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Nuclear Weapons, Trident, Etc...


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Threads was feckin terrifying. I mind the Soviets were so impressed they wanted to show it too but decided not to purely for the fact they fired first in the film.

About the same time they showed The War Game for the first time (an almost as bleak BBC film from the 60s that wasn't screened for fear of upsetting the populace).

The Day After was more like Dallas in comparison...

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Can only find a link to the soundtrack and not the animation itself. Very moving film. I think I may have had a lump in my throat watching this at the time. Daren't revisit it.

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Good film this, called The Day After.

Imagine watching this in 1983 when it was released.

Shit the Americans right up when it aired.

43 minutes onwards if you want to get straight into it with the tension building up.

J

Crikey, I was thinking about The Day After when I first started reading this thread. This was one of the first things I recorded off the telly onto video and kept to watch again. I even took the wee plastic bit off the back of the video so no one could video over it. Goodness knows where it is now though

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Good film this, called The Day After.

Imagine watching this in 1983 when it was released.

Shit the Americans right up when it aired.

43 minutes onwards if you want to get straight into it with the tension building up.

J

My first thought was if Jason Robards was in this then I've seen it, so just checked and he was. Always remember the cars stopping just before the blast hit them. Scary stuff at the time. Was watching a TV show last night and they showed clips from Threads in it. Again, incredibly scary for a young teen.

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This is slow to begin with, for reasons that become obvious, but builds quietly to become disturbingly hypnotic, as it progresses.

It leaves you with little doubt that as a species we're utterly insane.

Canny be that bad surely, if there has been over 2000 set off since 1945 then why is the world still existing? Albeit they were all under ground, surely going by this the west coast of USA would be obliterated, semi-serious question btw. Don't agree with them personally.

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Canny be that bad surely, if there has been over 2000 set off since 1945 then why is the world still existing? Albeit they were all under ground, surely going by this the west coast of USA would be obliterated, semi-serious question btw. Don't agree with them personally.

Link below to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty website. Here's an example extract:

Effects of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands

Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. carried out 67 nuclear weapons tests at Bikini and Enewetak atolls in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The atolls were some of the main sites included in the Pacific Proving Grounds.

Operation Ivy in 1952 set the stage for the first test of a large thermonuclear device, or hydrogen bomb. Codenamed Mike, the blast had an explosive yield of 10.4 mt, which was over 400 times the destructive force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It vapourized the island of Elugelab, leaving behind a deep crater about 1 km in diameter, which was blanketed in high levels of radiation.

Castle Bravo causes contamination over vast area

The populations of Bikini and Enewetak were relocated to other atolls before the testing began to ensure their safety.

However, following the detonation of the 15 Mt Castle Bravo test on 1 March 1954 - the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States fallout was unexpectedly deposited on some of the surrounding atolls: Rongelap, Utrik, and other inhabited atolls to the east and southeast of Bikini were all affected. The fallout caused contamination over an area of more than 11,000 square km, spreading traces of radioactive material as far as Australia, India, Japan, the United States and parts of Europe.

Daigo Fukuryū Maru (Lucky Dragon Number 5) in the early 1950s, shortly before the detonation of Castle Bravo.

Immediate and long-term effects of fallout

A few hours after the explosion, fallout from the explosion began sprinkling over a Japanese fishing boat, Lucky Dragon Number 5. The fallout consisted of coral rock, soil, and other debris sucked up in the fireball and made intensively radioactive by the nuclear reaction. The boat was some 145 km downwind of the explosion point at the time. Rongelap atoll, which was about 170 km downwind, was also showered with radioactive particles.

Many of Lucky Dragons crew became ill and one crew member died. A number of the 64 inhabitants of Rongelap experienced immediate radiation sickness including vomiting, skin damage and hair loss. By the time they were evacuated from the area two days after the detonation of Castle Bravo, some of the islanders had received 175 rads (See Chart 2) from gamma radiation and 160 rads from I-131 (See Chart 1).

In Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-nuclear, Post-colonial World, the anthropologist Holly Barker describes an epidemic of birth defects, cancer, mental retardation, and suicides, in addition to the thyroid disorders, among the local population.

The March 1, 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb crater. Photo © Matt Harris www.bikiniatoll.com

Long-term health consequences

Radioiodine levels were measured in the urine of adults from Rongelap and a neighbouring atoll, Ailinginae, by the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory two weeks after their exposure to Bravo fallout. The Atomic Archive explains how I-131 built up rapidly to serious concentration in the thyroid glands of the victims, particularly young Rongelapese children. A report entitled Radiation Effects in the Marshall Islands compiled by the Clinical Endocrinology Branch, National Institute of Health, Maryland, and the Medical Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, USA, states that: Early radiation effects were observed in many of the 64 inhabitants of Rongelap and the 18 on nearby Sifo Island. During the second and third decades after the accident, most of the Rongelap children and many adults developed thyroid nodules, some of which proved to be malignant.

In Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-nuclear, Post-colonial World, the anthropologist Holly Barker describes an epidemic of birth defects, cancer, mental retardation, and suicides, in addition to the thyroid disorders, among the local population. High numbers of miscarriages and stillbirths were noted in some women who had been exposed to the fallout.

Cancers attributed to nuclear fallout

Ionizing radiation, which refers to several types of particles and rays given off by radioactive materials, is one of the few scientifically proven carcinogens in human beings. The time that may elapse between radiation exposure and cancer development can be anything between 10 and 40 years.

