Flash: Radiation really is bad for you

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Mark Baard

No safe level. Photo: Jon Åslund/Flickr CC

Once again, it appears we need a “conspiracist” — in this case, the indefatigable Alan Watt — to remind us that the National Academy of Sciences long ago stated the obvious: That there is no safe level for radiation exposure.

Listen to the archive of Alan’s April 8 radio program (you’ll find it via the link, below), and re-remember your basic biophysics.

Alan always writes a wee poem to accompany his archive posts. Here’s a portion:

Power-Elite and Scientific Combination, Guaranteeing Life’s Ruination:

There’s Radiation Swirling Around Each Head

It Will Add Many to the Great Book of the Dead

Over Many Years Propagandists Will Shout, Blustering, Denying the Effects of Fallout

Whilst Elitists, Comfortable in City-Size Bunker

And the Common Fearful in Cellars Hunker…

via Cutting Through the Matrix with Alan Watt – Clearing the rubbish from the road to reality.

U. of Utah reveals nuke secrets in iPhone app

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Mark Baard

Photo: James Vaughan/Flickr CC

This iPhone app will enrich the student experience. — MB

The University of Utah’s nuclear engineers worry that the US is running out of skilled operators for its 100-or-so aging nuclear power plants.

So, to make the field seem more relevant to young engineers, they fed sensitive nuke data into a 3D visualization and simulation app for the iPhone.

A Utah spokesman told me last week that the school will not make the nuke data for the iPhone app — which can be used to visualize core meltdowns and the like — generally available.

I presume that is because the data might appeal to terrorists. But the spokesman was reluctant to detail Utah’s reasons for keeping its data secret.

Alas, I do not imagine the school will have much luck keeping this stuff on campus, once it is on an iPhone.

“The University of Utah’s nuclear engineering program hopes to enrich its students’ learning with an iPhone app that renders in three dimensions the collision of neutrons and uranium inside a nuclear reactor core. Utah last fall released a free 3D iPhone app, ImageVis3D Mobile as part of a biomedical visualization project.Utah does not plan to make the software behind its nuke visualizations, which were also generated for the ImageVis3D Mobile app, publicly available anytime soon.”

via (below the fold) Seagate promises seamless backup and playback – The Boston Globe.

Nuke it: Boston

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Mark Baard

2009-08-05_2018 A suitcase bomb (other choices are available), flattens Boston in this fairly macabre Google Maps doodad.

Not that it’s particularly likely, but as long as nuclear bombs exist, there’s the chance – however slim – that one might go off somewhere near you. This little Google Maps overlay might be a bit morbid, but it’s also pretty fascinating. It shows you the heat, pressure and fallout spread of a range of different nuclear bombs detonating anywhere in the world. It’s particularly sobering to get a sense of the scale of the devastation caused by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs in World War 2 – and then see how tiny those bombs are compared to the USSR’s enormous Tsar Bomba, the biggest nuke ever detonated.

via What would happen if your town got nuked?.

Defense experts: Prepare for sudden, destabilizing, crises

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Mark Baard

Photo: CC/David Lisbona

Military brass and scholars this May will meet to discuss a frightening near-future scenario, filled with loose nukes, bioweapons and untraceable terrorists.

This year’s symposium will examine the nation’s preparedness to prevent or manage four WMD crises that could transform U.S. security:

* Collapse of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime, in which a number of current, unresolved nuclear proliferation challenges threaten to unleash a sudden and destabilizing wave of proliferation;

* Failure of a WMD-Armed State, creating unprecedented risks that radical actors will obtain WMD and unprecedented challenges for prevention;

* A Biological Terror Campaign, in which terrorists employ deadly biological pathogens to strike at multiple cities; and

* A Nuclear Detonation in a U.S. City, delivered covertly and leaving great uncertainty about who did it, will it happen again, and how we should respond.

via Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction – National Defense University.

Boston: Nuke target and breakaway state capital

Posted on February 14, 2009 by Mark Baard

In a bizarre piece of uncredited fiction at the Telegraph, the U.S. becomes a fascist police state, and Boston is targeted by a “false flag” terrorist attack set-up by the federal government.

I guess I should be glad I got my speeding ticket yesterday (on the Jamaicaway, and what a whopper it was).

Next time, the police might be permitted to open fire on any suspicious vehicle…

Cryptogon’s covering Operation Blackjack, and notes the striking use of symbology in the online comic:

Remember the Kingstar (controlled demolition company) van near the exploded bus on the 7/7 London bomings? That’s what came to mind for me.

Also, the ‘fictitious’ attack occurs during the Summer solstice. What’s the name on the side of the van? New Dawn Presentations. And its logo? That’s right, the Sun.

One other thing: All the cool kids know that the Illuminati are fascinated with Ferris wheels near bodies of water. (Look, don’t blame me, I just work here.)

via cryptogon.com » Archives » Operation Blackjack: The Story of Terrorist Nuclear Attacks on Major Western Cities.

Green gadgets not always so eco-friendly

Posted on January 17, 2009 by Mark Baard

Many could be radioactive:

Radioactive girl. Photo:CC/claude estebe

Improper disposal of industrial equipment and medical scanners containing radioactive materials is letting nuclear waste trickle into scrap smelters, contaminating consumer goods, threatening the $140 billion trade in recycled metal and spurring the United Nations to call for increased screening.

via Bloomberg.com: News.

Eyeballing fed offices & sensitive sites in Boston via Street Views

Posted on December 11, 2007 by Mark Baard

Homeland Security

Originally uploaded by markbaard.

Eyeballing federal offices and sensitive sites around Boston, courtesy of Google Street Views, which Google launched here today.

More images, here

– Mark Baard

The Sci-Tech Heretic

Science, fiction and news through the conspiratorial lens. By Mark Baard in Boston.

Tag Archives: nukes