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Potassium iodide distributors have a friend on Twitter:
A Twitter battle over the size of each "nuclear button" possessed by President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un has spiked sales of a drug that protects against radiation poisoning.
Troy Jones, who runs the website www.nukepills.com, said demand for potassium iodide soared last week, after Trump tweeted that he had a "much bigger & more powerful" button than Kim — a statement that raised new fears about an escalating threat of nuclear war. "On Jan. 2, I basically got in a month's supply of potassium iodide and I sold out in 48 hours," said Jones, 53, who is a top distributor of the drug in the United States. His Mooresville, N.C., firm sells all three types of the product approved by the Food and Drug Administration. No prescription is required.
In that two-day period, Jones said, he shipped about 140,000 doses of potassium iodide, also known as KI, which blocks the thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine and protects against the risk of cancer. Without the tweet, he typically would have sent out about 8,400 doses to private individuals, he said. Jones also sells to government agencies, hospitals and universities, which aren't included in that count.
Alan Morris, president of the Williamsburg, Va.-based pharmaceutical firm Anbex Inc., which distributes potassium iodide, said he's seen a bump in demand, too. "We are a wonderful barometer of the level of anxiety in the country," said Morris.
Note: A comment on the article claims that Nukepills is massively overcharging for the substance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:34PM (7 children)
We survived nuclear seasons
We survived nuclear seasons
I can feel it, I can feel the fear
I can feel it, inside of her soul
Inside of the soul
http://jango-raid.ml/?song_id=1221375&t=325589979&a=Charli_XCX&s=Nuclear_Seasons [jango-raid.ml]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:53PM (5 children)
Dave Mustaine wrote the best ever song about nuclear war. It's called Into the Lungs of Hell/Set the World Afire.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:47PM
http://jango-raid.ml/?song_id=16381&t=113267131&a=Megadeth&s=Set_the_World_Afire [jango-raid.ml]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:59PM (1 child)
It's a shame he became a born again cry baby but I certainly agree, fantastic guitarist. Countdown to Extinction was my first foray into to metal followed by purchasing Rust In Peace and Metallica's Master of Puppets. I hold that band very near and dear regardless of Dave's kooky turn around.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday January 13 2018, @07:04PM
Yes, it's a shame about that, but at least it has given him some relief from his personal troubles. He's one of my favourite guitarists and song writers too. Some of my favourite songs of all time were written by Dave Mustaine and I love hearing him play the guitar live.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by el_oscuro on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:02PM
Iron Maiden's "Two Minutes to Midnight" and Metallica's "Fight Fire with Fire" are also classics.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pdfernhout on Sunday January 14 2018, @03:27AM
https://www.everything2.com/title/Thunder+and+Roses [everything2.com]
""Thunder and Roses", published in 1947, was ahead of its time in many ways. In addition to predicting the arms race before any other country possessed nuclear weapons, it also was one of the earlier stories to focus on the character development that would later be "discovered" by science fiction writers in the 1960s and 70s. Its ending leads us to question the whole arms race philosophy ..."
One problem with Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is that is paradoxically assumes all the actors are rational. If any one with nuclear weapons is not always rational, then all bets are off. Other problems with MAD: https://www.wagingpeace.org/ten-serious-flaws-in-nuclear-deterrence-theory/ [wagingpeace.org]
Also, as one irony, in the USA are lives are totally dependent on the continued proper functioning 1970s-era Soviet computers the USA tried to sabotage.
https://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/ [wired.com]
"The point of the system, he explains, was to guarantee an automatic Soviet response to an American nuclear strike. Even if the US crippled the USSR with a surprise attack, the Soviets could still hit back. It wouldn't matter if the US blew up the Kremlin, took out the defense ministry, severed the communications network, and killed everyone with stars on their shoulders. Ground-based sensors would detect that a devastating blow had been struck and a counterattack would be launched. The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, or Dead Hand. It was built 25 years ago and remained a closely guarded secret."
Related essay by me: "Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?
These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious ...
Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing....
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ..."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday January 14 2018, @12:30AM
I always liked Tom Lehrer's So Long Mom [youtube.com], which he introduced by explaining that if we're going to have any songs about World War III, we would have to write them in advance.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.