SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:06PM (4 children)
They don't believe us. They look at their own instruments. Each has their own versions of our DEW (Defensive Early Warning) line, as well as satellites in orbit. The instruments verify that none of the incoming is targeted on their land.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:36PM (3 children)
Do they in fact see that?
1. Our missiles can steer a bit in mid-air, so even if the Russians and Chinese see that right now they're headed to NK, it's not much of an adjustment to send it to Vladivostok or Dalian or other targets in their country.
2. To be sure the missiles are going to land on NK and not on themselves, they have to know not just the horizontal trajectory but also the vertical of the missile, because it's pretty much impossible to draw a line through NK that doesn't hit their countries. That's harder to do. I'm not saying they can't do it, but it's more work.
3. The missiles are moving quickly enough that they have only a few minutes to figure all this out. If they have to guess, what guess are they likely to make?
4. Do all of the DEW systems work properly? How do they know? Bear in mind that one of the very close calls during the Cold War (where the USSR had reason to think they were under nuclear attack) was due to a malfunctioning early warning system.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 07 2018, @10:40PM
A little geography lesson seems to be in order. Please, take a quick look at this map. https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/south-north-korea-map-highly-detailed-vector-korean-peninsula-administrative-regions-main-cities-roads-30430812.jpg [dreamstime.com] You drive northward, from the Yellow Sea, into Korea Bay. It is a simple matter to position your submarine so that any missiles launched are headed AWAY FROM any point on mainland Asia. There may be repercussions from Japan, because those missiles may be pointed toward Japan - but they impact long before they even become visible to Japanese radars.
And, I'm not to proud to admit that I need to take another look. Where are the Korean nuclear tests taking place? Ahh yes, it's Punggye-ri. I can't locate that on this particular map - it appears that firing a missily at Korea's nuclear test site from Korea Bay would appear to be pointed at Russia.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 08 2018, @05:12AM (1 child)
Ohkay, Google Maps doesn't want to work for me, so I looked at it. Seems that my hardware doesn't support the newest version of the web-based Google maps, and I downloaded an old version, and installed it. We can drive a submarine into the northeast portion of Korea Bay, target Punggye-ri with a missile, and the apparent track of the missile will cross North Korea on an east by northeast heading, which will extend out over Peter the Great Gulf, and then thinly slice the coast in Russia. To be more specific, that extended track seems to endanger a few towns, Veselyy Yar, and Rakushka, Nord Ost, Timofeevka, Olga, Margaritovo, Moryak-Rybolov, Milogradovo, Valentin, Preobrazheniye, Kiyevka, none of which appear to be more than villages. Zooming out to get a better perspective, three larger towns remain visible Vladivostock, Nakhodka, and Artem. Those villages and towns, along with tens of thousands of square miles of forest, and barren land that doesn't even support forest.
I'm pretty confident that the Russians wouldn't mistake this firing mission for an attack on their homeland. It wouldn't even begin to make sense for the US to attack Russia from this angle.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday January 08 2018, @11:00AM
One city there should make you take caution, Vladivostok is the home to the russian pacific fleet, basically think their version of pearl harbour. It also is their main east coast harbour.