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North Korea Air Sample Shows Radiation
Apocalypse111 writes, "According to CNN.com, air samples taken over North Korea have not yet shown any radiation from the event on Monday that North Korea claims was a nuclear test. This is not definitive proof that the event was non-nuclear, as it may either have been so small and deep that it did not let any radioactive debris escape, or perhaps the North Koreans sealed the site." Furthering speculation over whether North Korea has actually exploded a nuclear device, vk38 writes to point out a (free) article in today's Wall Street Journal claiming that the blast could have been
set off by exploding fertilizer (ammonium nitrate). The article points to the
Texas City disaster of 1947, in which 7,700 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded in the hold of a ship with the estimated power of 2 to 4 kilotons of TNT.
Update: 10/14 08:03 GMT by Z : The story at CNN has been updated: "A preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea shows 'radioactive debris consistent with a North Korea nuclear test,' according to a statement from the office of the top U.S. intelligence official."
Update: 10/14 08:03 GMT by Z : The story at CNN has been updated: "A preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea shows 'radioactive debris consistent with a North Korea nuclear test,' according to a statement from the office of the top U.S. intelligence official."
OMG, they perfected Cold Fusion!
Because they are lying. They used TNT.
Maybe all the North Koreans jumped up and down at the same time.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
I think it's funny that this article is under the Hardware section. Maybe we could get Tom's Hardware to produce a 25-page full benchmark test of this nuclear explosion v. competing nuclear tests, and then we'll really get to the bottom of this.
Pfft, Canada does accidental explosions best: Halifax Explosion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion Atleast 200kTons there...
Iran has also exploded a nuclear bomb. Or something. We're not really sure. Coulda been anything really.
Seriously though - is this really news ? Shouldn't we wait until it's confirmed one way or the other before it makes sense to comment on it ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_Explosive_De tonation_Velocities
Are we justified sanctioning and otherwise punishing it, even if it lied?
This is more than an abstract question (like the famous "if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there...").
Saddam's Hussein downfall was (at least partially) brought about by his insinuating that he still has WMDs privately — to keep neighbors in fear, soldiers brave, and citizens proud, while claiming loudly, that he got rid of them all (which turned out to be true, after all)...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The ironic thing is, the nations of the world are looking to impose sanctions - but can we really impose sanctions if it turns out it wasnt a nuke in the first place?
I have nukes!
No you don't
Boom!
That wasn't a nuke!
Boom!
Sorry, just don't believe you!
Boom!
No no.. never. That was just gas.
errrr.
Oh.. you used all your material and you are out now?
(reminds me of puss and boots with the mouse).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
For years they guy has been openly claiming to be working on a bomb. The fact that he does not unambiguously have one yet is astounding.
With all the information that is public, it *is* trivial to create a bomb. Access to plutonium, which he has, is the hard part.
I hate to introduce politics, but it has to be said, Saddam maybe, could have, possibly, been working on something, if you look at the intelligence "just so." North Korea, has been openly saying they are working on these bombs. North Korea sells arms to our enemies. I blame Bush on all counts. The guy is all about acquiring power, but without the wisdom or honor to use it well.
I am remeinded if Bill Maher, Usually you have an administration that is corrupt or one that is inept. The Bush administration is both.
I really wouldn't be amazed if it wasn't a nuke. They obviously want people to think they have nukes (whether they do or not) because otherwise they wouldn't have said they were going to do it and just passed it off as a light earthquake.
One can easily see from the increase in prestige and offers that Iran has been given for just saying that they want nuclear power that it gives your country an "edge"... I think it has backfired a bit - but we'll have to wait and see. Either way it's understandable why he would want to make it look like he has them. If Kim was thinking about the situation rationally then he would also know why China wouldn't want to put too many conditions on North Korea - which is to say that what China really fear is thousands of immigrants flooding in, after all, the nukes North Korea has will never rival China; and they can't even deliver the bombs anyway! (as far as I know they only have the ability to deliver something like that on a boat or train, really)
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
How the hell would NK come up with some 500 fully loaded dump trucks worth of fertilizer, and dump it in a hole? It would be visible from the friggin moon.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
You mean they were all just participating in this, albeit nearly 3 months late?
..a real nuke, but the government right now REALLY doesn't want it to be a real nuke, because they would have to put up or shut up over their "no nukes for axis of e-vile" places. So who knows? They have been more or less threatening Iran now for a long time on the theory they are even developing one, and saying "dire consequences" and a lot of pre emptive strike speculation, etc. So, what can they do to N. Korea if they really had one? Invade, or a pre emptive strike? Ha! They are already on the serious manure list for most everything, what else practically can they do about it? What "sanctions" are even left of any importance that aren't already beng imposed?
OK, get back to the question. If a nuke was buried deep enough and the caverns sealed before the blast, with a very small nuke, would radiation escape to be detected? And wasn't there a lot of talk the other day that the seismograph guys were good enough to tell just from the signature?
It's not so hard to pile up ten thousand tons of conventional explosive, and as discussed in the previous thread on the test itself there is some value in convincing your neighbors that you have nuclear weapons regardless of whether you actually have them.
