My good friend Shane Connor, of Ki4u.com, was on CNN last week, Oct. 11, 2006. Take a look at what Shane and Glenn were talking about regarding nuclear preparedness.

Asteroid-watchers worry about cosmic Katrina
Former astronaut presses campaign for global preparedness
By Leonard David
Senior space writer
Space.com
Updated: 8:47 p.m. ET May 6, 2006

LOS ANGELES - Natural events such as hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes rock this planet from time to time. But when Earth gets stoned by an asteroid, consider it akin to a Katrina from outer space.

When Hurricane Katrina slammed into the United States in August of last year, it became a deadly, destructive, and costly episode — one that has also become a metaphor for lack of government action, both pre- and post-strike.

At the current time there is no agency of the U.S. government — or of any other government in the world — that has the explicit responsibility to develop and demonstrate the technology necessary to protect the planet from collisions with near-Earth objects, or NEOs.

The U.S. Congress needs to be encouraged to take a step in demonstrating the ability to deflect a menacing NEO, says former NASA astronaut Russell Schweickart, chairman of the B612 Foundation. On Saturday he presented an update on dealing with troublesome asteroids here at the 25th International Space Development Conference.

Key capabilities
The goal of B612, a confab of scientists, technologists, astronomers, astronauts and other specialists, is to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015.

In detailing today’s NEO situation, Schweickart said there are several givens:

Earth is infrequently hit by asteroids that cross our orbit while circling the sun.
The consequences of such impacts range from the equivalent of a 15-megaton explosion to a civilization-ending gigaton event.
For the first time in the history of humankind, we have the technology to prevent such occurrences from happening in the future — if we are properly prepared.
“Remember, we’re dealing here with a less frequent, but far more devastating Katrina … a Katrina of the cosmos,” Schweickart reported.

“NEOs happen so infrequently that even though they are orders of magnitude more devastating, people don’t naturally make that match,” he told Space.com, “but you don’t want to be caught with your pants down.”

Schweickart said there are key capabilities that will enable humanity to avoid devastating cosmic collisions: early warning; a demonstrated deflection capability; and an established international decision making process.

While some progress is being made, there remains significant work ahead in all these areas, Schweickart emphasized.

Sky-sweeping surveys
If the current pace of sky-sweeping surveys is extrapolated into the future, on the order of 10,000 NEOs with some risk of impact over the next 100 years are likely to be cataloged by 2018, Schweickart forecast. The chances are better than even that none of these 10,000 will actually hit Earth in those 100 years.

“The important fact, however, is that a substantial number of them will appear as though they may be headed for impact,” Schweickart advised. Today, of the 104 currently on impact listings, “two have an elevated risk, and we are watching them closely,” he said.

At present, the two asteroids on that “keep an eye on them” roster are 2004 VD17 and Apophis, formerly listed as 2004 MN4.

“Extrapolating to 2018, we may have as many as 200 in a similarly elevated attention category and of growing concern to the general public,” Schweickart reported Saturday. “Therefore, it is certainly possible, if not likely, that in the time frame of the next 12 years we — the world — may well be in a position where we need to take action to ensure that we will be able to carry out a deflection mission if needed,” he said.

The U.S. Congress amended the Space Act in 2005 to charge NASA with responsibility to “detect, track, catalog and characterize” NEOs wider than 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter. However, thus far Congress has come up short on actually assigning the responsibility to take action, should one of these objects be discovered headed for a collision, Schweickart pointed out.

There is a bit of good news forthcoming, Schweickart explained. Congress did require NASA to provide by the end of 2006 an analysis of possible alternatives that could be employed to divert an object on a likely collision course with Earth. In response to this congressional directive, NASA is about to announce a process for carrying out this mandate.

Global threat … global response
Schweickart told the audience here that a third leg of the triad for protecting Earth from NEO impacts is probably the most challenging, albeit subtle.

“It is complicated by two related facts,” he said. NEO impacts are a global threat, not a national one, and the only decision-making body representing, essentially, the whole planet is the United Nations — a body not known for timely, crisp decision making, he added.

Still, in this area, steps forward are being made.

The Association of Space Explorers — the professional organization of astronauts and cosmonauts — has formed a committee on NEOs that Schweickart chairs. Earlier this year, a technical presentation at a U.N. meeting in Vienna apprised them that this issue was coming at them.

