that need the protection of the first amendment, it's the unpopular ones.
Infuriate left and right
Tell that to the 62% of Iraqis who said (after the ousting of Saddam) that they thought it was worth any of the sacrifices they made to get rid of him. Or the Iraqis (including war orphans, killed by the coalition) who protest in the street against the terrorists (their word!) and FOR the US!
Get off your fucking high horse and pull your head out of your ass. Take a look at the real world.
The Iraqis have opinions that matter on the war. You don't. They have clearly spoken, and it's time to face it: you're wrong.
I know how you feel, this whole "freedom of speech" thing is just wrong! I firmly believe that the government has our best interests at heart, and would only conceil information that could be used by evil people (probably terrorists). I feel so much safer knowing that upstanding people like George Bush are in office.
If something is easy to discover and easy to implement, then someone else will discover and implement it. Since we aren't all dead and blown to smithereens yet, looks like it isn't easy.
... ask yourself, when someone wants to protect you from yourself, what is their real agenda?
And if it is so easy that someone else can discover and implement it, then what's the point of censorship?
Always, always always
Infuriate left and right
You've been watching FOX news again, haven't you?
-f
We always say security through obscurity is bogus. Case in point -- closed source software, squlching of bug/expolit reports, use of the DMCA to silence hackers instead of fixing the exploits et al.
When it comes to national security, what makes people think secrecy makes the nation any more secure?
Republican Catholics ? Really ?
;-(
You U.S.-North-Americans really have the *strangest* habits!
Why, that's almost like Catholic Nazis ! Preposterous!
If it wasn't for the ability to distill information about imminent danger into a series of colored lights, the government would be forced to release specific information about upcoming terrorist threats, which could eliminate the advantage they have over less important Americans in personally avoiding those threats.
I'm looking through this article, and frankly, it looks like a crock of shit. IMO the implosive charges would destroy the gamma-reflecting capsule before fission was seen, ruining the efficiency of the device. At the least, if I were trying to design a fission-fusion bomb based on this principle, I'd use a gun-type fission device rather than an implosion device. Some other parts of the article don't seem right either.
...that not everyone agrees with you?
And they went about in these little coven-like secret societies, too. Secret this-and-that, and all! Raise trouble, they did, and blame it on the poor savages.!
They did.
Atrocious terrorists. All!
No wonder the present ilk takes after them. Against their betters, what's more!
Harumph!
I just saw a soft-scaled dinosaur say exactly the same thing. ;)
Strange, huh ?
Pray tell us where you live NOW so we may all avoid your general vicinity. You seem to attract undesirable events.
Oh, and dont worry- the distance between you and said undesirable events appears to be widening.
The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, his follow-on to TMOTAB.
Actually, I think we who do not believe have for too long withheld comment about religion out of politeness. Our society considers it acceptable to mock or ignore ridiculous ideas in politics or science, but to treat the ridiculous ideas of religion in a similar manner has always been another matter. The events of September 11th and the responses to them should be a wakeup call to all of us that religion is not and never has been a generally beneficial or humane institution. It's time that we spoke up and treated religion with the same scrutiny and respect (no more, no less) than we treat any other ideas.
The respect our society gives the barbaric Bronze Age text of the Old Testament/Torah is unjustifiable. If you don't think it's barbaric, read about how the Jews first conquered Israel at the command of God; review the murders, rapes, and genocide, all committed under the direct command of God. While Jesus could have had a moderating effect on Western monotheism, Paul quickly effected a division in the new sect and Christianity was born from his division, not from the Jews in Jerusalem led by the Apostles. Christianity's history follows the lessons of the Torah and Paul far more often than not. While there are words of peace in the Koran, there are words of war too, and we cannot overlook the wars that Mohammed waged during his lifetime and the tremendous Arab conquests led by the Caliphs, his successors, after his death.
I'm not saying that terrorists are motivated solely or even primarily by religion, but that religion is an effective and dangerous method of dividing people into groups and motivating them to act as groups on a mutual hate inflamed by such divisions. Without the Abrahamic religions, the current problems in the Middle East would not exist. There would be no Israel because there would be no religious motivation to create such a state; indeed, there would be no distinct group called Jews as they would've intermarried during the Diaspora without religion prohibitions against such. There would've been no Islamic conquests of the ancient Persian and Roman (Byzantine) civilizations. There would've been no Crusades to attempt to counteract those conquests.
LOL. No harm done publishing atomic secrets if no one believes them. Gun-type devices only work for uranium cores. You can't assemble plutonium fast enough using that method.
The government looked in to how hard it would be for people to cull together a working nuclear weapon design from available information years ago.
"Interestingly enough, the United States government conducted a controlled experiment called the Nth Country Experiment to see how much effort was actually required to develop a viable fission weapon design starting from nothing. In this experiment, which ended on 10 April 1967, three newly graduated physics students were given the task of developing a detailed weapon design using only public domain information. The project reached a successful conclusion, that is, they did develop a viable design (detailed in the classified report UCRL-50248) after expending only three man-years of effort over two and a half calendar years. In the years since, much more information has entered the public domain so that the level of effort required has obviously dropped further."
From The Nuclear Weapon Archive: a Guide to Nuclear Weapons
That was back in 1967, a bit more than thirty-six years ago. It probably takes a lot less digging nowadays.
Strange that you didn't mention the abolute *WORST* thing our government has done to free speech and that is the unconsitutional campaign finance reform that was passed in large part through the efforts of so-called "progressives". If there was anything that the First Amendment was supposed to protect it was POLITICAL SPEECH. Apparently, protecting tax dollars for "Cruifixes in Urine" is far more important than protecting the right of groups of people to gather resources and voice their collective political opinions.
The problem with this rant (and many others) is that you pick and choose your freedoms. Free Speech is OK, unless it is "Evil Right Wing Nazi Hate Speech". Freedom of Religion is great unless it involves protecting a Christian's speech. Fourth Amendment is awesome but screw the evil Second Amendment because guns are bad! And to far too many people there are only NINE articles in the Bill of Rights. The mythical Tenth Amendment states:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
And forget all that stuff in the Constitution about Congress or the people making laws. They are far too bigoted and stupid for that. We will just rely on the fair and wise Judges of this land to do that.
Brian EllenbergerAfter all this time, the Progressive article is now online (4Mb pdf).
