New pinned tweet 10/26/2023
As you've probably surmised, most of my activity is now on Bluesky. I post occasionally on Mastodon, too. I won't drop this account yet, but please come join me at Bluesky.
I'm seeing a number of commentators just pleased that we're not in a nuclear war.
That's what Trump does: Play up, make possible, an utterly devastating outcome. Then people are pleased when it doesn't happen.
Abuser tactics.
Russian army is firing from all sides upon Zaporizhzhia NPP, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Fire has already broke out. If it blows up, it will be 10 times larger than Chornobyl! Russians must IMMEDIATELY cease the fire, allow firefighters, establish a security zone!
A short explainer. I'm not going to limit replies so that people can ask questions, but I will warn the mansplainers in particular to read my pinned tweet.
I think that not all of what we are hearing is subtext. It's description of a man in full, a country for everyone. It seems like subtext only because of the shrunken man in the White House and his enablers.
Every eulogy at McCain’s funeral has the exact same subtext. Trump isn’t at the ceremony and no one has uttered his name. But man, the messages couldn’t be clearer.
7 busses with Russian soldiers suffering from Acute Radiation Syndrome have arrived to a hospital in Belarus from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine.
They allegedly dug trenches in the highly radioactive Red Forest - UNIAN News Agency
Horrifying story by
@stillsarita
. A 5-year-old girl, separated from her family, signed away her right to a hearing that would have hastened her release and reunification.
Manchin: "I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans."
This reservoir provides the cooling water for the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. It will take some time for the reservoir to drain to a dangerous level for ZNPP, but the clock is now ticking.
And the destruction downstream will be enormous.
Trump should have had none of this at Mar-a-Lago. The questions to ask are what kinds of information, or what kinds of classification. RD is a very red flag. 7/
The article does not say what kind of nuclear documents, whether about American nuclear weapons or other nations'. It also does not say whether the documents relate to the deployment or the design of nuclear weapons. All that makes a difference in classification. 1/
@gnuggat1
A "Chernobyl II" is not possible. The fuel in the ZNPP reactors is hard oxide, and there is no graphite to burn as it did in Chernobyl. Additionally, the containment is a reinforced concrete building around a stainless steel vessel, unlike the containment of Chernobyl.
There's no reason for a president to have nuclear weapons design information that I can see. The classified version of the Nuclear Posture Review, yes, but not to take to Mar-a-Lago. 4/
Information about the design of nuclear weapons is called Restricted Data and is "born classified." That means it is assumed to be classified unless declassified. The process works in the opposite direction for National Security Information. 2/
This is the only article you need to read on whether Russia might use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and how the US might respond. Interviews with people who know this sort of thing - Sam Nunn,
@Gottemoeller
, Scott Sagan, and William Perry.
Here's another possibility. I'm not sure what the classification is of this material. I doubt Trump would have taken the Football itself, but he might have taken the biscuit (the card with the presidential codes) as a keepsake. Those codes were changed at noon 1/20/21. 8/
Eventually we will reach a point where that last red line will flatten out or go down, but it will not be because of prudent action on our part. And there are already hundreds of thousands more deaths than there might have been.
@DenisonBe
Yes. And if everything goes wrong, that will take some time, so it can be dealt with, but a firefight around the administrative buildings is a very bad idea.
One of the things I hate about Senators Murkowski's and Collins's handwringing is that it plays into the worst stereotypes about women. Indecisive, treacherous.
Just shut up and do the right thing.
Senator Murkowski — a key swing vote in the trial, particularly on witnesses and rules — says she’s “disturbed” by Leader McConnell’s coordination with the White House.
RD is different than other kinds of classification. Besides being "born classified," the classification levels are different. By that I mean that
Confidential RD ~ Secret NSI
Secret RD ~ Top Secret NSI
Top Secret RD ~ Limited Access NSI
And there are further levels. 5/
It's been a while since this was part of my job, so I'm not sure how far Restricted Data (RD) extends. Documents like the Nuclear Posture Review and documents with information about where nuclear weapons are stationed may not be RD; I'm not sure about that. 3/
Ukrainian media had speculated that some of the Moskva's P-1000 missiles may have been equipped with 350 kiloton nuclear warheads.
