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Nuclear Specter Returns: "Threat of War Is Higher Than In The Cold War"

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Authored by Markus Becker via Der Spiegel,

The Ukraine crisis has dramatically worsened relations between NATO and Russia. With cooperation on nuclear security now suspended and the lack of a "red telephone," experts at the Munich Security Conference warn any escalation in tensions could grow deadly.

The scientists had no idea that their experiment could spell the end of civilization. On Jan. 25, 1995, Norwegian and American researchers fired a rocket into the skies of northwestern Norway to study the Northern Lights. But the four-stage rocket flew directly through the same corridor that American Minuteman III missiles, equipped with nuclear warheads, would use to travel from the United States to Moscow.

The rocket's speed and flight pattern very closely matched what the Russians expected from a Trident missile that would be fired from a US submarine and detonated at high altitude, with the aim of blinding the Russian early-warning system to prepare for a large-scale nuclear attack by the United States. The Russian military was placed on high alert, and then President Boris Yeltsin activated the keys to launch nuclear weapons. He had less than 10 minutes to decide whether to issue the order to fire.

Yeltsin left the Russian missiles in their silos, probably in part because relations between Russian and the United States were relatively trusting in 1995. But if a similar incident occurred today, as US arms expert Theodore Postol warned recently, it could quite possibly lead to nuclear catastrophe.

Deep Mistrust

"Five or six minutes can be enough time, if you have trust, if you have communication and if you can put this machinery immediately to work," former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on the sidelines of last weekend's Munich Security Conference. Unfortunately, he argued, this machinery works very poorly today, and there is great mistrust.

When asked what would happen today if the 1995 missile incident happened again, Ivanov responded, "I cannot be sure if the right decision would be taken."

Deep mistrust has developed between the West and Russia, and it is having a massive effect on cooperation on security matters.

In November 2014, the Russians announced that they would boycott the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit in the United States. In December, the US Congress voted, for the first time in 25 years, not to approve funding to safeguard nuclear materials in the Russian Federation. A few days later, the Russians terminated cooperation in almost all aspects of nuclear security. The two sides had cooperated successfully for almost two decades. But that is now a thing of the past.

Instead, Russia and the United States are investing giant sums of money to modernize their nuclear arsenals, and NATO recently announced that it was rethinking its nuclear strategy. At the same time, risky encounters between Eastern and Western troops, especially in the air, are becoming more and more common, a report by the European Leadership Network (ELN) recently concluded.

"Civilian pilots don't know how to deal with this," explains ELN Chair Des Browne, a former British defense minister. "One of these incidents could easily escalate. We need to find a mechanism in which we can talk at the highest level."

Brown, together with Ivanov and former US Senator Sam Nunn, the grandfather of international disarmament policy, published an analysis last week. The trio recommends "that reliable communication channels exist in the event of serious incidents." In other words, these channels currently do not exist. Recently Philip Breedlove, the head of NATO Allied Command Operations in Europe, even called for a new "red telephone," alluding to the direct teletype connection established in 1963 between the United States and the Soviet Union after the Cuban missile crisis. A direct line had been set up between NATO and the Russian military's general staff in February 2013, but it was cut as a result of the Ukraine crisis.

'A Very Dangerous Situation'

"Trust has been eroded to the point of almost being destroyed," said Nunn. "You got a war going on right in the middle of Europe. You got a breakdown of the conventional forces treaty, you got the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) treaty under great strain, you got tactical nuclear weapons all over Europe. It's a very dangerous situation."

In late January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its "Doomsday Clock" to three minutes to midnight. The last time it was set to that time was in 1983, "when US-Soviet relations were at their iciest point," as the group of scientists explained. The only other time when the situation was even worse was in 1953, when the clock was set to two minutes to midnight. Unchecked climate change and the "nuclear arms race resulting from modernization of huge arsenals" pose "extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity," the group's statement read.

The current rhetoric coming from the rivals in the East and West seems poorly suited to reducing the threat. "The Russian aggression is a direct threat to NATO," British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said at the Munich Security Conference.

The situation is made more complicated by the fact that Russia's actions in Ukraine are difficult to define. With camouflage, trickery and deception, the Russians are applying the full arsenal of so-called hybrid warfare, from propaganda to cyber warfare and funding the separatists right up to clandestine military operations.

In Munich, Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide demanded that Russia's aggression should be clearly identified as such. "And it goes without saying," she said, "that Article 5 of the NATO Treaty applies to such aggression." This means that if Russia were to attack a NATO member, in the way it is now intervening in Ukraine, all other member states would be required to enter the war to defend that country.

Higher Risks with Hybrid Warfare

"It (hybrid warfare) makes everything more dangerous," said Nunn, "It makes tactical nuclear weapons more dangerous, and it makes weapons material more dangerous." It is common knowledge that some of these weapons are also stationed in Germany. Up to 20 B61 aerial bombs, now being updated at great expense, are stored at the Büchel Air Base in the Eifel region of western Germany. They are under US command, but German Tornado fighter jets would drop the bombs in the event of a war.

When asked if hybrid warfare could raise the danger of nuclear weapons being used, US diplomat Richard Burt -- who, in his role as chief negotiator, helped put together the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, between the United States and the Soviet Union -- answered in the affirmative. "The simple answer is yes. Both American and Russian nuclear arms are essentially on a kind of hair-trigger alert. Both sides have a nuclear posture where land-based missiles could be authorized for use in less than 15 minutes." In the situation of hybrid warfare, he warns, "that is a dangerous state of play."

"In the Cold War, we created mechanisms of security. A huge number of treaties and documents helped us to avoid a big and serious military crash," says former Foreign Minister Ivanov. "Now the threat of a war is higher than during the Cold War."

 

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Sat, 02/14/2015 - 22:50 | 5785895 The_Peeper
The_Peeper's picture

Burp

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 22:55 | 5785907 Xibalba
Xibalba's picture

Aren't the Oscars coming up? 

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:01 | 5785925 johngaltfla
johngaltfla's picture

When I was in college during the cold war our concerns were smoked and drank away. Time to revisit the 1970's and early 1980's. Bottoms up ladies and gentlemen!

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:08 | 5785935 Latina Lover
Latina Lover's picture

Central banks, the ultimate wealth extraction parasites, need a war before the latest currency ponzi scheme fails.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:12 | 5785946 kridkrid
kridkrid's picture

Perhaps it's the war that determines who gets to establish the next currency Ponzi scheme. Let me control the issuance of money and I care not who makes the laws.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:12 | 5785948 wee-weed up
wee-weed up's picture

Moah Woah, Bitchez!

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:23 | 5785970 El Oregonian
El Oregonian's picture

Oh God, forgive us for our sinful and a stone heart. We are evil continually. Many, many young and old innocence will be slaughtered for our transgressions against you.

I repent and ask for forgiveness. God help us all as we enter into the valley of the shadow of death. I shall not fear for you are with me.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:39 | 5785992 palmereldritch
palmereldritch's picture
“Yea though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil...because I am the meanest motherfucker in the Valley.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2171404/Zippo-lighters-U-S-troop...

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:13 | 5786055 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture

I'll worry about a nuclear war when corn and wheat prices are sky high.  That would mean they are stocking the bunkers.  Oh shit.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:14 | 5786062 willwork4food
willwork4food's picture

Not necessarily Rand. They have had plenty of time to stock the bunkers with they high price of food in the midst of a downward employment cycle. Might want to stock up on some fresh beer though...

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 01:02 | 5786129 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

Global warming threat, Russia to blame for war in Ukraine, Russia threatens NATO.

Absolute unmitigated garbage. Was this by the CIA?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:00 | 5786204 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

I guess I ought to be sure that the horse trailer has everything I would need in it to survive where there is no fallout.  At least I know the escape routes that very few would know well enough to get the fuck outta dodge so that I could avoid clogged and/or irradiated highways.  And maybe I could shoot the cocksucker that lives along one of those routes who harasses people whether they are on his land or not on the way out. 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:15 | 5786224 Manthong
Manthong's picture

It seems to me that the psychopath elite’s primary purpose for the ridiculously huge nuclear arsenals might be population control.

