*Written by Rob Rimes.

I’m not going to sit here and type up some bullshit scare piece about how American society is ripping apart at the seams. However, I am going to point to the fact that the actions of our military and the words of several of our political elite in this country have come off as pretty disgusting the last few days. This has been a weird week full of strange happenings and none of it really paints a positive picture as to where this is all going. Tensions in Iran are at an all-time high and the truth is, we are at war, it just hasn’t been declared yet. I mean, between drone attacks, assassinations and secret sabotage attempts, what else would someone call it? Over in Afghanistan, tensions are also pretty high, if not even higher than they were a few days ago.

You see, two incidents have happened recently that are a bit unsettling. The first incident involves United States Marines pulling their dicks out and pissing on dead Taliban soldiers. Now while I understand that these dead men are pretty much dead dogs and terrorists, it doesn’t excuse this immature and classless act. A lot of people are really upset about this and there are also a good amount who are praising these servicemen for emptying their bladders on these slain bastards. Now while I am not a person who is easily offended by things, I do find this to be disturbing because of the message it sends.

Now I understand that war is hell and outsiders can’t necessarily put themselves in the mind frame of a soldier in the heat of battle but regardless of that, this is still inexcusable. When a man or woman wears that uniform they are representing all of us and to partake in such actions makes our country, as a whole, look like a bunch of assholes. It’s also going to just piss the Taliban off even more, as their dead are being disrespected. Granted, I could care less about showing them any respect but what this incident really does is it disrespects the United States and what it is we are supposed to stand for. This sort of behavior just paints a really clear picture of reality, that we are an evil empire toppling regimes and milking resources all over the globe. It’s obvious that this isn’t about fighting terrorism anymore considering that the guy we went in there to get, we got. Realistically, even though we just snuffed Osama bin Laden last year, it doesn’t mean that we didn’t lose sight of our purpose before that. In all honesty, I think our leaders were completely dishonest about the real reason as to why we went over there to begin with.

As for the soldiers pissing on dead people, I understand that they may have been high on adrenaline and disgusted by the evil fucksacks that they had just killed but if they are incapable of maintaining the behavior and decorum of an American man in uniform, then they need to be dealt with. In this case, they obviously weren’t able to do the right thing and not succumb to their sophomore antics. What these soldiers failed to understand, in the heat of the moment, is that America needs to be the country setting the example across the globe. If we’re going to preach all the things we preach to people, then what are they going to think when they see our military personal pissing all over their fresh kills. Just because the Taliban beheads dead American soldiers and parades them around in the streets, doesn’t make it right for us to disrespect them in a tasteless fashion. Truthfully, if you were to commit an act like this, you shouldn’t take pictures or video for fuck’s sake! On stupidity alone these guys should be court marshaled.

Needless to say, the Pentagon is pissed. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said:

I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable. Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent.

Former Marine and U.S. Congressman Michael Grimm said:

This actually hurts me. This is painful. There’s no excuse for this ever happening. They were trained, and they know better, and they disgraced their country.

Former Army lieutenant colonel and U.S. Congressman Allen West said this in a letter to the Weekly Standard:

I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.

I agree with West, for a change, but do find myself at odds with his last sentence. The people don’t need to shut their mouth, they need to hold their leaders and their military accountable for their actions, whether he thinks that we can wrap our heads around war or not.

The point of all this is that when you are in the military you take an oath to serve and protect this country. With that oath comes the responsibility of carrying yourself in a certain manner, with a certain attitude and a certain set of principles. These four men who urinated on these dead Taliban soldiers did not carry themselves in such a way and should be punished for their actions. The world already sees us as a giant bully and now we’ve given them more reason to think that. In fact, we’ve probably ignited even more hatred within the hearts of our enemies and the repercussions of that could just be more of our servicemen sent back home in body bags as we continue on this pointless conquest.

All the pundits praising these guys are assholes. Then again, those same pundits want perpetual war in an effort to combat this fictitious “War on Terror”. These pundits are even praising the assassination of Iranian scientists as well, which brings me to my next point.

Just yesterday, an Iranian scientist was assassinated when men on motorcycles put a magnetic bomb on his car and detonated it. Several other people, besides this scientist, were injured in the blast. Now it is suspected that Israel was behind the attack, which means that the United States was involved or most likely knew about it. So, why was the scientist killed? Well, he was working on Iran’s nuclear program. Apparently, just because of that, he deserved to be murdered and the innocent people around him deserved to be maimed.

