New CBS TV Series Making Nuclear War Thinkable And Great Fun For Everyone

"Joe Bednorz" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 03:13:52 GMT, Scott Golden wrote:

wrote:

http://letterfromhere.blogspot.com/2...thinkable.html
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Making nuclear war thinkable

What's wrong with this picture? To begin with, if it weren't a
Hollywood special effects shot, the guy would probably be blind from
looking right at the exploding nuke -- he clearly didn't duck and
cover.


Let's assume that the blast occured in Denver, as speculated. The Kansas
border is 140 miles away, and no one said that Jericho is right on the
border (I think we can safely assume that it is in western Kansas but
that's all). Someone watching the detonation from that far away will
"probably be blind" as a result? Don't think so.


Not too mention any large energy release will result in a mushroom
cloud. Didn't Heinlein cover this in TMiaHM? The Loonies were accused
of using nukes because of the mushroom clouds resulting from their
strikes on Earth. Manny finally points out that all they made were "big
sparks," which naturally result in mushroom clouds (if they occur on the
surface, in an atmosphere, etc.)

The first man made mushroom cloud was over Halifax Nova Scotia in WW1. No
nuclear component involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_explosion

wrote in message
ups.com...
wrote:
Earlier bomb shows were generally a bust. Remember the day after. So
sad it was cut dramatically in length and still was a ratings bust.

It's stunning how misinformed people allow themselves to be:

"Nearly 100 million Americans watched The Day After on its first
broadcast, a record audience for a made-for-TV movie."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After

The figure of 100 million is probably a quote from:

Twardy, Chuck, "'Day After' Scores High in TV Ratings," Lawrence
Journal-World, November 21, 1983

From another source:

"The Day After was broadcast on November 20, 1983 to an audience of 100
million viewers with the second-highest Nielsen rating ever for a TV
movie, outpaced only by Gone With the Wind."

http://www.ruminator.com/?p=22

The day after.
Threads
On the beach
Miracle Mile
Red Dawn
Testament
Failsafe

While a mix of TV movies, and actual movies. They all show a post during,
and immediatly post nuclear war scenario, all of them quite popular, no
busts in them at all.. Some of them were so scandelous and horrific that
they changed the governement policy. Threads is just haunting, testament
depressing and on the beach monsterous.

wrote:
wrote:

Earlier bomb shows were generally a bust. Remember the day after. So
sad it was cut dramatically in length and still was a ratings bust.

It's stunning how misinformed people allow themselves to be:
"Nearly 100 million Americans watched The Day After on its first
broadcast, a record audience for a made-for-TV movie."

..

I wonder if "hallerb" will come back and admit he was wrong? More
likely he will (1) just keep quiet rather than face the embarrassment
of being wrong or (2) never read your message and still continue on
blissfully thinking that Day After was a flop.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
The figure of 100 million is probably a quote from:
Twardy, Chuck, "'Day After' Scores High in TV Ratings," Lawrence
Journal-World, November 21, 1983

wrote:
(1) Whether 2 cities or 200, you wouldn't find the airways dead. Ham
radio people with their own batteries/generators ought to be all over
the bands. Foreign broadcast stations as well, and Satellite TV and
Radio. Yet the bands were reported as clear.
So I suspect they are playing fast and loose with real science and are
going to have a group of people marooned in unexplained fashion,
subjected to various inernal and external stresses - just like on
LOST. When something is successful there are immitators very quickly,
and I suspect this will be seen as one of them.

EMP electro magnetic pulse will wipe out nearly all solid state
electronic devices and fry the power grid too.

terrorists who hate the US could decimate our economy by detonating
just 2 EMP pulse weapons over the central US.....

You're right, but that's not the only purpose of it. In a real nuclear
war, the enemy would also detonate the EMP pulses to cripple our
military's radio communications and also to prevent our Government from
transmitting Civil Defense and emergency information to the public.
Most likely as the bombs would be going off, the American people
wouldn't be able to hear ANYTHING on their radios because of EMP. That
would mean they wouldn't know which way the bombs were headed, which way
the fallout was headed, etc.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

Harold Groot wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 05:49:30 GMT, "Steven L."
wrote:

wrote:
http://letterfromhere.blogspot.com/2...thinkable.html


Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Making nuclear war thinkable
[rest of drivel deleted]
From the premiere episode of "Jericho," we don't yet know the extent of
the nuclear attack that has apparently taken place. There was one
mushroom cloud in the general direction of Denver, and apparently
another explosion may have destroyed Atlanta. Two nuclear explosions
wouldn't wipe out America completely, just like the two nuclear
explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not wipe out Japan
completely. So unless you have spoilers to reveal, you can't know
whether the scenario is survivable (nobody has even talked about
"winning" since we don't even know it's a war yet either). We'll see
just how much of a mess the world has gotten itself into, in future
episodes.

