From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:25:03 AM US/Pacific
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Hacking the Bush War Machine
Date: 13 Feb 2003 00:13:05 -0800Oh my! I'm scared. I need more duct tape and plastic sheeting. And more batteries. (But not guns, because Big Brother has conspicuously not said anything about how having a gun might be useful in the Armageddon he is warning about...just a lot of duct tape! Or as Bush no doubt calls it, "duck tape.")
From: Robert xxxxxxx <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: DCI's testimony to Senate today
By now most of you have heard the stunning report that North Korea has a
nuclear missile capable of hitting the West Coast. Another report said
anywhere in CONUS.
The daily drumbeat of warnings about missiles being able to hit the West Coast, about suitcase nukes on the loose in Russia, about smallpox and Ebola, about India preparing to launch against Pakistan, about Chinese leaders unwilling to give up power, about "nucular terrorism," all this is designed, I think, to whip up a war frenzy.
Fact is, it took the United States a lot of testing of various kinds of rockets to get them to fly straight. And it took a solid decade of nuclear weapons tests, simulations, and refinements to get the size down to where they could be lofted by even a large rocket, the aptly-named ICBM. Even today we occasionally launch tests out of Vandenberg (I see the contrails/exhaust sometimes), and many fail. No nuclear weapon has ever been successfully launched from a U.S. rocket and then detonated, even in the years of above ground testing (1962 and prior).
To jump to the conclusion that the DPRK could successfully launch a nuclear-tipped ICBM and hit the U.S., without extensive rocket tests, nuclear tests, etc., is unwarranted. I've seen estimates that as few as one in three U.S. ICBMs could successfully hit their targets and detonate--with all of our expertise and decades of testing. (And there are solid reports that for about 5 years in the late 60s _none_ of the ICBM warheads were capable of detonating, until they could be very quietly and carefully modified to replace faulty components. If true, and I heard this from various sources including my Navy father, this was a critical secret at the time.)
You address some of these points in your throw weight calculations later in your post, but I might as well cut to the chase and not try to analyze your rocket calculations.
The press is riding this panic horse with great enthusiasm. "Cover your mouth with a wet cloth when the chemical attack starts!"
Reporters are out at Home Depot and Lowe's showing panicky shoppers loading up on duct tape and plastic sheeting.
The War on (Some) Dictators obviously needs the same "this is your brain on drugs" hysteria that the War on (Some) Drugs brought us. So we get the same disinformation the press delivered during the drug hysteria: "Art Linkletter's daughter took LSD and thought she could fly!" (A.L. later admitted his daughter was depressed and committed suicide...he thought he could make her life more meaningful by fabricating an anti-drug angle.)
"Soddom is an Evil Doer! His evil plans to dominate the world with nucular weapons are bad, bad! We're gonna lay a can of Texas whoop-ass on that bad boy!"
It's our duty as hackers to hack this war machine and shut it down.
--Tim May