:/
No... no it's not online... anymore
_________ Help me get a PSP!
Without the second amendment the first amendment is pretty hard to enforce. Please forgive me for my bluntness here, but I own a pistol or three, and I speak my mind. I would much rather have people tell me that I can't speak my mind than have them tell me that I can't own my firearms. If you take my firearms I cann't keep you from taking my speech. If you take my speech, I'll just use my firearm to take it back. Yes, I do live in Mississippi, yes I do drive a truck, and no I am not undeucated, violent, or poor.
--Forest C. Adcock--
Since the H-bomb has to use reflectors so that the fusion part of the bomb works, will this information help all of the unsuccessful fusion reactors?
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
Secrecy is saying, "I do not wish to publish my personal information."
Actually, that's privacy. Secrecy would be more like saying "You don't even know I exist." The two are not the same.
If the government wants to keep secrets, that's fine, up until the point where it uses censorship to do so.
Given the instant publicity of free speech cases, disinformation is a much better safeguard for secrets than censorship. So many of us are so hopped up about what our respective governments are doing that we'll nearly dive for any morsel of information that might enlighten us. And since it has become so easy to obtain information without research many of us have relegated to accepting what we read on a website or in some historian's account of "what really goes on" as the simple truth. In other words, few of us check to see if the pool is a mirage before we dive in head-first. With such a formula you could hide the truth about anything in plain sight and have no fears of discovery. That was a long winded way of basically saying that censorship is pretty much a red herring at this point. There are better ways to keep people guessing that have far fewer repercussions.
Until and unless you understand the difference between secrecy and censorship, and how it is possible to be completely against one while accepting of the other, there is no point in responding.
I find it hilarious that you chose to end your post with a single sentence that completely contradicts everything you had previously said. Isn't discouraging a response through an ineffectual attempt at intellectual bullying a form of censorship, mild though it may be?
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
For as we all know, every time the government has raised the alert level it was quickly followed by a terrorist attack on US soil.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Absolutism is an ideal manufactured as a slur by those who enjoy manipulating the definitions of terms with inherent double-meanings. Hence speaking out of both sides of your mouth, and your flagrant ignorance to the definitions of both secrecy and censorship.
What the hell did I just say? I'll tell you. You are bitching about privacy, not secrecy.
Your joke is no longer an excuse. The Web gives individuals much bigger "margins" in which to write their theories. Fit it on GeoCities and link it here. If it's too big for GeoCities, use BitTorrent.
But you're probably just bluffing.
There are ongoing rumors that a way exists to build a fusion bomb without a fission trigger. Efforts were made to develop such a weapon, the "pure fusion" bomb, in the 1950s. The "neutron bomb" was an outgrowth of that effort, although it is not a pure fusion weapon. There's a whole conspiracy theory on this, revolving around Sam Cohen, who developed the neutron bomb, and "red mercury".
The "red mercury" thing is probably disinformation, but given the amount of work LLNL has put into pulsed fusion, there may be a way to do this by now.
So...really, it was ulam teller?
This is my sig.
Take a look around and see how many American newspapers and other news outlets reported the fact that Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N.S.C. prior to "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was plagiarized from a 12-year-old thesis paper. You'd think this salacious bit of news would have been splattered all over every front page. Instead it appeared in only a few local independent newspapers. It was published almost immediately in the U.K., feeding the groundswell of opposition to the US position. In the US very few people even know about it now! Whenever I hear Monday morning quarterbacks talking about the reasons why the intelligence was bad or why we shouldn't have jumped in without planning, etc., they never bring this glaring bit of bad intelligence up. Either they don't know about it, or they believe it would be blasphemy to disparage the character of Colin Powell. At least Gen. Powell, to his credit, was very much against taking the case he did to the U.N., but in the end he did what a good soldier does.
-- thinkyhead software and media
then you would know this isn't how it's done.
You are assuming that you do not have access to the obscure info you are being taught. You do. You can go to libraries, the internet, primary sources, etc. in order to prove, disprove or change the things you were, or are, being taught.
By defintion, top secret means that information is not available nor under indepedent scrutiny. Maybe obscuring it is not bogus per se, but it certainly does fly in the face of how we are taught that information is supposed to behave.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
If you read the original article and the articles published with it, you may notice something that jumped out at me. It was later made moot by the government giving up the ghost on the injunction, but before they did, they made a claim that "technical" information was different from other forms of speech and therefore not afforded First Amendment rights.
Does this sound vaguely familiar to anyone from a more recent case? Perhaps I'll jog your memory. In the DeCSS case, it was argued that Code is not protected because it has functional value. In effect it is technical rather than political or other speech. In this case, it doesn't seem to be the government making the assertion, rather an organization. But that would be misleading. The DMCA represents a restraint on speech just as broad as the Energy Act used against this article. The identity of the party pushing for the censorship is irrelevant. It's the laws with over broad, sweeping generalizations on what we can, and cannot say, as well as the idea that there is protected and unprotected speech that are truly dangerous. Surely some forms of speech are distasteful in the extreme, and prompt a gut reaction that they should not be allowed. But once you establish a form of speech that is officially "not OK", The worst of your obstructions as a censor are over.
What part of of this is confusing?
"That Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and consult for their common good, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
It's straight forward, black and white. Our nations third grade students can easily understand it. But once you add even ONE exception, however well meaning it might be, the floodgates have opened, and the end result is the muddle we have today. Sufficiently muddled, the citizenry are too afraid to use the rights they might have, for fear of a costly lawsuit, and then they basically don't have those rights. Then we require people like The Progressive, 2600, Penthouse and Lary Flint, and anyone else willing to put their livelihoods and privacy on the line for our freedom.
The base point is this. As soon as something I can personally say out loud becomes Illegal, the whole of my freedom of speech is gone. As soon as something I could sit down and write with my own pen becomes illegal, my freedom of press is gone. Be it technical specifications, computer code, poetry, a political indictment, a story about rape, or a shopping list, If one of those things is illegal, eventually fear will make them all impossible. And once our freedom of speech is gone, Our ability to claim to live in a free society will be a farce.
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
None of the amendments are worth the paper that they are printed on without people willing to put their lives on the line to uphold them. When people lose the will to enforce the rights spelled out to them in the Constitution, it will indeed be a sad day.