Now this attack wasn’t the first one like this. A similar assassination happened a few months back and that one took the lives of two people. Of course, the American mainstream media praised the attack and completely ignored the reality of the situation. With this latest attack, the mainstream media followed the exact same formula and condoned this action as well.

In fact, Sean Hannity on his radio show, just after the attacks, said:

Whoever is involved in the killing of these Iranian nuclear scientists, God bless them.. ..I wish we were involved.

You can hear him for yourself at this link.

So not only is Hannity condoning murder, he is condoning terrorism, YES terrorism. I guess where Mr. Hannity sits it is only terrorism when it is someone else doing it to us. How would he react if the roles were reversed and Iranians killed either Israeli or American scientists, not to mention innocent bystanders? Hannity and every mainstream shitcock like him would be outraged and calling for war! Hell, we’d hear about how the dead scientists were just patriots doing their duty for their country and now their children have to grow up without their mom or dad. When you flip the fucking coin, this bullshit is absolutely transparent and it is sickening! To steal an old overused cliché adage: what has America become?

I can’t just point the gun of reason at Sean Hannity, I’ve also got to point it at my favorite punching bag, the big bag of dicks himself.. Rick Santourm! Of course this piece of crap asshole had to open his mouth in regards to all this. Here’s what the bastard said:

On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that’s a wonderful thing, candidly. I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, North Korea, or from Iran and you are going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe. And people say ‘well, you can’t go out and assassinate people.’ Well tell that to al-Awlaki. Okay, we’ve done it. We’ve done it to an American citizen, so we can certainly do it to someone who is producing a nuclear bomb that can be dropped in the state of Israel or provides a nuclear shield for a country which spreads terrorism with impunity and changes the face of the world.

Hey, here’s the video!

God, I hate this guy. Santorum is so quick to fight abortion yet so quick to murder anyone he can paint as a fucking boogeyman and he does it while carrying the cross. This sanctimonious fucksack is the worst kind of evil and the fact that people would vote for this guy just blows my goddamned mind! The fact that the people in the room when he said this didn’t throw the closest objects they had next to themselves at Santorum’s head is a fucking travesty. Guys like Santorum, with comments like that, are just terrorists themselves. Rick Santorum will never let the crusades end, he won’t stop until he drowns in the blood of Islam as he is blinded by faith in a God he thinks he understands. The difference between Rick Santorum and the crusaders of the past is that Mr. Santorum is a fucking coward. He would never fight this perceived evil himself, he’d rather just send countless kids over there to die for his archaic vision and just like Sean Hannity, he would condone all acts of terrorism by our guys and our allies because we are on the right side of this bullshit holy war.

So while condoning all these evil deeds, these guys keep trying to sell us on the idea that Iran is either building a bomb or already has one. Funny, considering Leon Panetta was caught on tape admitting that Iran has no immediate plan for nuclear weapons. That came directly from the mouth of our Defense Secretary yet these establishment conservative cockpuppets continue to ignore facts and preach insanity. These are the same vile dickbags that are high-fiving each other over soldiers pissing on terrorists, even if they don’t publicly support that action. The fact is, we’re a nation lead by and preached to by cowards who would never pick up arms themselves. Fuck these cockroaches.

To be frank, America’s behavior is becoming deplorable in the realm of the military, politics and the media. At least there are us sane people that can see through this sort of bullshit and not succumb to its influence. Then again, guys like O’Reilly and Hannity have consistently high ratings and the attendance at patriotic organizations like Tea Party events has been overtaken by Fox News drones and Newt Gingrich supporters instead of real constitutional conservatives and libertarians who are willing to look passed party politics and promote liberty. I guess I have to wait for that third group to emerge that bridges the gap between the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement and is strictly made up of the best from both groups not the joiners and sycophants. I don’t think this country can wait on that however.

Now I know that this is probably coming off as negative but I do think that there are enough of us that see the forest for the trees. In fact, I know that our numbers grow by the day and even if we have to ride out this storm awhile longer, we are still going to come to a point where enough is enough and the sort of actions and rhetoric that taint the image of our unique society will no longer be effective. The mainstream media and the horrible politicians and the bully military will no longer have a hold on the free minds of the public and they will lose their power. “Live free or die” used to mean something and even if it seems like some overused throwaway slogan from a few hundred years ago, the truth in those words will mean something incredibly significant again.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb and called for continued diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Tehran not to take that step. As he has previously, Panetta cautioned against a unilateral strike by Israel against Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying the action could trigger Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces in the region. “We have common cause here” with Israel, he said. “And the better approach is for us to work together.” Panetta’s remarks on CBS’ Face the Nation, which were taped Friday and aired Sunday, reflect the long-held view of the Obama administration that Iran is not yet committed to building a nuclear arsenal, only to creating the industrial and scientific capacity to allow one if its leaders to decide to take that final step. – PressTV/YouTube/Washington Post

Dominant Social Theme: Iran is evil. War is in the offing.