The revised seismic figures were (if I recall right) something like 0.5 kT equivalent. The smallest easy-to-build bombs (those that have supercritical assemblies without hyper-compression of the metal) yield something like 10-30 kT, so this was either a fizzled nuke or a large pile of ANFO (or something like that).
In the last discussion I made a big deal about the Kamioka observatory and how they "should" have been able to see neutrinos from the blast -- but with an 0.5kT blast the number of neutrino interactions is only 1 or 2, so they can't be expected to distinguish a large chemical explosion from a very small fizzled nuclear explosion.
I remember Protect and Survive, Duck and Cover etc etc... the diagrams taught me that the fall-out descends like rain, so how would they detect it overhead...
Maybe they didn't want to use up their nuclear fuel in a real explosion, and just wanted to use a "pretend" bomb to achieve the same effect.
After all, it's not hard to make a "lttle boy" type of nuke. If they tried for a "fat man" then it quite possibly was a dud.
My money is on no nuke, just a lot of fertilizer to make some noise, which they did.
You can seal the site before detonation. It's not that difficult. The US has done it hundreds of times during the cold war and just before.
Also, the estimates (which vary according to which country you ask) are less than 1 kt. As far as nukes go, that is very tiny. How much rad would you expect from this? How deep was the explosion? I know that they registered seismic activity, which was how they knew it happened. How accurate can one guage depth using seismographic equipment?
For some perspective, the US 1954 Castle Bravo test was 15 MEGA tons, and it was a mistake, they were only expecting like 1/3rd of that. The "ruskies" detonated 50 Mt, the largest ever, in 1961. There has been over 2,000 nuclear tests by the world nuke powers since they began, most of them from the US.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb
A neutron bomb is a type of tactical nuclear weapon developed specifically to release a relatively large portion of its energy as energetic neutron radiation to harm biological tissues and electronic devices that are otherwise relatively protected from the heat blast without causing nuclear fallout.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Are the ones with the birds in space with the neutron detectors. Birds like Vela 6911.
Does anyone reading this think they will get a straight answer from the satallite running folkes?
In between bouts of decrying "Sooo Wone-wy", Kim was quoted as saying that news of the faked nuke test was "Inebbidable!"
Now Kim Jong-il is spreading FUD...
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
North Korea seems to have failed at the very essence of the Nuclear test. The idea isn't to test if your nuclear bomb work, you better fucking know your technology is ready before you even hint you have the bomb. The idea of a nuclear test is to PROVE you have the bomb, and to prove it works, and to show everyone you got big balls. They have not done this, and this further proves it. They might have one, but you don't brag about an underground nuclear test unless you have something to prove and North Korea definatly has that.
Personally I think it proves they DONT have a bomb.... yet. And more likely their real first test will be over Japan/Israel/South Korea/ whereever else, and their second will be during the all out nuclear bombardment where all the countries give them all the nuclear power they need, though they'll have to figure out how to contain it.
North Korea and Iran are both playing dangerous games. They are acting like children at the grown ups tables. Let's hope they mature or get slapped before they become teenagers who get into a massive car accident and "kill" one or more of the adults
If we run around telling him he didn't really explode a nuke then it's only incentive for him to try again. Far better to pat him on the head and pretend it was the world's most wildly successful nuke test and get down to the business of what to do about it.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
is that it was an attempt made with non-weapons-grade plutonium. Yes, you get plutonium if you irradiate U-238 in a reactor, but you have to change the U-238 slugs every few days, or it gets over-irradiated. What you get is contaminated by a bunch of other Pu isotopes which fission much more easily than the Pu239. If you use those isotopes in a bomb, because of the "easy fission" of the contaminating isotopes, the critical mass blows itself apart inefficiently, resulting in a "fizzle."
Granted, 500 tons is one HELL of a fizzle.
... so the Bush Administration says.
They never bothered with it before, why bother with it now? I mean evidence just detracts from the issues they are pushing.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
In Other News
Could it just be bluffing? If so, does this mean the sanctions and all are going to blow back into the face of Mr. Kim (Dear Leader) Jong Il? Can't see that going down too well. Losing something for nothing and making Japan more militaristic, after all these years. Nope, can't see anyone as a winner if that's their game.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
IANANP:
But, from what I heard, it very well could have been a nuke that just wasn't put together properly. When trying to create the atomic reaction, they use conventional explosives to compress the radioactive material. If their calculations were the slightest bit off, then the conventional explosives would have gone off but not created an atomic reaction.
In that case, there will be more tests as soon as the previous engineer is executed.
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
http://www.vancouverislandabound.com/tamingof.htm
A dangerous undersea mountain top called Ripple Rock was blown up by the Canadians in 1958. I always thought it was the world's largest deliberate chemical explosion. Anyway, some people think the Korean explosion was only 500 kilotons. So, a large chemical explosion has been done before and it could have been done again.
Given that the North Korean dictator is addicted to western movies, maybe he's taken his lead from a Peter Sellers movie, The Mouse that Roared. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/
FTFA in question:
Uh, what?
(From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZF
If they can't get a trivial anecdote right (trivial in terms of the story, not in terms of people dying) then why would I believe that the rest of the article is worth reading?