We're not worried - we have our trusty anti-terrorism fridge magnets to protect us!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Why are we reporting on things that were talked about on the NANOG mailig list a year ago? See http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/historical/02 08/msg00403.html
I hope you weren't trying to argue in favor of national security, as it seems that your arguement really is rather moot. Once you are dead it doesn't matter, because well you are dead, its not as if you could care that you are dead because you just are its just EOF, uhh how else can I phrase it, once you are dead living and dying no longer are a concern of yours, actually you can't concern yourself with anything because well you aren't anymore. Last I heard its really hard for the nonexistant (the expired) to exist.
What matters is that you went out protecting your freedom. No one can protect your freedom as only you can, that is because no one cares about you or your freedom as you do. If you don't care about your freedom, then my dear why should anyone else even begin to care about freedom for you? In which case you do not deserve it.
Security? National Security? Bloody hell! National Security is just an attempt to replace personal security for all because no one wishes to maintain their own personal security. If you are not willing to take whatever actions are necessary to keep yourself alive and in a stable situation then you will die and rightly so. Next we'll have people expecting to be protected from all possible dangers at all time. Let me give you an example, lets suppose you are in a dangerous neighborhood inhabbited by multiple warring gangs, you know you shouldn't be walking alone unarmed and looking like the biggest juiciest victim to ever have walked through that area in the middle of the night. Yet you do it anyhow, you deserve what is coming to you. Do not walk into the jaws of danger and expect not to be harmed.
I know this is just expanding upon Mr. Franklin's words but sometimes I get the impression that many a dimwitt out there just doesn't get the full effect from such a statement.
You have free speech rights on -public- land. But, you don't have free speech rights on -my- land. If I don't like what you say, on -my- land, then, I can kick you off.
So, if an owner of a mall, that is, private property, establishes a free speech zone, they are doing you a favor.
If you want to have a free speech zone on your land, you are more than welcome to. But don't expect to have the right to insult someone's house when you are inside it.
This is my sig.
[quoteblock]A graduate student at the University of Alabama, who knows people who work in Oak Ridge, told me...[/quoteblock]
Lemme tell ya, I would have omitted that source.
Please read my post again. I did not, and will not, say anything about the constitutionality or correctness of gun control. I merely stated that "automatic assault rifles with clips that hold over ten rounds" is a completely objective criterion.
You've been led into thinking that "Assault Rifle" is a class or type of weapon. In reality it's anything a politician wants to label as scary. Because that line is a used as a negative label. Kind of like calling someone a NAZI. That's a negative label used to create a zenophobic reaction. It actually works pretty well on the simple minded.
Some of us on the right think of rifles are repression prevention devices. And with the likes of Lon Horuchi still on the lose, they are much needed.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
So you're saying we should invade and 'liberate' every country whose citizens oppose the government?
"I am."
It actually has some neat twists in the bible like when Jesus is asked if he says he is God and he says "I am." I _think_ this is why the high priest tore his robes and said he blasphemed (you'd have to be an expert on aramaic-the language they were probably speaking- to know if the play on words is achievable in it.)
After all only 1 country has ever USED nukes in a war....and that would be ... US!!!! Of course that's probably why our govt is so scared...they hide behind the power of the "little red button" far too often in international disputes...especially when the need for a compromise would cause hurt for american interests as a show of "good faith". When push comes to shove...look how we handled Iraq ...our leaders ALWAYS fall back on the Nukes! If anyone would have actually stuck up for them, we were openly planning on using nukes to resist Saddams "great army". People don't REALLY LISTEN to what all the "analysts" say on CNN do they? Who's actually MORE CHICKEN here? something to think about.
There is another element to the "terrorist bomb". Inefficient nuclear weapons that require lots of fuel (more than 15kg Pu-239 say) are relatively easy to design and build. Given an obscene amount of fuel, the technical section of a large terrorist organization could probably build a Hiroshima style weapon. Gun type weapons are especially easy to engineer. Of course, getting your hands on enough fuel to power 10 well made weapons is even more of a problem. If we're talking fusion weapons than large amounts of lithium deteuride are needed as well. A fusion weapon isn't going to get by with a gun-type trigger either.
On the other hand, a Davy-Crockett style weapon that uses less than a kilo of fuel and can vaporize a city block are much tougher to build. An incorrectly assembled small nuke will just be a dirty bomb. There are inefficient weapons that are easy to build or efficient ones that are difficult. I think any would be nuclear terrorist would just buy a weapon ready made.
The initiators in these weapons also tend to decay and there are other storage problems. Nuclear weapons don't sit on shelves very well. They have to be continually maintained. Our nuclear terrorist is going to have to be ready to use his bomb immediately upon receipt. I'm not saying it isn't possible but terrorists have lots of other low-hanging fruit to go after.
What is this p-ap-er you speak of?
Wait, I think I've heard of it before.
Was it that stuff you know before the Internet and the creation of the Universe?
This is from 1979. Nothing to see here. It was published after 6 months of delay (originally scheduled for the April issue, but didn't come out before November). I would suggest reading the introduction or at least look at the first page next time. ;)
mats
One man's ceiling is another man's floor.
FUCKERS!
India is the most facist society in the modern world. It is the only country where slavery is still practiced -- outright, and by heredity.
There is nothing attractive about Hindu values. In general, karma and birth right are applied by the Indian people to justify the most awful treatment of other people, who do not have such a fortunate birth. The Hindu notion of karma is as far from the Christian notion of grace as possible.
It is true we are living in a more sophisticated, multi-cultural world. It is time to let Oriental exoticism go. Visit India, as I have, and accept the reality of how devastating unabashed religious belief can be.
... on the door or on the living room window saying "This Home Protected by H-bomb" will discourage IRS investigators, census takers, and Jehovah's Witnesses.
I couldn't think of a sig.
This is /. Do you expect ANYONE to be able to spell? Personally, fcadcock is actually one of few people who's opinion I highly respect. I have had a few run-ins with him over the years, and he is actually quite intelligent.
And yes, he does drive a huge truck, and carry a pistol. Whatever floats his boat.
Yeah, yeah - there were people whining when US joined ww2 etc .. etc ...
Who remembers them now ?
