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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: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:38PM (31 children)
Not too long after 9/11 we had an office that could see the port of Miami from about 5 miles away, and we played out a little thought experiment at lunch: what if a nuke came in on a cargo ship? If you happened to be looking out the window, the flash would likely be blinding - which would complicate matters a lot, but if you weren't looking directly at the flash, you've got a bit over 20 seconds before the first shock wave arrives... and it would be pretty damn obvious what would make the whole floor light up brighter than full son. So... 20 seconds to the poured concrete stairwell, not enough time to get down 4 floors, but there's a decent chance you'd make it through the first shockwave. With a little luck, the exit door on the ground wouldn't be blocked by debris, next question: try to take the car or just run like hell the second you get out the door? Assuming the car's not blocked in by anything, might as well take the car and hope for the best, you can always jump out. Next trick: was the drawbridge up? If so, it's probably not coming down for a long long time - gonna have to swim for it across the channel, but the bridge is only up about 5% of the time, so let's assume you can drive at least that far before traffic leaving the beach jams up completely.
One interesting question we didn't consider at the time: would there be any flooding due to the shockwave pushing the bay water around? Probably would be, so be on the lookout for those mud-waves, probably not devastating, the bay's mostly about 5' deep, but that's probably enough to cover the road with mucky bay bottom gunk and screw up vehicular travel.
Now, all of this has been directed toward "getting home" to be together with family, whatever comes. I was "fortunate" to live the closest to work, only about 4 miles away (not toward the port), so... probably mostly on foot I could be there in less than an hour, but by then the roads out of town would be useless for a long long time. So... shelter in place with family, take your iodine pills if you've got 'em, try to keep the dust out of the house - power's down, no A/C in Miami - it's gonna be brutal. Fill any containers you've got with drinkable water, if the taps are still running, and then what?
3 minutes without breathing, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food... If the wind is blowing toward the port from home, you should be able to keep breathing long enough to need water... even if the water pressure cut immediately, the 80 gallon water heater can supply 1/2 liter of water per person to a family of four for 75 days, pretty sure you won't want to be collecting rainwater from the roof for a long time, hopefully 75 days is long enough for some kind of national guard relief effort to bring food, unless the rest of the country is down a shit-hole too... If the national guard isn't showing up, bailing your ass out after about 30 days - do you really want to even try from that point forward?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:11PM (3 children)
North Korea has nukes but it's more for defense (look at what happened to Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc). NK don't have enough to successfully hit more than a few US cities. There'll still be plenty of safe places for survivors to go to if a US city is hit.
The issue is whether Russia and China would be dragged into the war.
There's likely to be no issue of that if Kim strikes first. China has already made it quite clear that North Korea is on their own if they strike first, China will only get involved if the USA hits NK first: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-warns-north-korea-youre-on-your-own-if-you-go-after-the-us/2017/08/11/a01a4396-7e68-11e7-9026-4a0a64977c92_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
Similarly Putin is unlikely to launch his nukes just because Kim pushes his button. Why would he? If Kim hits the USA it just helps Russia.
But Kim doesn't seem to be an idiot. All his moves so far have been rational for a dictator who wants to stay in power. And look at him, he's fat, he's not one of those Spartan types, he's enjoying his lifestyle and the nukes are to help him keep things that way. If he strikes first, that's the end of his nice lifestyle. But if he didn't get nukes the US might end him (the USA had already made threats). He's unlikely to push the button first as long as he's not backed into a corner - e.g. make him look too weak, so he is in danger from an "internal takeover", etc.
The real danger is Trump. Has Trump figured out the rules of the game and will he actually play by them? If Trump strikes first, would he even care about the consequences? If he gets impeached and can't pardon himself would he give a launch order?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:52PM
Like any good Bond movie, who strikes first will be masked by multiple layers of subterfuge.
I agree, Kim has no real motivation to do anything other than demonstrate he's capable, but... what's the reliability of his command and control structure? Anything less than six sigma, and I'm seriously concerned - and I seriously doubt he's got that kind of reliability in his political/military power pyramid. So, then, the question becomes: does anybody who can subvert his nuclear capability have motivation to launch?
