Protesting and the Vietnam War

America had just been through the Cold War. We were not looking forward to any more wars. Our government however made us believe that if we didn't step in and take a stand, the domino affect would happen and we would all end up falling down. Now why do we always have to be the "big brother" country that has to stand in and get in everyone's business? Now I understand we feel for other countries, but this is how we make enemies. Though we would like to believe we are doing only good, it is hard to believe that to be so when our troops had come back from over seas to tell us otherwise. This country was "sold" on the war. We were more or less guaranteed we had this war in the bag. But more and more body bags were being sent back to America with young people in them. I do believe every war is fought for a reason but it is so sad to think about how much we were lied to by our own government, and to think of how many young lives were stolen from them.

Modern Communication a Global Conflict?

In the last decade, we have seen a dramatic change in how the world communicates. Social networking has transformed the way people will communicate forever, but Im wondering how it will change human behavior on a world scale. It has changed the ethics of what is said between people because there is less time face to face. Could the loss of these ethics make its way into communication between nations? Many describe modern communication as lazy because technology companies are trying to make interactions and transactions easier. With these new technologies comes the death of personal expression (its hard to express in a text message), and without this problems may not be resolved as quickly or resolved at all. I'm not saying members of the UN are only going to text each other from now on, I'm simply trying to bring the point of lack of actual interactions between people may lead to misunderstandings.


Sources

Bowers, Jeremy. "The Ethics of Modern Communication." Jeremy Bowers, 04/06/2006. Web. 27 Jun 2011. .

Nuclear Vulnerability?

     The U.S. and it’s allies have been fighting “the war on terror” for over a decade and up until this point we’ve been lucky. The attacks on 9/11/01 were potent and over 3000 people lost their lives, but future attacks could make this seem small in comparison. Imagine, there could be an attack on this country that would create a swath of death 50-100 miles wide stretching from Washington state dipping down gently into Louisiana and Mississippi and then rising into the northeast, maybe over New York City or Boston, it’s really up to the wind. Since 1957 the United States has been producing and increasingly relying on nuclear power. As of 2010 there are about 120 nuclear power plants in the United States. Of these, 16 have been decommissioned and are sitting idle with pools of spent nuclear fuel that have no final place for storage. Northwest’s Nuclear Columbia Generating station is active and located in Washington state on the banks of the Columbia river. It’s spent fuel is stored in steel casks wrapped in concrete needing no power or maintenance as they are air cooled, pictured below

But let’s say the terrorists from 9/11 changed tactics and went for economic calamity instead of immediate body count? A plane diverted from New york and striking this facility would not only destroy these casks, but engulf them in a fire of jet fuel and nuclear waste! The resulting nuclear plume would be sent into the jet stream and carried across the country in a cataclysmic event that would have nuclear fallout reach the lumber intense industry of the northwest to the fishing hubs of the gulf and the farmlands of middle America, finally hitting the dense population centers of the northeast causing mass confusion and disruption to the nation’s economy on a scale that would rival anything we've seen yet. This is a worst case scenario, but definitely one that's plausible!

Anti-War Music (Vietnam)

I found out about anti-war music and find it very interesting. Now we all know I've been blogging about the Protest against the Vietnam War. There was something amazing created, and it was anti-war music. This was created because angry about the government lieing to the American people about what was really going on in the war. This gave musicians the opportunity to put a message into a song and pass it along. Many people wanted to exercise their constitutional rights. Some of the musicians were Harry Belefonte, the Weavers, Pete Yarrow, Josh White, and Bob Dylan. These musicians inspired people and gave them a reason to relate. When the Vietnam War veterans returned home. They started to tell people what really had happened over seas.

I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag
Joe McDonald (1965)

Well, Come On All Of You, Big Strong Men,
Uncle Sam Needs Your Help Again.
He's Got Himself In A Terrible Jam
Way Down Yonder In Vietnam
So Put Down Your Books And Pick Up A Gun,
We're Gonna Have A Whole Lotta Fun.

Sources
http://www.jwsrockgarden.com/jw02vvaw.htm

Is the United States safe from nuclear attack?

     The answer is unfortunately a resounding no. Nuclear energy has given us the prospect of clean limitless energy that up until this point has proven unrealized. Apart from our nuclear installations being an amazingly tempting target the installations themselves are providing the fuel for a potential homemade nuclear bomb. The prospect of a sovereign nation attacking us is remote and will be for the immediate future due to the nature of our defense strategy know as M.A.D. or mutually assured destruction. This doctrine assures that the United States is safe from hostile countries that would do us harm with the prospect that any aggressor country would meet a full and overwhelming nuclear response to their aggression. This doctrine is flawed however in that it relies on the aggressor to be a sovereign country. If say an organization or a lone wolf were to attack us this strategy would mean the annihilation of millions of innocent people. Say we went after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan with nuclear weapons the world outcry would be enormous. No longer is the nuclear weapon race the sole domaine of sovereign nations. Now organizations around the world with the drive and funding can appropriate nuclear weapons. The ease of this proliferation is partly due to the popularity of nuclear power plants themselves. One of the byproducts of nuclear fission is Plutonium-239, this is due to the fact that not all Uranium-238 is used during the fission process and some Uranium-238 absorbs a neutron at low kinetic energy levels so that it doesn’t split but captures the neutron and after radiating some particles it becomes Plutonium-239. Now Plutonium, is a much better atomic weapon fuel! In fact Plutonium was used to create the smallest nuclear bomb ever tested in the United States known as the W54, it’s about the size of a large shoebox and very easy to hide.

Many Uranium powered power plants in the world reprocess their spent fuel (the United States does not) and this reprocessing by chemical means removes the “unburnt” Uranium and concentrates the Plutonium into a radioactive caked that won’t be used in the reactors.
 The resulting “by-product” is the ideal fuel for a nuclear bomb! If the United States or friendly countries were the only ones with this special process it wouldn't be that bad but countries like North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Pakistan know the physics behind the bomb as well and are more than happy to export their knowledge to the highest bidder creating a huge potential for people that mean to harm us to acquire this material and strike the United States!