Secondly, the mushroom cloud *can* be beautiful when watched from a safe
distance. A hurricane's spiral shape, or a tornado's funnel cloud, can
be beautiful too--even though we know how deadly a hurricane or tornado
can be. Beauty and deadliness *can* go together.

Thirdly, despite your claims, even the premiere episode of "Jericho" has
*NOT* made nuclear explosions look like "great fun for everyone." In
the town of Jericho after the blasts, there has already been panic,
there has been violence, there has been murder, there has been severe
injury, and there has been death. Not to mention the breakdown of
infrastructure services like radio, TV, telephone and electricity. And
that's just the first episode. The promo for the next episode hints
that radioactive fallout is about to endanger everyone there. And the
townspeople didn't seem to be laughing about it.
"Jericho" doesn't come with a laugh track.
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.


I've got a slightly different angle than some others. My guess is
that they are attempting to do a rip-off of LOST.

Oh, I don't expect the "weirdness" angle to be nearly as strong as on
LOST. It's REALLY over the top there. But they seem to already have
some weirdness on Jerico.

(1) Whether 2 cities or 200, you wouldn't find the airways dead. Ham
radio people with their own batteries/generators ought to be all over
the bands. Foreign broadcast stations as well, and Satellite TV and
Radio. Yet the bands were reported as clear.

Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) from high-altitude nuclear bursts might play
havoc with the entire radio spectrum. For quite a while.

In a nuclear warfighting scenario, an enemy might try to blind America
by high-altitude nuclear bursts to cause EMP electromagnetic
interference over the U.S. This would impede our military's ability to
transmit orders, and also impede the ability of the Government and Civil
Defense to transmit emergency information to the public.


(2) The animals that were strange (deer running into the bus, a huge
flock of crows killed or knocked out on the ground) are not explained.
The blast of a nuclear bomb 150 miles away or more (roughly the
distance from Denver to the nearest Kansas border) would not be
expected to do either of these things.

Not at all. The birds may have been killed by radioactive fallout blown
in the direction of Kansas by the jet stream, which can be hundreds of
miles an hour and can get to Kansas from Colorado quite quickly. The
fallout from a thermonuclear bomb powerful enough to destroy all of
Denver, can travel hundreds of miles before it finally settles out of
the atmosphere. As I said, this is also consistent with the promo of
next week's episode, in which the townspeople realize that the airborne
radioactive fallout may settle right over their town due to a rainstorm.

As for the deer running, it may have seen the nuclear flash with its own
eyes and gotten scared.


So I suspect they are playing fast and loose with real science and are
going to have a group of people marooned in unexplained fashion,
subjected to various inernal and external stresses - just like on
LOST.

So far, based on what I remember about nuclear warfighting from the Cold
War (and I admit I'm no expert), I haven't seen anything that can't be
explained--except it implies a much larger attack than just the two
ground-bursts in Denver and Atlanta that we've already discovered.



--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

What I find odd about this is the assumption that the most serious
means of debating the nature of life on Earth after an atomic war is
duelling TV dramas. BOTH "The Day After" and "Jericho" are FICTION!!!
Reality check!

- Jordan

zzpat wrote:
Frank Glover wrote:

The leaders of Iran and North Korea are my biggest concerns on this
issue...and I doubt that anything CBS airs or doesn't air will alter
their views either way.

I seriously doubt Iran or N. Korea wanted nukes before Bush's holy war
("axis of evil"). In fact they had UN inspector and signed treaties
against nukes. Bush screwed it up, not Iran, Iraq, or North Korea.

The North Korean nuclear weapons program existed during Bill Clinton's
Presidency -- you may recall the rather active tribu ... I mean,
"diplomacy" regarding that around 1994-95? As for Iran, I'm not sure
when their nuclear weapons program began. I do recall hearing about
Iranian attempts to acquire nuclear artillery shells right after the
breakup of the Soviet Union, though, which would have been on George H.
W. Bush's watch.

Sincerely Yours,
Jordan

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 07:31:00 -0700, wrote:
---------snip---------
terrorists who hate the US could decimate our economy by detonating
just 2 EMP pulse weapons over the central US.....

Implies that there are terrorists who love the US. Neither of which
really confront the issue of why _people_ are attacking U.S. interests.

Instead of parroting the Bu****es how about thinking first?

-- Regards, Curly
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time to dust off the guillotine
------------------------------------------------------------------------

" writes:


ravenlynne wrote:

What an awesome god! Cthulhu ain't got nuthin' on Jehovah.

.

Actually his name is YHWH (typically pronounced Yahweh).

Well, if you're saying it right that's trouble too, isn't it.



--
Do you want your possessions identified? [ynq]

writes:

wrote:
Earlier bomb shows were generally a bust. Remember the day after. So
sad it was cut dramatically in length and still was a ratings bust.

It's stunning how misinformed people allow themselves to be:

"Nearly 100 million Americans watched The Day After on its first
broadcast, a record audience for a made-for-TV movie."

The Day After wasn't a bomb show; it was a blockbuster.

--
Do you want your possessions identified? [ynq]