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

Wayne Throop wrote in message
...
: "Midnighter"
: Ok, the one thing I know about cars is that a lot of the modern ones
have a
: computer in them, and those comptuers are pretty rudimentary, but
important.
: If the EMP fragged them those cars would be toast.

True. But I'm pretty sure that once upon a time, designs were
such that the computer mainly tinkered with spark timing and the
injection parameters and such. And if it fried, you'd still get
spark and injection, just not well timed, and performance would
get *really* bad, and you'd get *really* nasty emissions.

I'm pretty sure I've heard of cases of cars failing CA smog tests,
and the reason turning out to be the control electronics was fried.

But more modern cars, maybe that's no longer true. (Possibly it
never was, but I was pretty sure...) And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't
want to have a hybrid in such a situation.

I saw some info about a GM proposal, I think called "skateboard",
where the functional bits were all in a little skateboardy thing,
and you'd exchange body shells depending on whether you want
a sporty profile, lots of passengers, cargo capacity, or whatever.
Inside the shell, the only connection to the skateboard would
be electronic. You'd plug in a wiring harness. Which means
steering, brake, everything; all electronic. Wouldn't want to
be driving one come the EMP. Presumably the skateboard would be
designed to "fail safe", but still. Quite different than just
losing power assist and ABS for steering and brake.

And did I say "pretty sure" enough? Shirley I did.

Anyways. I wonder about the fraction of cars that would still work.

It's interesting; as time goes on the probability that civilization
would be set on its ear unrecoverably by a world-wide EMP seems to go to
1....



I have had the misfortune to drive a series of modern vehicles wherein the
electronics are so interlinked and so tempermental that a mere fall in
battery output is sufficient to disable it. Once the output falls below 9
volts or so you are effectively buggered, so leave a light on overnight
and.kaput. In one model you can't even tow or push the car as the built in
'safety features' locks the gearbox in 'park'.

Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw

"BTR1701" wrote in message
...
The thing that strikes me as ridiculous about the line of succession is
the order of the cabinet posts. As it stands now, the line of succession
is ordered by the seniority of the cabinet position, so that the oldest
historical departments are at the top of the list and the youngest at
the bottom. Since the Department of Homeland Security is the youngest
cabinet department, that means the Secretary of DHS is dead last in line
of succession, behind the Secretaries of Agriculture, Health and Human
Services and Veterans Affairs.

Personally, if we're in a situation where enough of the government has
been wiped out that we're moving down the list of cabinet officers to
find out who is POTUS, I'd much prefer the DHS secretary-- who is
briefed daily by the NSA and CIA and other agencies on high-level intel
and the state of world affairs-- to someone like the HHS secretary who
will be forced to play serious catch-up in the middle of a crisis
because he is not a part of the intel community as a matter of course.
At precisely the moment when we'd need a guy who can make quick
decisions based on an extensive grasp of world politics, we'd be stuck
with a guy who'd have no idea what was really going on around the globe.
All because in Washington politics and ego rule the day and things that
don't really matter-- like seniority-- rule the day over things that
do-- like common sense.

From what I've seen of DHS in action, I'd put its boss after the White House
janitors.

Wayne Throop wrote in message
...
:: [ testing household gadgets for EMP surivability ]
:: Sounds like a job for Mythbusters!

: "Midnighter"
: Does the mythbusters budget include thermonuclear weapons?

Not sure. Can one be made for 20k $US or so?
Doubtless not; but there are more ways to skin an EMP than are dreampt
of in my philosophy, and at least some of them have to be that cheap. I
saw an episode of "Future Weapons" where EMPs were generated for testing
purposes with aiui capacitors and appropriate circuits and antennae;
knocked out a car with it. They could probably borrow the facility;
after all, they played with it for FW, which is not nearly as
high-profile (hence not as high signal/noise PR-wise).

Plus which, they might be able to argue that the environment in
a microwave oven can be tuned to be similarly stressful to electronics,
and they do like blowin' stuff up in the microwave.

Sounds like fun..... might be worth checking out a feature on a Brit TV
programme called 'top gear'. They stuck one of their guys inside a car
inside a artificial lightning generator then zapped it..... a lot. damn
thing still worked, as did the presenter.



Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw

In article ,
"Mike Schilling" wrote:

"Wayne Throop" wrote in message
...
: "Midnighter"
: Ok, the one thing I know about cars is that a lot of the modern ones
have a
: computer in them, and those comptuers are pretty rudimentary, but
important.
: If the EMP fragged them those cars would be toast.

True. But I'm pretty sure that once upon a time, designs were
such that the computer mainly tinkered with spark timing and the
injection parameters and such. And if it fried, you'd still get
spark and injection, just not well timed, and performance would
get *really* bad, and you'd get *really* nasty emissions.

I'm pretty sure I've heard of cases of cars failing CA smog tests,
and the reason turning out to be the control electronics was fried.

You can't pass a CA smog test these days unless the test machine can
communicate with the computer. (My mother's car failed because something
was wrong with the socket they were plugging into.)

So what happens with pre-computer cars? Shirley there must be somebody
in California with a classic automobile.

On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 03:38:21 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Mike
Schilling" made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


"Steven L." wrote in message
link.net...