Guess they don't have editors over at the WSJ these days.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Guardian (UK) was archiving their anti american articles there and they came in contact with some bad kimchee
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Are we justified sanctioning and otherwise punishing it, even if it lied?
No yelling "FIRE!" in crowded theatres, no yelling "A-Bomb!" at the UN.
You can't take the sky from me...
Damn that Bush -- another false claim of WMD.
Just because NKorea is also falsely claiming they're real, doesn't mean that Bush can slander them by agreeing.
Reminds me of the line from "Shawshank Redemption" where the wardon is commenting about the prisoner's escape and says, "So, he up and vanished like a fart in the wind." :-)
North Korea seems to have failed at the very essence of the Nuclear test.
And you've failed at the very essence of the Nuclear Threat. It doesn't matter how big the boom is- what matters is that you can make the boom land anywhere. A half to one kiloton explosion in almost any Japanese or South Korean city would kill/injure thousands.
Please help metamoderate.
gotta love google maps:
Here is the Nevada testing area: test sites
Lots of big craters in the ground. Can anyone find the russian equivalent? Then we could just play count the crater. Which wouldn't of course count the pacific tests, but would be interesting. Really looks like someone went out of their way to make the test sites visable from space.
I don't think it makes sense to drop 500 (or 1000) tons of explosives in a hole, blowing it up and pretending it to be a nuke. Such a small explosion would certainly give the idea of a fizzle, showing that NK does not have weapons yet (since the "prototype" failed). It would also show that a nuclear capability is imminent, so everyone interested would be acting to prevent that.
On the other hand, gun type bombs are not really tested that much. Little boy went straight to hiroshima without testing, because the scientists thought it would work (unlike fat-man, they did the trinity test for that).
Besides, North Korea was producing plutonium, that if I remember correctly, cannot be used in gun type bombs (it detonates too soon, blows apart and you get a dud).
I think they were testing their implosion bomb, and it fizzled. That does not mean they do not have a few gun types in a bunker somewhere.
GPG 0x1B479C78
IANAE (I am not an expert), but underground nuclear explosions do usually not emmit radioactivity, at least at the moment.
As far I understood an article I read some time ago, the gigantic heat of the explosion melts the surronding soil into a glass cave which conceils the radioactive mess.
The problem is only after years of even decades, this glass sealing can (and at some point will) break and set the radioactivity free. Then the radiation levels will boost up... Thats another problem of humanity waiting we create now (our legacy for our kids).. all this sealed nuke-eggs from past underground expiriments loosing integrity at some future point.
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
An exciting new game
They are using it as a point of blackmail. If you look at their rhetoric they are demanding that the world congratulate them on their successful test, saying that any sanctions will be an act of war (wtf?), and that how they proceed from here will depend on how nice people are to them.
To run with your analogy this is like someone holding a gun to their child's head and demanding you give them money to not shoot their kid. Regardless of if it's a cap gun, the fact that they'd stoop to that level of blackmail means that they need to be stopped.
Sony recently confirmed its disposal of the previously mentioned exploding batteries by means of burying them in a landfill of North Korea. The landfill was stuffed to capacity and sealed off early last week. Sony reports it intends to bury the remaining defective units somewhere in Iran.
After the supposed 'nuclear weapon' test detonation, North Korea stated that no radiation had leaked. I found this bit particularly interesting because, depending on the area, leakage might pose a threat to the population. Since when does NK give a damn about its population? I have reason to believe they never tested tested any nuclear weapon, otherwise 'leakage' would've never been brought up. The measurements of the following earthquake seem to support this theory.
watch me.... 3... 2... 1... CNN....
test is to prove that you have a nuke. Testing publicly before you actually had more than a few dozen seems silly. Nobody in their right minds would threaten to use a Nuke, particularly if they only had one or two. Sure they might cause a localised disaster here - how much damage can one nuke cause to the US - but the response would turn the whole country into a sheet of glass.
Who bets this was a well calculated plan by some sensible N.K. scientists to demonstrate that in fact they have nothing for us to fear.
Of course idiot Kim wouldn't know what a real nuke is capable of, probably felt the earth shake and thought to himself, "cool, now I have a big penis too.". Also a calculated response from some sensible N.K. scientists.
Apparently nobody recalls the catastrophic "mysterious" explosion of a train in North Korea last year?
Hm...why would they be shipping railcars full of explosive anywhere?
Face it, "dear leader" is just an attention wh0re.
Although I confess I expected that he would have at least loaded the cave with a bunch of Fiestaware? Old smoke detectors? bought off ebay to give it SOME sort of radiation signature.
-Styopa
Bollocks to the air testing, we need scientists on the ground to test the neighbouring molluscs!
same CNN that was reporting that the test was underground? How much radiation becomes airborne from an underground test! Duh!
If the alleged nuclear test wasn't really nuclear, I wonder if Kim Jung Il knows that's the case. Maybe his nuke team couldn't deliver on time so they faked it, not so much to fool the rest of the world as to fool Kim Jung Il. If he learns of it from western news sources heads will roll in North Korea.
The theory is trivial, and the tech and materials are mostly trivial, again with the exception of the plutonium. But that doesn't mean constructing a working implosion device is trivial. You have to be extremely precise in your calculations in order to pull it off. This is why the culmination of a nuclear program always involves a live test, because that's really the only way to be sure that your math and engineering were correct.
