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U.S. Offers Glimpse at Manhattan Project Facility
jonerik writes "According to this article from the Associated Press, the US government is this week permitting the public a rare glimpse of its high-security Y-12 nuclear weapons plant as part of Oak Ridge, Tennessee's annual Secret City Festival, which is being held this coming weekend. Although the plant is still associated with ongoing nuclear weapons work, members of the public will be permitted to see parts of the facility associated with its work on the Manhattan Project's 'Little Boy' bomb, which was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. The facility produced the uranium-235 which was used in the device using 1,152 massive calutrons across nine separate buildings in 1944 and 1945. 'Don't you know the people in Knoxville wondered what in the world was going on out here,' Department of Energy guide Ray Smith said on Monday. 'All this material was coming in, truckload after truckload, and nothing ever left.'"
"Nothing to see here, move along."
Scary in relevance to this.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Sounds like it will be a bomb!
-Sj53
-20 lame, i know... someone had to say it though
Will the festival include a barbeque?
If some half-wit accidentally walks into a restricted area and gets hungry, they might accidently push the button marked "lunch."
Man, I have quite a few paid leave days to spend and this would have been a great geek opportunity to spend part of them...being a science/history geek, this would have been a nice thing to visit.
It's not like we find any reason to visit Tennessee these days...
I highly doubt that they're going to give out plans on building your own nuke...you can find that stuff on the internet, anyways. And congrats on being another one of the million Americans that think 9/11 should restrict everything we do. "OH NO, THERE ARE TERRORISTS EVERYWHERE! I'm staying in my house for the rest of my life."
I thought they'd been doing tours round this plant for many years.
A few years ago I went on a 'bizzare places' tour round the states and this was one of the places on the agenda.
Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to go on the tour round Y-12, but they were doing daily trips from the science & technology museum in nearby oakridge.
Finding out how to refine nuclear material and build a nuclear bomb in the modern world hardly requires the kind of intelligence that you're describing.
Now, the intelligence to run by the library and pick up a good book, that you might need.
Or, how about a URL?
http://www.worldnewsstand.net/4fun/bigbang.htm
It's obsolete technology, along with the gas diffusion plant. If someone wants to enrich uranium, there are more efficient methods, like gas centrifuges.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
What's wrong with a few extra nukes? IMO the US can build as many nukes as they want. Pu is a great fuel for nuclear power plants, let the DOD pay for it, leaves less money for invading, euh, liberating any axis of evil they've left. And beside who are they going to nuke anyway? Don't think Al Quaida has a capital.
Is it not a bit awry that we are allowing tours through the building where a bomb that killed thousands of people was built? I mean, it isn't exactly a tour of an art museum, or a place like the White House. It's just kind of odd.
For one thing, the byproducts make a mess.
I actually know someone who works at that facility (well, he started there a number of months ago). Wonder what he thinks of this...he's asleep right now :-(
seriously though, it's not like the trucks drove there and stayed. They left, and unless they were uncovered, people couldn't tell what was coming and going.
or else!
- we all know the U235 came from the German sub U-234, originally destined for Japan. If it had made it there, the japs would have had the bomb first.
- atomic-program
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Japanese
"And you are dying so slowly, you believe to be living" - Bertrand Besigye
And beside who are they going to nuke anyway? Don't think Al Quaida has a capital.
Yea and that logical thinking stopped the army from invading Iraq how? You should really be seeking to limit, with in reason for a national defence force, these peoples power. Not encouraging them to build weapons designed to inflict massive civilian casualities. Weapons designed with the sole intent, of destroying entire cities, women, children, combatant or not.
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
It's a UN thing. Only the founding members of the UN (US, Russia, France, China, UK) are permitted to develop nukes, ostensibly for peacekeeping purposes.
Anyone wanting to join the UN has to agree to this and not develop nuclear weapons. In return they get access to nuclear theory and technology to make (for example) nuclear energy reactors.
If you're a country and you want to develop nukes, then you're in for some serious trouble. If you're a member of the UN then you're breaking the rules, so everyone gets pissed off at you. If you're not a member of the UN then you're considered to be the bad guys, so everyone gets pissed off at you.
The problem is that as a country you can't really afford to have everyone pissed off at you because you face things like international pressure, political sanctions and pre-emptive strikes. In today's globalised interdependent economy, these things really matter.
And congrats on being another one of the million Americans that think 9/11 should restrict everything we do.
When I was growing up, here in the UK, we had terrorist attacks from the IRA every so often (bombings, shootings, etc. mainly in London). The thing that the politicians always said was "If the terrorists change they way we live our lives and restrict what we can do then they have won" (or words to that effect). Then a bunch of people flew a plane into a building in the US and it seems the terrorists have won since everything is now being restricted to prevent terrorism... how times change.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Unless you're Israel, then you get away with it because you've got a lot of friends in Washington.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
If only the people building the weapons had the intelligence to know what they have done to birth defect rates.
Does it do any good if you run around thinking about it all day?
What do you suggest? A police state where the government is given unlimited power?
The US is not the only country to suffer from terrorism, the UK has had it for decades, I don't talk to many English men who run around constantly scared about whether or not something will strike though.
I forgot--perhaps you can refresh my memory: How many nukes did we use in the most recent Iraq war?
-Grym
So many people seem obsessed with comparing Bush with Saddam/Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot whoever. My reply is: Grow Up. If you truly cant see the difference between Bush and Saddam, then I truly feel sorry for you.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
Looks like they're still trying to draw attention aways from the real issues like Roswell and The Kennedy Assassination. However I must be brief even as I type people are homing in on me, the only thing stopping them from finding me is my Aluminum headware.
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
I think it's a good thing to keep in mind when dealing with things like nuclear bombs.
