Actually just read that Obama quote again:
“we obviously have a deep interest in making sure that one of the closest allies we will ever have remains a strong, robust, united and effective partner”
If the United States truly believes it has a deep interest in making sure that Scotland does not become independent, we can be quite certain that America will be pulling out all the stops to make sure that No wins. The language is the language of intelligence service tasking memoranda, which Obama is consciously or unconsciously reproducing. I have personally been involved in a great deal of intelligence service tasking. Intelligence service resources, both personnel and financial, are deployed to a greater or lesser extent to a task according to an assessment of the depth of national interest involved. If Obama has decided the US has a deep interest in the result of the Scottish independence campaign, we can expect hidden interference at Ukrainian levels.
Not ‘against their country’ you duplicitous twister. Against the politicians, the gangsters in charge, the war mongers who make their hypocritical gestures of pretending to care for the fallen when they have waged recent wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Mali and so on who posed no threat of invading us. Of course I am deeply proud of those brave people and grateful for those who gave their lives for us. Yet we now have secret trials in our ‘freedom’.
The display on going in Normandy is a display of power and nothing else.
My family’s business premises were demolished in the blitz on Southampton. My brother and I were small children in 1944 and I expect I know more about WWII than you do and about the deprivations that followed in the post war years.
” so the vast amount of energy that resulted in tons of molten material at the bases of the WTCs, detectable even THREE MONTHS later by satellite ”
Explain how a nuclear weapon would have caused this. Also explain how an explosion in the basement of a building would cause it to collapse from the top down.
As I’ve explained elsewhere on this blog mini-nukes don’t exist. It’s just physically impossible. Try to make a bomb with less than a critical mass of fissile material and it won’t explode.
Gentleperson
Not often I agree with Kempe. But I do this time. What you are proposing is utter toss. It’s such utter toss I suspect you are trying to wind the company up. FAIL.
To the individual who is here to inflame and divert.
Two years after DDay, your best mates were blowing up the British in Jerusalem of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
Have a look at this tweet.
https://twitter.com/gideonrachman/status/474609266717102080
Habbakuk (at 2.06 pm): You characterize several regular contributors here as people who pour out a “daily tribute of hate against the UK, their own country”. 8/10 for polemical energy; 0/10 for accuracy. When it comes to countries, crimes and people, love and hate operate in different ways. Characteristically, hate the sin but love the sinner. Even if Shakespeare may, in context, have been painting Brutus as a self-righteous prig, the justification he offers for the assassination of the dictator makes use of a distinction you might bear in mind before making further additions to your demonology – viz “If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” (cf Bush’s love for Iraq and the deaths of so many Iraqis besides Saddam)
An even better place to contemplate the “crops of love and hate” is Edwin Muir’s poem “One Foot in Eden” –
http://waywarddisciple.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/edwin-muir-one-foot-in-eden.html
Juncker is disgusted with the British press. He says they are desperate!
Juncker: I won’t beg UK to back my bid for European commission presidency
Exclusive: Frontrunner for top EU job launches angry broadside at Cameron-led opposition
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/05/juncker-european-commission-presidency-cameron
Frau Merkel has been giving Cameron a few words.
“Two years after DDay, your best mates were blowing up the British in Jerusalem of course.”
______________________
That is a very silly comment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~=
“I expect I know more about WWII than you do and about the deprivations that followed in the post war years.”
______________________
It’s possible that you “know more” but certain that you have learnt less.
***************************
You can thank the influence of Iain Orr’s comments (for which I thank him) that I’m not giving you the kicking you deserve.
That critical mass can in theory be pretty small. From published literature – reflectors, compression and various other tricks (published or otherwise) get you down way below the bare sphere critical mass. There has also been some published research on more unusual materials. Israeli research, IIRC on Americium-242m suggests you can get a very small bomb with it for example.
The smallest admitted US bomb is the Davy Crockett. It’s designer Ted Taylor went on to design even smaller bombs for the propulsion system of Project Orion. The delivery system for these bombs was a modified design for a coca-cola bottle delivery system according to those who worked on the project. Ted Taylor said that the bombs didn’t just exist on paper – they built them. Immediately after Project Orion Ted Taylor went to work directly for the Pentagon.
So a reasonable guess is that the smallest bomb as of 1965 was somewhere between the size of a coke bottle and the Davy Crockett.