Free-Market Analysis:  Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta admitted on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Iran was not seeking to make nuclear weapons. OK, we can all relax now, right? Not quite. Panetta went on to caution that Iran was seeking a “nuclear capability” and that this “concerned” him – and presumably others as well.

Who are the others, we ask? President Barack Obama? The military? The CIA? Israel? No, we have another hypothesis. We think the current crisis is a manufactured one and that Iran’s “capability” – whatever it is – has little to do with any contemplated war.

There will be war, if there is war, between the West and Persia because the West NEEDS a war. Already, in the West, the alternative media – often a beacon of truth and hope – is explaining there will be war because ISRAEL feels threatened.

But this is not quite true, either. Israel is a creation of the power elite and it is the Anglosphere power elite that is currently seeking war, in our view. It seems to need or want a war to prop up its failing central banking system.

It is the failure of the financial system, proceeding apace, that gives rise to this talk of war, to the military tensions, to the tendentious statements made by Washington, DC and to a lesser extent by European and Israeli leaders.

What other conclusion can be reached? Iran HAS no nuclear weapons. And even if it did, is Iran somehow more evil or unstable than North Korea, which is evidently bent on increasing a nuclear arsenal that it already has built?

But Iran, it is said, can target Israel with nuclear weapons. Yet North Korea can do the same with South Korea. Compare the “tensions” and rhetoric and one has to conclude that a double standard is being applied. It is seemingly a situation where Iran’s ongoing nuclear program is simply a tool designed to unlock wider rhetoric. Here’s a further excerpt from a Washington Post on the subject:

The comments suggest the White House’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear strategy has not changed in recent months, despite warnings from advocates of military action that time is running out to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear-armed state. Iran says its nuclear program is only for energy and medical research, and refuses to halt uranium enrichment.

Several Republican candidates have called for a tougher line against Iran, saying they believe it is committed to building the bomb. “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon,” said Mitt Romney. “And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Rick Santorum has said that the U.S. should plan a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and “say to them that if you do not open up those facilities and close them down, we will close them down for you.” Iran has opened two dozen of its facilities to international inspectors, but has refused in defiance of the U.N. Security Council to suspend its uranium enrichment.

Panetta did not rule out launching a pre-emptive strike. “But the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them to force them to do the right thing,” he said. “And to make sure that they do not make the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.”

We can see from the above excerpt how strongly the drums of war are beating. Panetta, while admitting that Iran has no weaponized nuclear program, will not rule out a “pre-emptive” strike. The entire scenario seems to be some kind of power elite dominant social theme.

These fear-based themes are essentially tools used by the elites to stampede Western middle classes into giving up wealth and power to global institutions specially constructed for that purpose, such as the UN, IMF and World Bank.

In this case, we are not quite sure why the Pentagon – an elite-oriented institution – has decided to focus so intently on Iran. We are sure, however (as we have pointed out previously), that the powers-that-be are creating an Islamic crescent arc in the Middle East by destabilizing secular regimes and replacing them with Islamic ones.

This is ongoing … and perhaps the malicious rhetoric surrounding Iran is merely part of a propaganda process intended to further demonize the region preparatory to a full-on regional war.

Modern wars need years, even decades, to foment, in our view. In the Internet era, this is even harder because people’s natural skepticism about being manipulated will surely be fueled by the fodder provided by various alternative ‘Net news.

Iran/Western tensions seen through this lens are perhaps preparatory and do not indicate an immediate state of hostilities. On the other hand, the amount of weaponry now emplaced in and around Iran certainly gives rise to concern. Even a war planned for later can be generated sooner by mistake (intentional or not). View the video below and make up your own mind.

TEHRAN, Iran — Two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of an Iranian university professor working at a key nuclear facility, killing him and wounding two people on Wednesday, a semiofficial news agency reported.

The attack in Tehran bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program. It is certain to reinforce authorities’ claims of widening clandestine operations by Western powers and allies to try to cripple nuclear advancements.