As you say, an apparent NK first strike _shouldn't_ trigger global armageddon, but... I actually doubt that the US command and control structure is seven sigma reliable against opponent-state sponsored subversion, and with over 1400 warheads on tap, even 99.9999981% reliability doesn't sound so great to me...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday January 13 2018, @08:33PM (1 child)
With NK's foreseeable capabilities, they will NOT have a first strike capability. The US has the ability to shoot down a maybe two or three missiles at once, plus the THAD for point defense against leakers.
How the norks get away with a first srtike:
Kim is crazy enough to just airburst some very dirty device high above his own territory or out to sea, knowing that the wind will carry it east, away from China, Russia, over and beyond Japan, towards North America.
Now is that a first strike?
Would nuclear retaliation just make matters worse?
Would Kim calculate he could get away with this?
He's already tested nuclear warheads under his tottering mountain, exposed his own population to radiation.
The US should probably be stocking up on MOABs and MOPs, for a non nuclear response.
Because even if Kim gets lucky and lands nuclear warhead on Bangor Trident Base which holds about 25% of all US nuclear weapons (and a stone's throw from Seattle, which never would be missed) there are still people in this world so fearful of nuclear strikes they would lobby for no nuclear response.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:24PM
It would be good to analyze why North Korea takes the stance it does.
First, in 1950[1], "The South has just invaded the North" were the words of Asia reporter John Gunther. [google.com]
Forgotten History of the War on Korea [tucradio.org] 25 minute MP3 (Even less with some media player speedup)
In the early 1950s, USA.gov bombed every single city in North Korea.
Where the bombing analysis revealed that a city hadn't been totally destroyed, USA.gov went back and bombed the rubble.
When USA.gov ran out of cities to bomb, it bombed villages.
When USA.gov ran out of villages to bomb, it considered -any- structure to be a viable target.
USA.gov was down to bombing outhouses.
By the time that USA.gov was through with North Korea, there wasn't a single inhabitable structure in the place.
The people were down to digging holes and trying to find something with which to cover those so that they could pile dirt on top in an effort to try to get out of the brutal weather there and away from USA.gov bombs.
...and, of course, USA.gov was dropping firebombs on civilians, which is its habit.
N.B. Let me remind you here that waging war on non-combatants is a crime.
USA.gov then decided that that wasn't enough and it bombed a giant dam, flooding inhabited areas, killing farmers and destroying crops.
State of Fear: How History’s Deadliest Bombing Campaign Created Today’s Crisis in Korea [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [counterpunch.org]
...and with North Korea sharing a border with China and USSR/Russia, if it's not clear to you that the US war against North Korea was a proxy war meant to demonstrate USA's willingness to do mass murder, your perceptive skills are seriously lacking.
[1] ...and when South Korea tried to do its truth and reconciliation thing, they discovered mass graves where anti-Capitalist South Koreans had been murdered by the tens of thousands (as was done a decade later in Indonesia, with over 1 million dead there).
The truth turned out to be just too awful and the South Koreans stopped the process.
So, what USA.gov should do is stop being such a murderous asshole.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:34PM (15 children)
I'd be more worried about the neutrons, gamma rays and X-rays at that distance. The shock wave is the least of your worries, and might put you out of your misery.
In fact, the heat from the initial flash would probably cook you. I heard a story from a friend about an old man that he knew who witnessed some nuclear bomb tests back in the 1950s. He was about 30 miles away with his back to it and it was more than uncomfortably warm.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:41PM (9 children)
We were positing a "terrorist" Hiroshima level detonation, not Tsar Bomba. The 120mph rated commercial glass with the heavy sun-reflective coating on it wouldn't stop all the heat flash, but it would be quite a bit better than standing out on the roof.
Neutrons? Maybe, again, we're talking about something that disgruntled Arab princes might cobble together on the black market, not something developed by scientists working with the protection and backing of a nation-state. I'd be curious what the effect of a 200 ton steel and consumer-goods bomb casing would have on Little Boy - would we get more neutrons, or less?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:46PM (7 children)
Iron absorbs neutrons, so you'd get a reduced flux, but if you have a nuclear explosion you will have a lot of neutrons and gamma rays. Terrorists probably couldn't make a proper nuclear bomb, but they could make a dirty bomb and from 5 miles away you'd be safe until the wind blew the contamination over. Again, it depends on the "dirt" they put in. An alpha emitter would be pretty nasty if you breathed it in, and they heavy metals damage the organs. Jolly stuff! Eat, drink and be merry... And stop voting for loonies like Trump.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:54PM (1 child)
The more you debate Trump supporters with logic, the more entrenched they become in their beliefs... it's a tough problem, I'm hoping that 4 years of experience with the result is going to get us a swing back the other way - it seems to be showing signs of working already: Alabama elected a Democrat.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday January 13 2018, @07:02PM
My hope too, with the likes of the British Conservative Party, Brexit and Nigel Farage.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:23PM (4 children)
We've had that scenario a half dozen times or more since Hiroshima.