A secondary one might be entertainment.

 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:15 | 5786225 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

Problem with that is, the nukes will fuck psychopaths just as hard as everybody else. 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 03:35 | 5786287 cnmcdee
cnmcdee's picture

That there is some AAA fear porn..

People always talk about stacking silver and gold - but just remember one lady in Germany in WWII traded a Grand Piano for a sack of potatoes because she was starving...

Stock pile food people and LOTS of it. If someone tells you you are hoarding - ask them  why are they 'hoarding' money in their savings account when in all equality they should be out handing out 50's to bums on the street corners..  Challenge them that you will hand out a bag of rice for every 50 they hand out, see what they have to say.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 07:40 | 5786438 Zero_Head
Zero_Head's picture

Thank goodness we have Hope and Change and a Nobel peace prize EARNING President!!!

 

Just remember, everything will certainly get better if sexist America would just vote for someone with a vagina.....just as with homosexual black Muslim men, having a vagina make you the best candidate for the Presidency!!!

You all should trust the media, since they only lie  for members of ONE of the parties who "are both the same".

 

There is a sucker born every second.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:15 | 5786514 new game
new game's picture

hardly talked about here- the state dept. a cabel of war mongers working with mic.

a coup of the coup is needed. that is you and i. enemy within, even your neighbor or relative, not to mention stupidity, cog dis as ultimate lurking enemy of the enemy within with tools of propaganda via msm...

within my family; sister-staunch iberal in cali, hopeless. mom-parrot of media. brother-gets is but does nothing.

another sister-paid o care tax-wtf! me- im on my own and i don't give a fuck anymoar what they think. i dont waste mental efforts explaining what i think. i'm just planning for a very shitty day, like 911/katrina only worse...

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 10:13 | 5786594 y3maxx
y3maxx's picture

..."We nuked a few folk".

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:16 | 5786066 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Semper Fi, mf.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:09 | 5786053 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

I agree with your prayer and it was heard.

 

In the name above all names, Christ Jesus, we humble ourselves and request the mercy of the Father.

 

I fear not.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 03:18 | 5786274 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture

Big Brother was born of your Father.  There's no good shepherd.  But there sure as fuck are sheep and wolves.  The wolves will tell you there is a sky God that will do justice later.  Think for one minute about how religion has been used since Egyptian times and before.  

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 04:03 | 5786303 Oldwood
Oldwood's picture

Just as every other ideology has been. There is nothing wrong with a belief in God or Marx as long as you do not use it as a mandate to harm or oppress others. We see daily that there are many who will use their god as an excuse for tyranny. Everything is done for our own good, be they politician, priest or prophet.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:26 | 5786525 new game
new game's picture

maybe the belief in this nonsense is the problem. ie the individuals that believe non sense.

my god is a website that you can donate anonamously to and all your transgressions will go away.

www.stupidity.com

the opiate of control>false beliefs in something non-tangible.

folks, i think we have discovered the root problem!

back to worship. shhhh, i'm praying, they won't push the button...

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 11:31 | 5786736 BandGap
BandGap's picture

If this is all their is to our existance......

I believe this a small time. I believe in an afterlife. I do not make judgements, that is for Another.

Peace.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 08:35 | 5786468 Cloud9.5
Cloud9.5's picture

You should because the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  If we look deep enough in our hearts we will see that we are all unjust.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:37 | 5786534 new game
new game's picture

no truer words spoken. and working to unjust the unjust is a daily task few delve into...

how can i do better things for myself, keeping in mind how it might impact others around me.

words are powerfull, choose them carefully and shut the fuck up is always a good option. all things will pass, good and bad...

question:why do we fuck over the very people we luv the most?

answer:because we know how far we can go before we went to far...

think about that.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 15:37 | 5787542 Parrotile
Parrotile's picture

It raineth more on the "just" fellow,

'Cause the "unjust's" nicked the "just's" umbrella . . . . .

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 01:12 | 5786141 Nexus789
Nexus789's picture

There will be no one left. So no need for currency.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 05:15 | 5786347 TheRideNeverEnds
TheRideNeverEnds's picture

But nuclear Armageddon is bullish stocks right? Someone will have to replace all those broken windows so I'm going with yes.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:40 | 5786548 new game
new game's picture

bullshit is even bullish, makes perfect sense, ha...

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 10:07 | 5786586 MonetaryApostate
MonetaryApostate's picture

Digital Currency is what they are pushing, don't you get it?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 15:22 | 5787496 bitterwolf
bitterwolf's picture

digital and ONE world currency.....with that you already have a framework of global governance....the elite will also work in some type of global debt rebalance with new currency intro to ensure acceptance...

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:36 | 5785987 Usurious
Usurious's picture

 

 

the banksters will never take responsibility for their plunder and usury........FUCK EM ALL..........

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 03:39 | 5786291 permarig
permarig's picture

You don't need to go back very far for a possible glimpse into the playbook. Just revisit what happened to the markets in October.

On September 30, oil (WTI) got ramped back to 95 or so and started the second, the big leg down the next day.
The stock market was selling off in concert for 2 weeks or so.

The media was blaming the selloff on the oil move and also on ebola. They were full of ebola BS. At one point, the S&P plunged on the news, that a team in hazmat suits is going in for someone on a plane.

It just so happens, coincidentally, that October also saw a significant reduction in those huge VIX shorts that were growing ever since Dudley became the head of the NY Fed.
Which of course, would correlate perfectly with the spiking VIX and a selloff.

But then, Bullard said one sentence and investors overcame their concerns about oil and ebola and started to allocate capital again.

So yes, if this the farce it looks like, it raises the question what kind of panic they might want to come up with for the "big one".

Prior to the October episode, in September, they were pumping the markets based on Draghi promises and Chinese easing. Now we've CBs all over the place having actually stepped up their QE and rate cuts.

On a darker note, there's also this thing getting mentioned occasionally called the Samson option.

Essentially, a psychopathic desire for an easy exit, even if it means mutual destruction. Sure, having to admit what really went down on 9/11 could be potentially the end for them.

At any rate, the quotes below "Writers' comments on the strategy" on the Wikipedia page are some sick and twisted cult shit.

 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 04:26 | 5786317 Curiously_Crazy
Curiously_Crazy's picture

  "The media was blaming the selloff on the oil move and also on ebola. They were full of ebola BS."

 

OT but I seem to recall that right here on ZH the ebola BS was also being spread far and wide and that a majority believed it. Those of us who said it was all a load of shit and to stop listening to the hype were down arrowed to oblivion.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 15:48 | 5787582 Parrotile
Parrotile's picture

Big hype was it?? Explain THIS then. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=33454233, from just 18 hours ago . . .

Just because "The West" has been OK so far, doesn't mean it'll remain OK. Every successful host colonisation provdes another opportunity for "adjustment", and we know the current circulating variants have undergone modification in critical areas.

Only a matter of time before our "luck runs out" and with the Western "someone else's problem, out of sight, out of mind" mindset, we are not helping our survival odds, are we . . . .

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:33 | 5786533 sam i am
sam i am's picture

There is an old prediction that in 2016 Europe will become completely desolate and depopulated. "Abandoned" as it puts it.

Europeans, these world parasites,  are once again ready to die for Ukrainian fertile farmlands.

Russians should start bombing with Bordeaux, like NATO bombs Donbass.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 10:05 | 5786583 MonetaryApostate
MonetaryApostate's picture

Latina Lover nailed it hard.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 05:52 | 5786379 HowdyDoody
HowdyDoody's picture

Pity Peter Sellers is no longer around to play the part of the character General Breedlove. These Hollywood names are great. I wonder who the character is based on?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 08:41 | 5786477 flapdoodle
flapdoodle's picture

Just visiting from FreeRepublic.com are we?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 10:16 | 5786589 chunga
chunga's picture

If there ever is a civil war that's the group I'll most want to fight.