The bomb killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. Natanz is Iran’s main enrichment site, but officials claimed earlier this week that they are expanding some operations to an underground site south of Tehran with more advanced equipment.

Witnesses told Reuters they had seen two people on the motorcycle fix a bomb to the car.

“The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the (Israelis),” Fars quoted Tehran’s Deputy Governor Safarali Baratloo as saying. “The terrorist attack is a conspiracy to undermine the (March 2) parliamentary elections.”

‘Our path is irreversible’
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the country’s nuclear path would not change despite the killing, which it branded a “heinous act”.

CONTINUED at MSNBC.

*Taken from Washington’s Blog.

It is now common knowledge that the U.S. and Israel developed the Stuxnet computer virus in order to slow down Iran’s nuclear program.

As the New York Times noted in January:

Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role — as a critical testing ground in a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts to make a bomb of its own.

Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.

“To check out the worm, you have to know the machines,” said an American expert on nuclear intelligence. “The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out.”

Though American and Israeli officials refuse to talk publicly about what goes on at Dimona, the operations there, as well as related efforts in the United States, are among the newest and strongest clues suggesting that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian program.

***

Officially, neither American nor Israeli officials will even utter the name of the malicious computer program, much less describe any role in designing it.

But Israeli officials grin widely when asked about its effects. Mr. Obama’s chief strategist for combating weapons of mass destruction, Gary Samore, sidestepped a Stuxnet question at a recent conference about Iran, but added with a smile: “I’m glad to hear they are having troubles with their centrifuge machines, and the U.S. and its allies are doing everything we can to make it more complicated.”

***

By the accounts of a number of computer scientists, nuclear enrichment experts and former officials, the covert race to create Stuxnet was a joint project between the Americans and the Israelis, with some help, knowing or unknowing, from the Germans and the British.

And the Telegraph noted last month:

Although Israel has not officially accepted responsibility for the Stuxnet attack, evidence of its role has been mounting since it was first discovered last July.

***

Attributing the source of cyber attacks in notoriously difficult, but security researchers say factors including complexity of the operation, which would have required human sources inside the Iranian nuclear programme, point strongly to the Israeli security forces.

As PC World pointed out last November,

The sophisticated Stuxnet is a “game changer” for companies and governments looking to protect their networks, said Sean McGurk, acting director of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

***

As of last week, there were still about 44,000 computers infected with Stuxnet worldwide, with about 60 percent of them in Iran, said Dean Turner, director of Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network. About 1,600 of the current infections are in the U.S., he said.

***

“Stuxnet demonstrates that industrial control systems are more vulnerable to cyberattacks than in the past for several reasons, including their increased connectivity to other systems and the Internet,” he said. “Further, as demonstrated by past attacks and incidents involving industrial control systems, the impact on a critical infrastructure could be substantial.”

As Israel National News writes today:

***

In a correspondence with cyber-security firm Symantec some six months ago, Langner named a “hacker underground” as the possible threat:

***

The New York Times recently reported that the Stuxnet virus could possibly still be infecting Iranian systems and that it may unleash additional havoc on new targets.

Has Stuxnet Already Caused Damage Outside Of Iran?

Since the Japanese earthquake, Michael Rivero has posted hundreds of articles arguing that the Stuxnet virus has “gotten loose” and attacked other nuclear power plants outside of Iran.

The former editor of the Japan Times – Yoichi Shimatsu - writes:

Tepco engineers suggested that the electric power inside the plant was knocked out by something other than the tsunami. I have pointed to this possibility early on, that the quake and control disruptions could have made the control computers vulnerable to the Stuxnet virus.

According to Yomiuri, Stuxnet was in Japan as of October of 2010. However, I find it hard to believe that it was not the massive earthquake and the enormous tsunami which knocked out the power (although I suppose a virus could have exacerbated the damage).

There have been a lot of strange stories about unexplained nuclear power plant shutdowns. For example, as Fox News reported last week:

A nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia has been taken out of service until authorities determine why it unexpectedly shut down.

I have no idea whether or not the shutdowns were caused by Stuxnet accidentally spreading to other reactors, instead of just hitting its intended target: Iran.

But at the very least, the virus created by the U.S. and Israel to slow down Iran’s nuclear program has opened a “Pandora’s box” which leaves our nuclear plants and other sensitive facilities open to attacks by hostile governments or rogue hackers.