While the United Nations has been brought the problem, Schweickart said, the Association of Space Explorers is committed to bringing them a solution. This solution will take the form of a draft U.N. treaty, or protocol, formulated in a series of workshops over the next two years.

“In these NEO Deflection Policy workshops we will gather together a dozen or so international experts in diplomacy, international law, insurance and risk management, as well as space expertise to identify and wrestle with these difficult international issues,” Schweickart noted. “Our goal is to return to the U.N. in 2009 with a draft NEO Deflection Decision Protocol and present it to them for their consideration and deliberation.”

Facing the challenge
In wrapping up his ISDC talk, Schweickart said the NEO challenge, in a sense, “is an entry test for humankind to join the cosmic community.” He reasons that, if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe “it is virtually certain that it has already faced this challenge to survival … and passed it.”

“Our choice is to face this infrequent but substantial cosmic test … or pass into history, not as an incapable species like the dinosaurs, but as a fractious and self-serving creature with inadequate vision and commitment to continue its evolutionary development,” Schweickart concluded.

Leonard David is senior space writer for Space.com and the former editor of Ad Astra, the official magazine of the National Space Society. The views of this article are the author’s and do not reflect the policies of the National Space Society.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12665493/

Well, I must say THIS is good news…I was just about to order some titanium Wile E. Coyote umbrellas…

Rich

NASA says comet fragments won’t hit Earth
Space agency tries to quash rumors of killer tsunamis, mass extinctions
By Tariq Malik
Space.com
Updated: 7:36 p.m. ET April 27, 2006

Chunks of a comet currently splitting into pieces in the night sky will not strike the Earth next month, nor will it spawn killer tsunamis and mass extinctions, NASA officials said Thursday.

The announcement, NASA hopes, will squash rumors that a fragment of the crumbling Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (SW 3) will slam into Earth just before Memorial Day.

“There are some Internet stories going around that there’s going to be an impact on May 25,” NASA spokesperson Grey Hautaluoma, told SPACE.com. “We just want to get the facts out.”

Astronomers have been observing 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, a comet that circles the Sun every 5.4 years, for more than 75 years and are confident that any of the icy object’s fragments will remain at least a distant 5.5 million miles (8.8 million kilometers) from Earth — more than 20 times the distance to the moon —at closest approach between May 12 and May 28.

“We are very well acquainted with the trajectory of Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann 3,” said Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office, in a written statement. “There is absolutely no danger to people on the ground or the inhabitants of the International Space Station, as the main body of the object and any pieces from the breakup will pass many millions of miles beyond the Earth.”

The main SW 3 fragment, dubbed Fragment C, will make its closest pass by Earth on May 12 at a safe distance of 7.3 million miles (11.7 million kilometers), NASA said, adding that skywatchers will be able to use small telescopes to spot the comet chunks by scanning the constellation Vulpelca during the early-morning hours.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other instruments have been watching SW 3’s disintegration. The comet’s numerous fragments stretch across several degrees of the night sky. For comparison, the moon’s diameter covers about one-half a degree in the sky.

“Catastrophic breakups may be the ultimate fate of most comets,” explained Hal Weaver, a planetary astronomer of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in a statement.

Weaver led a team of researchers during the Hubble observations of SW 3, and used the space telescope to study the break up of comets Shoemaker-Levy 9 — which was ripped apart by Jupiter’s gravity and hit the giant planet between 1993 and 1994 — Hyakutake in 1996, and 1999 S4 (LINEAR) in 2000, NASA said.

Hubble’s new SW 3 observations suggest that chunks of the comet are pushed behind its tail by the outgassing of Sun-facing pieces. Smaller pieces appear to be ejected from their nucleus faster than their larger brethren, while other fragments seem to simply fade away.

When set alongside studies by other observatories, Hubble’s images may help astronomers determine what is causing the comet’s disintegration as it nears the Earth and Sun, the space agency added.

German astronomers Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann first discovered the SW 3 comet in 1930 while hunting for asteroids. Despite its relatively short orbital period, the icy object was not seen again until 1979, and then was missed during a 1985 pass.

Since then, however, astronomers have kept a close eye on SW 3 and in 1995 observed its initial break up.