Latest: Fukushima Daiichi
Outcome INES Level 7 (major accident)
Non-fatal injuries 37 with physical injuries,
2 workers taken to hospital with possible radiation burns.
No direct deaths.
Chernobyl disaster
Deaths 31 (direct) (Mostly heroic firemen tunneling under the reactor.)
15 (estimated indirect deaths up to 2011 - statistically excess cancers)
Radiation has proven to be far less lethal than the initial blast. If the blast
didn't kill you, your chance for survival are rather high.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:25PM (1 child)
You're quite the professor today.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:46PM
What he is is a denialist.
15 (estimated indirect deaths up to 2011
As of 2004, nearly a million premature deaths were attributed to Chernobyl. [google.com]
Lying by omission is still lying.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 14 2018, @04:24AM (1 child)
So, did any of the Apollo astronauts die of radiation exposure? Obviously not immediately. Now I, and anyone in that program, would gladly have traded 5-10 years of life for the experience, but... statistically, I think that's what it's looking like they did.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/astronauts-heart-disease-link-what-happens-to-your-body-in-space-a7159946.html [independent.co.uk]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @04:52PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:49PM
You're delusional if you believe in the narrative that a nuclear terrorist threat would be some DIY garage bomb shit. You can "cobble together" a dirty bomb from medical-use radionucleids or whatever, fuck pay some kids or tweakers to pull apart enough smoke detectors and you're a-go. But a real nuke would more than likely be one of the various warheads that are unaccounted for since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Or now that Pakistan is officially pissed off at the USA, they might be kicking out all the US spies and try to move their stockpile from away from prying eyes, which could open up opportunities for the enterprising nuke thief.
I would not be surprised if some "disgruntled Arab princes" already own a classic Red Star Nuke as a personal deterrent. People with that kind of money are (hopefully) too clever to play this card on the offense though.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:00PM (4 children)
Those early tests all had greater yield than expected (or initially acknowledged).
Xrays and Neutrons have no problem traveling 30 miles.
He survived, did he not?
You've disproved your own argument.
For a 1 megaton bomb, which is 80 times larger than the bomb detonated over Hiroshima:
Source [sciencealert.com]
But again, a simple barrier between you and the blast takes out almost all of the initial heat. Junko Morimoto lived 1.7 kilometres away from where the Hiroshima bomb fell. She's 83 now.
Seems unlikely terrorists are going to be able to come up with 1 megaton bomb, and smuggle it into the port of Miami. There is a reason US bound cargo is inspected in the port of departure on foreign soil, and the same opportunity is offered to any other trading partner that requests it of the US.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:37PM (2 children)
There's three possible scenarios here:
1: A smuggled weapon from a major power. This could be strong or relatively weak, and you can't reasonably plan for which.
2: Something put together by an inexperienced weaponeer. This is likely to fail, but if it works it's likely to be larger than the Hiroshima bomb, because making small nuclear weapons takes more skill.
3: A nuclear weapon that doesn't depend on fission or fusion. Usually this means a "dirty bomb", in which case the question is what are the involved nucleotides. Strontium is nasty, because it replaces calcium in the body. Cobalt is nasty because it has a short, but not extremely short, half-life. Lots of radiation and hangs around for awhile. Questions here involve things like "Is the dust light or heavy?" (I.e., what's the dispersion?) Also what's the bioavailability of the nucleotide? Radioactive carbohydrates would be bad news that way, even though Carbon isn't very radioactive. Phosphorous would be worse...that integrates into the DNA. But I don't know it's half-lives. And, as mentioned above, "which way is the wind blowing?", though that's probably a short term consideration rather than a long term. It tends to change too often.