What do you suggest? A police state where the government is given unlimited power?
No, but I do think it's wrong to jump on people who ask questions as the original poster asked.
The US is not the only country to suffer from terrorism, the UK has had it for decades
I don't want to end up in that boat. Stamp it out now. Don't give them opportunities to do more harm.
Pu is not so great fuel. To make Mixed Oxide Fuel, from free separated Pu and free DU or natural U actualy costs more than mining, extracting and enriching Uranium to the 5% level (or whatever is used in the plant) . Apart from hazzards of Pu, the economy is not there with MOX.
Pu is a toxic waste from energy production perspective and should be burried, not re-made into nuclear fuel.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
Very simple, if go for 101 you won't bring it below 100. I didn't mean to limit the military by size or by not giving every soldier a rifle that shoots 3000 rounds per second and slices through even the heaviest of armoured vehicles with ease.
I just see no justification for weapons which aren't even targeted against enemy soldiers but rather enemy cities, packed as I mentioned, with CIVILIANS.
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
"The US is not the only country to suffer from terrorism, the UK has had it for decades
"I don't want to end up in that boat. Stamp it out now. Don't give them opportunities to do more harm."
Hell no, I *refuse* to let the American public have any say at all in the Northern Ireland issue.
Marching in guns blazing will not be a solution with NI. Terrorism in the UK was dealt with slowly, carefully and for the most part effectively. It is now primarily only within Ireland and N. Ireland that bombings still occur, and they are on a decrease.
Tip for the US - Recognise the cause.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
History Channel's Modern Marvels: The Manhattan Project
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
(I grew up in Oak Ridge and can vouch that this is actually a very on-topic post). For those not in the know, Big Ed's Pizza is probably the biggest attraction in Oak Ridge outside of the Oak Ridge National Labs and Y-12/K-25 complexes. Many of my friends have been walking around various cities around the world while wearing a Big Ed's t-shirt and had people come up to them asking if they were from Oak Ridge and then relating their own stories of eating at Big Ed's. I was driving through Alabama a few years ago and met someone who was in the Marines with Big Ed. (Big Ed was, quite appropriately, a World War II veteran. He was also quite large of heart, supporting the local Boys' and Girls' Club, various clubs at Oak Ridge High School, and providing employment for many teenagers in Oak Ridge.) Big Ed's Pizza is indeed still there. Big Ed himself, unfortunately, is not (he passed away in 1998). But there are still massive crowds there most of the time, especially after football games at Blankenship Field. I usually have dinner or lunch there with some of my high school friends when I'm in town.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has a great view of early Soviet nuclear work at Mayak starting in the late 1940's9 9larin
9 9larin
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so
"expensive apparatuses were more valuable than the people who operated them"
"it was common to clean up spills of radioactive solutions by hand. It seems strange now, but the possibility of spills was not anticipated, and there was no way to collect spilled solution safely. We had only wash cloths, buckets, and sometimes, rubber gloves. We collected the spilled solution and poured it into big glass bottles--it was a very expensive compound and we were expected to recover every drop."
"leaks happened there they sometimes lost as much as three tons of highly radioactive product. To collect those spills with wash cloths was impossible."
"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"
Enjoy
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so
It's a UN thing. Only the founding members of the UN (US, Russia, France, China, UK) are permitted to develop nukes, ostensibly for peacekeeping purposes.
I think you meant to say permanent members of the Security Council...
What are you listening to? (http://megamanic.blogetery.com/)
I forgot--perhaps you can refresh my memory: How many nukes did we use in the most recent Iraq war?
I think you can safely say that the US has killed more people with nukes than Iraq... Just because the US hasn't used a nuclear weapon recently shouldn't give them the right to tell other countries that they can't do the same - only when the US has decomissioned all it's weapons of mass destruction would it be non-hypocritical to tell other people they shouldn't have weapons of mass destruction.
Infact, given the US's history of trying to be the world's police force, I think many countries are more in need of weapons to defend themselves against an attack by the US than the US is in need of weapons to defend themselves.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Guess it has something to do with the fact that the cold war is over. Couple of bombs probably didn't seem that bad compared to a nuclear holocaust back then. What a bunch of pussies have we become now.
without the help/pressure of the american government, there would be no peace process in northern ireland.
You should be more afraid of the local Homer Simpson visiting the facility....
So many people seem obsessed with comparing Bush with Saddam/Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot whoever. My reply is: Grow Up. If you truly cant see the difference between Bush and Saddam, then I truly feel sorry for you.
Nomatter who you're talking about, I don't see what gives the right for one country who has weapons of mass destruction (and has used them in the past) to tell another country that they can't develop their own. If the US decomissioned it's weapons of mass destruction then it would be in more of a position to make that point. Like it or not, the US is _not_ the most morally superior and trustworthy country in the world.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
You can't "stamp out" terrorism. It just doesn't work that way. You can stamp out entire populations , if you're so inclined, but terrorists by definition are hidden and unknown until you have a police state.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
I can vouch for the awesomeness that is Big Ed's Pizza. I'm living in Oak Ridge right now, but I grew up in Clinton.. Big Ed's house was about a quarter mile from where I lived. It was a sad day when he passed.
Well, the US administration knows that keeping people scared is the best way to control them.
So they pile on restrictions, security checks, etc. all with the claim of "making things safer", when what they really mean is "keeping people scared". Nothing like lots of visible security to remind people that the world is a daaaaangerous place and only republicans are willing (cawf cawf) to protect the population by force.
Of course, we all know that a determined terrorist can get through ANY security with enough planning and money. So it's all a farce - and a lot of ass-covering so politicians can say "we did everything we could, so please re-elect us!".