Mongering for war, praying for iSrael, begging for donations. What a bunch of loudmouthed red team/blue team, know-it-all statists.

I'd like to capture Rush Limbaugh and hoist him up a tree by his ankles and leave him there.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 15:27 | 5787515 Calmyourself
Calmyourself's picture

As long as the entire cast of MSNBC , mathews, stewart,soros, podesta, hangs beside him sure you get the picture..

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 08:50 | 5786487 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

Dr. StrangeNuland

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 01:23 | 5786159 YouSerious
YouSerious's picture

Russia needs to be stopped at all costs this is getting out of control

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:27 | 5786240 ebworthen
ebworthen's picture

You mean the U.S. and the E.U. trying to plant themselves and a NATO base in Russia's backyard and the former capital of Russia - what could possibly go wrong?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:54 | 5786566 rwe2late
rwe2late's picture

 According to the "security experts",

the distance between the Russian border and NATO has been getting less and less,

which necessarily creates increasing danger to NATO military assets

stationed along the Russian border.

Even NATO-sponsored coups and NATO-backed ethnic cleansing

near and along the Russian border can be threatened by Russian counter-moves.

 

In fact, any action Russia does take or could take

which imperils the ability of NATO to defend NATO operations and build-up

along the Russian border must be regarded by NATO as "aggressive".

The failure of Russia to move its border back as NATO advanced

must be taken as a clear sign of hostility to NATO.

 

The fearsome conclusion of the experts:

"Russian aggression is a direct threat to NATO"

-  British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 03:36 | 5786288 California Nigh...
California Nightmares's picture

Our Zionists need to be stopped.

The Russsians? No problem, They mind their own business.

 

 

 

 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 08:46 | 5786480 flapdoodle
flapdoodle's picture

To those who haven't figured it out yet, the USSR was basically run by... Zionists. Since the socialist experiment made for an anemic host, they bailed ship in the early 1990's.

Any guess which new host the ex-Nomenklatura of the USSR decided to feast on (that is, those who didn't stay to grab all the USSR assets of value and become Oligarchs)?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 01:57 | 5786195 Bloppy
Bloppy's picture

All of those 80s radicals passing out anti-Reagan and Thatcher leaflets, yet the real nuclear threat comes from Islamo-kooks.

 

New Victoria Jackson parody clip: "There's a Muslim in the White House":

http://tinyurl.com/kk6l3yf

 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 13:50 | 5787161 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture

You're a nutjob.

Iran has had nukes for 25 years and hasn't used them.Pakistan has nukes and hasn't used them.

They are defensive weapons, except when the US has them.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 05:16 | 5786350 supercelld
supercelld's picture

I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 16:26 | 5787690 Bollixed
Bollixed's picture

Virus alert!

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 22:50 | 5785896 HonkyShogun
HonkyShogun's picture

Any chance they can hit Tel Aviv first for us?

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 22:59 | 5785918 Oldwood
Oldwood's picture

Duck and cover!

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:01 | 5785924 Oldwood
Oldwood's picture

Where did I put my duct tape???

      We are supposed to use duct tape for something, right?

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:35 | 5785984 IridiumRebel
IridiumRebel's picture

Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
There gonna get us all killed.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:18 | 5786070 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

God damn it! I forgot to get a 1960's student desk for my preps!! I'm totally fucked!!!

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 05:45 | 5786375 Wile-E-Coyote
Wile-E-Coyote's picture

Whitewash yourself, you'll be OK.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 05:54 | 5786385 HowdyDoody
HowdyDoody's picture

If you wear glasses, you need to put a cross of tape over the outside to prevent the sherds flying about and possibly damaging someone.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:00 | 5785920 wendigo
wendigo's picture

I just had an argument with my physicist friend about this very subject. He was worried about the threat of nulear anhilation. I countered with two points: 

1. Only nations have the resources to build and deliver nuclear weapons. As nations are fixed points in space, they can't easily move to avoid a counterstrike. Thus, no nation would be insane enough to launch first, because of the risk of retaliation. 

2. Since nuclear weapons are no longer tested and the US and Russian stock of these devices is decades old, I wonder how many of them would even detonate. 

Fun fact: the Doomsday Machine from Dr. Strangelove actually existed. 

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:13 | 5785950 kowalli
kowalli's picture

Russian stock of these devices is decades old

Russia was building new nuclear warheads and new ballistic missiles from 2002

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 01:14 | 5786146 Nexus789
Nexus789's picture

It is thought that the Chinese have been building hundreds of new warheads. 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:05 | 5786210 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

Russia has updated the hell out of its arsenal.  They've got new warheads.  As for whether or not the failure rate on the warheads is high, it would have to be very high to make a difference.  An 80% failure rate would still fuck us and fuck Russia.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:16 | 5785951 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

You place far too much faith in logic.  Try game theory instead.  It's much more depressing and realistic.

Yes, 40 year old Nukes WILL detonate, exactly as they were designed to do.  Plus, many are not as old as you think they are.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:57 | 5786026 ILLILLILLI
ILLILLILLI's picture

I have shoes older than 40 years. They still get me where I want to go.

These boots are made for walking, bitchez...and ass-kicking.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:23 | 5786081 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

I have underwear that is older than 40 years.  They still function as intended though they have a few unerasable stains.  Wife wants to throw them out but the holes are in non-strategic areas.  They still fit comfortably because the shed I built over my 'tools' is a bit higher up.

Old nukes will work as intended. They were built unhackable and with actual human hands involved.  They are too primitive to fail.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:38 | 5786104 tired1
tired1's picture

Not really all that primitive. Results are unpredictable because of decay rates of Pu and U. A fizzle yeild would still do a lot of damage.

There's a lot noise about Israeli theft of US material as well as newly leaked info about US aid to Isreal in the construction of an H Bomb. Aslo there are rumors that Dimona had a mishap and no longer able to reprocess their warheads.

FWIW, even good old dynamite becomes unstable over time as the nitro weeps out of the clay.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:58 | 5786125 sun tzu
sun tzu's picture

If each side launched 1000 warheads and only 1% detonated, it would be the end of the civilization. Each of today's nuclear warheads is 50-100 times more powerful than the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You're looking at 1000-2000 Nagasaki type events going off within minutes.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:03 | 5786208 Real Estate Geek
Real Estate Geek's picture

And a whole bunch of cooling pools that still need cooling 24/7/365.  (Scattered all over and way overloaded, natch.)

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:07 | 5786217 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

Those cooling pools are overloaded because places like Yucca mountain got nixed, not because most of the rods need to be in the pools anymore, because they don't.  There's just no other politically feasable place to put them or thing to do with them. 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:20 | 5786520 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

I nominate Wyoming.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 12:06 | 5786823 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Fuck that, I nominate Washington DC.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 08:58 | 5786492 flapdoodle
flapdoodle's picture

It is probably true that a nuclear device will no longer work over time. It is also true that it is not very difficult to refurbish a nuclear device to keep it functional. considerably easier than building a new weapon from scratch.

Unfortunately for the West, the USSR/Russian mindset is to build tough, cheap, reliable weapons, so these devices probably were already designed to last quite a while.

Further, the Russians have had *twenty years* to work on their arsenal. Also unfortunately for the West, the Russians figured out that their economic disadvantage against the West in ability to spend on defense could be greatly mitigated at a much lower cost by keeping a credible and robust "force de frappe" as the frogs would say...

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 15:46 | 5787571 Calmyourself
Calmyourself's picture

Major supercomputing power is dedicated, tasked with making sure they go boom..  If your counting on nukes failing pick another strategy, large turtle shell or something..

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:19 | 5786518 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Explains the smell.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:16 | 5785957 wendigo
wendigo's picture

If what you say is true, I retract my earlier comments. 