And, because in the modern age there are thousands of seismic sites and many radiological sites that can detect the seismic and radioactive signature of a nuclear explosion, a nuclear test is also the announcement that you have succeeded in your nuclear ambitions. For a recent example of how a nuclear test is both final exam and public announcement, see Pakistan.
So the fact that a successfull nuclear test would be quite apparent (and as we are seeing the absence of a nuclear test as well), and that NK called China to tell them so they would be sure China was watching closely, tells me that this was probably a real nuclear test. A test that, it would appear, failed. If memory serves, they told China to expect a 2KT explosion, with the actual measurement at about 0.5KT?
Sounds to me like they had at best a partial detonation of the nuclear material, but didn't have the timing of the high explosives good enough to pack all the plutonium into a small enough ball for it all to react before the reaction force blew it apart.
Saddam could bluff about having chemical weapons. Kim can bluff about developing nukes, but it really doesn't make sense to try to bluff a nuclear test. And of course we know he desperately wants them. So I'm going with the theory that this was a real nuclear test, just a failed one, and North Korea doesn't have a working nuke yet, but they are very close. The data from just this test may be enough for them to fix it.
The enemies of Democracy are
Once again we see evidence of dumbing down and jumping to conclusions. Has anyone here considered that nuclear explosisions have a distintive seismic signature and that this was looked at as soon as the earthquake was noticed?
It's far better that they blow up their own country than someone else's. Just keep saying "Nuh-uh!" long enough, and they'll waste some more of their weapons grade materiel in a mountain compression exercise...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Iran: we don't have nukes!
US: Sure you do.
Iran: we'll let inspectors come in and inspect our sites.
US: We don't care.
Iran: inspectors report no HEU found.
US: So what? You're hiding it.
Iran: we'll let tourists visit our nuclear sites; we'll prove there is nothing to hide!
US: Sure, you are still hiding it.
Iran: we just want uranium to generate electricity.
US: You're lying! You're making a bomb!
Iran: *sigh* I wish we were North Korea...
US: Aha! You admit it! You're evil! Take this! *boom*
What if the explosion in 2004 happened while transporting / stacking explosives to fake a nuclear test?o n_disaster&oldid=79574083
See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ryongch
k2r
cause he's so wronley, so wronley....... ;)
What if N Korea has some kind of weapons tech that isn't nukes, but still can make kiloton-scale explosions? It wouldn't break the nuke taboo, or any treaties. And it might not be held back from using these really powerful weapons by their baggage.
Maybe its enemies, including the US, has no defense against an unknown new class of weapons like this.
And without needing nuclear fuel, maybe N Korea can make an unlimited amount of them, on as many missiles as it can make to fire.
While it would be good news if there isn't a new, batshit-crazy member of the "nuclear club" in this world, it's still bad news that N Korea can cause 4.2-scale earthquakes on demand.
As more tech is more available around the world to so many, it's ever more important not to isolate countries that can see destruction as their only way to get "status" or "power". Afghanistan, Iraq, N Korea, now Iran... the attraction of the benefits of inclusion in the global society is the only way to influence people into constructive behavior. Pretending we can shut them down by shutting them out is an arrogance now very obviously too lethal for us to afford any longer.
--
make install -not war
air samples taken over North Korea have not yet shown any radiation
As soon as I heard the news the other day it sounded obvious to me that it had to be an underground test. They wouldn't be stupid enough to make explode an atmospheric bomb, considered the pollution it creates, and then it's a fairly common thing to rather make underground tests now.
Aren't these news consistent with an underground explosion? If not then I wonder why Jacques Chirac was assisting to underground nuclear tests in Mururoa in 1995 without any kind of protection.
You just got troll'd!
Of course that's nothing compared to 50 megatons because this thread discusses the biggest man-made non-nuclear explosions.
This is hilarious.
You might want to update that headline to say, umm, completly the opposite of what it says.
"The United States now has preliminary evidence of radioactivity from North Korea's nuclear test ground, indicating it did indeed carry out a test, a U.S. official tells CNN."
(As of now there's no link to an actual story, it's just "breaking news" at the top of their site.)
If you don't like the news, just wait five minutes. Something will be along quickly.
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
he is crazy, not stupid. It was a real test. it may have gone wrong, but I can promise you it's not fake.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why, I bomb the locker for a few weeks and then send in 150,000 troops to the locker next to it. What else could I possible DO in a situation like this???"
Fixed it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Great. Then they don't mind giving the IAEA unfettered access like every other nation that signed the NPT. Oops. You are either gullable or deceptive.
Dubious.
What do you expect of "comrade wolf". I should think you would admire President Bush's UN diplomacy in dealing with Iran and North Korea. Democratic leadership will put and end to dangerous adolsecence. They will be feckless and adolescent.
an ill wind that blows no good
here is the url
;^)
whoops, I guess _you_ were being funny
Unfortunately, the link that you posted to has changed. The new title for the article reads Source: U.S. has evidence of radioactivity from N. Korea.
While Chavez isn't overseeing mass killings yet, he's certainly preparing.