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
One thing that you don't realize is that while the initial purpose of Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project was to end World War II, almost everything that has come after that has been devoted to peace and the betterment of mankind. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a major institute for the advancement of dozens of areas of science including cleaner sources of energy, biology, environmental cleanup, particle physics, material science, mathematics, and more.
And, having grown up in Oak Ridge, I can tell you that no one forgets what the bombs did. No one in Oak Ridge ever tries to cover up what happened. Quite frankly, I'm disappointed that you are so willing to dismiss a city and project that has had an immeasurable impact on history. Should we celebrate the death of more than one hundred thousand civilians? Certainly not. But neither should we ignore the contribution that the workers, engineers, and scientists of Oak Ridge made toward the ending of the most horrible war that we have ever seen. Many of the workers from Oak Ridge made tremendous sacrifices to serve their country in the way that they could, and the honor in those sacrifices should be respected, regardless of the end result, especially since most of the workers were unaware of the nature of the project.
I live about half a mile from the Y-12 facility. Some guys from work and I got together to tour their place a few weeks ago to view their network infrastructure. They've got a HUGE room full of Crays. It was pretty loud in there, as to be expected. One of the less polite of the guys I was with had the nerve to ask one of their network admins what he made.. 37 grand and no benefits, because very few of them actually work for Y-12. That was a surprise. From what I saw, most everything there is AMD and Nvidia. Their preferred Linux is SuSE for some reason.. to each their own I suppose. For anyone who may want to make the trip, drop me a line and I'll let you know of some other interesting things to do around here. For anyone bringing their family, there's a park (Commerce Park, I think it's called) right next to Y-12 with a nice little picnic/fishing area. I'm rambling.
Yeah but those so called 'Civilians' are as guilty as hell of giving support, comfort and aid to their terrorist armed forces.
If they're not with us they are against us and deserve to die
Not quite - the Nuke Non Proliferation Treaty is a separate thing, but it used to be that the UN Security Council members were the only ones with nukes. Today however, pretty much every country with nuclear power stations also have a few bombs stashed away somewhere as an insurance policy against invasion by a large power.
Oh well, what the hell...
the parent writes: 'Keep in mind this is the japanese we are talking about not the french, they will die before they surrender. They are still finding japanese soldiers who refused to surrender.'
to extrapolate from individual characteristics (even culturally shared ones) to political/military outcomes, or even aggregate behaviour, is a fallacy.
this is like the old story of people saying that we have wars because it's 'human nature', when in fact while 'human nature' may give us the capacity to be soldiers (as well as to not be), it is ultimately *politicians* who start wars, not average people--average people just participate in them (and can escalate them through their participation).
equally, while you may say that because of some shared cultural characteristic japanese soldiers were less likely to give up the fight once they were involved in it, this does not imply that the japanese political/military elite would have had incentives to continue fighting no matter what. you cannot treat all japanese as if they had the same incentive structure.
the average japanese soldier was motivated by a belief in the emperor, the japanese nation, following orders and carrying out his duty. but what was the emperor motivated by? what were the generals motivated by? and when you put them all together, what is the systematic behaviour? it's not the same thing.
japan did in fact realise that it was losing, and while it is true that the average soldier probably would have fought to the death (just as many people would fight to the death defending their country, or what they see as their country's right), this does not imply that people making decisions would have taken them on the basis of 'death before defeat'. clearly this was shown not to be the case by the japanese surrender. there is absolutely nothing in the history that indicates that they would not have surrendered had it not been for the atomic bomb being dropped. what makes the atomic bomb somehow override japanese people's supposed character of wanting to fight to the death, where other means do not?
Boston Irish funding the IRA in the 70s and 80s, well they must be patriots in the mold of American rebels fighting the British
there were still IRA bombings up to the late 90s, no cold war then either. and the bombs did seem pretty bad because they killed and injured a lot of people.
the difference is that they were not exploited in order to create a climate of fear completely disproportional to the actual events. incidentally that is exactly the point of terrorist tactics--but we see today that those tactics can be effectively turned around and made more useful for the (supposed) target of the attacks than for the attackers...
that funding was (primarily) from irish americans.
the pressure put on sinn fein and the IRA by the american government aswell as the granting of travel visas to sinn fein brought them into the peace process and led to the good friday peace process.
granted, the funding over the years did the people of northern ireland no favours, but that money didnt come from the american government, but instead from (primarily) americans of irish extraction.
'Don't you know the people in Knoxville wondered what in the world was going on out here'
The USA way of saying "Wir haben es nicht gewusst"?
My karma ran over your dogma
Great, so are you then by your own logic. You are supporting forces which have invaded two, count them, two soverign nations.
Now afganistan is a gimme I figgure, hell even I gave 'support' for that one, several of my friends have gone/are going there. Canadian Forces Reservists who voulenteered if it matters.
So now we both deserve to die for the actions of people who are acting with out our consent on these issues, or at the very least without our informed consent.
To the people on the otherside of your big ol' stick you are the "Civilian" giving support, aid, and comfort to people 'invading' their land. I'm not saying that having troops stationed in foriegn countries with that governments consent is an invasion as such but some take it as such. So now I'm back to "If they're not with us they are against us and deserve to die", if you are able, IF, look at 9/11 through that lens puts a different perspective on it. Your land is threated, by something that may be completely fictional, you strike at a target that is designed to instill fear of your awesome power, you kill mostly civilians. Are they right? How can you still be?
If this was ment to be 'funny', I'm sorry but I didn't get it. Then again I try not to end jokes in "deserve to die".
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
That's because we here in the US are more accustomed to being on the giving end of terroist attacks rather than the receiving. Case in point: the IRA.
No members of Congress were involved in IRA fundraising... this year...
Number of persons killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes in the U.S. in 2002: 43,005.
