Posted on 06/13/2018 2:14:58 PM PDT by NRx
...But the current state of dread, while entirely understandable, has overshadowed two crucial realities about the threat of a nuclear calamity. First, a nuclear attack on the United States could well come not from the skies but from the streets. Experts warn that it would be relatively easy for terrorists to build an “improvised nuclear bomb” and smuggle it into America. Building a ten-kiloton bomb nearly as destructive as the one dropped on Hiroshima would require little more than some technical expertise and 46 kilograms of highly enriched uranium — a quantity about the size of a bowling ball. The second reality we have failed to understand is what a nuclear detonation and its aftermath would actually look like. In our imaginations, fueled by apocalyptic fictions like The Road and The Day After, the scale and speed of nuclear annihilation seem too vast and horrific to contemplate. If nuclear war is considered “unthinkable,” that is in no small part because of our refusal to think about it with any clarity or specificity. In the long run, the best deterrent to nuclear war may be to understand what a single nuclear bomb is capable of doing to, say, a city like New York — and to accept that the reality would be even worse than our fears.
...When such a bomb explodes, everyone within 100 feet of ground zero is instantaneously reduced to a spray of atoms. There are photos from Hiroshima and Nagasaki showing eerie silhouettes of people cast against a flat surface, such as a wall or floor. These are not, as is sometimes claimed, the remains of vaporized individuals, but rather a kind of morbid nuclear photograph.
(Excerpt) Read more at nymag.com ...
Tough reading when you live across the river from NYC.
Is 46 kilograms about 100 pounds?
Seems like a lot.
I work in the Poconos, and after the Iran deal went through, I half expect to see a mushroom cloud over NYC one day.
New York becomes a purple state from deep blue
What would it look like? At least ten million dead I would say. And a clean-up that would take decades.
Based on Reports from New York Freepers, I thought red.
To make America America, New York and San Francisco or LA must go
Kilograms - to - pounds, multiply by 2.2
[ Start by visualizing billions of dollars in U.S. cash sent “to Iran,” on pallets. ]
End with everyone on facebook and twitter saying we need to light a candle and pray against Islamophobia as they change their background images to pictures of new york.
Not really.
Unless you think coming up with 46 kilograms of highly enriched uranium is a piece of cake. (IOW more than a hundred pounds.) You need to know what to do with the stuff, and how to do it; and you need to do it without setting off a Geiger Counter somewhere.
ML/NJ
I still have my 1980s Far Side coffee mug with that image on it.
Has the color of the ribbon and silicone bracelet been decided on yet?
A buying opportunity.
I’ll say this much: based on 9/11 if a terrorist nuked NYC the very next day the press will be able to find Ivy League nitwits who won’t be able to say that what the terrorist did was evil.
Indeed, given the spread of Cultural Marxist nitwittery it should prove easier to find them and also to find them in numbers.
They’ll probably blame us Deplorables for electing Trump.
Or maybe Jews and Christians for being insensitive to Islam....
My Father’s battalion was sent into Berlin not too long after the Russians captured it.
He took a lot of photos. Most of Berlin was badly damaged. I particularly remember one of Berlin High School. It was simply a pile of rubble. Most of the rest of the city was the same.
Nice timing on the article, fellas. Countdown to NY Magazine claiming Trump's Korea negotiations were a bad deal...three...two...
Thats what gets me about all of this - there has to be a whole lot of things go just right for this to work (properly) can still make a big mess even if it messes up - but just don’t see the probability of it.
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