Politics

[Red Leg]

So I did some research on the comments that a mass coronal ejection, EMP, or other event would end civilization. The tale “2 billion could die” seems to be a belief that was held about 20 years ago during a study of the Bush administration. There were studies that occurred since then, taking in a number of real world case studies on a micro level, and the concerns are greatly diminished. While it would certainly be a major inconvenience, it appears that the consquences would be much milder than was formerly believed.

I won't go into any more details, but I can say that as recently as eight years ago the defense industry and our government partners were deeply concerned about a deliberate high altitude attack, the effects of which I referenced as available in open source. It would be catastrophic.

A lot of press attention goes to the power grid - a legitimate concern. But distribution level is even more frightening.

A won't go into any detailed assessments, but as an example, there is not a single piece of EMP hardened transportation equipment in the nation. Not a single truck. If the end item has a circuit board, it is likely fried. Imagine any city, small, medium or large cut off from food distribution for months. The death toll would be staggering.

 

[CoElkHunter]

I won't go into any more details, but I can say is that as recently as eight years ago the defense industry and our government partners were deeply concerned about a deliberate high altitude attack, the effects of which I referenced as available in open source. It would be catastrophic.

A won't go into any detailed assessments, but as an example, there is not a single piece of EMP hardened transportation equipment in the nation. Not a single truck. Imagine any city, small, medium or large cut off from food distribution for months. The death toll would be staggering.

Nor most satellites that are "hardened".

 

[Brent in Az]

The ukraine is going to die the death of a thousand Russian cuts. They don't have the manpower to outlast Putins .
How much longer do we need to finance this war? 1 year? 2 years? 5?
The border bill is just more pork stuffing for the Ukraine, guised as a complete joke of a border bill drafted by morons. The Republican party is going the way of Dodo bird, because they are all incompetent spineless wussies, and f###ing idiots
If Russia prevails, are they then going to blitzkrieg their way thru Europe, and land on Americas doorstep in an attempt of global conquest? I don't think so!
The democrats obviously hate this country, and middle America. If the Democrats, and the war machine of the military industrial complex are so adamant about shoveling money into the Ukraine, you have to ask yourself why?
What's in it for them? 10% for the big guys?
Do you think the single Mom that works 2 jobs to feed her kids, gives a shit about the continual funding of the Ukraine, out of fear of a possible Russian victory? I don't think do.
Does the local construction worker swinging a hammer at the jobsite care about the ukraine, or does he care about the possibility of an immigrant taking his job, and not being able to pay his mortgage, and feed his kids?.
Does the policeman in New York that got the shit beat out of him by illegal aliens care about the Ukraine, or does he care about issues right here on the home front?
Does the grieving mother who lost a child, or family member due to the actions of a shitbag illegal alien, care about the Ukrainian war?
The United States, and European countries just need to quit being political pussies and join the fight or STFU.
If its so damn important for the USA and European interests for Ukraine to prevail, then jump in and make it happen. Send the Russians crawling back to Moscow. Put up, or shut up.
Screw the Ukraine, and screw Tucker Carlson and his Putin pandering. We have the biggest war in the world right here on the American homefront. We have a war against the radical leftists and the battle for the soul of this country, and an epic invasion at the southern border.
The average american cares about the homefront. Right here, right now.

In the words of Michael Douglas in the movie "The American President".................."We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them"

The current crop of shitheads in Washington D.C can't solve Jack Shit....and Jack left town.

 

[freefall]

My youngest daughter is at AVTEC right now. She aspires to have her own plumbing and heating business here in Dillingham.

Well good on her and God bless her, and if there's anything I can do to help her let me know!

 

[rookhawk]

So who came to those conclusions?

The Grid Might Survive an Electromagnetic Pulse Just Fine

A new report enters the debate over whether an EMP from a nuclear blast or a solar flare would cripple the power grid and concludes that actually, we'll probably be OK.

www.wired.com

 

[freefall]

The Grid Might Survive an Electromagnetic Pulse Just Fine

A new report enters the debate over whether an EMP from a nuclear blast or a solar flare would cripple the power grid and concludes that actually, we'll probably be OK.

www.wired.com

OK, I pray these people are honest and not just blowing sunshine up our butts.

 

[rookhawk]

I won't go into any more details, but I can say that as recently as eight years ago the defense industry and our government partners were deeply concerned about a deliberate high altitude attack, the effects of which I referenced as available in open source. It would be catastrophic.

A lot of press attention goes to the power grid - a legitimate concern. But distribution level is even more frightening.

A won't go into any detailed assessments, but as an example, there is not a single piece of EMP hardened transportation equipment in the nation. Not a single truck. If the end item has a circuit board, it is likely fried. Imagine any city, small, medium or large cut off from food distribution for months. The death toll would be staggering.

Ignoring terror, I think the assumption is such an EMP would result in MAD. I can’t imagine a country using such technology because it would encourage an EMP or nuclear response and everybody loses. Probably even more likely to create a nuclear response since land based weapons could be compromised, but whatever is in the 24 tubes on each of our subs would be fair game for launch.