"Oh no, there are cars everywhere..."
as a country you can't really afford to have everyone pissed off at you because you face things like international pressure, political sanctions and pre-emptive strikes
Tell me about it. I did a nuclear strike in Persia in Civ III, and suddenly everybody went bananas on me.
That definition of civilian is outdated and does not fit with the current world situation and the threats we now face as a people.
If our country is at war with the enemy then that entire country consitutes the threat, maybe we beat the armed forces into a cocked hat and conquer them but what then, insurrections, terrorism, suicide bombers ? All carried out by your oh so innocent civilians !
Merely harbouring some intellectual critisms of the leadership whilst supporting it's actions by continuing to work for that country, pay taxes and supporting your armed forces does not excuse you from the evil your country is responsible for and makes you a threat which must be neutralized.
Goddamn right I support those liberations, of course I do. They were necessary to protect the freedoms of the free world in which we live.
What you obviously fail to realise is that yes I am civilan and yes I am responsible for the actions of my country, but let me tell you buddy I'm am not going to die ( although obviously I would unhesitatingly throw down my life for the cause of righteous and claim my reward in heaven )for supporting what is right and just. No, I will simply take my share of the glory when our job is done.
How can anyone still believe in propaganda like this? That the entire population of a country is evil, that they are freedom-hating fanatics who will fight to the last man, woman and child?
Not being a 'civilian' doesn't equal being Evil. You're the one bringing archetypes into the deal. I'm military. I don't necessarily consider my opponents evil, though I'd kill them just the same, because they're the enemy.
On the other hand, there are videos and documentation showing arms-caches and propaganda aimed towards using the populace(including women and older children) to repel invasion.
Oh, and according to the conventions, even civilians are legal targets if they're contributing to the war effort. To that end, if you're producing bullets, bombs, arms, vehicles, etc, you're a legal. You're still legal even if you're producing food, clothing, etc for military use.
Thus, the point that the cities were being used for military purpose made them targets.
Whether, in hindsight, it was needed or not, well, I'd have to say that in this case, not even hindsight is 20/20. There's been just too much spin-doctoring on both sides.
I don't read AC A human right
there were still IRA bombings up to the late 90s, no cold war then either. and the bombs did seem pretty bad because they killed and injured a lot of people.
Indeed. And infact, for the UK, the terrorist attacks on the US have probably been beneficial since they made the people in the US who fund the IRA's terrorism realise what their money was actually doing.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Only if you're prepared to go fishing daily. And catch more with the net than the line.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
This is the coolest place to go visit - would have been a seat of government for the uk during a nuclear war scenario. Lots of cool stuff to see.
...
Hack Green
Home page
Not quite on the scale of this one but I thought someone here might find this of use.
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Some of the people on here are so liberal that they're offended by the realities of everyday life. There's nothing wrong with having pride in your country and admiring its war machines.
I'm surprised that these people aren't ashamed of being human or living in the country they do, because after all, humans fought their way to the top of the food chain and their ancestors surely took the country they live in by force from someone else. Fighting, natural selection- it's all part of nature. No matter how evolved people think they are, they still cannot break free of the most simple rules of mother nature.
I guess it's time to switch to china inf, then.
But, china inf is for n00bs.
sig?
- This may bell be just a PR campaign to make the place look better. Lots of things you won't hear on the tour:
- The calutrons were basically a FAILURE-- they only put out about 10% of the expected U235-- the rest they smeared all over the place, and not in the collection bucket. Once the gas diffusion plant got running the calutrons were relegated to secondary status. Being extremely expensive and inefficient to boot, they were shut down ASAP after the war.
- They were built mostly due to Lawrence's reputation in building the cyclotron, not on any technical merit.
- Ask about when the building had most of the world's mercury flowing through its pipes. And how much got lost. A DOE report says: "A 1983 study by USDOE estimates that 733,000 pounds of elemental mercury were released to the environment in the 1950s and 1960s around the Y-12 Plant. Most of the contamination around Y-12 is confined to the upper 10 feet of soils and fill. Additional studies revealed that some 170,000 pounds of mercury are contained in the sediments and floodplain of about a 15-mile length of East Fork Poplar Creek (EFPC), which has its headwaters at Y-12, and that some 500 pounds of mercury annually leave this watershed." ( i.e.: don't smoke the grass)
- Ask about the nearby sites where they dumped tons of radioactive waste right into the creeks and hollers.
Just MHO but his would be one of the LAST places on Earth I'd care to visit.Rape of Nanking
"Troubling" he says...
Watch out for suspicious looking teenagers joining your tour party and smuggling themselves onto the bus.
Party Time: Excellent
I also grew up in a community surrounding Oak Ridge. The government facilities there provided many jobs for my grandfather and his generation after they returned from WW2. These jobs had an extreme impact upon the surrounding communities in that they provided the very poor families in East TN jobs and the ability to escape poverty and move up to middle class status. This opportunity has lasted even until now. My grandfather and others like him died from exposure to the materials produced in Oak Ridge. The government is now providing families of those men and women restitution for their services. My wife's family alone recieved well over $200k from the government. Not only did the work that went on in Oak Ridge put an end to the greatest war ever waged, it also gave many families a chance for survival. Now ORNL is working on many things, even Glassy Steel! http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v38_1_05/artic le17.shtml
Your quote strikes a chord "Japan had a bunch of religious nutcases in control and the bombs shocked everyone back to reality."
But who is shocking whom?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Even more relevant:
"America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization." -- John O'Hara
Web Design Tips
I think a contributing factor was that the whole of the French defensive system (most famously the Maginot line) was designed, after the first world war, without expecting air attacks. The whole of the German 'blitzkrieg' strategy was based on starting with concerted air bombardment, and therefore flew right over the French defenses.