What made it disturbing was that the 3rd in line, Speaker Hastert, said he
would refuse to take the job of President. So who was next in line? The
President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Strom Thurmond.

So, if Clinton and Gore had both been incapacitated or killed in a
terrorist attack, the new Acting President of the U.S. would have been
Strom Thurmond.

How about that?

And nowadays, Ted Stevens. Soon to be Robert Byrd. There's a definite
disconnect between the President Pro Tempore's being in the succession and
the criterion for being elected to that position (being the longest-serving
member of the majority party.)

We need a constitional amendment to fix that.

On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 01:42:26 GMT in alt.anarchism,
(Wayne Throop) wrote,
What about those "camp lanterns" with fluorescent lighting elements?

They all have a vulnerable transistor power supply to raise the battery
voltage to a level high enough to run the fluorescent tube.

"Anim8rFSK" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Mike Schilling" wrote:

"Wayne Throop" wrote in message
...
: "Midnighter"
: Ok, the one thing I know about cars is that a lot of the modern ones
have a
: computer in them, and those comptuers are pretty rudimentary, but
important.
: If the EMP fragged them those cars would be toast.

True. But I'm pretty sure that once upon a time, designs were
such that the computer mainly tinkered with spark timing and the
injection parameters and such. And if it fried, you'd still get
spark and injection, just not well timed, and performance would
get *really* bad, and you'd get *really* nasty emissions.

I'm pretty sure I've heard of cases of cars failing CA smog tests,
and the reason turning out to be the control electronics was fried.

You can't pass a CA smog test these days unless the test machine can
communicate with the computer. (My mother's car failed because something
was wrong with the socket they were plugging into.)

So what happens with pre-computer cars? Shirley there must be somebody
in California with a classic automobile.

Different test, of course.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 03:38:21 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Mike
Schilling" made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


"Steven L." wrote in message
hlink.net...

What made it disturbing was that the 3rd in line, Speaker Hastert, said
he
would refuse to take the job of President. So who was next in line? The
President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Strom Thurmond.

So, if Clinton and Gore had both been incapacitated or killed in a
terrorist attack, the new Acting President of the U.S. would have been
Strom Thurmond.

How about that?

And nowadays, Ted Stevens. Soon to be Robert Byrd. There's a definite
disconnect between the President Pro Tempore's being in the succession and
the criterion for being elected to that position (being the
longest-serving
member of the majority party.)

We need a constitional amendment to fix that.

We could use a change to the law of succession, but, as you well know, Bob,
that law isn't in the Constitution.

In article ,
"Mike Schilling" wrote:

"BTR1701" wrote in message
...
The thing that strikes me as ridiculous about the line of succession is
the order of the cabinet posts. As it stands now, the line of succession
is ordered by the seniority of the cabinet position, so that the oldest
historical departments are at the top of the list and the youngest at
the bottom. Since the Department of Homeland Security is the youngest
cabinet department, that means the Secretary of DHS is dead last in line
of succession, behind the Secretaries of Agriculture, Health and Human
Services and Veterans Affairs.

Personally, if we're in a situation where enough of the government has
been wiped out that we're moving down the list of cabinet officers to
find out who is POTUS, I'd much prefer the DHS secretary-- who is
briefed daily by the NSA and CIA and other agencies on high-level intel
and the state of world affairs-- to someone like the HHS secretary who
will be forced to play serious catch-up in the middle of a crisis
because he is not a part of the intel community as a matter of course.
At precisely the moment when we'd need a guy who can make quick
decisions based on an extensive grasp of world politics, we'd be stuck
with a guy who'd have no idea what was really going on around the globe.
All because in Washington politics and ego rule the day and things that
don't really matter-- like seniority-- rule the day over things that
do-- like common sense.

From what I've seen of DHS in action, I'd put its boss after the White House
janitors.

Oh please... there's just as much institutional incompetence in Veterans
Affairs (remember all those lost laptops?) and Agriculture and HHS and
every other department. You just don't hear about them as often because
those departments are frankly not as important to the nation as DHS and
State and Defense. Which only further underscores my point.

In article ,
(Ted Nolan tednolan) wrote:

In article ,
BTR1701 wrote:


In article . net,
"Steven L." wrote:

Fred J. McCall wrote:
"Allen W. McDonnell" wrote:

:If all three of them are dead or incapacitated together then it goes
:down through cabinet posts to Secretary of State Rice, the #4 person and
:formerly the woman closest (after Maddy Albright) to being President.

In fact, Speaker of the House Hastert said publicly that if it came to
that, he would refuse the job--he just didn't want to be President.

Frankly I don't think he should be legally allowed to just refuse. If
the situation presents itself, he should have two choices: take the oath
and become POTUS or resign as Speaker. In which case, the new Speaker
would then become POTUS, not SecState.

If you don't want to be POTUS, then perhaps you shouldn't accept a job
that puts you third in line of succession to the presidency.

But the possibility exists that the Speaker is not eligable to be
President (foreign-born, or not old enough),

Which is another aspect of the Constitution that should be clarified by
amendment. If you can't meet the qualifications to become president, you
shouldn't be allowed to take a job that puts you in line of succession
to the presidency.