BTW, googling for "arming chavistas" came up with lots of references. I chose to quote the one above because it made me smile; memories of foaming-at-the-mouth Communist Youth cadres from my younger days, aah...
I knew China wasn't really going to do much about the advertised nuclear testing in North Korea. Just days ago, fellow Americans argued that China would help America every step of the way. The reports on BBC News beats a far different tone.
The problem with Nukes is two fold really. First, it's pretty much science and that much every man has the right to know; problem solving is a capability inherent in all humans. So, I think the main factors of developing such technology reside soley in ability to apply the acquired/developed knowledge of a group of scientists. Controlling who gets what materials currently known to work. Politics comes into play here, make the world look down on you if you do go through with it. But, nothing can stop a person from going to a library and picking up a book; and for men of the calibur to become Generals and National Leaders... determination is every bit as tangible as the solid brick wall infront of you.
I have little doubt in my mind that North Korea detonated a nuclear device. We all have a very basic and crude understanding of how it fundamentally works. It's really only a magnitude of elegance and stability between my 600lbs of home-made shock stabalized nitro-glycerin, nitrocelulos and gun-powder, all crudely shape charged towards colliding necessary fuels together with enough force to initiate a violent nuclear reaction. But, how on earth am I going to get the "fuel" from? All the other stuff is relatively easy to come by with a little effort.
Sooner or later, Afghanistan will have the capacity to build a thermo-nuclear device. Sri-Lanka, Madagascar, Iran, Chechnya perhaps. An elegant, stable one even; probably far more sophisticated and engineered than what we currently have, by the time they do. Along the way, those opponents against developing nuclear arms are left with their hands tied behind their back. Like I said, there's only two real controlling factors, politics and resources. Once an interest group gets their hands on the resources, they may ignore the politics if they so choose to. Which leads me to...
Perhaps, the only thing left to do is try to belittle the effort of the target (North Korea), hiding under the reality that not one authority in the entire world would have any allies at all should they pre-emptively launch a nuclear weapon at anyone. Then, quitely, accept the fact they have Nuclear Weapons. I'm surprised that one may often run into an American at a bar or club, who has yet to aware of the fact India and Pakistan are Nuclear. Even knowing so, still doesn't sit right due to how much poverty exists in those countries...
So, I think all of this hooplah (including the wikipedia implicitly saying that the explosion was conventional by adding it to a list of large conventional explosions.), is just aftermath propoganda warfare.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/13/nkorea .test.sample/index.html
They've developed a method for predicting earthquakes and made up the story about the nuclear explosions so they can keep their technology secret a little longer. It's all a big cover up.
The real mission was to STOP usefull oil production of oil from iraq, not to use it. Thus driving up oil prices
which in turn makes more $$$ for the ME and thus they have to re-lend those billions back to usa. If it wasnt for
>$60 prices, usa would not be getting $600billion a year in free lent money from the world, and thus would collapse
and fail under massive deflation.
Check it out at http://www.gregpalast.com/
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Secondly, their state airline (such as it is) doesn't fly anywhere near the United States, Japan, or South Korea. It flies into Beijing, Shenyang, Vladivostok, and Bangkok. Given the current state of things, if a North Korean airliner went anywhere but its scheduled routes it would also be shot out of the sky in short order.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
everyone knows that it was the holy hand grenade of antioch!
LAN it Damn it! {DigA}SLinG
You make nukes to also test your equipment and shields against nukes.
Once you can detonate, you can start making protection against being nuked, this is what the usa most
hates, not the fact that some can 'send a nuke' but they can now work on how to best protect
themselves and their bunkers against nukes.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
It was the goatse guy farting.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
This is all about payola. The western powers and china don't want the North Koreans selling weapons grade nuclear fuel on the open market. The size of the explosion is irrelevent.
It's simply a statement in poker game. You didn't believe we could do it... Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Now pay up!
The truth is that if North Korea fuel actually was used in a terrorist attack on the US, north korea would be blown off the map and there would be raidiaon fallout in asia for at least 20 to 40 years and to a lesser extent all over the rest of the world.
China already knows the score, they will be notified of any immmenent attack and given the option of taking North Korea out themselves when the time comes in exchange for something like a hundred billion dollars. Of course south korea would be devestated and that's why we don't just do it now.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/nuke-tes ting.htm
has lots of good info, read up
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
We all remember CIA's Mr. Tenet telling President George Bush that WMD's in Iraq were a slam dunk. Besides no one in the US .gov wants to tell 'the leader' anything he doesn't want to hear as documented in Bob Woodward's Books about Bush and his administration.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/13/nkore
U.S. intelligence statement: N. Korea radioactivity detected
a .test.sample/index.html
From http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/13/nkore
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea shows "radioactive debris consistent with a North Korea nuclear test," according to a statement from the office of the top U.S. intelligence official.
The statement, from the office of Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, was sent to Capitol Hill but not released publicly. CNN obtained it from a congressional source.
If confirmed, the nuclear weapons test that North Korea claimed it conducted on Monday would be the first of its kind since Pakistan's underground blast in 1998.
Pyongyang's claim has renewed fears of a regional arms race and that North Korea might aid terrorists with nuclear materials or technology.