French tanks may have been superior, but the German strategy was based on a combined air/ground war, while France was not anticipating the air aspect.
Big Ed's pizza isn't anything special besides the fact that they replace the tomato sauce with molten lava. This leaves you with a typical Big Ed's 3rd degree burn in your mouth and you can't eat anything for several days. They're also really paranoid about security...they have 15-20 security cameras for the 15 tables in the restraunt.
I think a better restaurant in Oak Ridge WAS Buffalo Grille....their Y-12 hot wing sauce was arguably the hottest food you can probably get at a restaurant anywhere....definitely a legal liability on their part. That stuff burned going in you and would burn for days coming out.
I don't know why you are trying to insult me for. You can't hurt my feelings. You're just wasting your time and proving that you're fat-loving /. retard.
This argument is too abstract. The battles on and around Midway and Iwo Jima involved extreme difficulties and high casualty rates because the Japanese forces really did fight often to the last which is unusual and notable. Fire bombing raids on other cities such as Tokyo had actually caused even bigger atrocities already by igniting firestorms. The expected alternative was an invasion beginning at Okinawa that was projected to have a vast cost in money, material, and human life.
As for the Japanese mind set at the time, some people knew of problems, but that Japan was loosing was not broadly known. Also, there were various preparations for extreme reactions to invasion including civilian resistance and suicide when alternaves ran out. Ending the war with devastating force very likely saved Japanese lives.
And let's be honest about the impact of nukes. Yes, some people got incinerated or poisoned by radioactivity, but with the introduction of nuclear weapons the impact of war, which had only ever grown worse over time, was for the first time not only reduced, but effectively minimized. Nuclear weapons are awful things, but they have tamed our thirst for conflict like nothing else before or since.
Israel is not a signatory of NNPT. For that matter, neither are India or Pakistan. I do not know where the GP got that weird idea that it is a UN thing, because it is not. Countries may choose to sign or not freely - well, unless they happen to be declared "rogue states" by the US, in which case any and all treaties are just ink on the paper anyway.
I think this has something to do with responsible nations. Under the former leadership, Iraq couldn't be trusted with WMD weapons. There's a theory which was called the Golden Arches Theory and is now referred to the Supply Chain Theory which states that no two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's. You can read more about this theory from here or here.
I highly doubt that they're going to give out plans on building your own nuke
Of course thy won't be giving them away, the gift shop is planning boming revenues from these plans along with several other key products:
Wasn't it "Fat Boy", and then "Little Man"?
The article called the bomb "Little Boy". America does need more history classes it seems.
"Clark's Park" (actually Clark Center Park) has a swimming area and you can fish and swim all you wish. The restricted water is on the East Fork of Popular Creek, which originates in the plant and flows through town. The major concern is actually mercury, not radiation.
This isn't an issue about "rights" (well, you can make it one, but that's not very helpful) - it's an issue of who you trust.
If you are fine with our friend Kim Yong Il and the nice Mullahs of Theran getting the bomb, so be it. Still, that really tells the rest of us all we need to know about you and your alliegances.
Arguments about "rights" are useful in communities where there is some level of mutual trust and reciprocity - they aren't very useful when dealing with entities such as those mentioned above.
America....FUCK YEAH!!!!
Perhaps one day idiots like you will understand that an attacked nation is under no obligation to risk any more of its citizens lives then is necessary to end a conflict. The atomic bomb both ended the war and saved American lives and thus its use was just.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
As a Canadian, and a retired Canadian soldier at that, thanks for noticing our contribution at Normandy - and I say that without irony; the fact that Canada had a Normandy beach all to itself, and was in fact the only country to reach its D-Day objectives, is sadly often overlooked.
:) But please don't assume we're an American puppet state, militarily - we are not.
But your comment "I don't think Canada would have had that level of involvement without US cooperation" is well off the mark.
Historically, Canadians don't give a fig about what the US does when it comes to going to war. We are our own independant country, and we make our own decisions.
We joined WW1 and WW2 within a couple of days of both wars starting, and in both cases Canadians were busy fighting and dying well in advance of any American involvement.
Even in the case of war material Canadians have gone it their own if they had to. In WW1 we brought the Canadian made Ross rifle (sadly, a steaming hunk of shit and a political boondoggle) and we started WW2 with our own tank, the Ram (design elements of which eventually made it into the vastly superior Sherman) When US material, usually much cheaper to obtain rather than building it ourselves, became availble we'd use it, but having access to US equipment was never a precondition to Canada going to war.
In fact, it's interesting to see which wars Canada has chose to get involved in, and which ones it chose to avoid. I think we have a pretty good batting average when it comes to finding the just ones:
WW1, WW2, Korea, Gulf War 1, and Afganistan we all get into immediately. Vietnam and Gulf War 2 we purposely pass on.
And then there's all those UN peacekeeping missions: Cyprus, the Golan Heights, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti....
Anyway, thanks for noticing our proud military heritage. We think we've done OK over the years.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
it's an issue of who you trust.
An issue of who who trusts? You may trust Bush (I don't) but I think it's fair to say most of the middle-east don't trust Bush... so I ask again, why is it ok for the US to have nukes but other countries not to have them? Is this because _you_ trust the US and not Iraq? What about the people who trust Iraq and not the US? Or are you making the claim that you are right, everyone else is wrong? How arrogant.
I'm afraid I just see it as massively hypocritical to declare that it's ok for you to do something but noone else is trustworthy enough to do the same. If you're going to tell people they shouldn't be doing something you sure as hell shouldn't be already doing it yourself.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
So what did they do with the 99% of the load they couldn't use? Is there a big mountain of it inside the facility?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
One of the things I've always thought the Americans got right, and could be justifiably proud of, was how they rebuilt both Germany and Japan after WW2.