I had hoped sanity would prevail and the damn things would never be launched, and that they would malfunction if they did. But then, I can be accused of being an idealist. 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 16:11 | 5787639 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

wendigo,

plenty to make bombs is "missing:"

http://www.mondovista.com/hbomb.html

The Real Nuclear Threat

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/09/vigilance-required-as-more-nuke.html

During the 1980s I became very concerned about the nuclear arms race, which then was growing exponentially! It reached an overall peak back in 1986. However, it yet proliferated through other countries, like Israel, India and Pakistan building perhaps hundreds more bombs during the last decade or so, while the previously armed countries, that had hundreds, or tens of thousands, of nuclear weapons had scaled back, for a while, although, that has qualitatively picked back up again more recently.

At the same time, some black markets have obviously been selling materials enough to make some atomic bombs, which could be controlled by rogue government agencies, or other kinds of organized crime gangs, which have NO "home base."

I first got involved in registered political parties in 1983, through the new Green Party then. It was the atomic arms race that
motivated me to do that, and that was what then led me to run as
candidate for election ... That was how I was led to focus on the issues about the funding of political parties, & that led me to learn about the Canadian political contribution tax credit ...  It was literally the case that my thinking about murder systems led me to thinking about the money systems ... I am still on that path right now ... My current conclusions are as I outlined in my comments below: I no longer am able to maintain the slightest shred of idealistic optimism regarding the most probable futures ...

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:20 | 5785965 Oldwood
Oldwood's picture

Your problem is rationality. You assume that actors are always considering the good of their nation. That the self destruction of their country's populations and infrastructures is not their goal. There are many who believe that Obama, as well as other national leaders, are trying to do exactly that economically, to advance their agenda, which with all agendas has one primary component to effect, power. Look at the condensation of power into the hands of government from Pearl harbor, Sinking the Main, 9-11 provided, just to name a few. We don't now and likely will never know what events are false flag and which are real. This is the deliberate result of years of misinformation commingled with true information, creating the chaos that the powers of corruption prosper in.

When we cannot see or recognize what motivates people, we are effectively blind. Our mind will not allow us to comprehend what is incomprehensible. We will never understand what motivates a psychopath. People who will kill and destroy for no comprehensible reason, a religious fanatic who will murder his way to heaven, a person greedy for power so strongly they will send millions to war to advance or preserve it.

It would seem the more we deny the irrational, the more probable it becomes.

Shelter in place

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:31 | 5785980 cornfritter
cornfritter's picture

the reptile card.... there is a joker, but the reptile is like a real serious joker in a bad way,... uncounted millions dead in the last 3000 yrs. with their blood calling from the grave

slow news night :-(  whore babylon has a full dance card, valentines and all

most underrated guitar player alive?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:10 | 5786048 2handband
2handband's picture

double post

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:08 | 5786051 2handband
2handband's picture

As a professional player who has yet to achieve national recognition at the age of 40, I would have to say the most underrated guitar player alive is me. ;)

Seriously that'd be a tough call... I can think of lots of guys who fail to get proper recognition while half-assed players like Angus Young get massive accolades cus the masses love the bands they play in.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:29 | 5786090 willwork4food
willwork4food's picture

Perhaps a chance in venues is in order?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 01:16 | 5786150 palmereldritch
palmereldritch's picture

 most underrated guitar player alive?

Steve Vai because he's also an amazing Philosopher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcKO10tn9EY

Most underrated guitar player who has passed?

Frank Zappa, because he was so underrated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEnzdp71U78

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 07:11 | 5786421 oudinot
oudinot's picture

Lou Reed, but he's passed.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:22 | 5786523 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Brian May or Steve Stevens.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 04:33 | 5786183 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

"We don't now and likely will never know what events are false flag and which are real."

True enough, Oldwood! However, one thing that is certain about false flag attacks is that if one adds those into the assessments of the dangers we face, then those dangers are obviously way worse!

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists does not appear to include the significance of false flag attacks into their estimates ??? When one does, then we are probably CLOSER to striking 12!

http://thebulletin.org/press-release/press-release-it-now-3-minutes-midnight7950

It is now 3 minutes to midnight

"January 22, 2015 – Warning that “the probability of global catastrophe is very high” unless quick action is taken, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today cited unchecked climate change and global nuclear weapons modernization as the basis for their decision to move the hands of the historic Doomsday Clock forward two minutes. The shift of the Doomsday Clock hands to three minutes to midnight is the first such adjustment to be made in three years. ..."

The countries with atomic weapons can NOT TRUST others not to be criminally insane, because they are! There is no way to back off having some death control systems, while the history of previously successful death controls, done through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries, has created the existing systems, which have been selected to become the most criminally insane, overall, that they could possibly become. Moreover, all of the other background factors driven by civilization being controlled by backing up lies with violence are constantly building and building, while it appears that nothing is practically possible that can be done about that, since the real world continues to actually be controlled by the ability to back up lies with violence, while everyone is stuck inside of that context.

E.g.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o8lgu8TAZY

You Are Already Dead - Renegade Agent

(That short skirt is a good example Deek Jackson's stuff, which I generally liked. However, I think he is too materialistic, and therefore, still too much of a reactionary revolutionary.)

Within the finite parameters of my world, I have long ago already decided that "You Are Already Dead." Or, that, as the Zero Hedge mascot line says, we are all going to be dead. However, I tend to believe in the view that Energy Is Spirit, which provides a sort of transcendental hope, as well as manifests through all finite affairs in the ways that the principle of the conservation of energy is the best approach towards understanding everything that can be made more or less intelligible.

I do NOT think that Deek Jackson makes enough of creative synthesis of ancient mysticism with post-modernizing science. Therefore, he continues too much to rely upon false fundamental dichotomies between the ruling classes and those they rule over. On the contrary, I think that the solutions are to transcend the dualities of those false fundamental dichotomies, by applying unitary mechanisms.

Jackson still tends to go to the wrong poles to establish false unities. He continues to take too much of the dominant natural languages' built-in presumptions for granted, as well as continues to presume that there are not enormous errors in the dominant philosophy of science. Since he basically continues to rely upon the same old mistaken DUALITIES, which he is still taking for granted, his general approach is that of typical reactionary revolutionaries.

But nevertheless, his presentations are relatively amusing (to those with a macabre sense of humour) and his assertions of facts are mostly correct, within the context that he is asserting them, although, on deeper levels he is yet lost in the Bizarro Mirror World maze, or the Wonderland Matrix, taking too many of the perceptions of things being backwards for granted!

The universe is already perfect, because human beings already can not create energy out of nothing, nor send energy to nothing. We necessarily participate in its preservation. We are developing energy systems in the only ways that are possible, along the paths of least resistance, which in human terms are the paths of least morality. That all comes as a necessarily packaged deal, with the best and the worst stuck together, because energy flows necessarily operate through unitary mechanisms.

As I said above, after one approaches seeing that ENERGY IS SPIRIT, then the conservation of energy is an approach to all of the previous concepts related to God, or moralities, etc. ... The whole universe is alive. There is nothing which is not the Whole. Human beings have been subtracting parts from the Whole, without perceiving that they were only relatively doing that. The biggest bullies' bullshit has dominated the philosophy of science, the same as all other social enterprises.

Those attitudes are that of the typical presumptions of false fundamental dichotomies, where there never were any, and furthermore, they typical approach towards the wrong pole of the false fundamental dichotomy to approach attempts at synthesis. To express that most abstractly, the biggest bullies' bullshit world view has subtracted the subtraction, or negated the negation. Therefore, the genuine solutions to that situation are to proceed to subtract the subtraction of the subtraction, or to negate the negation of the negation.