Aside from a great sky show, the comet poses no danger to Earth and its inhabitants, NASA officials said.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12521174/

As the Avian Influenza/H5N1A/The Bird Flu slowly creeps around the world, scientists and politicians alike worry their pretty little heads off. They’re concerned that this “modern day plague” could lead to millions of deaths worldwide in the next few years.

Preppers, doomers, survivalists, and millionaires alike are stocking up again, just like for Y2k. Prepackaged food, water, water filters, defensive weaponry, gas masks, medical supplies, and LOTS of meds like Tamiflu and herbal remedies are being yanked off shelves, while online suppliers keep running out (or scamming folks out of hard earned money by not delivering product.

Some of you may have stocked up and filled your bunker by now.

Guess what? Inquiring minds want to know. The media is knocking on MY door again, just like Y2k, and looking for preppers in THEIR neck O-the-woods.

Wanna help your fellow man? Want to dispense your ideologies and thought provoking preparedness protocals to the masses? Want to create a sensation and save the world?

Consider contacting Michelle below, in California. Her newspaper iin Stockon, about halfway between San Franscisco and Yosemite National Park (good place to be…they’ll have a head start when the Flu hits ‘Frisco’, and be hiding out in the caves and cliffs of Yosemite before sundown!)

Give her a shout, if you can help her out…

Richard,

I am a reporter writing a story for The (Stockton, Calif.) Record about pandemic flu preparedness. I am looking for a source in San Joaquin County, California – someone who is ready to be self-sufficient when the next pandemic hits. Do you know of anyone?

As with all media-types, I am working against a deadline. If you could respond at your earliest convenience, I would be most appreciative.

Thank you.

Michelle Machado
Business Reporter, The Record
(209) 943-8547 — phone
(209) 943-8504 — fax
mmachado@recordnet.com — e-mail

Do I believe in arms control? Yes…that means KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE TARGET.

There are 33,000 + nuclear weapons on the face of the planet at this very moment. Believe it or not, the USA does NOT have the most warheads.

And, until everyone else that has nukes gets rid of them, we should hang on to ours as long as neccessary. We’re the only nation to EVER use nukes in war. And, we’re the only nation to protect OTHER nations from invasion, attack, and more, by using our VERY OWN soldiers to die liberating them (WWII, Iraq, Kuwait, etc).

So… who drops the weapons first? Not us, I say….

Source from ArmsControl.org

Of Madmen and Nukes
Daryl G. Kimball

Chinese Major General Zhu Chenghu told journalists last July that China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the United States if it targets Chinese ships, aircraft, or territory in a confrontation over Taiwan. “We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds…of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese,” he warned.

With Zhu’s suicidal nuclear threats as backdrop, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told his military counterparts in Beijing last month that “advances in China’s strategic strike capacity raise questions” about its intentions. Rumsfeld suggested that “greater clarity would generate more certainty in the region.”

Excellent points, Mr. Secretary. But China, of course, is not the only state to amass nuclear weapons to defend and advance its interests. Although other Chinese officials disavowed Zhu’s remarks, he is not the first to suggest, officially or unofficially, that his government is “mad” enough to use massive nuclear force against conventional attacks.

Since the beginning of the nuclear age, U.S. presidents have developed policies and issued statements intended to make nuclear threats appear credible and create uncertainty about when and where they might be used. As unnerving as China’s estimated arsenal of 100-400 nuclear weapons and Zhu’s remarks may be, Beijing’s official no-first-use policy arguably makes its posture more restrained than that of the United States today.

To deter other nuclear-armed states, particularly Russia, from attacking with their nuclear arms, current U.S. strategy calls for the maintenance of a massive arsenal of approximately 2,200 deployed strategic nuclear warheads on high alert through 2012 and beyond. In addition, the United States will still possess some 3,000 additional strategic warheads in storage and several hundred substrategic weapons.

The Pentagon’s March 2005 draft “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations” also outlines a wide range of options to deal with non-nuclear scenarios. It would allow for the possible first use of nuclear weapons to help support U.S. forces or allies against conventional attacks, such as a conflict with China over Taiwan, as well as other scenarios, including pre-emptive nuclear strikes on suspected chemical or biological weapons targets in non-nuclear-weapon states.