While not _completely_ innocent of a Machiavelllian scheming (what is, in politics?) the effort to NOT seek revenge by punishing the enemy, and instead to do everything possible to rebuild their economies and get them back on their own, *independant* feet, I think was one of the wisest political decisions made in human history. The contribution to the stability and well-being of the world since is incaluable.
The sad thing is that it appears that the lesson learned there has been forgotten. Can you imagine what the world would be like today, if the US had, instead of invading Iraq, chosen to bring the Marshall Plan to Afganistan?
Not only would the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of people been improved (an absolute good in of itself) an America that chose to treat Afganistan benevolently, that rebuilt industry and infrastructure and got the country cleaned up and back on its feet, would have torn the heart out of the support base for the people who attacked the US in the first place. It's hard to get people to hate the guy whose making your life better....
Ah well.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
...and the Ostrich Burger was to die for...
When you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
tm
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It is now primarily only within Ireland and N. Ireland that bombings still occur
Actually only in Northern Ireland, the south was never a target of bombing attacks. Wonderful how much peace you can have when you don't go around invading people, really.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
I think you can safely say that the US has killed more people with nukes than Iraq...
...because Iraq never obtained any nuclear weapons. Of course, you take this as meaning that, if they did, they wouldn't have used them, but that thought is just patently untrue and flies in the face of Saddam's brutal history of aggressively using chemical weapons against his own people and Iranians. Which, brings us back to the whole perceived impetus (Saddam's refusal to allow U.N. weapons inspectors in) for the war in Iraq to begin with.
I think many countries are more in need of weapons to defend themselves against an attack by the US than the US is in need of weapons to defend themselves.
Are you living under a rock or something? The war on terror has less to do with legitimate nation-states obtaining nuclear weapons (See: India and Pakistan) and more to do with rogue nations and terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear weapons. Simply allowing unfettered proliferation of nuclear weapons to fanatics unaccountable to their own people would be a bad--if not lethal--situation for everyone in the world.
-Grym
Oh, what a romantic vision, those hard working people designing a bomb to kill Japanese civilians -- needlessly, when one considers that the Japanese gov't was frantically trying to make peace at the time of the bombing.
:-(
But our nationalistic historical revisions never remember General Leslie Groves' words, the military commander of the WWII Manhattan Project: "There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of this Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis."
Or even WWII journalist and author Studs Terkel's comments: "Why did we drop [the atomic bombs]? So little Harry could show Molotov and Stalin we've got the cards. That was the phrase Truman used. We showed the goddamned Russians we've got something and they'd better behave themselves in Europe. That's why it was dropped. The evidence is overwhelming. And yet you tell that to 99 percent of Americans and they'll spit in your eye."
Instead, we use such nostalgic "tourist attractions" to build up the PR for another new generation of nuclear weapons that the US is more eager than ever to use.
The Oak Ridge Reservation comprises X-10, Y-12 and K-25 plants.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was a predominantly civilian research facility based at X-10, and a little bit of Y-12.
The Y-12 Plant, as an institution, on the other hand, was predominantly concerned for decades with the manufacture of the fusion secondaries for thermonuclear weapons. It's the secondary (H-bomb) part which has the really secret and high tech bits.
I worked at ORNL a number of years ago, and my office was in the unclassified Y-12 side.
Inside the (electric security) fence was the nuclear bits. These days, it is the "Fort Knox" of highly enriched uranium.
It does not at all look very "high tech", compared to any modern industrial engineering plant it seems pathetically ugly, dull and dreary, a cross between a chemical plant and a Soviet-style apartment block, and neither of which was updated since 1947 or so. One of the most unpleasant physical environments to work in.
Try toxic waste, fumes, etc. Then try cancer and death, then try thousands of dead people on the other side of the globe.
So when can they expect to see you down at the Army or Marine recruiting office? Get yourself a rifle and get your ass in the grass grunt, err sand. OH you're taking your share of the glory for sitting on you're ass state side?
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
Am I the only one who got the Far Out Space Nuts reference? I thought so. And you people say you love Adam Quark.
During WWII, my grandfather was teaching physics to Navy cadets at Murray State College in western Kentucky, as part of the War Department's "90-Day Wonder" program. They'd take cadets out of basic training who'd had some college experience, and give them technical training before putting them in charge of engineering battallions, or other technical posts.
Grandfather (a civilian) actually wanted to enlist in the regular military, but was always told by the temporary military commander of this civilian school, "Uncle Sam needs you right here, teaching these cadets." Finally he gave up, decided they were right, and resigned himself to what he was best at, being a small-town physics teacher.
Immediately he starts getting draft notices in the mail. In frustration he showed the notices to the commander, who telephoned his own superiors and according to my grandfather, "Just started cussing." After five minutes, he hangs up.
The next thing my grandfather knows, he receives another notice, no return address, telling him to take a train from Murray to a town he'd never heard of near Knoxville, and not to tell anybody where he was going.
Grandfather arrived at Oak Ridge, which in his telling was hardly a town, with knee-deep mud in the streets. He asked where the town hall was (this is where he was supposed to meet his contact) but no one would say a word to him. Finally he joined in a boy's game of marbles, and found out from the children where the place was.
From the town hall, he was whisked into the nascent Oak Ridge plant, and interviewed for some hours about his background, and his knowledge of physics (which I remember was heavy on practical knowledge, but medium on sophisticated theory.)
After the meeting was over, they wouldn't let him leave the plant for several more hours, as his paperwork had gone missing during the interview.
Grandfather decided that Oak Ridge was no place to raise my three year-old father, took the train back to Murray, and went straight back to teaching those Navy cadets (and then the GI Bill veterans, after the war, and then their children.)
He died in 1996, without ever knowing the job description for which he'd been so meticulously interviewed.