That applies to politics, and particularly the combined money/murder systems, just as much as to the philosophy of science, which was being presumed mistakenly to be correct, because that world view was consistent with what the biggest bullies wanted to be believed. One of the most abstract ways that has manifested was that an arbitrary minus sign was inserted into the entropy equations of both thermodynamics and information theory, so that power and information would have relative positive values, instead of relative negative values, which is what the mathematical physics itself revealed was the case. I.e., we thereby subtracted the subtraction, while almost everyone took that for granted. The social world was controlled by lies backed by violence, which processes were presented as being relative positive things, rather than as relatively negative things. For instance, private property does not exist outside of some system of public violence. However, private property, or the money that measures that, was presented as if those have relative positive values, when they all actually have relative negative values. Therefore, a better understanding of private property and money has to negate that negation, in order to get back to what was the originally situation, that had been lied about at the beginning, through the biggest bullies' bullshit world view. (I am NOT saying we can stop the human world from being based on backing up lies with violence. However, I am saying we can change the ways that we perceive that.)

Most human beings pretty well misunderstand everything in the most backward ways possible, because the biggest bullies' bullshit world view has dominated natural languages and the philosophy of science. (E.g., how many people know that an ARBITRARY minus sign was inserted into the entropy equations, or what that means?) Despite progress in the paradigm shifts made by quantum mechanics and the special theory of relativity, most people continue to presume that they understand the concepts of time and space, while they are almost totally wrong. The EXISTENCE of weapons of mass destruction is due to progress in physical sciences, which arose from profound paradigm shifts. The theoretical solutions to the political problems presented by weapons of mass destruction require even more profound paradigm shifts in political science than those which have already happened in physical sciences.

The elementary principles of philosophy and spirituality relate to the ways that human beings create a kind of reduced mirror image of the world, by subtracting parts from the whole, and then assembling those parts into stories. I.e., human beings build mental models of their world, with models of themselves within their model of the world. However, the ruling classes have waged a war against the consciousness of those that they ruled over, in ways which endeavour to prevent people from understanding those elementary principles of philosophy, and the genuine spirituality that arises from that elementary philosophical insight. Therefore, most people tend to not understand the processes of subtraction, which are never absolute. Hence, they tend to presume that the relative subtractions are "reality." However, all of those relative subtractions are relative illusions or lies, because no part is ever actually separated from the Whole, nor is that ever possible to actually do.

I say that the source of "things" is that human being operate by subtracting parts from the Whole, and then inverting that, to think that the parts are supreme, rather than the Whole being supreme. Desire creates our universe, as a package deal. We are like whirlpools or tornadoes, a tube of flesh, which is made of infinite loops through the environment of flows of energy, including both energy and matter. From that perspective, we are NOT the drop of water, nor the whirlpool appearing to take form in the ocean, we ARE the ocean. From that perspective, we were never born, and never die. All apparently finite forms are toroidal vortices in the flows of energy. The biggest bullies, including their controlled opposition groups, deliberately misrepresent elementary philosophy and the spiritual in the most backward ways possible.

Right now, the powers and capabilities, in areas like electronics and atomic energy, have become many orders of magnitude BIGGER than anything before in known human history ... BUT, those are still being channeled through social pyramid systems based on being able to back up lies with violence, so that the death controls are actually being done through the maximum possible deceits, while the debt controls are being done through the maximum possible frauds.

I think that the more data points we attempt to integrate into our models, the better those models might become, EXCEPT if we made serious ERRORS with respect to the assumptions that we used to build those basic models. I repeat myself because I am circling around and around what I regard as some of the profound ERRORS that most people are relying upon when they built their mental models of the world. Those ERRORS then relate through every other possible dots of data, when we are endeavouring to connect those dots into some narrative stories. Human beings are fundamentally story tellers. My main point is that the dominate stories, therefore, the dominant natural languages, including the dominate philosophy of science, have ALL be victims of the triumphs of the biggest bullies' bullshit.

Our dilemmas are being developed within the bullies' frame of reference, using their language, which is as backwards as it could possibly be from the truth, because the social systems were based on being able to back up lies with violence, in order to keep most people ignorant and afraid, so that they could be controlled and exploited. Not only do most people understand most problems backwards, but that also means that they the ways that the approach thinking about "solutions" are also backwards!

The supreme paradoxes are due to militarism, or the ideology of the murder system, being the most socially successful when operated through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries. Thousands of years of that has resulted in there being almost nothing but governments which are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, which have no publicly significant opposition that is not controlled to stay within the biggest bullies' bullshit regarding death controls.

Thus, the prime paradox is that the death controls are necessarily the central controls, which imperatively must and do exist, because there are chronic political problems inherent in the nature of human life, which must be resolved somehow. For millennia, those profound problems have been resolved by expedient sets of solutions based on backing up lies with violence, resulting in matching sets of ignorance and fear. Those social pyramid systems have developed at an exponential rate, until they have become globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs.

Nuclear Specter Returns: "Threat of War Is Higher Than In The Cold War" BECAUSE the background mechanisms are automatically making everything worse, faster!

 

The article above quotes the statement that  "with camouflage, trickery and deception, the Russians are applying the full arsenal of so-called hybrid warfare."

Of course, that is  correct:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31020283

How Russia outfoxes its enemies

HOWEVER, THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE BASIS OF WARFARE. The oldest book on the Art of War starts by saying that "success in war depends upon deceit," and ends by saying "spies are the most important soldiers." Furthermore, war is organized crime on a larger scale, and if one applies general energy system concepts to human systems, one can understand how and why human systems are controlled by their most labile components, which are the most dishonest and violent people, and therefore, the human path of least resistance is the path of least morality.

Everything that social pyramid systems do is based on the prolonged history of successfully backing up lies with violence, which became systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, such as that the financial systems which dominate political economy are based upon enforcing frauds. However, during the life time of those still alive today, progress in physical sciences have enabled technologies to create an abundance of weapons of mass destruction, which are many orders of magnitude BIGGER than anything previously known in human history! THAT is how and why BOTH the ruling classes, AND those they ruled over, in ALL the social pyramid systems that dominate the world today, have become runaway criminal insanities, whose "rationality" can NOT BE TRUSTED.

On deeper levels, it is possible to understand the hidden rationality behind the selection for attitudes and behaviors that have become runaway criminal insanities. There MUST be some systems of death controls, because natural selection always existed, since, after there is any life, then the death controls must come as a package deal with that life. Natural selection was internalized as human intelligence. That human intelligence was applied to the greatest human problem, which was the competition between different human groups for access to natural resources, which problem always became more intense the larger the population grew!

Competition for natural resources became symbolic as struggle to control the monetary system. Hence the overall history was the surviving War Kings created the sovereign states, whose powers were covertly captured by the Fraud Kings, the banksters, the biggest gangsters, who were able to effectively privatize the powers of governments, by taking control of the public "money" supply. In those ways, the world ended up being controlled by fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, in which all private property was based on backing up claims with coercions, while money was the most abstract form of that, because money is measurement backed by murder.

The background problems regarding the threat of war with weapons of mass destruction are that the debt controls are backed up by the death controls. That kind of control over the monetary system enables symbolic control over natural resources. All of that added up to the current situation, which I repeat is globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs. That situation has become runaway criminal insanities, not only because the pyramidion people have become criminally insane, but also, their controlled opposition groups are criminally insane too! The deeper reasons for that are that everything with respect to death controls operates through the maximum possible deceits, which that includes the controlled opposition just as much as it does the other established systems.

The basic problem is that what we need are better death controls. That is made imperative by the development of weapons of mass destruction. Theoretically, the way to approach doing that is to change political science to become more consistent with the physical sciences that made those weapons of mass destruction possible to build. However, the existing social pyramid systems are almost totally dominated by the best available professional liars, and immaculate hypocrites, BOTH within the established systems, AND their controlled opposition groups. Not only do the vast majority of people misunderstand the world in the most backward ways possible, because of the degree to which the biggest bullies' bullshit world view has been built into the dominant natural languages, as well as the dominate philosophy of science, but also that results in almost all of the publicly proposed "solutions" to those problems being backward bogus bullshit too!

Militarism is the supreme ideology, and it deserves to be. Militarism is the ideology of the murder system, within the context of combined money/murder systems, where the money pays for the murder system, which in turn backs up the monetary systems, which then control the access to and use of natural resources, because the production of destruction controls production.

