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

"Jordan" writes:

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!

As an SF fan, though, surely you must know that fiction is, in
part, a way of talking about reality. Without verisimilitude
of some kind, it's difficult (but not impossible) to have much
substance.

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

wrote in message
ups.com...

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.....

obSF: _Warday_.

"Jordan" wrote in message
oups.com...

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 opposed to the blustering and empty threats being so usefully employed
today?

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.


Seriously doubt it all you want; you are wrong -- as has been pointed
out by others. You know them; they're the ones who researched the facts
and as a result DID NOT post an opinion that is completely countered by
the truth.

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 17:28:14 +0000 (UTC), Joseph Michael Bay
wrote:

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.

....well it was a bomb show...you know what I mean!

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


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.)

Having just finished a re-read, yes, that's exactly how the book went.
"Strike anything hard enough and you'll get a mushroom cloud but radiation?
Unlikely" and then he goes on to theorize that you might be able to get
X-rays but not gamma radiation.



Yes, I've seen a 40,000-lb segment of a solid-fuel rocket motor
detonated and it produced a small mushroom cloud. It's a popular
misconception that nukes are the only source of mushroom clouds. Of
course, if it's one you could see from ~200 miles away, it's probably a
nuke. But that brings up something else: could you even distinguish a
mushroom cloud from that far away?

Ben Goodman wrote:



Yes, I've seen a 40,000-lb segment of a solid-fuel rocket motor
detonated and it produced a small mushroom cloud. It's a popular
misconception that nukes are the only source of mushroom clouds. Of
course, if it's one you could see from ~200 miles away, it's probably a
nuke. But that brings up something else: could you even distinguish a
mushroom cloud from that far away?


That is questionable. Of course on the show the people were only
speculating that the mushroom cloud was over Denver; maybe it will turn
out to have been at a missile silo or "secret base" located closer to
Jericho.

Ben Goodman wrote:

Jason Maxwell wrote:

"Joe Bednorz" wrote in message
. ..

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 03:13:52 GMT, Scott Golden wrote:


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.)


Having just finished a re-read, yes, that's exactly how the book went.
"Strike anything hard enough and you'll get a mushroom cloud but radiation?
Unlikely" and then he goes on to theorize that you might be able to get
X-rays but not gamma radiation.


Yes, I've seen a 40,000-lb segment of a solid-fuel rocket motor
detonated and it produced a small mushroom cloud. It's a popular
misconception that nukes are the only source of mushroom clouds. Of
course, if it's one you could see from ~200 miles away, it's probably a
nuke. But that brings up something else: could you even distinguish a
mushroom cloud from that far away?

Every thing below 8km will be under the horizon from 320km (~200 miles)
away. If you have mountains or anything raising the horizon you will see
only things even higher than the said 8km. Clouds flatten out when they
reach the stratosphere at an altitude of about 12km. So if the cloud does
go all the way to the stratosphere then you see only the top third of the
cloud in the best case (maybe we should call that the worst case). So the
stem of the mushroom would be under the horizon. In such a situation I
think it is very unlikely that you could figure out the mushroom shape.

Alain Fournier

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:00:20 GMT, "Steven L."
wrote:

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.

EMP can certainly cause certain problems - but there is a great deal
of radio equipment used by ham operators that wouldn't be affected.
Old fashioned tube sets, for example. And of course military gear can
be hardened against EMP. And disaster plans DO take into account the
problems that a nuclear war might create.

In short, it would reduce but not eliminate radio transmissions. To
actually eliminate it requires "waving a magic wand" type scenario.
It might make for great drama but it ignores reality.






(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.

Radioactive fallout is NOT an "instant kill" situation. It takes
quite a while to die from it, especially from 150 miles away. You'd
be looking at increased deaths from leukemia over the next 30 years,
not instant kill. Again, this is "waving a magic TV wand", not real
science.




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

No one in town seemed to actual noticed the flash - they only took
notice when the mushroom cloud climbed up over the horizon. Say, when
the cloud hit 20,000 feet high.

In any case, the single flash should not have been sending them into a
state where they would ignore the much more visible and much louder
school bus.




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.

On 22 Sep 2006 12:16:33 -0700, "Ben Goodman"
wrote:

Yes, I've seen a 40,000-lb segment of a solid-fuel rocket motor
detonated and it produced a small mushroom cloud. It's a popular
misconception that nukes are the only source of mushroom clouds.

Last time I was on Roi-Namur, there was a picture posted on the wall
in the airport from the battle, showing the non-nuclear muschroom
cloud resulting from (IMS) a Marine sapper team that had thrown a
satchel charge into a bunker that turned out to be a torpedo warhead
storage warehouse.

google

Ah, here we go:
http://mysite.verizon.net/res71z3x/h...sion_final.htm

....and scroll down about half way.