Wikiedia has this to say for what it is worth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium
I have just been walking on the Downs with my dog seeing the skylarks soar upwards and making their music and thinking of those who did not come back to this country from WWII to hear the skylarks.
Sir Peter Ricketts has been bowing and scraping round the Queen.
He knows many of the state’s secrets.
Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee 2000-2001 Succeeded by Sir John Scarlett
Director-General, Political of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2001-2003 Succeeded by
Sir John Sawers
Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council (NATO) 2003-2006 Succeeded by
Stewart Eldon
Permanent Secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2006-2010 Succeeded by
Simon Fraser
Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser 2010-2012 Succeeded by Sir Kim Darroch
British Ambassador to France 2012-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ricketts
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella), when is it your day off from being a dick?
@ falloch
Wasn’t the Kiwi PM at the time threatened with assassination from a US senator or somebody similar on this matter?
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
5 Jun, 2014 – 5:05 pm
“This sounds like another of the alibis being prepared for what will probably be a No vote in the referendum. The mesaage being : the Scottish people WOULD have voted Yes HAD IT NOT BEEN for (1) the baised press, (2) the biased BBC, (3) (now) the USA, (4)???etc,n etc, etc.”
Habbabkuk thinks there is no BBC bias towards a NO vote; nor any other media bias; nor any interference from corporations and the CBI.
There are no scare stories coming from politicians or Whitehall departments (like the treasury).
Obama has now (predictably) thrown his weight behind the better together campaign and Habbabkuk still refuses to see it as foreign interference in the internal affairs of the UK.
Cameron, Clegg and Miliband will welcome that interference because it suits their agenda.
If Putin had gone to Scotland and made a speech in favour of a YES vote I think Habbabkuk and his slimy friends would be up in arms. Foreign interference!!!
Bearing in mind that all the main Westminster parties and all government departments in London, including the MOD, Home Office and Foreign Office and the Security Services are out to prevent an independent Scotland by fair means or foul, I see little hope of it happening.
Monsieur Hollande warned of global threats to peace. Hollande is himself a global threat to peace.
D-Day: Francois Hollande’s plea to fight threats to peace
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27741554
Mr Scorgie (17h10)
Thank you for just supplying Alibi N°4.
I’m sure that you’ll provide a few more before referendum day, Doug.
Me Scorgie
“If Putin had gone to Scotland and made a speech in favour of a YES vote I think Habbabkuk and his slimy friends would be up in arms.”
__________________
A singularly ill-chosen hypothesis, given Mr Putin’s record in Chechniya.
Chump!
Mr Scorgie
“If Putin had gone to Scotland and made a speech in favour of a YES vote I think Habbabkuk and his slimy friends would be up in arms.”
__________________
I hadn’t realised that President Obama had gone to Scotland and made a speech there in favour of a NO vote, Doug.
Can you supply links and sources for that, please?
Martin
“Habbabkuk (La vita è bella), when is it your day off from being a dick?”
__________________
It’s the same day of the week when you’re let out into the community on day release, Martin.
Keep taking the lithium and we’ll get on fine!
“@ falloch
Wasn’t the Kiwi PM at the time threatened with assassination from a US senator or somebody similar on this matter?”
_________________________
Martin, are you aware that you’re invading Trowbridge’s and John Goss’s space with that comment of yours?
Did you clear your comment with them first?
Mary (at 4.56 pm) – Having known and liked Peter Ricketts as an FCO colleague(a notably helpful and understanding Assistant Private Secretary to Geoffrey Howe), what his stellar career illustrates is the Darwinian effect of successive governments replacing the pompous but fundamentally honest “public service ethos” with the worship of “management by (politicized) objectives” – rather than by values.
I have no idea to what extent Peter Ricketts’ promotability involved trimming his own values. Self-censorship often involves saying the acceptable thing for the wrong reason; and it often goes with the position. However, what I find saddest about his career is that it was his (and the 2006 Labour government’s) decision to bring to an end the tradition of retiring Ambassadors circulating as widely as they deemed fit their valedictory despatches at the end of a posting or on retirement. The story had a partial airing at the time on the BBC – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8307273.stm
Some may have seen it as a quaint and expendable custom. Sometimes it was a licence for settling institutional scores or airing grievances that had festered for years. But it was above all an institutional licence to tell the truth as one saw it. Bringing that tradition to an end seemed to me to give a profoundly depressing message to younger diplomats: “Honesty is not the best policy.” In fact, it is.