*Taken from The Sun.

The Packbot, from the US, is exploring damaged buildings and taking radiation readings in areas of the stricken reactors still considered too dangerous for humans to enter.

The plant, on the north-eastern coast, was devastated by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan on March 11.

About 210,000 people living near the nuclear reactors were evacuated when radiation levels soared.

The death toll following the disaster has been raised to 14,603, with a further 13,691 still listed as missing.

Shogo Fukuda, of the Tokyo Electric Power Comany which runs the plant, said it had only just begun using one of the two robots, which were supplied by iRobot in Bedford, Massachusetts.

It took crews several weeks to learn how to use the complex devices which are equipped with cameras and sensors.

CONTINUED..

Why is BHO the Douchebag of the Week? It’s pretty easy and if you are even slightly aware of what the hell’s going on in the world, you obviouslly know much more than the 44th POTUS. See, while earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns are destroying Japan and nearly every country in the Middle East is practically at Civil War in addition to our crumbling economy and job market, Barry O was on ESPN filling out his March Madness brackets. I guess predicting outcomes to a basketball tournament is a much bigger issue to Obama then the devastation encompassing the world. Well hey, at least he squeezed in a golf game or two to take a break from all the heavy shit he’s avoided dealing with. It is nice to know that the leader of the free world has no backbone and balls. That means the sky’s the limit, since any loser or coward could be President of the United States.

UPDATE:

Now he is a double douche! Why? Because he declared war on Libya, which is fucked and tyrannical, as a declaration of war must come from Congress. Didn’t Obama run on a campaign that painted him as M.C. Antiwar? He claimied he was going to bring troops home ASAP from Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re still in both. Now we are in a third war. He also promised to close Gitmo, he hasn’t done that. In fact, his stance on it (and the wars) mimics the stance of the Bush Administration. Now, Obama has surpassed the warmongering of Bush by bringing us into our third war. Kudos to you sir, kudos to you!

*Taken from io9. Written by Alasdair Wilkins.

As Japan’s Fukushima power plant continues to struggle with massive equipment failure and radiation release that could well reach Chernobyl levels, we can take some small comfort in the knowledge that a full-on nuclear explosion is completely impossible. Here’s why.

Chain Reactions

Both nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons depend upon chain reactions. Such reactions require the presence of fissile materials, which are any atomic isotopes which can, when they undergo a particular nuclear reaction, create the raw materials necessary for the same reaction to repeat itself. There’s only one naturally occurring fissile isotope useful for nuclear power, and that’s uranium-235 – all other fissile isotopes, such as various plutonium isotopes, have to be artificially “bred” from natural isotopes.

So how does a chain reaction work? Let’s consider the one involving uranium-235, which is the chain reaction used in nuclear reactors and many nuclear weapons. A free neutron hits a slow-moving uranium-235 isotope and is absorbed into it. Here one of two things can happen: the uranium will fission into two lighter, faster-moving isotopes, typically krypton-92 and barium-141, as well as some gamma radiation. The nuclear reactor is then able to absorb this energy, which is about three million times the energy the same amount of coal can produce in conventional burning.

Crucially, this reaction also creates additional free neutrons, which can then be absorbed into other uranium-235 isotopes and start the whole process over again. This is why, of the naturally occurring uranium isotopes, only uranium-235 is fissile – when uranium-238 undergoes such reactions, it can’t release neutrons with the energy to start up a chain reaction.

As long as the reactions create an average of one or more neutrons, the chain reaction can go on indefinitely. Frequently, these reactions create more than one free neutron, which can cause the amount of energy being produced to increase over subsequent generations.

Safety Measures

To prevent a potentially dangerous buildup of energy, nuclear reactors build in huge numbers of fail-safes and redundancies. One of the better-known methods is the use of control rods, which are made from materials such as boron that absorb neutrons but cannot undergo nuclear reactions. In the event of a runaway energy buildup, these rods are often rigged to fall right into the heart of the reactor to absorb all the free neutrons and shut down the chain reaction. Mismanagement of these rods was one of many factors behind the Chernobyl disaster.

And yes, if all the fail-safes and redundancies do somehow fail to stop the heat buildup – as they did in Chernobyl, as they partially did at Three Mile Island, and as they might do in the current situation in Japan – there can be some pretty nasty effects. The most infamous threat is that of a nuclear meltdown, which is when the heat buildup causes the entire core to melt, damaging the protective structures to the extent that intensely radioactive materials can be released into the environment.