Now the story about the class of graduating cadets "replacing" his entire set of "civilian" demonstration apparatus by standing at attention and presenting him with a chalkboard eraser tied to a piece of string will have to wait for another Offtopic post....
RIP, Granddaddy.
Goddamn right I am, my ass on the chair is the safest place for it the deviants they got around here now.
Any monkey can crawl around in the sand with a rifle, the real hard work is done in the factories and churches back home to equip those boys properly and urge them on. Government lobbyists perform an invaluable service also.
LC Manley asked if there had been problems with frogs, especially at ORNL. Gordon Blaylock answered that frogs would get into pond 3513, a waste disposal pond, and reproduce. The sediment and water in the pond contained relatively high levels of radionuclides from the waste disposal system. As the frogs matured from tadpoles to adult frogs, they were exposed to relatively high levels of radionuclides. The adult frogs, which contained high body burdens of radionuclides would leave the pond and were run over in the street or stepped-on on the sidewalk.
Quoted from http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/oakridge/meet/pha/m1_ 20_04.html
Oh yeah the poor Japanese, they just wanted peace.
Not only Israel, but also India and Pakistan. Their justification for having nukes essentially is b/c they need to protect themselves against each other. It is also fairly well documented that North Korea has made a nuclear weapon. In addition, South Africa and Iran are rumored to be working on or already possess them.
So why is it that "could's" are always used to support the incineration of children in Japan?
I think it was modded down not because it was inflammatory but because our Gung-Ho "patriot" moderators were made uncomfortable by the argument.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Well, they did after their cities were firebombed and burned to the ground, their Navy sunk and the gains they made in the war largely reversed...
The point is, they knew they were beaten and wanted to end the war. The US ended the war -- on the same conditions the Japanese were proposing through third parties -- but only after nuking two cities to show the Soviet Union how ruthless and "mighty" the US was.
Good point. The enrichment methods used during the Manhattan Project required rediculous amounts of resources. During tours you often hear terms like "Most of the free world's mercury and silver" for the cyclotrons and "10% of the electricity in the US" for the gasseous diffusion plant. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but it's indicative of the resources needed. Enriching uranium is an extremely non-trivial thing, especially if using the antiquated techniques of the Manhattan Project.
Are you living under a rock or something? The war on terror has less to do with legitimate nation-states obtaining nuclear weapons (See: India and Pakistan) and more to do with rogue nations and terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear weapons.
From what I can tell, the "war on terror" is all about scaring the shit out of law abiding citizens of countries like the US and UK whilest restricting their rights. Oh and invading other sovereign states on the grounds that they have weapons of mass destruction - yes, thats right, the war was justified against much public opposition (certainly here in the UK) on the grounds that there _were_ weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, despite no proof of this and infact much evidence to the contrary... and guess what, the weapons inspectors couldn't find anything.... which is what the intelligence services had been suggesting all along.
If the war had been justified with evidence of _something_ (not necessarilly anything to do with weapons of mass destruction) then it may have been a valid thing to do - justifying it by lieing to your citizens is not a good plan. Sadly recent elections have shown that the electorate either have very short memories or are just plain stupid.
Simply allowing unfettered proliferation of nuclear weapons to fanatics unaccountable to their own people would be a bad--if not lethal--situation for everyone in the world.
I'm not advocating the proliferation of nuclear weapons - I'm saying that before the US tells a country that they can't develop nukes, maybe the US should set an example and decomission their own. Afterall, if the enemy doesn't have any nukes, why the hell does the US need them to defend itself - you can bet that if the enemy suddenly had the means to build a nuke and the US found they needed to defend themselves, the US could knock one up in next to no time even if they had decomissioned the lot. As it is, sitting on top of your own nukes and telling everyone else that they can't have any themselves because they can't be trusted is completely hypocritical, especially when the US decides that it's going to illegally invade other countries whenever it pleases (admittedly not using nukes, but I fail to see how this promotes trust).
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Because one of those countries is large and powerful and already has plenty of them and has used them in the past.
That's what it boils down to. We're big, we can use our influence or threats to keep other people from getting as big or powerful as us.
Nations aren't rational. Quite a bit of the time international politics is indistiguishable from schoolyard fighting. We happen to be the big kid. That's all the justification we need, until the voters decide to make it a large enough issue to make our government step back or the rest of the world gets sick of us and gangs up on us.
"Rights" don't exist for nations, nor do ethics. Everything's in the eye of the beholder - especially the beholder with the most weapons, largest military, and most globally intwined economy.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
He's not naive, he's stupid. I'm an American so I care about the USA 1st and foremost (unlike some Americans). I don't care what the Middle East and N Korea think about being told not to develop nukes. We used 2 nukes in the 60 years we have had them in one of the largest wars (if not the largest) of all time. While Japan was raping, murdering, pillaging and surprise attacking Pearl Harbor and Stalin & Hitler were killing whoever they wanted we used 2 nukes. Big freakin' deal.
From what I can tell, the "war on terror" is all about scaring the shit out of law abiding citizens of countries like the US and UK whilest restricting their rights. Oh and invading other sovereign states on the grounds that they have weapons of mass destruction...
Sovereign states? Surely you don't believe pre-war Afghanistan and Iraq to be sovereign states. What kind of sovereignty is there in a oligarchy (in the guise of a theocracy) and a dictatorship?
Despite the fact that some illegal weapons were found and destroyed (medium-ranged missiles), your point is absurd even with regard to "real" WMDs. Both German and UK intelligence services believed Iraq had WMDs. The collective intelligence of states at the U.N. believed it when they voted on referendum 1440. The only time doubts even began to arise occurred when the time for action drew near and the proverbial lines in the sand were beginning to be drawn.