” So a reasonable guess is that the smallest bomb as of 1965 was somewhere between the size of a coke bottle and the Davy Crockett. ”
It’s not the physical size of the bomb that’s the problem but the power of the detonation. The smallest warhead for the Davy Crocket was rated at 10 to 20 tons of TNT. That wouldn’t just bring down a skyscraper it would level several city blocks and leave masses of easily detected fall out.
So much for Sergey Brin’s knowledge of C20 history.
‘Google blunder over D-Day doodle
Screen grab of Google UK homepage
Google hurried out a link to material about D-Day beneath its logo
Google has hurriedly rushed out a link to D-Day material after failing to honour the 70th anniversary in its famous daily doodle.
Initially the UK homepage of the search engine had a doodle honouring a Japanese Go player.’
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27732237
Iain Obviously I have no knowledge of the UK Ambassador to France but he did appear to be rather obsequious in the clips I saw of him in company with the Queen.
“Sir Peter Ricketts has been bowing and scraping round the Queen.”
Followed in short order by
“Iain Obviously I have no knowledge of the UK Ambassador to France but he did appear to be rather obsequious in the clips I saw of him in company with the Queen.”
_____________________
And that’s the nearest anyone will ever get to an apology from Mary on this blog.
“Following a little bit the commemorations at the Normandy beaches today, I am moved by the sacrifices of the Allied troops. It’s ironical to think that they died, indirectly of course, to allow people like Mary, Tony M, Ba’alZievel, Mike, Nevermind, Herbie, Mr Scorgie and so on to pour oit their daily tribute of hate against the UK, their own country.”
This from a troll who nicley asks how you are, twists your comments and who needs Viagra to stop him pissing on his hobnail boots.
False teeth that can’t bite,
Hemorroids that hurt when he shite’s
a lame cock that does not stand,
for his little Engeland.
” I have no knowledge of the UK Ambassador to France but he did appear to be rather obsequious in the clips I saw of him in company with the Queen. ”
Well she is his boss and with the whole world watching it wouldn’t exactly have added any dignity to the occasion had he ignored her or stood picking his nose whilst she was talking. Kiss the knighthood goodbye as well.
Kempe,
You can dial the yield down to whatever you want by arranging for a fizzle blast instead of the full blown thing. However that would leave the fallout problem. It would seem to me that you’d need a hypothetical pure (or nearly so) fusion device(s) to keep the fallout down. That would likely leave an excess of tritium which could be detected afterwards. An excess of tritium was found at the twin towers site and that caused a stir at first but that has been put down to radioluminescent emergency exit signs on the planes containing tritium and tritium weapons sights and luminescent watches within the buildings when the planes hit. See https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/241096.pdf . However in the paper they do have to work backwards (or bend over backwards) to estimate the amount of tritium containing devices and assume that must be the cause of the surplus tritium because what else could it be. Their assumptions have been challenged by some but that paper represents the “official” view.
One further thing we know about the propulsion nukes for Project Orion is that they were working towards a minimal fallout design. Freeman Dyson, Taylor and various other poached physicists and bomb designers were seconded to the project. The dream would have been presumably some kind of micro fusion boosted bomb with as small a fission component as possible. Interestingly Taylor said in interviews in later years that he knew how to build a pure fusion bomb but he wasn’t telling.
Even more curious is that Ted Taylor describes how terrorists could bring down the Twin Towers with home made nukes in the book “The Curve of Binding Energy” which was published in 1974.
Ted Taylor had a website which he took down immediately after 9/11 – never to return. I know of no archive of the site. He died in 2004.
A set of curious coincidences at the very least.
“False teeth that can’t bite,
Hemorroids that hurt when he shite’s
a lame cock that does not stand,
for his little Engeland.”
_____________________
shites, Nebelmind, shites (no apostrophe necessary).
Speaking of which, here’s a limerick from the great Robert Conquest. I dedicate it to you.
“A usage that’s seldom got right
Is when to say shit and when shite,
And many a chap
Will fall back on crap,
Which is vulgar, evasive and trite.”