A meltdown obviously can have horrific short-term and long-term environmental effects, but what about an actual explosion? Could a nuclear reactor explode with the sort of force unleashed in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? After all, Chernobyl exploded, didn’t it? Thankfully, the answer to all this is no, a nuclear explosion is impossible, and the destructive blast at Chernobyl was actually just a steam explosion – and a good thing too, because a nuclear blast of the same magnitude could have turned Chernobyl from a horrific disaster to a full-on cataclysm. But again, such an explosion is totally impossible, and to understand why we have to look at the difference between nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.

A Matter of Quality

Although we think of uranium as the most common fuel for nuclear reactions, that isn’t strictly true. Natural uranium is pretty much completely useless for nuclear reactors, let alone nuclear weapons. This is because natural uranium is about 99.3% composed of the isotope uranium-238, while just .7% uranium-235, and only the latter is capable of sustaining nuclear chain reactions.

To make uranium usable for chain reactions, it needs to be enriched. This involves carefully separating out the uranium-235 from the uranium-238. The two have practically the same mass, particularly because uranium-235 is typically found in a compound state with fluorine, which nudges its mass to pretty much that of its big brother.

Nuclear reactors need low-enriched uranium, which is defined as anything with less than a 20% concentration of uranium-235. Typically, nuclear power plants only need a 3-4% concentration to have reactor grade uranium. Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, require highly enriched uranium for the sort of runaway chain reaction that can create a nuclear explosion. The cutoff for high enrichment is just 20%, but the vast majority of nuclear weapons use uranium with a concentration of anywhere from 80 to 95%. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, for instance, used 80% enriched uranium.

Critical Mass

So what’s the real difference between low- and high-enriched uranium? Why couldn’t low-enriched uranium create an explosion that’s just not quite as severe as its high-enriched equivalent? For that, we must turn to another term that is frequently mentioned but infrequently understood, and that’s critical mass. The term simply means that there’s enough fissile material present to sustain a chain reaction, and a supercritical mass is where enough material is present for the fission rate to increase.

Although mass is obviously an important factor here – hence the name – it’s possible to alter the point of criticality by varying other attributes of the material, including shape and density. A nuclear weapon is designed to release all its energy in one incredibly destructive blast, which means the material wants to be as densely packed with fissile material as possible, and the material should be packed into as homogeneous a sphere as possible.

That’s absolutely nothing like the design of reactor cores, which is meant to produce a steady, controlled release of energy, and even the sort of energy buildup needed to produce a meltdown can’t ever attain the speed and intensity needed for an explosive nuclear energy release. The geometric arrangement of uranium-235 in a nuclear reactor is just fundamentally not conducive to the spherical arrangement needed for an explosive chain reaction, and the amount of non-fissile uranium-238 in reactor-grade uranium also stops any runaway reactions dead in their tracks.

Why this matters

None of this is intended to minimize the very real dangers of nuclear reactor accidents. As seen in Chernobyl, meltdowns can have absolutely devastating environmental effects, and the nearby town of Pripyat remains uninhabitable twenty-five years after the accident. We don’t yet know whether the current situation in Japan will reach Chernobyl levels – experts have at least seriously considered the possibility, but we still don’t have a clear handle on the full extent of the danger.

Still, even in the midst of disasters of unimaginable proportions, it’s crucial to try to maintain some nuance regarding the line between real fears and hysteria, and in the case of nuclear safety the best way to do that is to understand a little of the science behind the technology. The threat of a nuclear meltdown is worrisome enough without having to invoke the specter of the mushroom cloud.

Want to know more? Read io9′s explainer on how radiation travels, and what kind of damage it really does.

*Taken from Zero Hedge. Written by Tyler Durden.

Mizuho, the second-largest financial services company in Japan, has just locked out its customers from accessing their cash. Whether or not this is related to Zero Hedge reports from yesterday that the same bank is unable to complete ¥570 billion in transactions in unclear. What is clear is that we can only hope that those who need cash are calm and collected enough not to start a physical run on whatever bank deposit branches are open. From Reuters: “Mizuho Bank said on Thursday that all of its automatic teller machines (ATM) throughout Japan have stopped working. The bank did not immediately give a reason for the outage.” One can only hope that the most recent ¥5 trillion injection was sufficient to keep the liquidity in the banking system online. Alas, should the Mizuho situation not be promptly fixed, we anticipate more injections from the BOJ before the night is out.