Say Anything Blog

Transvestite bombs...what will they think of next?

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Err. that was “dud” not “dude”.

You should have an edit button next to the title of the post if you want to fix that.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I stand by my call. I don’t believe they attempted an actual nuclear weapon detonation. I think this is Jong Il stamping his expensivly shod little feet and screaming for attention. And it is working. I figure DRPK for building and selling sizeable dirtybomb devices, not actual fission or fusion bombs. And they damn sure ain’t gonna build anything that will fit on a missle. You have to wonder just how dedicated the people working on his programs are.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

2H9, then there is this possibility:

“It is possible with a relatively small underground blast that there would be no significant release of radiation,” said Hideshi Takesada, of the National Institute for Defense Studies, a branch of Japan’s Defense Agency

I would like to think that North Korea used up 6+ kg of their ~ 20 kg of plutonium.  Let’s hope for two more failed tests, followed by… silence.

We can only hope. It is just that the whole thing does not feel right. Saw an article in Daily Yomiuri that put forward the same scenerio, possibly based on the NIDS piece. Though that reporter seemed unconvinced. I’ll go see if I can pull it from their archives, not sure if they keep translated articles beyond 24 hours. A point I have been trying to find out about is the EMP signature. We have at least one satelite giving North Korea the hairy eyeball all the time, and they pick up the electrical emissions signature from equipment,comunications, and computers. Wouldn’t EMP from even a small release show up like a flash bulb?

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

Typically you only see a significant EMP, when the detonation occurs in the ionosphere… it is the result of the rapid acceleration of charged particles that causes the EMP radiation.  For a “normal” bomb, you only get this when you are exploding the bomb in a plasma (that is the media is already charged).  The US military has “E” bombs that it is rumored get around this.

Short answer, I don’t think you would have seen much, unless you had a gamma-ray telescope focused on the mountain at the time.