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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is holding a "public health grand round" at its Roybal campus in Atlanta, Georgia. The topic is "Public Health Response to a Nuclear Detonation":
The CDC is holding a session January 16 to discuss personal safety measures and the training of response teams "on a federal, state, and local level to prepare for nuclear detonation."
The meeting, part of the agency's monthly Public Health Grand Rounds, will include presentations like "Preparing for the Unthinkable" and "Roadmap to Radiation Preparedness," and it will be held at the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta. "Grand rounds" are a type of meeting or symposium in which members of a public health community come together to discuss topics of interest or public importance.
This isn't the first time in recent months that official entities have informed the public about the consequences of a possible nuclear strike. In August, amid escalating nuclear rhetoric from North Korea, Guam's Homeland Security and Office of Civil Defense released a two-page fact sheet about what to do in the case of a nuclear event. And in December, Hawaii started monthly testing of a nuclear warning siren system -- the first such tests since the end of the Cold War.
It had been planned in April and has nothing at all to do with any particular statements or tweets.
Also at Time.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @08:40AM (5 children)
When that day comes, there will be no winners.
Maybe survivors. In various states of survival.
Most of the infrastructure that provides our creature comforts will most certainly be severely impacted.
Duck and surrender? Absolutely not. War if it comes to that.
My own consensus is it would be a helluva lot less risk to ALL of us to take out the combatants, rather than entire populations.
I see constant stories on the police channels of people who "disappear".
With all our highly trained forces and intelligence, it seems odd that one particular person is still wagging his weewee in public.
If it comes to it, I'd rather see this whole thing settled amongst the upper levels of leadership ( by elimination, if it comes to that ) instead of releasing nuclear contamination onto the entire planet.
Fukushima is bad enough. Ask the Japanese. Nuclear is messy - leaving a mess for generations to come.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 07 2018, @02:11PM (2 children)
Ahhhh, the old assassination policy. I'm in favor of that. Kim and his security entourage can't be difficult to spot from orbit. So, we watch for him, and watch for him, for however long it takes. Then, we drop one of those space crowbars on his head. No amount of security will save his ass from that. Kinetic weapons are beautiful, in a way. You can get all the destructive power of a nuclear weapon, without any of the radiation hazard. We can drop ten kinetic weapons in a circle around Kim, making certain that he didn't zig when we expected him to zag. And, place two of them right up his ass, to be certain. And, the country remains clean and radiation free for the survivors.
Even better, no one downwind has to worry about radioactive fallout. Oh, some fallout, yes - but no radiation in it. Just good, clean dust - some of which used to be Kim!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @05:16AM (1 child)
I guess I like Spock's take on it...about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, or the one.
In this case, it sure looks like he's the one.
From what I see from my chair, everyone over there is afraid of him.
Same as what happens over here when a gang takes over a neighborhood.
I am not pissed at the people of North Korea. They are just trying to "have a life". Just like everyone else.
But their leader is putting them up to all sorts of no-good.
It appears there is only one way to strip him of authority. Very similar to the way we strip gang leaders of authority.
Cop-Assisted-Suicide
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 08 2018, @08:16AM
Spot on! The people of North Korea are the same people that you find in South Korea. They are a lot of cousins, second cousins, third - etc, etc. One bunch are our friends, the other bunch are our enemies, because a self appointed demi-god says so. The government could remain a communist government, and we could "get along" with them. It's just Little Kim who makes things so very difficult. Well - Kim and some relatively small cadre of officials. At most, we would only have to remove a couple thousand people to turn their government upside down. The actual number is probably a lot closer to fifty people. Once it were demonstrated that we could reach their top officials any time we want, and start working down the chain of command, we would soon find a new Dear Leader who was more reasonable. I don't mean likable or friendly, just more reasonable.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:13PM (1 child)
I grew up during the Cold War and we were constantly terrified by the prospect of nuclear Armageddon. As an adult I have a more tempered view.
A city struck by a nuclear bomb is not gone forever. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving modern metropolises today. I have stood at absolute ground zero in the Nagasaki International Peace Park and touched the twisted remains of the radio mast that was there, and I'm still standing.
Radioactive fallout does not mean the end of life as we know it. In the exclusion zone around Chernobyl life is thriving. Fukushima melted down, but Japan is fine and the Pacific Ocean did not die.
Also, losing a major city does not mean the rest of the country stops. We lost New Orleans to a hurricane, but America didn't stop. And New Orleans is fine now.
So a nuclear exchange would kill a lot of people quickly, but it's not the end of the world. I would die in NYC and everybody would not get their fix of movies and TV they love to hate, because LA would go, too. But regional hubs and everybody else would do OK.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:35AM
No, not fine at all. Humanity would likely survive, just how badly depends on how many nukes are let off. We could kill nearly all life in the planet with enough radioactive dust. How about we avoid nuclear war? Simple policy, best all around.