But a solar storm / mass coronal ejection of natural means is what they were focused on in their recent risk assessment. It looked less bleak than that presidential commission forecasted 20 years ago.

 

[Red Leg]

The Grid Might Survive an Electromagnetic Pulse Just Fine

A new report enters the debate over whether an EMP from a nuclear blast or a solar flare would cripple the power grid and concludes that actually, we'll probably be OK.

www.wired.com

It might indeed. It is the transportation layer that is most vulnerable. I note again, that unless it was built before 1975 or so, there is not an EMP hardened 18 wheeler in the country - or aircraft.

With respect to MAD, think about the means of attack. It is a burst 250 miles up - from orbit - not likely a launched ICBM. It might prove impossible to determine "blame." That essentially was the scenario of One Second After.

My job was worrying about hostiles. I know of no recent study of a massive flare event on the transportation network.

 

[rookhawk]

It might indeed. It is the transportation layer that is most vulnerable. I note again, that unless it was built before 1975 or so, there is not an EMP hardened 18 wheeler in the country - or aircraft.

With respect to MAD, think about the means of attack. It is a burst 250 miles up - from orbit - not likely a launched ICBM. It might prove impossible to determine "blame." That essentially was the scenario of One Second After.

My job was worrying about hostiles. I know of no recent study of a massive flare event on the transportation network.

Probably even worse, because you know the POTUS (any) would just start conflicts at any likely suspect instantly. Iran, China, N Korea, Russia.

 

[Red Leg]

Probably even worse, because you know the POTUS (any) would just start conflicts at any likely suspect instantly. Iran, China, N Korea, Russia.

One other inconvenience. Without going into details, let us just say that EMP is particularly hard on computers. It might be worth querying your portfolio holders if they have redundant records in EMP shielded storage.

 

[Doubleplay]

@Brent in Az
What do you think Trump will do about Ukraine if he wins?
Do you think he'll do anything different?

 

[freefall]

I will bet $2.78 that if Trump wins, Russia will begin to disengage. And the whole world situation will began to cool down by about 34%.

 

[Corey0372]

I won't go into any more details, but I can say that as recently as eight years ago the defense industry and our government partners were deeply concerned about a deliberate high altitude attack, the effects of which I referenced as available in open source. It would be catastrophic.

A lot of press attention goes to the power grid - a legitimate concern. But distribution level is even more frightening.

A won't go into any detailed assessments, but as an example, there is not a single piece of EMP hardened transportation equipment in the nation. Not a single truck. If the end item has a circuit board, it is likely fried. Imagine any city, small, medium or large cut off from food distribution for months. The death toll would be staggering.

The "One Second After" series is really good. I have a hard time believing things have "improved" much since those books were written, I mean we have mass looting and shootouts in broad daylight with the power on right now you know?

2 interesting stories:

I was at a DOD language course in 2014, had this older DIA guy there that was pretty cool. One night we're all hanging around having some beers (too many) and whatnot, and we get talking about this kind of stuff bc someone had mentioned a zombie movie or something. This dude had gotten pretty drunk, and was more than likely giving us more than we should've gotten, but we were all friendlies. He mentioned he had worked on some stuff in regards to this problem set in sort of like a chaos theory cell of sorts. Needless to say he gave the whole "it would be horrible" rundown, pretty safe assumption of what would happen if the entire East Coast lost power for 8 months to a year. Like yourself I'll refrain from details. But one of the things he mentioned that really stuck out to me was they had factored in how many health professionals would be required to deal with the illnesses (physical and long term mental) caused by cannibalism in places like the greater NY metro area, assuming there was a recovery in the long term and govt institutions could get back up and running.

Fast forward to 2017....

I was working in an Instructor billet and our section didn't have students at the time. So during those breaks they would send guys to individual schools, and if you weren't at a school or anything you had a pretty light schedule, helped out with the other sections maybe, lots of early days. So it was a Friday or something and myself and two buddies from the section had just gotten back from lunch, it was probably around 1:30 in the afternoon and basically we were all just sitting around our office about to start the process of sliming out for the weekend.
Our section chief comes in and asks what we were doing/ working on...

Us: "nothing, waiting for you to tell us to leave."

him: "alright well the G2 has some guest speaker giving some kind of threat brief in the auditorium at 1400, I don't what it is or who the guy is, but they want whoever is available to go, so you guys go to that and then you're good to leave for the weekend"

Us: "Roger!"

So we go down to where it was being held, wasn't a super huge crowd, maybe 45, mostly Intel guys (from all disciplines) , I think they had all the students from whatever intel course that was running at the time all attend as well. Anyway we spotted a handful of other Team guys and went and sat over there with them. We started asking them what this thing was about? This isn't some retarded "don't leave your ID card laying around" thing is it? One of the guys said "I think it's supposed to be about nukes or something". Sure, whatever, and we chatted until the speaker showed up.

The guy was a civilian, gave his first name and said he "worked up in Northern VA". Then for the next hour and some change he proceeded to scare the shit out of everyone in the room about EMPs!!! I'm talking nobody was having sidebar conversations, nobody was dozing off, everyone was focused. Guys were doing the slow motion dip spit into their spitter bottles type paying attention, haha. Anyways the contents of his brief and powerpoint were extremely alarming. Its INSANE how vulnerable the US is and the extent of the damage these things would do our country/society, and how easy (on the grand scheme of things) it would be for a well organized group to pull it off.