A report on the Estimation of the Baseline Number of Cancers Among Marshallese and the Number of Cancers Attributable to Exposure to Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Testing Conducted in the Marshall Islands was published in September 2004. The report was prepared by the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Health and Human Service, USA, and stated that:

We estimate that the nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands will cause about 500 additional cancer cases among Marshallese exposed during the years 1946-1958, about a 9% increase over the number of cancers expected in the absence of exposure to regional fallout. More than 85% of those radiation-related cases would likely occur among those exposed in 1954 on the atolls of Rongelap, Ailinginae, Ailuk, Mejit, Likiep, Wotho, Wotje, and possibly Ujelang. Doses to the thyroid, colon and stomach of persons on Rongelap, Alinginae, and (to a lesser extent) Utrik at the time of the BRAVO test in 1954 were extremely high. Based on this analysis, a high proportion of cancers of those organs that develop among members of those population groups are likely to be radiation-related. About 40% of the thyroid cancers and more than one-half of cancers to the other organs (at all atolls) are yet to develop or to be diagnosed.

From 1946 to 1958, the Bikini Atolla Micronesian, volcanic island group in the Pacific Ocean (part of the Marshall Islands)was home to 23, U.S.-conducted, nuclear detonations, including the first true Hydrogen bomb test, in 1954.

Environmental impacts

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the tests in the Marshall Islands released 6.3 billion curies (See Chart 2) of I-131 alone, which is 42 times the amount released by atmospheric nuclear testing in Nevada.

After the Bravo test, the soil and water at Bikini atoll contained radioactive isotopes of caesium, cobalt, strontium, americium, and plutonium (see Chart 1). In Radioactivity and Rights Clashes at Bikini Atoll, Ruth Levy Guyer describes how the radioactivity in the lagoon and sea eventually disappeared as a result of slow and steady dilution in the ocean. The radioactivity, however, has remained on the islands. Coconuts on Bikini are still radioactive because coconut palm trees absorb caesium-137 and other radioactive elements from the soil. These elements are then concentrated in the fruit.

Lots of interesting data on the site. You can draw your own conclusions.

https://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/the-effects-of-nuclear-testing/general-overview-of-theeffects-of-nuclear-testing/

Edited by Mash it up Harry
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Very interesting. I wonder what the result would have been pre-Corbyn?...

That's a good question :ok: . How many folk just vote how they think the boss wants them to do. How many folk going against boss etc.

annoyingly no way to find out though

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I'd love to see Pooty Poot Putin giving George Dubya a Glaswegian kiss. In fact I reckon he'd be able to kick fook out of Dubya, Cheney and Rumsfeld at the same time without breaking sweat, while Obama cowered somewhere nearby.

Undoubtedly. Putin's ex KGB and Cheyne and Rumsfeld must be in their eighties by now.

Auld Ronnie Regan vs Chernenko(I think?) would have been a much fairer fight, especially since the Soviet boy was only in the gig for a few months before he snuffed it.

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Undoubtedly. Putin's ex KGB and Cheyne and Rumsfeld must be in their eighties by now.

Auld Ronnie Regan vs Chernenko(I think?) would have been a much fairer fight, especially since the Soviet boy was only in the gig for a few months before he snuffed it.

Plus Putin is a Judo and Sambo Black belt and won competitions in both, he doesn't need KGB training he can just choke them out.

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Plus Putin is a Judo and Sambo Black belt and won competitions in both, he doesn't need KGB training he can just choke them out.

Jeezo. Pooty Put could well be the hardest leader on the world stage at the moment; the Chuck Norris of statesmen, even.

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Dugdale still supports Trident however.

And while Corbyn opposes Trident, most of his MP's at Westminster want to keep it.

I think you're giving her far too much credit there. Kezia strikes me as a politician virtually incapable of a single independent political thought.

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"Trident renewal: Labour figures play down Scottish vote" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-34698283 or slightly more provocatively "Maria Eagle asserts authority over Scottish Labour on Trident"

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/02/trident-maria-eagle-asserts-defence-authority-scottish-labour#comment-62586972

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Undoubtedly. Putin's ex KGB and Cheyne and Rumsfeld must be in their eighties by now.

Auld Ronnie Regan vs Chernenko(I think?) would have been a much fairer fight, especially since the Soviet boy was only in the gig for a few months before he snuffed it.

Plus Putin is a Judo and Sambo Black belt and won competitions in both, he doesn't need KGB training he can just choke them out.

Jeezo. Pooty Put could well be the hardest leader on the world stage at the moment; the Chuck Norris of statesmen, even.

He is clearly much harder than I knew. In which case I'll add Hillary Clinton and David Cameron to the Bush/Cheney/Obama tag team, blindfold and tie one of Pooty Poots arms behind his back and spin him round half a dozen times.
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Labour's review likely to to take 2 years but the parliamentary vote on renewal will probably be next year! What's that all about? What a shambles of a party.

Labour seem to be tearing themselves apart.

They probably need to choose between pleasing England and pleasing Scotland (not sure about Wales)

(To be fair, public opinion in Scotland and England are mixed, but the way it is playing out - Kezia insisting on emphasising autonomy, that is then slapped down - the more it appears as a polarisation)

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