The Nazi Plan to Nuke Manhattan

1. Goering's Secret Plan

Before WWII ended, planners under Hermann Goering may have possessed accurate estimates of the effects of a nuclear weapon, and studied a nuclear attack on New York City. The diagram below is from a collection of thousands of World War II photos from news and government sources, collected and republished in book form in 1946.* The source, according to the caption added by the editors, is "the files of Hermann Goering." The caption makes no explicit reference to atomic weapons, but the proportions of the damage zones are suggestive to anyone who has seen more modern estimates of nuclear weapon effects.




*Source: Pictorial History of the Second World War: Volume V: A Year of Victory, Wm. H. Wise and Co, Inc, New York, 1946, p 2459. Photo Credit: "Press Association."

What appear to be translations of the German annotations are given in the lower right hand corner of the picture. These read, in outer to inner order:

1. Zone of the first Demolition Area
2. Extreme Point of the Unit Area
3. Zone of the second Demolition Area
4. Target Point

The existence of this diagram suggests that German nuclear weapons work may have been more advanced than is commonly understood. The accuracy of the data used to make this diagram can be judged by comparing it to this data on the blast pressure effects of a 20 kiloton weapon (a likely 1st generation yield, this was the approximate yield of the Nagasaki bomb.)


source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions (table, "Summary of the Effects")

Overpressure of 2 psi would represent the outer limit of substantial destruction to brick buildings; in the 2-1 psi range windows would be blown out, people would be injured by flying glass, and other damage and some fires would occur, especially with wood frame structures. The Goering diagram includes diameter measurements, in meters, annotated near the top of the diagram. The following table gives these measurements, conversions to English units, and the corresponding blast data for the 20 kt bomb, with the later converted to blast diameter in miles:



* approximate; measurement partially obscured by mark on diagram 
** this measurement not given on diagram; estimated by measuring photo as published.

From this data it appears to me that this diagram is based on accurate estimates of the effects of a nuclear explosion with a yield approaching 20 kilotons. It therefore indicates that German atomic weapons research during WWII had advanced to the point that they possessed this data, and that they contemplated employing such a weapon against the United States.

What is especially chilling is that this diagram is sourced not to some technical group, but to Hermann Goering. This is the only known direct evidence, to my knowledge, of Goering's knowledge at any level of nuclear weapons research. But awareness and interest in this area on the part of Goering, one of the very highest and most powerful political/military leaders in the Third Reich, could well have provided great impetus and resources to German efforts to develop and use an atomic weapon. This connection moves the threat of a German nuke on Manhattan from theory to a real historical possibility.

NOTE: The above analysis is a lay interpretation. Other interpretations are possible, such as that the attack contemplated would have been a barrage of missiles with conventional explosive warheads. In this case the circles might represent zones of varying likelihood of missile impact, given their inherent inaccuracy around the central aiming point. Also, the possibility that the diagram was created by an Allied source for propaganda purposes cannot be discounted. The question of the diagram's authenticity would have to be addressed by study of the original, and the evidence of its provenance.


2. The German Atomic Bomb Design

The following design is purported to be from a German report composed immediately after WWII, and summarizing the state of their atomic weapon research. It is a schematic, not a buildable design, but if authentic it is the only extant evidence of a German atomic bomb design from this period. The report's authenticity is controversial, there is no title page and its authorship is unknown. But taken together with the above target diagram, it may represent an atomic threat to the United States that was forestalled only by the timely conquest of Germany.




source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4598955.stm

reference: Rainer Karlsch and Mark Walker, "New light on Hitler's bomb," physicsworld.com, June 1, 2005, http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/22270 (site requires free registration)

Carbon Farming: Diesel Exhaust Injection

There is a claim out that injecting tractor exhaust in to your field will mean you can skip all that expensive fertilizer, and save the planet too! It's absolute 100-proof junk science, but people want to believe it, and the 'one-born-every-minute' estimate will take in a certain number of farmers....

Here's the news item: http://www.theage.com.au/national/a-farmers-field-of-dreams-buries-climate-change-war-20091031-hqty.html

And if we can do arithmetic, and we can, here's an easily-testable quote from farmer Linklater: "It might not seem that emissions from one tractor could do a lot, but per hectare it emits 1100 kilos of carbon." Yes, he said 1100 kilos, and he said it more than once. And I'm here to tell you that Mr. Linklater's other claims (like you don't need fertilizer any more) don't make any more sense.

That 1100 kilo figure seemed bogus to me, so I did the math, with the help of a few data points from the Colorado State Agricultural Extension Service: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/PUBS/farmmgt/05006.html

1. A 100 hp diesel tractor uses 1.68 gal of diesel to plow an acre.

(Plowing, btw, uses much more fuel than most things that are done with tractors).

2. A 400 hp tractor, which Linklater has, won't use four times as much fuel, because it gets done faster, but let's say it does. So we're up to 6.72 gallons per acre.

3. There are 2.47 acres in a hectare, so that gives 16.6 gallons per hectare.

4. Diesel fuel weighs 7.0 lbs per gallon, so we're using 116.2 lbs/hectare.

5. And there are 2.47 lbs. per kilo, so we get to 47 kilos of fuel per hectare.

CONCLUSION: does anyone here think 47 kilos of fuel produce 1100 kilos of carbon emissions? The fuel is about 84.9% carbon, so if it all is 100% oxidized with two oxygen atoms for every carbon atom, you'd get (hmmm, atomic weight of carbon is 12.011, oxygen is 15.9994 ...) about 146.2 lbs of CO2.