As the global economy runs into the real limits of diminishing returns from being able to strip-mine the planet's natural resources, we are going to be forced to change the basic parameters of human ecology, which means that there are going to be drastic changes in the death controls. The runaway debt slavery systems have generated numbers which have become debt insanities, and those threaten to provoke death insanities. The only theoretically possible better resolutions to those problems are better death controls.

The real world has become an insane asylum controlled by the most criminally insane inmates. It makes sense that the most psychopathic and sociopathic people are dominating the established social pyramid systems, and that everyone who is publicly representing those systems are the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites. The ways that Neolithic Civilization has become so psychotically insane make sense! That is the context in which I agree with you, Oldwood, that "It would seem the more we deny the irrational, the more probable it becomes."

Moreover, I would recommend that we need profound  social psychiatry, to cope with the runaway collective criminal insanities, which are getting closer and closer to going through some sorts of psychotic breakdowns. Paradoxically, I would assert that the apparently "irrational," which currently appears to have become utterly absurd irrationality, due to the existence of an abundance of weapons of mass destruction kept on hair triggers, makes sense, as a historical development.

To become more rational about that apparent "irrationality" requires that we develop better death controls, operating through better murder systems, as a better dynamic equilibria of the different systems of organized lies operating robberies. We need the dominant organized crime gangs to be able to better negotiate with each other. However, as long as both they, and their controlled opposition, continue to be socially successful by being professional hypocrites, then there are no politically possible ways to accomplish that.

What we theoretically need are profound paradigm shifts in political science, which are consistent with the paradigm shifts in physical sciences, that enabled building the existing weapons of mass destruction. Such paradigm shifts in political science then need to be applied through the combined money/murder systems. That is, we need profound paradigm shifts in the ways that we understand the death controls that back up the debt controls. The enforced frauds that dominate the political economy have to be changed along with the deceitful death controls that have directed the human ecology. The more that the current systems of debt insanities provoke matching death insanities, the greater the pressures within artificial selection systems, and the back-up natural selection systems, will become.

Any future actual deployments of weapons of mass destruction could quite likely be some sort of false flag attacks. In that context, as Oldwood stated: "We don't now and likely will never know what events are false flag and which are real." But nevertheless, what will continue to be theoretically the same are the ways that we should revolutionized militarism, and our understanding of death controls, in order to adapt to the existence of weapons of mass destruction. The "Cold War" has enabled us to collectively NOT do that! We were able to maintain the established systems of MAD Money As Debt, backed by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction, while their combined MADNESS continued to automatically get bigger and BIGGER, as their runaway debt insanities threatened to provoke death insanities.

To whatever degree that there finally occur some death insanities due to the actual uses of weapons of mass destruction, through false flag attacks, or not, as the case may be, the theoretically constant features will be the need to develop better militarism, operating better death controls. Any of the controlled opposition views, that assert that there should not be any death controls, or, at least, none that human beings are conscious of operating, are the same old utter bullshit as was originally promoted by the biggest bullies. Those kinds of false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, always actually cause the opposite to happen in the real world.

What we theoretically need are to develop more scientific unitary mechanisms about how human beings and human civilizations actually operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, that match the principles and methods of organized crime. We should understand better the degree to which the biggest bullies' bullshit world view has been built into the natural languages that we speak, as well as the dominant philosophy of science. Those problems are the deeper reasons why we are behaving in such apparently irrational ways, as to have developed an abundance of weapons of mass destruction kept on hair triggers.

As Oldwood correctly stated: "the more we deny the irrational, the more probable it becomes." On the contrary, to embrace the apparently "irrational" in ways which understand how that developed, in step by step rational ways, is what we need to do in order to go through sufficient paradigm shifts to develop new forms of militarism and death controls, that are consistent with, and could survive through, the existence of weapons of mass destruction.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 06:32 | 5786404 AE911Truth
AE911Truth's picture

There is an alternative.

What's really going on (Part 1/4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQQM61XaAY

Dr Steven Greer 2015 | International Congress Full Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWJI3uOgl3s

The Crossing Point of Light A Workshop with Dr Steven Greer - FULL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_-kMVwJaDA

Q&A The 2001 Discloure Briefings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEXT_s-dLL8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeXVsybEQPQ&feature=youtu.be
Part  1 of 17 Dr Greer's Introduction to Free Energy
Part  2 - Black Shelving
Part  3 - Pitfalls of Launching
Part  4 - Announcement of an $100,000 Award
Part  6 - Industry then has to be Capitalized
Part  7 - The Tragedy of Stan Meyer
Part  8 - The CSETI Networking App
Part  9 - Q&A: The Strategy for Free Energy
Part 10 - Q&A: The Atacama Humanoid
Part 11 - Q&A: NSO National Security Order
Part 12 - Q&A: Government Manipulation
Part 13 - Q&A: Disappearance of Corporations
Part 14 - Q&A: The 2001 Disclosure Briefings
Part 15 - Q&A: The ET Presence
Part 16 - Q&A: The Ascended Masters
Part 17 - Q&A: Time and Space Lab

 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 08:11 | 5786455 U-P-G-R-A-Y-E-D-D
U-P-G-R-A-Y-E-D-D's picture

RM - I love you, but you make Heidegger look coherent.  I understand your bit about subtracting subtractions in the formulations of alleged present "things", but I suspect many people here scroll past you.  

Instead of just talking to us all as if we understand some of these phrases from the perspective of your own understanding of their origins - I would suggest you try writing your observations as if the simplest simpleton could understand them.  The general thesis of death controls shaping the legitimation narrative of ruling worldviews (as well as Philosophy of Science, in your estimation) is interesting, but try (at least for me - a fellow philosopher) just focusing in on one aspect in a respose and then use references (or your own linked publications) to give nods to the relevant related issues.  Otherwise, I think the power of your penetrating mind is getting wasted here.  

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:03 | 5786499 Boomberg
Boomberg's picture

I appreciate RM's contribution but the comment section isn't an adequate venue. Perhaps start a blog/website and post links as previously mentioned. Blogs are easy and free.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 15:33 | 5787524 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Boomberg, I use the English Forum on the Marijuana Party of Canada as my own "blog." After a few decades of primarily working on the problem of the funding of the political processes, I have concluded that our society is terminally sick and insane. I merely pass the time amusing myself developing my own ideas, while there appears no practical point to bothering to do so. It is probably a waste of time to bother to articulate my ideas under Zero Hedge articles. However, in my view, everything else is a waste of time too.

I enjoy attempting to understand how things work, and writing is a tool to help with thinking. However, I have always found that the more I learned, the worse it got, (other than for the consolations of philosophy, in the sense of some transcendental hope.) The real world is already totally dominated by systems of lies and violence, in which context the vast majority of people have adapted to be ignorant and afraid. Although I try to understand that better, the more one understands that, the more dismal the future looks.

It is possible to indulge in individual amusements. However, it is not possible to stop human civilization from being runaway criminal insanities. I wish that I could time warp back to when I still thought that might be possible. However, I no longer have the slightest shred of optimism or idealism left, other than that energy will continue to be conserved, even if that means social storms shall blow through that are way bigger than ever before, whereby the majority of human beings get mass murdered, or commit collective suicide.

Pretty well everything I have done for several decades has been based on a series of decisions that had weapons of mass destruction in mind. All the while, I have studied those issues, while constantly becoming more convinced that civilization is way too crazy to prevent itself from provoking psychotic breakdowns. My vain indulgence in the notions of social psychiatry have no practical purpose, other than to amuse myself, which is about the only reason I bother to read Zero Hedge articles and comment upon them.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:34 | 5786537 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Religion and jingoism make the rationalization of these approaches so much more palatable for those who must implement the controls.

"I can't be doing wrong; I'm a COP!"

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:46 | 5786559 flapdoodle
flapdoodle's picture

Bodacious rant, RM. While using "subtraction" to describe what often happens in leaving behind crucial components of what people believe, I'd say that a more useful point of view is to recognize that *abstraction* is what is really going on.