If so Moskva's hulk will present a radiation hazard as the burnt Plutonium oxide ash is both toxic and radioactive.👇
1/
I am talking about the proper handling of those documents and the access of cleared people to the information in those approximate equalities.
This can be confusing to those who are in the system, and I had one hair-raising experience because of it. But it turned out okay. 6/
The Trump administration argued court Tuesday that the government is not required to give soap or toothbrushes to children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border and can have them sleep on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells.
That phrase was a favorite of Hitler's. Germany was stabbed in the back by Europe in the Treaty of Versailles.
Versailles was devastating to Germany. That's why we decided not to do that kind of thing after World War II.
4/
I think I said back then that, in the Soviet Union, the Party always put their man in a secondary position so that he could direct things with less public notice.
Since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the health department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements
Breaking:
The Jan. 6 Committee has requested that Newt Gingrich testify voluntarily behind closed doors the week of Sept. 19.
Info obtained by the Committee shows Gingrich was involved in "aspects of the scheme to overturn the 2020 election and block the transfer of power."
Is it possible that seven busloads of soldiers became ill? Certainly. Stomach virus. Food poisoning from decades-old military rations. Mass psychogenic illness. 9/
As
@funranium
said,
@CherylRofer
@AzbyB
As I’ve been telling people the primary onset symptoms of ARS are remarkably similar to those for anxiety, especially when you’ve been rolling around in things that make the meter click.
Goiania was an unfortunate education in this.
@wellerstein
I knew someone would go that (erroneous) route.
The red cloud is likely from NO2, and the big blast is probably ammonium nitrate. The red is pretty indicative of an ammonium nitrate explosion.
This is one more example of a reporter badly missing the point.
"Oh dear, Kudlow is upset and we can't figure it out."
No. That's not the news here,
@shearm
1/
The thing is, I was at the
@JustinTrudeau
news conference, and he went out of his way to try to downplay tensions. He didn’t attack
@realDonaldTrump
in any way, other than restate Canada would retaliate for tariffs. Not sure what
@larry_kudlow
means re: “stabbed” US in the back
I've been thinking of doing a thread celebrating what we might call superfluous masculinity, along the lines of
@dandrezner
's Toddler in Chief thread.
We are saturated with tropes of masculinity, usually associated with war and violence. We need to become more aware of that.
New: DoD has scheduled 30 interviews btwn Biden-Harris DOD Agency Review Team & top Pentagon officials next week, including w. top US commanders in Afghanistan, Korea & Africa. Incoming Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said DoD hasn't briefed transition since Dec 18.
If you don't want me to block you,
* Don't attack or insult me or others
* Don't mansplain
* Don't be excessively argumentative
* Don't promulgate misinformation
And just generally don't be annoying.
Whoa. Killer detail in
@DavidNakamura
’s story: Pence’s team didn’t even know the name of the current South Korean ambassador to Washington, gave the name of the envoy who left 3+ months ago.
Let me emphasize this.
The point of a "dirty bomb" is to contaminate an area with radioactive material. People in the area will ingest some of that material and will need medical treatment, but few will ingest enough to produce radiation sickness. 1/
A "dirty bomb" could probably contaminate an area roughly a few hundred meters in diameter (if that). To create serious contamination over a large area one would have to blow up a nuclear reactor, Chernobyl-type. A shutdown VVER (like in Zaporizhzhia) would be a lousy dirty bomb
Most of the "hottest" radiation from the Chernobyl accident was from short-lived fission products. The accident was in 1986, 36 years ago. Most of those fission products have decayed away. So the area is much less radioactive. 2/
Carpenters have installed a cabinet of cubbyholes with charging cables just off the Senate floor. As senators enter the trial, they will drop off iPhones or iPads like kindergartners depositing galoshes and backpacks at the start of school.
@shearm
Those are some of the basics I can think of off the top of my head. I'll stick around for questions, but Twitter doesn't serve me all the replies to my tweets. 9/9
This is just silly. Manafort was a loyal member of the Trump crime family. He held back on testimony to protect his boss.
Stunned, perhaps, if it's true that this removes Manafort's 5th Amendment protection, but I would guess there's a lot he doesn't remember.
Time for my repeated speech.
Everything is a chemical. Everything. The chair you are sitting on. The air you breathe. The water you drink.
Pepper.
There are conventions and laws about using irritants. Reporters must study up on them if they want to ask these questions.
"Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. It's not chemical" -- AG Barr uses painstaking distinctions to defend the use of force against protesters near the White House last Monday
Masao Dahlgren is a young OSINT researcher. Mark Hertling is a retired Army general. The difference between them illustrates a continuing governmental problem.
Most, perhaps all of the forest, was never radioactive enough to cause acute radiation syndrome. It's less radioactive now. So no acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 3/
I see that Jonathan Chait is claiming a victory lap for the "lab-leak theory," probably on the basis that Republican congressional staff wrote a report that badly misinterprets Chinese materials to support their own groupthink. 1/
I am one of the last victims of the 1950’s polio epidemics in the US. It is a virus that kills nerves that control muscles and, depending on how critical those muscles, it can make it impossible to walk or even breathe. I only lost the use of my right leg. Vaccinate.
Should the soldiers be stirring up dust in the forest? Should they be digging there?
No, but neither of those will add a lot to the calculation I've done. And you would have to add a lot to go from 57 years to one month.
The amendment to add rape and incest exceptions failed 11-22. Alabama will make abortions a felony, in all cases, from the moment of conception, punishable by up to 99 years in prison.
@BreakingNLive
Oh, that's cool, pairing the video of the Achinsk armory explosion with radiation news about Severodvinsk.
I said it yesterday, but for those in the back row -
ANY EXPLOSION LARGE ENOUGH MAKES A MUSHROOM CLOUD! DOES NOT HAVE TO BE NUCLEAR!
A bit of history: Today is the 31st anniversary of the Baltic Chain, in which people joined hands from Tallinn to Vilnius in support of independence from the Soviet Union.
A friend in need is a friend indeed. What Lithuania is doing for us is just incredible. The song is one of Belarusian historic anthems
Video:
@LRTenglish
#freedomway
#laisveskelias
His talks with President Ronald Reagan on nuclear disarmament were, and will continue to be for some time, unparalled. They almost agreed to outlaw nuclear weapons by the year 2000.
Fuck Richard Perle and Edward Teller for their faith in Star Wars.
Proud to be a part of the
@Bellingcat
team. This is a good explanation of how open-source intelligence is done.
And we can ask how much this had to do with the Iranian government's admission that their military shot the plane down.
At 10μSv/hr, it would take 500,000 hours to reach an exposure of 5 Sv, hematopoetic damage and probable death. That's about 21,000 days, or 57 years. So in the month or so that these soldiers have been there, they're far from that. 8/
During his 2018 confirmation hearing, Justice Brett Kavanaugh declared that he considered Roe to be settled law, winning him the crucial support of Senator Susan Collins. A reversal by him would be politically explosive, says
@hillhulse
.
Listen live:
Y'all, my notifications are coming in thick and fast, and I'm trying to watch what's going on. I apologize if I miss your question, but things are happening very fast right now.
I have combed through Vladimir Putin's speeches since February 24 in response to
@wellerstein
's suggestion that it would be useful to have all of Putin's nuclear threats in one place. A short thread summarizing them.
Okay, everyone
DON'T FREAK OUT ABOUT THIS NEW SARS-CoV-2 STRAIN!
The response is to continue doing what you're supposed to do: mask, distance, clean. Do it more.
BREAKING: What first appeared to be a gesture indicating North Korea might be willing to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, appears to have been little more than a propaganda effort for the world's cameras,
@barbarastarrcnn
reports
A private security company is recruiting a "large contingent" of former U.S. military Special Operations personnel to guard polling sites in Minnesota on Election Day in an effort "to make sure that the Antifas don't try to destroy the election sites."
Rant on modeling
1. There are a hundred gazillion models out there. Few of their owners have bothered to compare their model to others to see what is working and what isn't.