But wait! I know what you're thinking! Maybe he meant over the course of the year, for all tractor use on the hectare. Let's see, 1100/146.2 means we're talking about passing over the field 7.5 times. But really you should figure 15 or more passes, because most things use half as much fuel as plowing, or less. And don't forget we are NOT really using four times as much fuel as a 100 hp tractor. I'll bet it would really take 30 or more passes....

Still, let's say he just might get to 1100 kilos per hectare if he captures every bit of tractor emmisions all year and injects it all. There's one other little problem with this scheme. Diesel exhaust won't fertilize. Not at all, no way.

From the data in the news story, it would seem that Linklater was applying something over 90 kilos of fertilizer per hectare. It is proposed to replace that with a substance which by weight contains:

1) 75.2% nitrogen, in the form of N2 passed through from the air, essentially inert stuff,
2) 15.0% oxygen, again from the atmosphere, what's left over from oxidizing the diesel fuel
3) 7.1% carbon dioxide, the main combustion product
4) 2.6% water vapor.

So that's 99.9% of the weight, and nothing that acts like a fertilizer yet (link, see Table 21). Oh, carbon dioxide encourages plant growth, if it's available to be absorbed in the leaves. But gaseous CO2 injected into the soil is going to do nothing but float right out of the soil, and not hang around. Though with some luck (bad) it will combine with water in the soil and makes carbonic acid and stuff. Soil acidification is not helpful. The conventional program of 90 kilos/hectare of fertilizer contained needed quantities of available nitrogen and phosphorus compounds; the 1/10th of 1% we haven't accounted for of whatever amount of exhaust is injected...does not.

It seems, though, that they were pushing this nonsense a couple of years ago in Canada. Here's an actual scientist pointing out that no matter how much exhaust is injected, this whole idea doesn't work anyway: http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/514706.html?nav=5010&showlayout=0

All Hail Fred!

If Zionism isn't racism, it will do until racism comes along....

Now I don't know how much you can quote and still be in 'fair use' territory, but the quickest and by far the most effective way for me to tell you why I dearly love Fred Reed is to copy a chunk of what he says. This is from a column this summer on Zionism and Israel:

Although I am a Southerner, and like being one, I detested the apartheid practiced in the South. I was there. Don’t tell me ‘bout dem happy niggahs plunking dat ol banjo undah dee big oak tree. It was ugly. Jews, I note, didn’t like it either, and in fact led the movement for civil rights.
If I didn’t like brutal repression (which it was) engaged in by my own people, why am I supposed to like it when engaged in by Israelis? And why do Jews, who didn’t approve of it in the South, support it in Israel? Why don’t they tell Israel to stop it? They could.
Repressive custody of others does no make nice people. My family (the Venables) for two centuries lived in Prince Edward County, Virginia. In the early Fifties, as desegregation gained ground, we were the resistance, the Power Structure, the AIPAC of the region. Those with an idea of history may remember that Prince Edward shut down the public schools to avoid contact with blacks. The reasons given were many, some better than others, but ultimately the system was just wrong.
I spent a fair amount of time listening to my parents and relatives drinking bourbon in stately living rooms in Farmville, the county seat, and talking race. I know how their heads work. I know the grinding hatred, the contempt that dripped from every sentence, the herdishness as they confirmed each other’s snarling.
They sounded exactly like American Zionists speaking of Arabs. There was the same insistence on racial inferiority, on the filthiness of blacks or Arabs, their historical uselessness, their incapacity to fit into a civilized world, their sexual appetites. There is nothing Jewish in this. It is the normal moral sewerization that results from the relation of masters to slaves. Prison guards have it. South Africans had it. The only good Indian is a dead Indian. The underclass are always vermin, and the masters always become moral monsters. The Nazis, early Likudists, had identical notions of Jews.
I find myself wanting to say to AIPAC: What are you clowns thinking? How do you see the end game? You support a goose-stepping government in colonizing the West Bank to the point that it is irreversible. Then what? Your choices are extermination of your Arabs, ethnic cleansing on a horrific scale, or South Africanization. And how well did that work?
Because Jews have a well-earned reputation for being intelligent, one might make the mistake of expecting them necessarily to behave intelligently. No. Brains only provide the means to be more elaborately and ornately stupid. The smart merely make more complex mistakes. Historically, horrendous misjudgements have usually been the children of good minds. When you mix acuity with fanaticism, you get an ungodly stew almost certain to end in disaster. This may be worth thinking about.
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Fascisms.shtml

There. Wasn't that just right? And even when Fred happens, as even the best must, to be ever so slightly mistaken on some matter, he never fails to be amusing. Even his meanness is always, you can tell, done in a spirit of good clean fun. Or rotten dirty fun, which of course is the best kind.

Now I gotta run and make a deposit in the quote bank. "Brains only provide the means to be more elaborately and ornately stupid" is a keeper.

Islam: Threat or Menace?

This clip of some upset fellows in England is said to illustrate the point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuAAK032kCA

'Islam will conquer. Islam will destroy.' Yes, there are those who dream such dreams. There are even some who act accordingly. It's a problem.

Many of the actions taken to 'oppose' this problem have had the effect of making it bigger. I include 'invading Iraq' and 'torturing prisoners.' In dealing with this problem, it is vital to avoid stupidity.

Force often summons forth opposing force. Defining people as enemies makes more of them enemies. We (the West) must respond more intelligently, not be sucked into a mindless cycle of conflict.

Has Glen Beck Changed?

We report, you decide?
It's possible that he's changed more than once.

[\FOX MODE]