I am not a PhD nuclear physicist, but it is my understanding that even if one has an understanding of the general design and materials required for a hydrogen bomb the practical details of constructing it in such a way that you get the desired effect (i.e. thermonuclear detonation) requires intimate knowledge of a vast number of mind numbing details, extensive testing, and a large body of experience, test data, and associated resources. Even then it is never a sure thing which is why even the United States must conduct extensive testing and maintenance in order to guarantee the continued viability of its stockpile (weapons are designed to be used not stored for decades and then used). It is probably for this reason more than any other that a functional and deliverable H-Bomb is and probably always will be beyond the resources of all but the most advanced first world nations and certainly not the domain of terrorist organizations. The dirty bomb is a far more likely scenario with the terrorists...the fully functional H-Bomb is light years beyond their understanding and construction capabilities.
" I feel so much safer knowing that upstanding people like George Bush are in office."
Bush makes mistakes but at least he believes in something and will see that this vision is being implemented regardless of current polls - something you would never see in an administration driven by polls ( Clinto Co.)
There goes my ice-breaker at parties.....
A bit off topic, but;
a y00/kentst0503.html
The term "Assualt Rifle" is defined in military text books (sorry, no link handy), part of the definition describes that to be classed as an "Assualt Rifle" it must be capable of "full auto", ie, more than one round fired when you pull the trigger. True assualt rifles have been illegal in the USA for civilian use since before WW2, you can get a permit but it costs a bundle and the ATF, FBI, et al, get to check you out with a colonoscope. Same goes for suppressors, aka "silencers".
The term "Assualt Weapons" on the other hand has no set definition, its just something the congress critters and state politico's shout about when ever someone uses a civilian nock off of a true assualt rifle in a crime. The AK-47 that is always touted as an assualt weapon is in fact a true assualt rifle and controled under the laws relating to ownership of automatic firearms, but the "AK-47's" used in the "schoolyard massacres" are in fact a civilian version that can only fire in semi-auto. All of the "Assualt Weapons" that have been banned in various states CAN NOT fire in full auto as purchased. Yes, some "Assualt Weapons" can be modified to fire full auto, most can't, or at least not easily, and yes there are exceptions to this, nothing is ever absoulute.
All the laws to restrict or ban "Assualt Weapons" acomplish is deprive the average citizen of firepower that is close to what they will face if the people ever have to prevent the imposition of a tyrany through the force of arms, and even then the military will be better armed/trained/prepared. Don't think our troops would fire on unarmed civilians, two words, "Kent State",
http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/m
The fact of the mater is that a revolver can fire more rounds per second than an Assualt Weapon", the AKS just has more rounds to fire, and I have seen a revolver fire 16 rounds in under 4 seconds, even an M-16 cant beat that.
The secret to the H-Bomb was the reflector that focused the X and Gamma rays onto the fusion core. This how-to does not mention it at all.
It was the Soviet Union that broke up.
Also, IIRC, some of the bombs reside in non-Russian former Soviet Republics, such as Georgia and Ukrane.
My guess is that it would be far easier to acquire nuclear ordinance from them.
Some key facts missed:
A lot of history written about the allied motives and actions towards Japan are missing a dramatic fact. We had already compromised their communication encryptions at the highest level and were able to listen in on very high level internal policy throughout the war. Many of the official reasons given for US actions were mearly a cover for just recently declassified communications. Yes, the government does lie occasionally.
The leaders in Tokyo had no, I repeat no, intention of negotiating a surrender. It was pratically outside their cultural frame of mind. There were a few ambassadors that did seek such surrender negotiations mentioned above but it turned out they were acting beyond their authority and the foriegn minister was not happy when he learned of their actions. We have the decrypted cable transcripts between the embassies and Tokyo. Needless to say this did not inspire the Allies into putting much credence to surrender offers. Even with two atomic bombings, after being confirmed so they knew the extent of the damage dealt, the political and military leadership had no intention of surrender. It was only by direct action of the Emperor anything was done and there was a very nearly successful coup d'etat to overthrough the emperor for that very action. Although the Emperor's decision probably had more to do with the fact that the country's infrastructure had been destroyed and they were facing massive famine the next year even if they managed to hold everyone off. This is a country that had been enduring fire bombs that destroyed huge fractions of the cities targeted and they were already decentralizing as much as possible to make concentrated targets unavailable. When you look at the difference in destruction realized by the early nukes from the fire bombs there wasn't much from the ground's point of view. You're looking at destruction of the city and its people either way. The impressive part was instead of hundreds of planes dropping massive numbers of bomblets it took only one bomber and the implication we had the ordinance to continue bombing indefinitely.
If you look closley at the history including the declassifed communications and interviews with surviving officers on both sides the surrender didn't come about because of the a-bombs. Those were a minor consideration and primarily a way to save face by the Emperor for his country and himself by attributing the surrender to such a 'dramatic leap' in weaponry. The war was won the old-fashioned way but it wasn't good PR to advertise that when we had a world with new enemies that likely out-numbered us at that point.
As for Stalin I suggest you check at how throughly compromised the Manhatten Project was by the Russians. They had multiple independent sources in the program. The only question was if Stalin knew how limited our supplies of nuclear weapons were at the end of the war.
As far as there not being a manned invasion of Japan, I'm sure any vet who was there would be suprised to hear that. The military was gearing up for an invasion and a fresh new president would've been hard pressed to halt the inertia. Remember, it was because of Japan that we actually entered the war.
Debate the gramatic of someone instead of the content of its opinion. You might as well not enjoy free speech for the usage you do of it...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
And how is the government supposed to keep secrects if it cant prohibits people from releasing them?
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
You have no chance to survive, make your time. Ha ha ha.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Have you seen the military film bites from Afganistan? If the US Government wanted your guns, your freedom of speech they could take them without even having to worry about if you could shoot them.
The one thing that got me about American news was 'OMG OSAMA COULD HAVE THE BOMB'.
Haven't you learnt anything yet? They did untold damage with box cutter knives and airplanes. Why the heck would they bother trying to get something like a nuke when there are loads of methods a thousand times easier?
Terrorism isn't about who has the bad ass weapon, it is about inducing terror into your everyday of life. Well I hate to break it to you but he has already done that.
I could be run over crossing the road. I know the risk, so I am careful when crossing the road and I live my life normally. I don't have drivers dragged from thier cars off to some rat hole prison for a year or so to determine if they might of run me over or just wanted to go to work.