You can argue that the intelligence was bad because of serious structural and procedural problems at both domestic and international intelligence services. I'll agree with you. But sitting here claiming that intelligence never indicated the presence of any WMDs is completely bunk.
I'm not advocating the proliferation of nuclear weapons - I'm saying that before the US tells a country that they can't develop nukes, maybe the US should set an example and decomission their own...
This issue has nothing to do with fairness. I'd like to live in this idealistic paradise you seem to be in--it seems really nice. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work like this. The approach you describe is like me trying to start a new wave of socialism simply by giving away all my possessions. It doesn't work that way.
You seem to be of the notion that everyone thinks defensively such as yourself. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Like it or not (I personally don't), international stability depends in part upon the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.) even now in the post-Cold War era. Expecting North Korea, for example, to not develop and use nuclear weapons simply because its enemies don't have them only works if the DPRK is concerned solely with defense, which they most certainly are not. Removing the threat of nuclear retaliation only makes the option of developing and using nuclear weapons aggressively that much more viable.
The goal shouldn't be to remove all nuclear weapons technology wherever it exists. If there's anything the P2P battles (or any other instance in which groups have tried to stop the inevitable march of technological progress) have taught us anything it's that: hiding or preventing people from getting access completely to a technology for an indefinite amount of time is impossible. Preventing certain groups, however, from obtaining the technology is well within our power. Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons to unstable or rogue nations is a beneficial, pragmatic goal. Perhaps it's not fair, but lives and international stability depend upon it.
-Grym
IIRC, the percentage of the population of the USA killed in the 9/11 attacks was slightly lower than the percentage of the population of Northern Ireland killed in the Omagh Bomb.
Something like 3000 people have been killed in the troubles as a whole.
What happened on 9/11 was terrible, almost to the point where I can't comprehend it. What happened in Northern Ireland was worse. And what happened in Northern Ireland was peanuts compared to Rwanda.
Compare Bush to Saddam? Let's see...
1. Invaded other country(s) without provocation...check.
2. Holding prisoners without due process or trial rights...check.
3. Torture...check.
4. Killed thousands of people...check.
5. Actively worked to reduced the rights of his people...check.
6. Use of propoganda and nationalism...check
7. Weapons of Mass Destruction...Weapons of Mass Destruction????
You're right. Only Bush has access to weapons of mass destruction. There's no comparison.
~X~
~X~
- Invaded another country which will be better off because of it
- Torture consisting of mostly humiliation. These guys leave in better health for goodness sake. They can also pray 5 times a day. vs throwing people in shredders and vats of acid.
- Tried to avoid killing enemy civilians at the cost of own soldiers vs killing thousands of his own civilians
- Gone in 3 yrs vs ?
- used wmd on his own civilians vs didnt use wmd at all
I know its hard. But dont believe everything your friends believe. I used to be anti-Bush too."However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
Would you have wanted to fight the Russians?
Both German and UK intelligence services believed Iraq had WMDs.
Wrong - post-war investigations have shown that the UK intelligence services thought it very unlikely Iraq had WMDs and the government had infact ignored that and outright lied to the public.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Hehe, I always thought it was amusing that they needed copper for the cyclotrons, but couldn't get any due to wartime shortages, so they borrowed 15,000 tons of silver from the Treasury.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Wrong. Hirohito and the military knew about that city's destruction later that day, but were paralyzed by indecision. Hirohito did not meet with his supreme war council until about 11 a.m. Aug. 9, within minutes of when the second bomb fell on Nagasaki. Another choice quote: "The Japanese military did not want people to know about the atomic bomb," said Tsuia Etchu, founder of Nagasaki's Atomic Bomb museum. Etchu was an army officer in the city of Fukuoka when the bomb fell.
It stands to reason that the military didn't want people to know that America had these superweapons, so that people would still have some delusion about fighting to the death and taking as many American's with them as possible.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Oh my god. I finally got a freak. My UID is 115173 and I FINALLY GOT A FREA
Er. Sorry. Anyway:
This is the problem with history: We only exist in one world-line. We are forever plagued by what might have been, what could have been, what should have been. However, when I look around, while I find that I do not live in the Best of All Possible Worlds, I find the one I'm in isn't too bad. There is work that could be done and it looks like it will get done, in time.
Power and Wisdom must go hand in hand. To see an example of what happens when they do not go hand in hand, just look at our current President.
However, wisdom is cold and calculating. Ideally, we use our hearts to see what should be done, and then we wisely choose a course, and use our power to make it so. We had to have Japan surrender, and unconditionally. No other option would truely get the point across. Cultural differences.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Yeah, I heartily agree. I've always pictured the exchange kind of like this:
... ... and who exactly are you?"
Oak Ridge: "Hello, is this the US Treasury? We need all of your silver for the war effort."
Treasury: "Excuse me? All of the silver?"
Oak Ridge: "Yes, if you'd kindly ship it to this little blank spot on the map in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee."
Treasury: "...
Oak Ridge: "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. No. Seriously. Ship the silver ASAP, if you don't mind."
Needless to say, this probably isn't what happened, but the story of the Manhattan Project is full of these little amazing details. 15ktons of silver... think of all of the silverware that that would make!
And Americans funded it.
Before any dunderhead Americans stamp their feat in anger assuming I'm a forigner, I'm also an American. I've been against support of the IRA since I was able to understand what was going on. What part of "Dont fucking do this" as more politely written in various scriptures dont people understand. I'm not even christian and I get it.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
There is an article here describing the various services' ideas as to how to end the war with Japan. It says the U.S. Army wanted to invade, and the U.S. Navy wanted to blockade and use U.S. Army Air Force strategic bombers to end the war. Note that the planners didn't know about the Manhattan Project, and made plans that didn't involve atomic weaponry.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton