[log in to unmask] wrote:

> In a message dated 10/25/2004 8:59:05 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
>     Met History wrote:
>
>     > Gruesome possibilities spread out before me, darkening my thoughts.
>     >
>     > C
>
>     I've been focusing my dark thoughts on the spent-fuel containment
>     facilities at Indian Point and the sacred sites within the
>     contamination
>     zone of Chernobyl.
>
>     ][<
>
> Fortunately, you two can distract yourselves with something a little
> more pressing, like wondering what the non-freedom-marching Iraqis
> have done with the 380 tons of bomb-grade explosives that our
> security-conscious President neglected to lock up, and where they'll
> show up.  Hell, that's only 760,000 pounds.  As I understand it, the
> explanation for this was that Our Troops can't be everywhere watching
> everything all the time.
>
> Every day, in every way, things get better and better.
>
> Ralph

Ralph,

Why wonder when we can simply wait? One would have to have access to
current news in order to keep up such more pressing distractions. When
you even briefly walk off the media grid, or into it as the case may be,
you need something of an historical context to keep sane with. As to
Indian Point, a Chernobyl type accident there in the spent fuel storage
(not the reactor but the spent fuel) could turn NYC & environs
(including NJ) into an overnight wasteland. Consider that the more the
objectives of Al Queda are supressed the higher the level of frustration
they will experience and the more likely an escalation in the severity
of their actions. From the Cole to the WTC, Pentagon and White House.
Who says the conflict has been contained? If the action in Iraq is
screwed up enough that it does not suffice to the justification that the
conflict is being kept over there and off our continent, then it is a
worry to contemplate what their next bold move would be. (The oil
refineries of Pasadena, TX?) Another potential, and important parallel
with Chernobyl is that the Soviet government itself may not have known
what was happening, having developed such a strong repression of 'asking
questions' that they no longer had firm connections with reality. I
would also stress the correlations in the potential with the quite
sophisticated Al Queda use of the existing technological systems and
infrastructure of their target populations. Moving 380 tons of material
characterized as the stuff used to detonate nuclear bombs, is a bit of a
logistics problem, particularly if to be moved across the desert and the
ocean. Though close to home we can contemplate the effect of large scale
environmental terrorism such as a nuclear Bophal (10,000 in one chemical
cloud, though impacting on a concentrated population of 50 million is
much more dramatic). The nuclear threat, as well, is a very neat
political one with the perceived necessity to 'contain' information as
in, to be very secret, "We cannot tell you what is going on, we cannot
tell you what we are going to do about what we cannot tell you. Trust us."

][<

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