I am constantly amazed at the people who are quite willing to destroy the Constitution in order to save it. They are also often the same people who use the term "true Americans" a lot to define anyone who disagrees with them as being un-American. Strangely enough they are often horrible spellers as well.
Claiming this article is an aid to terrorists is silly. Does anyone really think the rest of the world lives in grass huts and only the US has physicists and engineers? All this bomb-making information is old stuff and has been available openly for decades. For example, just because all the technical information to build a 747 is readily available doesn't mean that terrorists can just slap one together. If you need one you buy it or steal it. Same for nuclear weapons.
I suggest that we just forget the Constitution and form a secret government (made up of true-Americans of course) where we Americans (true-Americans and un-Americans alike) don't know who is in charge. That way we wouldn't aid the terrorists by actually publishing the names of our precious custodians and exposing them to risk. While we are at it why don;t we just make these true-Americans custodians for life. After all, they wouldn't do anything BAD, would they?
I don't trust the government one inch, and that is exactly WHY I am a patriot.
I find it hilarious that you chose to end your post with a single sentence that completely contradicts everything you had previously said. Isn't discouraging a response through an ineffectual attempt at intellectual bullying a form of censorship, mild though it may be?
No. Censorship is when someone tells you "If you say something I don't like, I will kill you or your family, or put you or them in jail, or take your possessions, or force you into exile, or make you poor."
This is exactly the same kind of idiot turn of phrase that the other post made. Secrecy is not censorship. "Don't reply until you get a clue" is not censorship. Censorship is prohibition of speech enforced with force of arms and law. To see the difference is very simple. If my 'bullying' were ignored, I would be annoyed. If I were the government, and my 'bullying' were ignored, the poster would go to jail or be fined.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
So you're saying we should invade and 'liberate' every country whose citizens oppose the government?
No. Just every country intent on gaining WMD while sitting on $20B/year of oil revenue that can easily be siphoned to enable them to get it in so many ways that we won't be able to notice it. Every country which had a grudge match against our country (applauding 9/11) and then went around giving payouts to suicide bomber families in other countries. Every country that we gave low-grade WMD to (!) and then actually showed they were dumb/dangerous enough to use them. Every country that invaded its neighbors without military provocation, etc. Hint: unlike Iran or North Korea or China or Libya or Syria, Saddam actually started two wars, against Iran and Kuwait. Every country willing to let 500,000+ of its citizens die rather than comply with cease-fire or UN terms. Every country whether the dictator taught his sons to practice torture so foreign governments would be nervous about his successors enough not to kill papa.
Power=interests*capability*will. Besides the base of economic capabilities Iraq's oil revenue gave Saddam (even when under UN sanction "containment"), Saddam had will in spades and that could not be ignored.
That's my guess anyway.
--LP
And if a secret is kept well enough there is no need for censorship. You said "If the government wants to keep secrets, that's fine, up until the point where it uses censorship to do so." How would you ever know that the government is using censorship to keep a *secret*, if it's really a secret? Supporting a policy of secrecy "up to some limit" is oxymoronic.
How can you state that "secrecy is fine" if you don't understand the nature of the secret being kept? What if it's (to make a deliberately extreme but plausible example) a secret plan to allow a terrorist attack to succeed for the sake of consolodating public opinion in favor of a goal that the government considers critical to the public good (such as support for a war) and worth the price of a few thousand lives?
By definition, you never know enough about a secret to deem whether or not it's "good" to keep it secret. Therefore, it seems to me that secrecy as a governmental policy should be opposed on general principal. I view truly "necessary" secrets as rare and dangerous exceptions to that principle.
Isn't discouraging a response through an ineffectual attempt at intellectual bullying a form of censorship, mild though it may be?
No. Censorship is the suppression of communication by force or the threat thereof. Criticism is not censorship, no matther how shrill or thin-skinned the person criticised may be.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
- When you talk about the First Amendment and the Internet and bombs, people like DiFi say "Oh, no, the First Amendment doesn't protect dangerous information, it's about things like pornography."
- When you talk about the 1st, the Internet, and pornography, they say "Oh, no, it's not about that, it's about protecting non-obscene speech".
- When you talk about tobacco advertising, they say "Oh, no, it's not about commercial speech, it's about protecting *political* speech."
- But when you talk about campaign finance reform, they say "Oh, no, elections are *way* too important to let anybody actually fund the political speech they believe in, why that would let *money* corrupt politics."
And all that was just with liberals in charge - wonder what Ashcroft will come up with next.Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
And I seem to be running a version that doesn't have a working Talkback widget to tell the Mozilla Firebird 0.7 people what the bug was....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Well, this is getting downright annoying - it's the page that tells you that your comment has been submitted that does the crashing, since both postings were successful. Wonder what happens if I "preview"
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
(For Even More Information You Can Use) Hop over to Thread-Advisory.com. Instantly discover the Fung Shui of Terror, along with tools to Spread The Fear to your own desktop.
</shameless_plug>
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
I think that only people who can spell "amendment" should have the Right To Free Speach. And it should be restricted to people who can spell "speech" as well.
Anyone cooking up a bomb would be a complete FOOL!
you can buy them real big nukes out of stock in any former communist country. Cheaper, cleaner, better and completely installed.
And if you wish you can get one complete with ballistic missile!
Maurice
Hello kind Sir, my name is Apu Ganish and I will be most pleased to be guarding your critical infrastructure.
What we learned last spring is that the Government of the United States is convinced that it must keep the people of this nation ignorant and slothful so that they can lead the only pleasant life while the rest of the world marches towards nuclear Armageddon.
What I have learned over the last few years is that too many Americans believe they have a right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" regardless of of whether this deprives others in the world of their "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". We are fast becoming global tyrants in the name of preserving our own freedom and "pleasant life". For every liberation of a tryannised population from a petty despot like Saddam there are many more populations slaving away producing raw resources (gold, oil, etc) and goods (Nike and the EPZs) for cheap consumption by the new Romans.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
Best Slashdot Co
I remember very well when Erwin Knoll came to Luther College and talked about their struggle to present information gleaned from "open sources" which yielded some important insights about fission-fusion-fission devices. I was impressed. But Sam Day, now there was a man. He was editor for a while of the Bulletin of the American Atomic Scientists magazine (renamed slightly since) way back when. But his work with the Progessive Foundation and Nukewatch in aiding the mapping of all 1000 ICBM's in the US, tracking Trident warheads on trains and then by semis, groundbreaking work in releasing critical information to the the people. He believed that knowledge wants to be free. And Sam was a warrior, a Gandhian Kingian warrior who was not afraid to risk time in jail and lost his eyesight in the pen. Heres to you Sam, Shalom, Mark R
Does anyone else think it's odd that the link to the PDF is dead?
