From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 13:22:47 +0800
To: declan@well.com
Subject: RE: Nuclear Hedge Funds
In-Reply-To: <v03102803b03bbc3d22d3@[207.167.93.63]>
Message-ID: <v03102808b03bdb426c9e@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 10:00 PM -0700 9/9/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, Tim May wrote:
>> Declan would be very unlikely to be in the lethal zone, unless he happened
>> to be near one of the obvious targets.
>>
>> (Which in my opinion would be the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon,
>> or the densepack burrowcrat warrens. Using the above calculations, it is
>> quite reasonable that big chunks of these buildings would survive a
>> suitcase nuke placed a few hundred meters away. The Pentagon might lose a
>> bite out of it, and thus look like some kind of mil-spec Apple logo.)
>
>That's hardly comforting (not sure if it was meant to be). I work four or
>so blocks from the White House and spend a good bit of time in the Capitol
>and related buildings. My office is in the densepack lobbyist warren
>territory on K Street.
>
>I do live, however, about a mile and a half from anything especially
>targetworthy.

Then you may  be OK, as the best time to trigger such events is probably at
rush hour in the morning, where I assumed, being a reporter, you're still
recovering from the shmooze parties the night before.

One thing that seems possible is a coordinated, multi-city detonation
(assuming the freedom fighters have several armable devices, which seems
possible). Several small nukes being detonated in A, B, C, and D (where
these are the capitals or centers of influence of one's political
opponents) would synergistically magnify the terror effect. Detonating just
one of them would probably result in severe travel restrictions, martial
law, etc., and so make detonation of the later ones problematic.

More of us will be executed, tortured, or otherwise injured in the
aftermath of martial law than would be injured in a suitcase-nuking of the
snake's head. (By "us" I mean reasonable people like ourselves, not the
unemployable welfare addicts and unemployable government lifers who cluster
around the target zones.)

--Tim May



There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."