After his presentation there was no Q&A, he just said thanks for your time gents, and walked out. My buddies and I got up and headed to the parking lot, in silence. I remember one of us finally asking, to the group, "Okayyy, why did we just get that brief?". We kind of all came to a similar conclusion that being at least a mild prepper was the way to go ( I was already ahead of them, haha).

 

[Corey0372]

Shawn Ryan had a guest on a while back and they talked about the EMP stuff.

 

[CoElkHunter]

The Grid Might Survive an Electromagnetic Pulse Just Fine

A new report enters the debate over whether an EMP from a nuclear blast or a solar flare would cripple the power grid and concludes that actually, we'll probably be OK.

www.wired.com

The thing I take away from this article is "can be protected". Most of JUST OUR electrical grid is STILL NOT many years removed from this article. A manmade EMP will be localized geographically. A Worldwide Carrington Event is an extinction event for the human race.

 

[Corey0372]

The thing I take away from this article is "can be protected". Most of JUST OUR electrical grid is STILL NOT many years removed from this article. A manmade EMP will be localized geographically. A Worldwide Carrington Event is an extinction event for the human race.

The other issue is a much more low tech, yet still coordinated attack similar to this one from 2022, but at about 25 different power stations at once.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2023/05/02/north-carolina-power-grid-

 

[CoElkHunter]

The other issue is a much more low tech, yet still coordinated attack similar to this one from 2022, but at about 25 different power stations at once.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2023/05/02/north-carolina-power-grid-

I'm sure this incident isn't lost on terrorists who might plan a potential coordinated attack in the middle of the night on multiple power stations as a distraction for a more sinister goal in mind?

 

[Corey0372]

I'm sure this incident isn't lost on terrorists who might plan a potential coordinated attack in the middle of the night on multiple power stations as a distraction for a more sinister goal in mind?

I mean that would be a pretty sinister goal in and of itself!

 

[CoElkHunter]

I mean that would be a pretty sinister goal in and of itself!

Yes it would be, but temporary. But during/after the downing of the grid (lighting and emergency communication) they planned an attack inside a major city? One July afternoon a few summers ago here at about 4pm, the neighbor across the street came out of his home and complained to me (I was in my driveway) that he had no electricity and thus no AC which his ill wife needed inside their home. About 93F here that day. The neighbor next door came out and asked me what to do about her fridge with no electricity. I told the first neighbor that I don't have AC at all and to open up his windows and have his wife go out to their cooler garage with the door open. I told the second neighbor don't open her fridge unless she needed something out of it. These people were panicked! Then at about 9pm, night fell. This was a massive power outage for several square miles and the only lights visible were the emergency runway lights from the airport maybe 10-15 miles as the crow flies from my home. I have a great view from my driveway as I'm up on a higher point. Anyway, we lit candles inside our home and I sat (armed) inside our garage with the door open and kept an eye on the surrounding neighborhood. The next door neighbor did the same. Everyone else in my part of the neighborhood is clueless and helpless. It was VERY eerie. I'm used to having no light at night when in camp hunting, just camping or working overnight, but then again there aren't the potential criminals/armed thugs around looking for an opportunity to wreak havoc. At about 11pm, the electricity was restored. Now, imagine a LARGE portion of my city of half a million people experiencing the same scenario for more than just the couple of hours our small neighborhood within the city did? Even several days could/would be disastrous.

 

[CoElkHunter]

Yes it would be, but temporary. But during/after the downing of the grid (lighting and emergency communication) they planned an attack inside a major city? One July afternoon a few summers ago here at about 4pm, the neighbor across the street came out of his home and complained to me (I was in my driveway) that he had no electricity and thus no AC which his ill wife needed inside their home. About 93F here that day. The neighbor next door came out and asked me what to do about her fridge with no electricity. I told the first neighbor that I don't have AC at all and to open up his windows and have his wife go out to their cooler garage with the door open. I told the second neighbor don't open her fridge unless she needed something out of it. These people were panicked! Then at about 9pm, night fell. This was a massive power outage for several square miles and the only lights visible were the emergency runway lights from the airport maybe 10-15 miles as the crow flies from my home. I have a great view from my driveway as I'm up on a higher point. Anyway, we lit candles inside our home and I sat (armed) inside our garage with the door open and kept an eye on the surrounding neighborhood. The next door neighbor did the same. Everyone else in my part of the neighborhood is clueless and helpless. It was VERY eerie. I'm used to having no light at night when in camp hunting, just camping or working overnight, but then again there aren't the potential criminals/armed thugs around looking for an opportunity to wreak havoc. At about 11pm, the electricity was restored. Now, imagine a LARGE portion of my city of half a million people experiencing the same scenario for more than just the couple of hours our small neighborhood within the city did? Even several days could/would be disastrous.

The other thing in that scenario would be if you tried to trade ammo for food? The bastards don't want your .338 WM ammo, they WANT CREEDMOORS! or maybe .243? LOL