I guess satire is lost on some people.
Infuriate left and right
Did you just put France on the same level as Sudan and Iraq ???
Well, the pdf's been slashdotted, but I remember an article in what I *think* was Mother Jones about this. The high-schooler had gotten nothing but declassified information. The article in MJ(?) had the whole procedure, though the really hard part was the centerfuging to seperate the heavier isotopes. Spinning a bucket at arm's length around in your living room for half an hour...and if it slipped, what a *mess* it'd make of your wall....
mark
Celebrating the winter solstice (today BTW), as is the new year. It's only seen as christian because centuries ago the people insisted on continuing to celebrate the solstice even after they were assimilated.
The first christians didn't celebrate christmas, or easter for that matter either. In fact surprisingly few of the "christian" celebrations have anything at all to do with christianity itself but appear to be legerdemain on the part of the christian church.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
This is exactly the same kind of idiot turn of phrase that the other post made. Secrecy is not censorship.
If you would have taken a deep breath before your knee-jerk reaction, you would have realized that I never made any claims regarding equality between secrecy and censorship. Read it again, I said that what you claimed to be secrecy was simply privacy. If you'd care to mosey on over to the correct context, I'd be glad to argue that point with you.
And, I'm sorry, but you are very wrong about censorship. Censorship takes on many more forms than simply through enforcement. Try not to look at it as though it were so black and white. Read a little deeper into my example of your hypocritcal attitude that ended your first post and understand that your intended ignorance to any further responses is, in fact, a form a censorship, whether on an individual basis or larger scale. If you are not even willing to listen to a rebuttal, you have effectively censored the speaker. Get it? Some things are not so simple that they fall cleanly within your boundaries of definition. Censorship is one of them.
If my 'bullying' were ignored, I would be annoyed. If I were the government, and my 'bullying' were ignored, the poster would go to jail or be fined.
And if you weren't so powerless?
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
You hit the nail on the head here.
Nuclear weapons have proven to be usless. The world has been held at randsom for 5 decades. If anyone cares to chat with Russian people for instance they will find that Russia was terrified of being attacked by the west.
During WWII most Russian families lost at least one loved one. Having suffered greatly defending their country from Hitler - they were next threatened by Patton.
A few months later the USA announced its crown and glory of horror weapons with the destruction of Nagaski and Hiroshima.
I am sure Russia saw no alternative but to build its own weapons to counter a very real threat. Thus the Cold war ensued.
But while Americans wrapped themselves in the flag and proclaimed their love for peace... what really happened?
Well - we had Joseph McCarthy condeming communists, we had white supremists condeming blacks, we had the criminalization of plants that yeilded fibers for clothing and outright lies and disinformation spewing in the media.
Meanwhile nuclear power was condemned as being unsafe in yet another example of massive dissinformation and lies.
This brings us up to the 60's where the USA decided to get involved in an illegal war in Asia.
Thank god for the 60's & the 70's because by this time young adults were finally starting to smell the coffee (if that is what it was because it sure was brown). So what did we get? The shooting of unarmed protestors at Kent State?
Still, enough pressure was finally applied to the military industrial war machine and the USA finally pulled out of Vietnam. Now, just a few years later we can actually visit Vietnam and see what a beautiful country it really is. And what did the war accomplish? Well, a lot of young boys now face life with missing limbs and terrible wounds. Perhaps they were the lucky ones - many others died horrible deaths. As a father with a 20 Y/O son - I can not imagine him facing Napam dropped for "political reasons" so that other governments will "respect" our power.
Meanwhile the war machine marched on developing even better weapons which they got to test in the Middle East. The issue? Freeing Iraqii oil of course... but you won't hear that in the press.
The truth is that if the gift of nuclear energy were used for peaceful purposes instead of being portrayed as a deamon who's only benefit to mankind lies in its ability to kill people with an efficiency never before even dreamed of by the psychopaths who somehow worm their way into positions of power... If nuclear technology were intelligently and peacefully developed for energy production... then today in the year 2003 the USA could be totally self sufficient from an energy standpoint.
Instead, the dream of prosperity for all peoples on the planet has been perverted in the name of building more efficient killing machines.
Perhaps some of this disinformation came about when wealthy oil barrons in the USA realised their oil would not be worth much in a world powered by nuclear energy. So instead of an important chemical feedstock being saved for our children, it got burnt up about as fast as our wasteful society could extract it from the ground - and all in the name of efficiency and conservation and economic growth and viability.
So tell me, as the average American in the NE looks at his heating bills - just how economically viable is the improperly insulated house he has put up with and paid through the nose to heat?
Yes, there has been a lot of disinformation and manipulation in the interest of certain power factions. And perhaps not much has changed because now we see the attacks on programmers by laws such as the DMCA. We're just at the beginning of this battle probably... As Microsoft attempts to roll out DRM we will no doubt see our rights to use and to program our computers to be further erroded, meanwhile we'll be facing a barrage of patent lawsuits each designed to wear us down.
So the vested interests carry on with their deception and manipulation.
Perhaps if we look at the antics of McCarthy and others over the last 50 years we can gain some appreciation of what we collectively face.
Uh, you obviously missed the multiple showings of the History Channel special on the last days of the Pacific War in Japan. Most of the Japanese cabinet backed surrender and the Emperor had already made a recording announcing to the people that Japan would surrender.
However, a military coup was underway that was only stopped because of a power outage caused by an American bombing crew.
This all occurred after the nuclear attacks and if not for the power outage, there is a strong possibility that Japan's military would've overthrown the Emperor and the war would've continued.
It always wierds me out when people think that they and a bunch of their buddies can take on a determined US Army batallion. I like to illustrate how this point is with unarmed combat, but the argument applies eqully well to armed combat.
I am a 3rd degree black belt (Tae-Kwon-Do), but even back when I was training several times a week I never had the delusion that I could hold out in hand-to-hand combat with the average US Army grunt for more than maybe 30 seconds longer than the average Joe. Simply put: I do this as a hobby, but those guys do it for a living. They have the best equipment, the best teachers and they don't have to worry about anything else (food, job, etc.)
