bush is planning to nuke the Midwest ...

[welshTerrier2]

bet you thought i was going to say he was going to nuke the Middle East ... nope ... wait til you hear this madness ... the morons are giving some serious consideration to nuking Indiana ...

you know, we used to march around with signs that read "no nukes" ... i never see those anti-nuke people anymore ... maybe after the Soviet Union collapsed, they figured there was no likelihood that anyone would use nukes again ... well, surprise, surprise, surprise ...

source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_koehler_2c_060809_smiling_buddha.htm

"We have stood down the experiment site and the workforce that was preparing the site for the experiment," read the dry, tersely worded statement issued by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency last week, referring to the "subnuclear" blast known as Divine Strake, initially slated to go off in early June at the Nevada Test Site and twice-postponed because of local uproar and environmental challenges.

Divine Strake would have ignited 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, sending up a 10,000-foot mushroom cloud, possibly stirring up radioactive dust at the Test Site and spewing an array of pollutants into the atmosphere: "two tons of cyanide compounds, 25 tons of particulates, a ton of hexachloroethane, a ton each of tetrachloroethylene and tetrachloromethane, a ton and a half of phosgene, nearly a ton of sulfur dioxide, more than 31 tons of carbon monoxide, seven tons of nitrogen oxides, nearly two tons of chloroform, and many other noxious compounds," according to environmental writer Valerie Brown, in an article published recently in the St. George (Utah) Spectrum. <skip>

Other sites being considered, the paper reports, are White Sands, N.M., and a limestone quarry near - hold onto your hats, Hoosiers - Bedford, Ind., a mere 70 miles from both Indianapolis and Louisville.

Nuts, right? I'd like to see them try. A scheme to bomb the Midwest - to conduct a blast big enough to simulate a small nuclear explosion - might be just the thing to galvanize nationwide outrage about the U.S. WMD program (remember, we already have 10,000 nuclear weapons on hand) and create a movement big enough to stand up to this global threat.

The point of Divine Strake, according to Department of Defense budget documents quoted in the St. George Spectrum, is to "develop a planning tool that will improve the warfighter's confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage." In other words, we're trying to develop usable nuclear weapons. Who's running the show here, Kim Jong Il? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What the U.S. is up to is, in my opinion, far scarier. <skip>

Did you know that India's first nuclear test explosion, in 1974, was code-named Smiling Buddha? A God complex exists at the level of national leadership that knows no religious or moral restraint. This is the arrogance the downwinders of Utah, Nevada and Idaho beat back this month, temporarily, perhaps, but on behalf of all humanity.

[bloom]

1. Just when you think you're m/l safe in the middle of nowhere...

I live less than 30 miles from Bedford.


If I'm going to go - I want to go quick.

[welshTerrier2]

3. duck and cover ...

then you'll be fine ... oh, and don't inhale ... or, um, exhale ... do you have a fallout shelter?

[bloom]

4. I would more inclined

to get a direct hit and get it over with.


I don't think that the Bloomington community and IU are going to take this very well.


On the other hand - all those liberals are probably who they are really aiming for.

[global1]

2. Indiana Is Right Next To Illinois - Downstate Illinois Has Some....

earthquake faults. I wonder if they could be affected by the blast should they choose Indiana.

[NavyDavy]

5. i live 20 min frm white sands nm, but there is already high lvls

of radiation in the drinking water in this area (Dona Ana County) anyway
from the last test they did in this area.....

[Alexodin]

6. from Todd Gitlin's The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage

There may not have been a single master fear, but to many in my generation, especially the incipient New Left, the grimmest and least acknowledged underside of affluence was the Bomb.... Whatever the national pride in the blasts that pulverized Bikini and Eniwetok atolls, whatever the Atomic Energy Commission's bland assurances, the Bomb actually disrupted our daily lives.

We grew up taking cover in school drills--the first American generation compelled from infancy to fear not only war but the end of days. Every so often, out of the blue, a teacher would pause in the middle of class and call out, "Take cover!" We knew, then, to scramble under our miniature desks and to stay there, cramped, heads folded under our arms, until the teacher called out, "All clear!" Sometimes the whole school was taken out into the halls, away from the windows, and instructed to crouch down, heads to the walls, our eyes scrunched closed, until further notice. Sometimes air raid sirens went off out in the wider world, and whole cities were told to stay indoors.

Who knew what to believe? Under the desks and crouched in the hallways, terrors were ignited, existentialists were made. Whether or not we believed that hiding under a school desk or in a hallway was really going to protect us from the furies of an atomic blast, we could never quite take for granted that the world we had been born into was destined to endure.... The Bomb was the shadow hanging over all human endeavor. It threatened all the prizes. It might, if one thought about it radically, undermine the rationale of the nation-state. It might also throw the traditional religious and ethical justifications of existence into disarray, if not disrepute. The Bomb that exploded in Hiroshima gave the lie to official proclamations that the ultimate weapon was too terrible to be used. (22-23)

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/corso/bomb.htm

[welshTerrier2]

7. wow ... that's really good ...

been there; done that ... i remember teachers telling us to keep quiet as we "ducked and covered" along the wall in the hallway of our school because that was an important part of the drill ... i always used to ask them what difference it made ... never really got an answer ...

your article really brought back some memories ... thanks for posting it ...

[Contrary1]

8. I would post it to the Indianapolis Star bulletin board...

but sadly, whatever Shrub & Co. do is fine by most folks that live here. Bedford is just a podunk little town. They won't have the numbers to fight it.

Nothing to see here...move along.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Bombing "the Heartland of the Homeland". Sounds very Rove. n/t

[LUHiWY]

10. Big blast?

What about the big "bomb" that was set off in Florida right before the Iraq war?

Part of the "shock and awe" campaign?

Looks like Iran or Syria better WATCH OUT!

[hippiechick]

11. ... as long as I have enough time to leave the area w/ friends ...

... then I say go for it. Erasing this shithole Republican morass from the map really wouldn't be such a bad thing. Although I'd miss Broad Ripple and Bloomington. Oh, and the chicken salad croissants at Loughmiller's Pub. :)

[GreenArrow]

12. Bedford is a Republican shithole, yes, but

there is a lot of Hooiser National Forest property in the area (Spring Mill Park as well), Lake Monroe, many caves with a model underground drainage system and rare and endangered animals, not to mention a fair amount of agriculture.

It makes me sick to even think about it.

[midnight armadillo]

13. Nukes give some people really big boners

There are members of the administration and military who have been looking at our nuclear arsenal for decades, bewildered as to why they can't use it on some target in a conflict.

Since thermonuclear armageddon with the USSR is passe, there have been mighty attempts to find a new target. Creating nuclear bunker busters is just the latest in this attempt since strategic weapons have too high a yield to be politically acceptable. Once an 'acceptable' nuclear weapon is developed, the rush to deploy it will be on.

Nuking Muslims would probably cut Viagra sales in half as many right wing nutjobs would get such a sexual thrill from seeing the mushroom cloud.