The national intelligence office statement said the air samples were collected Wednesday, and analysis found debris that would be consistent with a nuclear test "in the vicinity of Punggye" on Monday.
"Additional analysis is ongoing and will be completed in a few days," the statement said.
The South Korean Defense Ministry told CNN that the United States has informed it that radioactivity has been detected.
The report is in contrast to information provided to CNN earlier Friday from two U.S. government officials with access to classified information. Those officials said that an initial air sampling over North Korea showed no indication of radioactive debris.
The White House said it had no confirmation that the North Koreans conducted a nuclear test.
"We've seen the various press reports," said National Security Council spokesman Fred Jones. "We still have no definitive statement on the event. The intelligence community continues to analyze the data."
The U.S. Air Force flew a WC-135 Constant Phoenix atmospheric collection aircraft on Tuesday to collect air samples from the region.
The intelligence community and the military will also continue to collect air samples in the region and use satellite information to try to collect radiological data that would confirm a nuclear test, officials said. But as time goes on, it will be increasingly difficult to achieve confirmation.
Officials emphasized earlier Friday that the data collected are preliminary and provide no conclusive evidence about the North Korean event.
It is possible there was no radiological data. That could be the case if: the North Koreans successfully sealed the site; it was such a small detonation and so deep underground there was no escape of nuclear debris; or the test was actually conventional explosives.
The U.N. Security Council has agreed to vote Saturday on whether to impose sanctions on North Korea over the purported nuclear test, according to John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, Jamie McIntyre and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.
May I quote to you the title of the very CNN article the submitter linked to:
U.S. intelligence statement: N. Korea radioactivity detected
It then goes on to say: "A preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea shows 'radioactive debris consistent with a North Korea nuclear test,' according to a statement from the office of the top U.S. intelligence official."
Pepcon explosion. 4000 Tons of ammonium perchlorate go BOOM. So this is something in the league of what N.K. claims to have achieved - and we suspect they did the same thing as Pepcon: Pile lots of explosives up next to each other.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
The article says exactly the opposite of what's posted on slashdot. Man has /. gone to shit.
I figure nearly every nation that wants one will have access to nukes in the next 50 years. I wonder if we're ready for that.
Cheers.
I kid you not. I've actually worked on these. Many of the blast effects for a nuclear explosion are much like a conventional explosion. Obviously the difference is radiation, but for all the other blast effects you use the exact same equations you use for calculating conventional explosions.
:-) and set it off, it'll look damned hard to anyone who isn't real close to tell the difference between that an a real N-bomb.
What does it mean? If you dig a big deep pit somewhere, cover, then put in several hundred kilotons of TNT or equivalent (ok; put it in *then* cover it!
Of course many other countries have developed nukes; Israel, India, Pakistan, so it's quite possible they managed to pull it off. We now have many 'Superpowers'. I'm just saying it is possible to fake it too. NK are masters at teasing the US, so it is possible it's all a (very good) ruse.
If it could detect antineutrinos in the energy range produced by fission, wouldn't it be blinded by all the world's reactors and unable to do astronomy?
The current headline on CNN reads: U.S. 'finds NK radioactive debris'.
from the lede:A preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea shows "radioactive debris consistent with a North Korea nuclear test," according to a statement from the office of the top U.S. intelligence official.
Whether you believe US intelligence or not is another question, but at least get the facts about the story straight.
Idiot.
The only really plausible target for an aircraft-delivered nuke is Japan, and if you have a look at the map, Japan is quite a long way from North Korea. The Japanese have an extensive collection of ground-based radars, as well as E-3 Sentry and E2-C Hawkeye aircraft. Not to mention that the South Koreans have their own air defence network, There are also USAF bases in Okinawa and northern Honshu.
If they can fly any of their ancient, non-stealthy aircraft past all of that, that will be one impressive feat of flying.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
It's funny because it's sort of true....
Read more to see the shrines to the Dear Leader & Great Leader
Of course, one must pay proper respect to the demi-gods among men who are leading the country
Of course, a "bit of heaven" like the shrines to the Kims has to be balanced by a hell on earth* in other parts of the country:
And what if you try to escape the North Korean worker's paradise "prison"?
An interesting contrast to life in the United States.
The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps Prisoners' Testimonies and Satellite Photographs
*Of course, actual belief in hell could get you executed.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I distincly remember reading CNN on Friday and CNN said there was NO radiation detected. Now on Saturday the story has suddently changed and radiation WAS infact detected. I am still trying to find the original Friday's articles. Personally, I cannot see how North Korea after years of forced embargos, not having enough elctrical power and basically living on food aid is able to accomplish a succesful nu'kear test. It's ALL posturing, but they miscalculated badly. Now the "official" story will be that the test was nuclear (even though I highly doubt it) and the noose around their necks will tighted even more. I expect a desparate move by a desparete advesary whose back is against the wall and they have nothing to lose. Just what the US wants to happen given that this will majorly screw up the Asian economy.
I got permanently modded -1 because I dared to question Israel on
I would rather speculate that they blew 180ktons of Mon Cheri Cherry Liqueur sweets as south-korean witnesses reported a -quote- "strong odour of chocolate just after the sound of the explosion".