You may counter with the success of the insurgents in Iraq, but their success is simply because the US government is unwilling to wage total war. You know, the brutal kind with random executions, hostage taking, torture, public rape, mutilations, bayoneting of children and so forth. Thus the control that the US citizenry has over the government is not based on force, but on culture: as long as the soldiery is taken from the population as a whole and the population as a whole is civilized and believes in civillian oversight, the military is not going to stage or support a coup.
Where societies have traditionally gotten into trouble is when the military becomes a separate caste (good examples being the Roman Republic after Gaius Maruis' conscription reforms and various South American coutries). That is already happening in the USA and is a far larger threat to US democracy than gun control laws. People who serve in the US military live in separate communities (e.g. Bremmerton near where I live in Seattle), tend to vote in a particular way and come from socio-economic brackets that tend not to be able to afford higher education (many members of the miltary - like one of my relatives - joined for the benefits of the GI bill). And while the US military actively persues having well educated officers, there is a large internal cultural divide between these "college boys" and officers who came up through the ranks (the former tended to oppose the Iraq war but the latter tended to support it).
This cultural separation is also fueled in part by the current "culture war" being waged by various political commentators. The polarization of US politics has caused the segment of the polulation that the military is largely drawn from to become increasingly fascistic. Now this trend is not being driven by the military itself but by cynical business interests, but the resulting polarization is real and I have heard military personnel tell me that they did not feel welcome at my church because it is so "liberal" (whatever that means). This saddens me because once the military starts keeping to itself, we are in trouble.
So go out and shoot if it makes you feel better, but if you really care about your liberties and civil society, work for a world where you can talk to all your neighbors and where the military is part of the community, not off in some ghetto around the base.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
I just happened to write an article about atomic weapons recently (though not quite as good as this one ;). I'd appreciate correction and contributions, esp. facts about economic costs and radiological wastes and sicknesses.
- There was a betting pool at the Manhattan Project over whether or not the Earth's atmosphere would be consumed in a planet-wide fireball during the first atomic test explosion (Trinity).
- The second explosion of an atomic device was over the mainly civilian target of Hiroshima, Japan, later that year. President Truman, upon hearing of the successful explosion, said it was "the greatest day in history." 70,000 people died instantly, 200,000 died in total. At Nagasaki, 3 days later, 40,000 people died instantly, 140,000 died in total. Contrary to the initial reports by the U.S. Government that the attacks had shortened the war considerably, it has come to light that Japan's Emporer had agreed to contional surrender before these attacks. The only condition was that he remain Emporer and so the Japanese state remain intact. However, with the awesome destuctive will and power of the U.S. demonstrated, we emerged from the attacks as the sole nuclear power in the world, and largely determined the shape of the post WWII world, in which we later came to be the sole great power.
- As mentioned in the linked PDF, the second h-bomb test (Bravo) went awry, with a yield of twice what was thought possible, 15 megatons. The plume was 62 miles wide, 40 miles high. The exclusion zone after the test was 850 miles wide, or about 1% of the Earth's surface. The fallout cloud reached a distance that would, in comparison, cover the entire U.S. North-Eastern Seaboard.
- Testing was expanded to high atmospheric explosions, where h-bombs were exploded in the ionosphere. They variously disrupted, destroyed and created new layers in the Van Allen Belts, the natural magnetic layers that shield the Earth from solar and cosmic radiation. Those belts have been changed ever since.
- The U.S. nuclear power monopoly ended with a series of Russian tests that yielded the largest explosion yet, at 50 megatons. The shockwave rounded the Earth 3 times. The Russian program had discovered a 3rd stage fusion mechanism, which could have led directly to 100-150 megaton weapons, and virtually unlimited theoretical maximums.
- The U.S. underground testing in Nevada has exploded nearly 1000 devices, turning a large region there into a pockmarked surface, much like the face of the moon.
- At last count, there are 12 countries (U.S., Russia, U.K., France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, South Africa, Israel, Iraq, Iran) who are known to have, or reasonably suspected of having had, active nuclear weapons programs, 7 of which have demonstrated capability (the first 7 of those). This does not include the probable fragmentation of the Soviet stockpile after the collapse of the U.S.S.R, smaller NGOs, or describe the liklihood of nuclear arms being sold. There were reports, just before the recent reversal of M.E. policy by the Bush Administration (i.e. to no invade Syria and Iran) that Russia and China had deployed nuclear missiles along the northern borders of those countries, likely pointed at Israel, the strongest nuclear power in the M.E..
- The combined (known) stockpiles of the U.S. and Russia (including former states) is estimated to be around ~3 Gigatons accross ~10k warheads each. At a total of about 6 Gigatons of explosive force, we're plenty close to the 75-100GT energy of the (K-T event) asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, thank you very much.
- The U.S. has resumed manufacturing the nuclear trigger devices. Maintenance and testing is now almost fully virtualized, being done mainly in simulation, using the U.S.'s most powerful computers provided by IBM.
- Ironically (or perhaps obviously), Japan, the only victim of nuclear warfare, is using what is now the most powerful supercomputer in the world for a completely different purpose: to simulate the natural processes of the Earth.
And you think the U.S. government would wage total war against its own citizens?
Methinks you miss the point of an insurgency. We can't wage all-out war on the insurgents in Iraq, because if we did we would kill a lot of noncombatants. We can't kill a lot of noncombatants, because if we do, their surviving relatives will take up arms against us. Thus, for every insurgent we kill, we create a couple more to take his place.
This is precisely the dynamic the U.S. government will face, if it ever goes to war with its own citizens. Nobody is imagining that a bunch of civilians with rifles are going to line up for a pitched battle against army tanks.
But if you really want to know what a bunch of armed civilians can do, take a look at the history of WWII, when the Jews in Poland, originally with just a couple dozen firearms, held off the German Army for an entire month (after which, the army gave up on taking the town, and firebombed it instead.)
If they're doing such a good job confiscating rifles, how come our guys keep getting shot?
Obviously they don't release film clips of battles that don't go so well for them. Remember those smart bomb clips from Gulf War I? Turned out later that accuracy was a lot worse most of the time, they just released the most impressive clips.