Given the absence of a hostile, well-armed nuclear adversary, U.S. conventional military dominance, and the possibility that additional states might acquire nuclear weapons, is such a large U.S. arsenal and expansive view of the role of nuclear weapons necessary, justifiable, and sustainable? No.

There is no conceivable circumstance in which the United States would need to use or could justify the use of nuclear weapons to fight or terminate a conventional conflict with a non-nuclear adversary. On several occasions, U.S. presidents from Truman and Eisenhower to Kennedy, Nixon, and George H. W. Bush have considered the limited use of nuclear weapons in tactical situations, but they have always rejected doing so. The calculus should be no different today.

Policies that assert a war-fighting role for nuclear weapons only deepen the risk of proliferation. They undermine existing pledges by nuclear-weapon states that they will not use nuclear arms against countries without them. They give states such as North Korea and Iran a cynical excuse to maintain their nuclear weapons options and send a green light to nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to contemplate their battlefield use.

The lessons of the Cuban missile crisis and other U.S.-Soviet confrontations during the Cold War make clear that even limited nuclear engagement risks escalation and unacceptable annihilation. Nuclear weapons are, therefore, not a realistic war-fighting option in a conventional conflict against a nuclear-armed adversary.

Some nuclear acolytes believe new types of weapons are needed to provide “credible” options against future adversaries and targets, including underground bunkers and chemical or biological threats. Such thinking ignores the reality that employing any nuclear weapon would produce disproportionate and unacceptable collateral destruction and severe political fallout.

A saner nuclear weapons policy is feasible and overdue. As long as the United States and others possess nuclear weapons, their role should be limited to deterring other states from using them. Further, if that is their only function, there is no reason why the United States cannot observe a policy of no-first-use. Nor would there be any need to develop and test new nuclear-weapon capabilities or maintain Cold War-sized arsenals on high alert, a condition that risks accidental or unauthorized launch.

It has been 60 years since the last nuclear bomb was used in war. Perhaps more than any other state, the United States has the most to lose if others not only seek to acquire nuclear weapons but come to view them as legitimate and useful instruments of coercion and war. But if U.S. policymakers expect nuclear restraint from China and other states, they must reconsider and readjust the role of U.S. nuclear forces.

and this one AIN’T it…rent a DVD for the evenings this stinker comes on TV…

Ensemble Convenes for CBS’ “End of the World
Posted by Scott Weinberg on Tuesday, Aug. 09, 2005, 12:35 AM

Scott Weinberg writes: “ComingSoon.net shares a press release from CBS, and it seems that the “End of the World” is somewhat near. November 6th is when you can tune in and chuckle over “Category 7: The End of the World.”

From the producers of “Category 6: Day of Destruction,” the follow-up will star Randy Quaid, Tom Skerritt, Shannen Doherty, Gina Gershon, James Brolin, and Swoosie Kurtz.

“”Category 7: The End of the World” begins where “Category 6: Day of Destruction” ended, as the ultimate superstorm continues to build in size. As the disastrous storm gathers even more strength and begins to ravage the rest of the world, FEMA’s newly appointed director, Judith Carr (Gershon), has her hands full preparing for a cataclysmic storm in the U.S. Aiding weather forecasters is storm chaser Tommy Tornado (Quaid), convalesced from his near-death experience in the Category 6 storms and ready for more, and Faith Clavell (Doherty), a beautiful, discredited scientist who teams up with Tommy on the ground to figure out what is making the storms so severe. Up in the sky, pilot Col. Mike Davis (Skerritt) flies high above the storm to try to find what in the atmosphere is causing the storms. Meanwhile, a television evangelist and his wife, Donny and Penny Hall (Brolin and Kurtz) preying on the fears of a storm battered nation, begin to broadcast alarming warnings of biblical plagues. As the predictions begin to come true, the deadly storm continues to wreak havoc worldwide, culminating in a record-setting Category 7 superstorm over Washington, D.C.”

Part 1 of “Category 7″ will air on Sunday, November 6th; part 2 a week later on November 13th.”
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Celeb: Randy Quaid

Tom Skerritt

Shannen Doherty

Gina Gershon

James Brolin

Swoosie Kurtz

Ok…so it’s got a liberal bent….with a frosting of greenies…and maybe some tossed flakes on the side…

But, it’s funny…

http://www.climatemash.org/