Abstraction of course being what happens when there is a reduction of information, a selection effect where only a part of the information is taken into account.THAT is the great breakthough of human consciousness - to be able to filter "information" and order it into what the human mind wills.

Selecting from a different point of view can of course recover some of that information, and "subtract" others in its new goalseeking direction...

The trick of course is to apply abstraction along more than one axis, to prevent a miopic view of what is actually going on. That mitigates somewhat against error and a selection effect, but of course most succumb to a selection effect anyway due to whatever dogma or belief system they subscribe to...

As for the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist", this is yet another tool from TPTB to control the sheep. The giveaway is them mentioning "global climate change". The purpose of the BAS is to get the sheeple to acquiese to the giving up more and more of their freedoms and choices, lest of course they be killed and torn to shreds by a rampaging "global climate change". Only the "wise atomic scientists"  will keep this from happening... just trust the Zionists - they have your interests at heart!

 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 15:46 | 5787568 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

As you know, flapdoodle, the flip side, or blind spot, results from the greatest strength also behind the greatest weakness:

"Abstraction of course being what happens when there is a reduction of information, a selection effect where only a part of the information is taken into account.THAT is the great breakthrough of human consciousness - to be able to filter "information" and order it into what the human mind wills."

The ability of human beings to tell stories is both our greatest strength, AND our greatest weakness. At the present time, the main theme is that the same old stupid stories are being told using the most fantastic special effects technology, which is warfare after the development of weapons of mass destruction.

All of my bla, bla, blah is about how we should tell radically different, better stories. However, the established systems and controlled opposition groups are only interested in repeating the same old bullshit, while using improved technologies in order to do so, WITHOUT the source of that technology being considered in order to change those old bullshit stories.

Although I find the theories related to that interesting, practically speaking, civilization is out of control, because the vast majority of people are going to continue to want to repeat the same old bullshit stories, and use improved technology to do that, but NOT WANT to change their stories, other than to the degree that they may use the tricks of improved special effects to bolster their bullshit.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:55 | 5786025 Gaius Frakkin' ...
Gaius Frakkin' Baltar's picture

You still believe in rational actors. I remember a time when I was that naive.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:31 | 5786095 willwork4food
willwork4food's picture

If I didn't believe in rational actors I would nail gun myself. Wait, no I wouldn't I would buy the best crystal meth/cocain/beer/sluts and party like it's 1999, but I do. so I don't.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 01:01 | 5786128 e_goldstein
e_goldstein's picture

I always found it ironic that the rational unitary actor model was created to try to describe games played by psychopaths.

For those to lazy to google:

http://www.isacompss.com/info/samples/foreignpolicyanalysisandrationalch...

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:35 | 5786540 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Is a junky stealing for a fix a rational actor or not?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:12 | 5786058 HolyfieldsOtherEar
HolyfieldsOtherEar's picture

A direct line had been set up between NATO and the Russian military's general staff in February 2013, but it was cut as a result of the Ukraine crisis.

 

Great. What could possibly go wrong?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:51 | 5786118 tired1
tired1's picture

Another fun fact: the firstUS launch codes were a series of zero's. It was done this way because of the stress factor and there was a one time permissable code entry  on the arming device.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:12 | 5786221 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

Have you seen US neocons?  They're insane, and they don't actually understand what nuclear weapons do.  You are looking at this through the lens of everybody being totally and incomprehensibly fucked in the event of a full nuclear exchange, which is realistic.  The neocons are looking at this from the lens of the US being damaged and Russia being totally and incomprehensibly fucked.  Which is not realistic.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 10:17 | 5786597 rsnoble
rsnoble's picture

LOL-- do you really think the US subs are carrying around defunct bombs?   They alone can blow up Earth 1000's of times.  And don't think Russia doesn't have new shiny ones too, depsite some bullshit treaty which is just regarding just like the constitution--merely words on paper.

In regards to #1: Sociopaths are insanse.  All they are about are themselves.  The nation can't move, but they can.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 10:34 | 5786619 Buster Cherry
Buster Cherry's picture

As plutonium has a half life of 240,000 years, I'd say they're still pretty fresh.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 11:08 | 5786688 Bemused Observer
Bemused Observer's picture

The plutonium doesn't explode. And firing mechanisms fail all the time. The Earth is littered with undetonated stuff.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 13:32 | 5787083 Buster Cherry
Buster Cherry's picture

Im sure they have a maintenance program for the weapons, and I doubt they are kept under a tarp like an old boat.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 11:05 | 5786683 Bemused Observer
Bemused Observer's picture

Imagine if someone tried dropping one, and it didn't detonate? Just sat there, all recognizable and identifiable, and folks could take pictures of it?

It would be a shame if it belonged to the country you lived in...just saying.

Anyone who drops one better make DAMNED sure it detonates, or they'll have a lot of 'splainin' to do. Unless you're 100% sure, maybe it's better to leave them in the silos and use them for threats and posturing.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 15:26 | 5787512 RaceToTheBottom
RaceToTheBottom's picture

The % of money spent on a nuclear missile program is trivial compared to the spares and maintenance and operations of those missile programs.

IE, they are not old missiles

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:05 | 5785926 10mm
10mm's picture

DC please. On their fully occupied session day.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:05 | 5785932 heisenberg991
heisenberg991's picture

Nuclear war on my iphone would be so cool.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:36 | 5786542 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

"Why can't I get any bars?!"

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:08 | 5785938 kridkrid
kridkrid's picture

Kabuki theater... Even if we end up with nuclear war.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:11 | 5785943 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

Well, OK, lets not get quite THAT jaded.  Nuclear war would be a bit beyond Kabuki Theatre.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:18 | 5785961 kridkrid
kridkrid's picture

Not to the sociopaths who pulled the strings.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:23 | 5785971 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

Disagree.  Sociopaths know they can't kill their host.  Psychopaths don't care.

Where we land of the spectrum between sociopaths and pshychopaths is anybody's guess.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:10 | 5786220 Savyindallas
Savyindallas's picture

Psychopaths are evil enough to take the risk that they can actually win a nuclear war. 

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:12 | 5785947 Chief Wonder Bread
Chief Wonder Bread's picture

So Boris Yeltsin chose not to push the button. I wonder if he was drunk or sober at the time. Just wondering about how it could some day all come down to the personalities of two people.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:16 | 5785956 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

If you have to wonder, you must be new here. Yeltsin was never sober.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:28 | 5786088 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Shit, I'm emulating a Commie.  Send the FBI to my house...wait, we already did.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:39 | 5786546 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Switch to Scotch, throw em off the trail.

Mon, 02/16/2015 - 02:38 | 5789150 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Scotch was de;lious. but gut insists on TooKillYa...Don't know why, but that's where I'm at.

Watching/Expecting the collapse everyday,hasn't happened yet, though I expected/pronounced it in 2008.

It damned sure won't be to our benefit.

Count me as curious as what or "federal reserve" will do next.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:19 | 5785949 alexcojones
alexcojones's picture

Red Telephone?

How will that help Teleprompter Boy?

Bet the mrons in the WH have never even seen Fail Safe.

FAIL-SAFE: The First Strike Argument

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:24 | 5785973 A Lunatic
A Lunatic's picture

"We need a nuclear winter in order to halt Global Warming, Bitchez. Now let's see if these old launch codes still work......"  -Al Gore-

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:39 | 5785997 e_goldstein
e_goldstein's picture

Al Gore,

the future inventor of nuclear winter.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:30 | 5786091 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

The inventor of the interwebs and of Zero Hedge as a result.

(and Brian Williams takes the hit.)

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:39 | 5786547 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Will it save us from global warming?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 12:45 | 5786923 trader1
trader1's picture

temporarily

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 13:09 | 5787001 e_goldstein
e_goldstein's picture

but alas, in the long run, no.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 06:33 | 5786403 trader1
trader1's picture

You jest, but studies have been conducted.

Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years

To see what climate effects such a regional nuclear conflict might have, scientists from NASA and other institutions modeled a war involving a hundred Hiroshima-level bombs, each packing the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT—just 0.03 percent of the world's current nuclear arsenal. (See a National Geographic magazine feature on weapons of mass destruction.)

 

The researchers predicted the resulting fires would kick up roughly five million metric tons of black carbon into the upper part of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the Earth's atmosphere.

 

In NASA climate models, this carbon then absorbed solar heat and, like a hot-air balloon, quickly lofted even higher, where the soot would take much longer to clear from the sky.

 

The global cooling caused by these high carbon clouds wouldn't be as catastrophic as a superpower-versus-superpower nuclear winter, but "the effects would still be regarded as leading to unprecedented climate change," research physical scientist Luke Oman said during a press briefing Friday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.

 

Earth is currently in a long-term warming trend. After a regional nuclear war, though, average global temperatures would drop by 2.25 degrees F (1.25 degrees C) for two to three years afterward, the models suggest.

 

At the extreme, the tropics, Europe, Asia, and Alaska would cool by 5.4 to 7.2 degrees F (3 to 4 degrees C), according to the models. Parts of the Arctic and Antarctic would actually warm a bit, due to shifted wind and ocean-circulation patterns, the researchers said.

 

After ten years, average global temperatures would still be 0.9 degree F (0.5 degree C) lower than before the nuclear war, the models predict.

 

For a time Earth would likely be a colder, hungrier planet.

 

"Our results suggest that agriculture could be severely impacted, especially in areas that are susceptible to late-spring and early-fall frosts," said Oman, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

 

"Examples similar to the crop failures and famines experienced following the Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 could be widespread and last several years," he added. That Indonesian volcano ushered in "the year without summer," a time of famines and unrest. (See pictures of the Mount Tambora eruption.)

 

All these changes would also alter circulation patterns in the tropical atmosphere, reducing precipitation by 10 percent globally for one to four years, the scientists said. Even after seven years, global average precipitation would be 5 percent lower than it was before the conflict, according to the model.

 

In addition, researcher Michael Mills, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, found large decreases in the protective ozone layer, leading to much more ultraviolet radiation reaching Earth's surface and harming the environment and people.

 

"The main message from our work," NASA's Oman said, "would be that even a regional nuclear conflict would have global consequences."

 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:40 | 5786549 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Yes, chaotic systems do not appreciate endogenous shocks.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 14:51 | 5787386 TheAnswerIs42
TheAnswerIs42's picture

Yes, also note that non-linear chaotic systems are impossible to model...

 

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 13:29 | 5787076 A Lunatic
A Lunatic's picture

The more I learn, the more I see there are far greater lunatics than I in this world.....

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:26 | 5785975 Monetas
Monetas's picture

Thanks to our skillful negotiators .... the Russian nuclear arsenal advantage .... is bigger than ever in relation to ours .... in effect we disarmed unilaterally !

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 09:43 | 5786554 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Are you saying you believe the agit prop stats? Shame on you!

You know both sides have more than 10k warheads each they're not fessing up to...

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:35 | 5785983 Duc888
Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:40 | 5786110 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

That matches no profile of a nuclear bomb video I've seen over the last 55 years.

It's more likely a massive conventional weapon lesser than MOAB.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 07:24 | 5786426 oudinot
oudinot's picture

OldPhart: Is your name Kevin Byrne by any chance?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 12:09 | 5786830 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Yes.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 19:31 | 5788236 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Are you the FBIGuy or the NSAGuy?

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 15:21 | 5787492 Duc888
Duc888's picture

 

 

 

So I guess you're an expert then, hugh?  There are six of those "out there" on the loose.  They popped one off and recovered 4, one more still floating out there now.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:36 | 5785986 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

You'd expect better from ZH than to re-print disinfo and demonization of Putin's Russia.

Back in the real world, the only thing that kept the banksters from throwing the Israelis to the wolves in 1973 was Israel's ability to take out several European capitals on its way out, including bankster-controlled Soviet Moscow---which would have been the end of human civilization as we know it. Sauce for the goose, as they say.

The reason there is still a Russia at all is that conquest of Russia is impossible, because any attempt to do so will result in any nation's crazy enough to try it being reduced to radioactive ash.

If the banksters are that frightened at the prospect of provoking Russia into lobbing a hydrogen bomb right at Wall Street over a trifle, maybe they should consider conceding what they conceded to Israel---the right of Russia and her people to exist free from persecution or domination by outsiders. You want Russia's trust, give her a damned good reason to trust a bankster who isn't swinging from a lamppost or boiled in molten lead.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:42 | 5786112 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Molten lead...I like the way you think.

I'm leaning to boiling them in raw sewage, but molten lead is much more dramatic.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 02:54 | 5786262 e_goldstein
e_goldstein's picture

If we could get them running and then pour the lead from above that would make an awesome sculpture.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 06:43 | 5786407 trader1
trader1's picture

You've only been a member for 4 weeks.

You obviously don't get the evolution of the ZH media complex.  That's OK.

Don't worry be happy.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 10:08 | 5786587 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

I've been reading ZH for a bit longer than four weeks. It's only now I've decided to comment regularly, though.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 12:50 | 5786934 trader1
trader1's picture

Then you should already be acquainted with ZH's full disclosure policy:

You should assume that at all times we are so totally just talking our book it would shock and awe you like the unexpected, early-morning arrival of a cluster of BGM-109C Tomahawks (were you a believer in the importance of "optics" that is).

If we make a off-hand remark about New Zealand sheep herders it's because we are long New Zealand West Island Cold Kut (NZ-WICK) Wool futures and Kiwi brand Condoms ("For it's pleasure").  If we are joking around about Cliff Asness, it's because we have developed a synthetic short of ARQ.  If we jest about Joe Sixpack, it's because we are trying to hype our cheap-American-beer holdings so we can exit quickly.  Basically, we are telling you about a position we believe in strongly enough to invest in.

We've always wondered this: Why would you want to read about a position so uncompelling that the author doesn't have the stones to put their money where their keyboard is?  Even if you elected to read such material for entertainment value (what else is there anymore?) why on earth would you ever consider it "more credible."

The reality is, critical readers should read analytic posts and the rest of Zero Hedge with the blanket assumption that the author is totally "conflicted."  (Phrased more logically, that the author stands to benefit from being right- imagine that).  This turns the conversation to the content, and away from the author, the author's biography and the contents of their IRA account / blind trust.  This (the content) is, of course, where the focus should be.  If you think otherwise you might be one of those people who thinks it was a good idea for a news program hosted by Dan Rather, and where viewers spend 66% of the non-commercial time watching his mug, to be in HDTV.  If you still get something out of our writing with the assumption that we are invested in our position and stand to gain personally from you believing us, well, we've done our job.  If not, then our being "unconflicted" isn't going to change the fact that we have a weak argument or poorly reasoned prose.  At least, if you're not one of the "optics" idiots.

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:36 | 5785988 Motasaurus
Motasaurus's picture

Was this article printed in the Ministry of Truth? Every time these NATO cowboys ramp up the russophobic rhetoric I swear that they're just attributing their own actions to Russia. 

Sat, 02/14/2015 - 23:38 | 5785990 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

Congrats to the Neighborhood Disorganizer in Chief.

For a fleeting moment I was deluded into believing I would never have to think about these kinds of nuclear scenarios again in my lifetime.

.....Not

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 00:22 | 5786078 cherry picker
cherry picker's picture

William, we were all deluded.

The Murderer in Chief is not the only one who would push the button.  I would not put it past him.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 01:18 | 5786151 Meta_Consciousness
Meta_Consciousness's picture

No threat except global thermonuclear war actually gets whole populations to call out for more government.

 

Global depression splices populations based on their bias towards how to create wealth.

 

Ebola lets us stay out of each other's faces. That pleases most.

 

Rampaging Mohammedians let the individualists yearn for Boston in their backyard. 

They have to bring back the bomb to make themselves important to us. 

 

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