Exactly, I never said that myself, and all my buddies would hold off aginst the government in some sort of free speach battle. That wouldn't ever happen. I'm not some wacko like the people in Waco, Texas or any of those places that have tried and failed.
But if you want an even better example of what a bunch of civilians with guns can do when they're tired of the government taking away their freedoms and rights, look at the American revolution. Just a bunch of normal people with hunting rifles at first.
Because of those crazy people with guns who thaught they could take on a determined army battalion, we have our freedoms now.
And as far as your poing about martial arts:
2nd degree black- taekwondo
black belt- kyusho-jitsu (no black belt rankings)
black belt- shaolin chin na
I grew up in a martial arts studio. My father was a martial arts instructor for many years. I am completely sure that I have the skills to take on virtually all military trained fighters in hand-to-hand combat. I've sparred aginst quite a few, and quite a few have lost.
--Forest C. Adcock--
Quess who makes it to the axis of evil in 2004?
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
It always wierds me out when people think that they and a bunch of their buddies can take on a determined US Army batallion. I like to illustrate how this point is with unarmed combat, but the argument applies eqully well to armed combat.
....the next word is: deterrent.
I'll admit, I didn't make it past the above before I just started laughing.
You opinion just amazes me. I need only say one word to point out how silly all your ranting is:
Vietnam.
That was a real cakewalk for us wasn't it? Maybe you're still not getting the point. Here's another example:
The American Revolution
The side with the most tanks/guns/whatever doesn't always win. There are lots of other issues here like: motivation (fighting for money vs. fighting for your life), home field advantage, difficulty finding the enemy, etc.
Of course, the issue is even more complicated than this. It's more like a thermonuclear war. Even if we "beat" Russia, would be win? The grandparent doesn't have to beat a whole bunch of marines to make a point.
The fact that the US population is well-armed is like Russia having nukes:
Does it matter if they aren't quite as good?
Life is too short to proofread.
That was a decade ago. Besides, they can send you to Cuba now on suspicion of terrorism.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
You misunderstood. I never said you claimed secrecy and censorship were equivalent. Another poster, a few posts up, said that. I was comparing your claim to his. They aren't the same, but they are equally misguided.
And, I'm sorry, but you are very wrong about censorship. Censorship takes on many more forms than simply through enforcement. Try not to look at it as though it were so black and white.
I have never stated or even implied that the issue is black and white. I have, however, only talked about the two extreme ends of the spectrum. That is, forceful government intervention is censorship and is wrong. Admonishing someone's ignorance is not censorship and is not wrong. Between those two extremes is an entire vista filled with shades of gray which I have not even mentioned. Just because I didn't mention them doesn't mean I don't believe they're there.
Read a little deeper into my example of your hypocritcal attitude that ended your first post and understand that your intended ignorance to any further responses is, in fact, a form a censorship, whether on an individual basis or larger scale. If you are not even willing to listen to a rebuttal, you have effectively censored the speaker. Get it? Some things are not so simple that they fall cleanly within your boundaries of definition. Censorship is one of them.
Censorship is never something that happens on an individual level. If it is, then the word is meaningless, because we censor everything every day. If my not turning to channel 4 for the evening news because I don't want to can be considered 'censorship', then what word should we use for book burning?
Censorship involves prohibition of speech. It has nothing to do with who listens, modulo cases where listening is made a crime. If somebody gets on his soapbox and preaches, but nobody listens to him because he's a blithering idiot, that is not censorship. Likewise, if I choose to ignore someone because I don't feel a conversation with this person is productive, that is not censorship. If the government say that listening to someone is subversive and will result in fines, jail time, or execution, that is censorship.
I never even made your imaginary threat to ignore a response. I simply said that a response would be pointless if the original poster couldn't understand the fundamental differences between the terms he was using. That doesn't mean I wouldn't read his reply. I am too egotistical to completely ignore replies to one of my posts....
And if you weren't so powerless?
If I weren't so powerless, something bad might happen to the original poster, which is exactly why censorship is so evil, and why things like the first amendment are so precious. The government is in a very unique position of being the only entity which can legally take people's property, time, or lives against their will. As such, the government must be uniquely restricted from using this power to hinder free speech. Since nobody else has these powers, the same restrictions are not necessary for other entities. The worst that I, private citizen, can do to somebody who annoys me with speech is ignore him, hate him, or yell at him. The worst that I, government representative under the first amendment, can do to this person is the same. The worst that I, government representative with draconian censorship laws behind me, can do to this person is quite a bit more.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Sorry if you felt I was "posing" (yeah, my foot position sucks), but I was simply trying to argue from my own experience. I don't mean to say that it is not possible for you to have that level of ability, just that based on my own experiences, I feel that it is unlikely that most people can do this in their spare time.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
The purpose behind the control of information is not to limit the information itself, but to provide Stupid Voter the warm fuzzies that the government is doing everything it can to protect him from commies/terrorists/etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Look at supercondutors - the tech darling of the 80s - kids in junior school cook up superconductors these days. Once the principles are uncovered and made known it becomes a lot simpler for Joe Average to do just about anything. Thinking that only a superpower can recreate technologies of fifty years ago is just blind arrogance.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Ahem. I believe you are mistaking secrecy for privacy.
Well, if the Patriot's are as good as in Desert Storm, Santa will be safe, if a little deafened!
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
I don't consider it to be a military victory. I consider it a covilian victory. The vast majority of these "soldiers" were trained pretty much on the fly as they engaged in battles. America didn't have an army before the war, remember. No country, no army... I would assume that at least a small portion of the US army had military training, but most were just farmers, merchants, and commin citizens who felt that fighting for independance was the right thing to do, so they signed up. To call the US an army would be a HUGE leap of faith during those times. We were simply enough people with guns who were sick and tired of the brittish rule.
--Forest C. Adcock--
It should by now be clear to everyone that in the past we relied far too much on secrecy. We arrogantly assumed that we were the only ones who could develop information technology goods and services, and that therefore we could retain our monopoly. That kept us from pursuing international arrangements that might have held the mass exportation of IT jobs in U.S. companies under some sort of control.
No, the 1st applies to you too. As much as it pained me to read your post you still have a right to do it; that's the point.
No, the point is that my post was a satire.
But I know the problem. The problem is that satire is dead because there are some people that would say most of what I said and actually mean it.
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
Don't know how the boldface got in there -- can I say it was a type? A bug?