Case 3 is probably the most likely (with case 1 in second place), and is also the least disastrous...though that's not saying very much.
OTOH, a single nuclear blast isn't any worse that a few days of saturation bombing. It's different, and more shocking, but the damage is more concentrated rather than worse. The problem is if there isn't just one. Nuclear autumn (not really winter) is a real possibility. Think of world-wide crop failures, probably total crop failures. Long pig would probably have been a menu item for everyone that survives....but that wouldn't be most. Russia would see General Winter march through with a degree of thoroughness that Napoleon never experienced, and neither did anyone back to their great-great-great-...-grandparents. I don't recall whether the models said that the glaciers would have time to reform before the following thaw, but the models I saw are no long out of date anyway. The best model for this kind of thing I have is:
An axe age, a sword age,
Shields shall be broken,
A wind age, a wolf age,
Ere the world totters.
I don't think there's a country on the face of the world that could survive two years of total crop failure.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday January 14 2018, @08:34AM (1 child)
We need a lot of cobalt. For our nuclear arsenal and for many things for our military. We need so much that, unfortunately, we need to import a lot of it. From troubled countries like DR Congo and Canada. But Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act has been holding back our industries. I want Congress to RESCIND IT! But I've sent our amazing military to Niger, where there are amazing deposits of cobalt. Don't worry, folks, we'll get that cobalt, one way or another.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:10PM
I think you're a joke, and I really hope so. But I sure wish I felt more certain about it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tftp on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:14AM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:44PM (5 children)
Once had a discussion with some engineers about how to fuck over a city with hard mode: minimal loss of life and with no "magical" weapons like satellite EMP.
Garden-variety truck bombs + all freeway overpasses + coordinated detonation at 2 or 3 a.m. == taking out the knees of the city's economy for a relatively extended period of time.
Overpass bridges are pretty slowly rebuilt as compared to, say, having to divert power as a result of a blown substation or something.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:03PM (1 child)
Easy to do, good ROI, but not really long term crippling. Hurricanes do far more damage, and the Northridge quake in 1994 took out lots of overpasses, big pain in the ass for people living there, but they got past it relatively unscathed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:43AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @08:13PM (2 children)
Hmmm. I wonder how true that needs to be in a pinch.
Want amazing stuff built in a really short time?
Call these guys. [google.com] Decrypted [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:55PM (1 child)
RED HORSE kicks the SeaBees' asses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @12:33AM
Hmmm.
Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineer
Daddy was career Air force and I never heard the term used.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday January 14 2018, @12:39AM (4 children)
If you're that close to a nuclear detonation, you almost definitely aren't surviving, and if you do it's most likely going to be the result of sheer luck. It's as simple as that. Even the relatively primitive Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs killed most of those that close, if not from the initial blast then from the radiation.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:23AM (2 children)
From descriptions like these: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp3.shtml [atomicarchive.com] it seems like 5 miles is in the questionable range, not that I'd want to be there, but just far enough that you're not guaranteed dead.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday January 14 2018, @04:59PM (1 child)
Keep in mind those are air bursts. If it's snuck in a cargo ship, it's basically a ground burst - and quite possibly end up going off below the waterline. I would say at 4-5 miles your chance of surviving are going to be pretty good. Once you see the flash (hopefully you aren't unlucky enough to be looking directly at it when it goes off) you've got about 4-5 seconds to take shelter behind something because the most immediate danger will be the shards of glass flying at you. After that the next most immediate danger is from everyone else panicking.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:17PM
From what I've read I've assumed that a blast slightly below the surface of the water in a bay is worse than an air blast. You get a bunch of radioactive mud in the air AND you get a small tsunami. And steam explosions don't muffle the blast at that temperature, not unless you've got LOTS of water, as in out in the open ocean. I haven't read anything about an isolated blast slightly below sea level on an ocean facing port, but most ports act to sequester the water to prevent problems with docked ships during storms, so my first guess is it would be about the same as a small bay.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @11:15PM
The building code requires that all residential housing has a shelter that can withstand a 12 megaton weapon at 700 meters.
That is about 0.44 miles or 2310 feet.
Modern nuclear weapons are normally much smaller. The 12 megaton ones were used back when guidance systems were more primitive.