This probably isn't good...

test of comments

This is really chilling. On Slashdot, someone linked to an online seismometer and explained that it was most likely nuclear.

But then again, BBC and other news outlets contradict the statement.

Hey! Some people still think that WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (-related program activities research on possible probabilities of theory and conceptualization links) are far more alarming and unsettling than any irrelevant, uncertain nuclear bomb test on the ground could be. I mean, come on! What’s more dangerous, Saddam having a wet dream of punching W in the nose or those pesky North Koreans seeing if their annoying nukes can work or not? Huh, most informed (by FOX News) people would say the first over the latter.

Condie Rice wants us to believe it might be a “forest fire.”

www.moveon.org

I’ve been reading stories out of the Pentagon and from Colin Powell. They say it’s not nuclear. I wonder how stupid they think we all are. What else makes a mushroom cloud?

BTW, I have been reading your blog all along and you have a lot of guts. I admire you but I pray for your safety.

This is about the double explosions of Sept 9th and 10th?

Well, no radiation dector alarms have gone off.

Also,

Anybody remember the train “explosion” in Iran some time ago?

It eveled a village.

Anybody remember the train “explosion” in N Korea

some time ago?

It also leveled a village.

But this “Mother Of All Bomb” explosions is not showing any airborn radioactivity.

…but a train track does run through that valley of heavy munition manufacturing.

OSHA needs to go global.

Storyteller, you ask:

What else makes a mushroom cloud?

Lots of things. Mostly high explosives, and lots and lots of them.

Until Hiroshima, the largest manmade explosion took place in the middle of Halifax Harbour on December 6, 1917 when a munitions ship caught fire and exploded. The city was devastated, with 2000 dead, 9000 wounded, and 1600 houses destroyed.

The munitions ship was carrying about ten tonnes of high explosives, including picric acid, gun cotton and TNT. A ship well outside the harbour reported the explosion and the appearance of a “mushroom-shaped” cloud over the city.

Oppenheimer, in predicting what the nuclear explosion at Los Alamos would look like, referred back to the Halifax explosion. His prediction was dead-on accurate.

What difference does it make if N.Korea has nukes? If other countries can have them, N.Korea should as well.

The alternative is a complete ban on nuclear weapons, but the US is opposed to that and has been salivating on mini-nukes and other such nonsense.

Bush, by suggesting that NK should be allowed to have nukes as well, you are implying that there is a moral equivalency between the US and NK. This is as absurd as believing that simply banning nuclear weapons will make them go away.

This is an entirely different situation from Iraq. The North Koreans have had WMD for decades, they’ve been able to range Seoul with chemical weapons since the 60’s. The addition of nukes to the mix doesn’t change the fact that a pre-emptive strike would invite a devastating response.

But don’t let that stop you from taking cheap shots at George W. The more ridiculous you lefties sound, the more of us Fox-watching rubes in fly-over country will vote for him.

Dear Anonymous Sir,

Name-calling is just a way of showing how close-minded your views are and how incompetently you must stumble about in life. I wonder from what source you heard the North Koreans acquired nuclear capabilities since the 60s? Are you some kind of Communist spy? Hmmm…No wonder you posted with no name.

Victory only Victory

That was my post, I wasn’t trying to be anonymous. Not sure why TypeKey left my name out.

Anyway, read my post. I said they’ve had CHEMICAL weapons since the 60s. The nukes are a recent addition.

Christopher,

Have you heard any reaction in the press of the murder of Al Arabiya reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi? This isn’t the first time the US military has targeted Arab journalists. What are folks in the press corps saying, if anything?

there isn’t any “moral equivalency” in war. If nukes are gonna keep me from getting my ass kicked by a superpower so be it, I’m gettin nukes. It’s the law in the streets and it seems to scale up to govts as well.

duh

I think it’s a huge stretch to say he was “murdered.” In fact, I think that’s out and out wrong. He was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a tragedy, not a crime.

I saw the clip on Arabiya — the showed it all day yesterday — and it’s pretty obvious he was hit either by a stray bullet or shrapnel from the exploding Bradley after the chopper blew it up. I think he may have either been too close to the wreckage when he was doing his take or he was was just damn unlucky.

The reaction is one of sadness and saying things like, “that’s a shame.” But no one here — that I’ve talked with — think it was a murder or anything else you’re charging. Even a photog guy I know, who was injured in the blast, doesn’t think the journalist was targeted.

Look, this is a dangerous place. And if you’re in a place where the Americans are twitchy, you’re in a very dangerous place. But that doesn’t mean they targeted him, any more than they targeted anyone around that vehicle.

I’m just wondering if folks here have been reading the (rather notorious) soldier’s blog, My War, recently censored. It’s worth a look.

http://cbftw.blogspot.com

guess you’ll just have to cut and paste then…

James Bow’s post re” Halifax explosion has a few errors. At ten Kilotonnes of High Explosives, this was the largest (man-made) explosion until the A-Bomb.

Halifax was studied after the blast - not just “how it looked” but how it blew up.

Data from Halifax led to the tactic of detonation at some distance above the ground - an air burst instead of the less-destructive ground-level explosion.

(F.Y.I. from the Ministry of Irony - the ore used for the A-bombs dropped on Japan was mined in Canada.)

Salam,

Arab journalists are targets because they show us the violence which in Iraq is the truth.

History has showed us that the first victim of war is the truth.

Also why AlJazeera condemned killing or abducting of journalists while the Occidental media outlets are keeping a low-profile ?

They even forget the fact that this war is after all illegal no matter the goals or the causes.

Sort of getting back to the point, look at this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3648794.stm

I think I like the idea of the North Koreans blowing up a mountain. It’s probably a gesture of independance but it is a fairly impressive one.

Nuclear weapons would have been detected easily and lets face it they wouldn’t have risked it on the Chinese border.

The area being “thinly populated” is not the best justification I’ve ever heard but it was a good old fashion big bomb.