Wall Street Journal, will you dare to confront with my chocolate-sweet-covered south-korean witnesses? I guess no! Shame on you!:o)
RIP Slashdot. I used to love you. dead account - but slashdot wont let me delete it.
There have been many examples of this in the past, and it practically always helps to weaken the leadership of the country.
Which examples? Saddam's Iraq? Castro's Cuba? In both those cases, the country was dramatically weakened militarily by sanctions (is that what you meant?), but the leaders themselves tended to consolidate power during that time, with NGOs losing power and influence.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
It's not well known, but the Navstar (GPS) satellites include nuclear detonation detectors (replacing the older Vela system). It is unclear wheter or not these detectors work on underground detonations, but the DPRK is definitely within the detection range of the Navstar satellites.
Two American Indians stand next to a fire, fanning the flames to produce smoke signals. In the background, a mushroom cloud. One of the indians looks at the cloud and says, "Tell great yellow leader, him using mighty big words now"
(sorry, it's not available online so the description will have to do)
"Aside from the first one, which was the Iranian president and not Chavez"
It was the Venezuelan dictator who made the speech blaming Jews for all the evil in the world for the last 2,000 years. This speech was Dec. 24, 2005.
"But one thing is still true about him, this being pretty much the fundamental law of communism--he's still better than the nasty right-wing fucker who immediately preceded him(Lenin and the Tsars, Mao and Chiang Kai-shek, Castro and Batiste)."
You need to check your history:
Lenin: The Tsars (who had already moderated a whole lot) were gone by the time Lenin seized power. Lenin actually overthrew a fledgling post-Tsar democracy. He made things significantly worse, grabbing for himself more power than the Tsars ever had, re-invading the former vassal states that the Tsars had actually let go free, and slaughtering many hundreds of thousands of people.
Mao and Chiang Kai-shek: Clearly no comparison at all here. Mao ordered more than 30,000,000 people killed. The relatively mild legacy of Chiang has been apparent in how Taiwan was ran after Mao's conquest. Chiang's government, the Nationalists, had run all of China for quite a while before Mao came along: pre-Mao China was significantly lacking in the routine atrocity that Mao ushered in. Do you really know anything about it at all?
Castro and Batista: Aside from the mass execution of political prisoners by Castro, and the many tens of thousands killed by his invasions of other countries (Batista stayed home), there are so many other factors such as freedom of religion, freedom of the press (many beleaguered newspapers under Batista, no independent ones at all under Castro).
Every single one of these was much worse than the one before. That's the fundamental law of Communism.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I understand that there is a deep-seated 'need' for super-secret intelligence to hide itself, but how exactly are air samples taken over North Korea, legally? Technically?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"North Korea on the other hand have nothing to lose..."
It's "North Korea has.". The place is just one country. "Have" would have been correct if you had been using a plural ("North and South Korea have...").
Where were you when the voynix came?
"Yea. but they are all right next to each other in the middle east."
Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea are not right next to each other. Their borders do not touch: countries like Rohan and Narnia lie between them.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I read the article you linked and was intregued enough by the description to go google-mapping... :)
e vada&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=37.295223,-116.456269&spn=0.0 04763,0.012188&t=h&om=1
Took me a while to find, but you can see what looks like a network of test sites.
Here is one of the described depression crator things in 'Pahute Mesa':
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=beatty,+n
There are others, but that was the most striking i found so far.
Every one of those examples was Communist. You are correct that they are "governments run by a single person or very small group where everything in the country is owned by them". That is how communism ends up being out here in the real world. We have seen plenty of communism in all of its glory. What this probably boils down to is disagreements among factions of communists as to which are the real communists. Then it becomes a matter similar to 7th Day Adventists saying that Catholics are not Christians. If the majority of those involved in a movement can't go a long way to DEFINING it, who can? Scores of millions of members of the ruling Communist Parties of these countries can't be ignored.
"The only socialism the world has seen has been in democratic countries."
Socialism is the degree to which ruling elites control the private and personal economic affairs of the people. Socialism has been very strong in the named communist countries. It has been weak in the democracies.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I think if the USA wants the world to accept it's demands, it had damn well better allow UN inspections of it's own nuclear doings.
But it doesn't.
This breeds discontent by other nations who feel they are being taken advantage, and red-neck white-trash fly-over fuck-wits who think 'might makes right' in internation politics (but, beat them down and take their cash and watch them cry to the police) support this arrogant and ill-fated foreign policy.
Simply put: If you believed Bush Jr. in 2003, you're a fucking idiot.
Blar.
"One nuke could mean an american aircraft carrier down, or 1000s of troops wiped out, in case of an attack. Thats enough deterrent to prevent an invasion."
That's one nuke that hits its target. Even with the best technology the US has, a surprisingly low percent of ballistic weapons actually hit their targets. Now consider North Korea's technology and their even worse grasp of accuracy. Yes, there's a danger from their "one nuke", but them having it does not correspond to a certainly that they can both deliver AND exploded it anywhere, anytime they want to.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"That's a lie, Saddam fully complied with the UN inspections"
I read the Hans Blix reports. Saddam Hussein never ever did allow the complete, unfettered access required in the cease-fire at the end of the first Gulf War. The "negotiations" over allowing inspections in the palaces and other sites made major news a while ago (a famous instance of Saddam Hussein not complying at all, let alone "fully complying". I'm surprised you didn't hear of it at the time.
Glad that you mentioned Hans Blix. His own reports detailed how Hussein had in the past not complied with UN inspections, and was still not complying. He did, however, say that compliance was improving.
Let us look at Blix's own words on this in his report from February 2003 (from un.org): "If Iraq had provided the necessary cooperation in 1991, the phase of disarmament - under resolution 687 (1991) - could have been short and a decade of sanctions could have been avoided. Today, three months after the adoption of resolution 1441 (2002), the period of disarmament through inspection could still be short, if "immediate, active and unconditional cooperation" with UNMOVIC and the IAEA were to be forthcoming."
The first "Bold" words show how Iraq did not comply with inspections when the process started. The second "bold" words show how CURRENT (Feb 2003) compliance with UN inspections was a future possibility, an "if". He's quite clear that in February of 2003, the compliance had not yet happened. Who cares what Bush said. Look at the Blix reports.
Does this justify Bush's response? No. It merely points out that the statement "Saddam fully complied with the UN inspections" was false. Blix himself disagreed. He was looking forward to future cooperation and compliance that had not happened.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"This sounds odd to me, do you have any references to back up your claim? Thanks"
Don't even bother to ask for references from him. His sig quotes "infowars.com". You know, the place that has invisible elephants blowing up buildings in New York and martians at Ruby Ridge....and don't forget CHEMTRAILS!!!! Suffice it to say that I have checked also, and there is no credence to the idea that you need nuclear bombs to create nuke-proof hardened bunkers.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"So, apparently you believe socialism and communism == totalitarianism and plutocracies. Congratulations, you're a (insert mindless insult here)
As I mentioned in the earlier one, I did not even say a thing about plutocracy, which is a "a political system governed by the wealthy people". Well, as just about all politicians and rulers are are rich, I guess plutocracy is the rule over the world, for better or worse.
Comunism/socialism produces the worst (i.e. relatively the most rich) plutocrats around, however. The personal wealth and power of Kim Jong Il and Castro, relative to their legions of slaves, is to be considered.
Where were you when the voynix came?
This isn't about conspiracy theories, or even whether the fertilizer theory is valid. It's about a basic flaw in your argument: that the problem with using fertilizer is that it would be visible from the moon.
That's trivially false, as I pointed out. Whether or not the fertilizer theory is valid, your argument against it is invalid, because its premise is false. This logical error, combined with the lack of openness to consider non-obvious possibilities, is exactly why I joked that you won't be getting an analyst job at the CIA.
Of course, given the CIA's record recently, you actually might fit right in.
"I mean this is the country that is running around killing people and refusing to let their family even see the body, prompting people to assume that they're organlegging"
You are right about the organlegging. Did you also know about the Kzin soldiers fighting alongside Chinese troops engaging in foreign occupation in Tibet? I tell ya, the last thing you want to see is Kzin interrogation. I only found this out from Art Bell and indymedia.org. The rest of the media won't touch it. I sure hope that Congress doesn't cut the AIM funding this time around just to spite Bush.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Bullies don't pick on those who could seriously fight back.
North Korea is a bulked up thieving bully of a criminal state with a hostage (or two, if you count the North Korean people):
North Korea warns of 'sea of fire' as US envoy arrives
North Korea warns U.S., Japan of 'nuclear sea of fire'
US shrugs off N Korea threat
Feeling sorry for North Korea is a lot like feeling sorry for the red neck with a baseball bat, that just left his girlfriend a bloody pulp on the floor, once the cops arrive.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The are already starving, lack electricity in 95% of the country, are almost completely uneducated, and make most starving African nations look rich in comparison.
I think that UN Security Council Resolution 1718 has a pretty good list:
I think it's hard to say that list of sanctioned items will increase the suffering of the starving peasants in North Korea.
I wonder if there would be starvation in North Korea if they weren't spending 31% of their GDP on the military, including building long range missiles and nuclear weapons?
(US = 4% GDP, South Korea = 2.6% GDP, People's Republic of China = 4.3% GDP, Japan = 1% GDP, Vietnam = 2.5% GDP)
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Those of Glenn Beck, for starters. Often it may not be open espousal, so much as complete failure of the entire journalistic process by rebroadcasting right-wing talking points without any attempt at follow up. Wolf Blitzer failing to correct Condoleeza's phony and long-debunked justifications for the Iraq war. Here's Right-Wing blowhard Glenn Beck using bogus assertions to project left-wing media bias. CNN has also joined Faux News in misreporting scandal-plagued and unpopular Republicans' party affiliations as Democratic. Wolf Blitzer is a good softball player but seems to consistently have trouble challenging his interviewee's talking points. Howard Kurtz accusing Democrats of orchestrating the Foley meltdown in quite flagrant contradiction of all known facts regarding how Foley was "outed" by the pages he'd harrassed (and btw by the network that had just two weeks before broadcast the openly Republican Path to 9/11, suggesting that in fact the Republican Party is starting to eat its own). These are just a few examples of CNN's passive-aggressive bias.
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