Category Archives: Nuclear Weapons

The Second Amendment – Revisited

What does the Second Amendment mean in the context of the Aurora Massacre? Columbine? Virginia Tech? Rep. Giffords Town Meeting? The assassination attempt on President Reagan? The assassination attempts on President Ford? The assassinations of President John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr? And conditions in other countries, Syria? Iraq? Iran?

Fat Man and Little Boy“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

US Constitution, Bill of Rights, Amendment 2.

Does this give each of us the right to our own nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction? If not, what right does it convey? Continue reading →

MakeZine.com: “civilian-friendly” Geiger counter

Laura Cochrane, writing on Makezine.com, reports on the development of  A Stylish and More User-Friendly Geiger Counter:

Coming on the heels of the year anniversary of the Japanese Tohoku-Oki earthquake, Bunnie Huang, a member of the MAKE Tech Advisory Board, tasked himself with designing a civilian-friendly Geiger counter. He was inspired by the efforts of Safecast, an organization whose goal is to build an open sensor network that aggregates trustable, source-neutral radiation monitoring data.

The problem with the current crop of radiation monitors is that they are basically laboratory instruments: accurate & reliable, but bulky, expensive, and difficult to use, requiring a degree in nuclear physics to understand exactly what the readings meant. Another problem with crises like these is that while radiation monitoring is important, it’s something that is typically neglected by the civilian population until it is too late.

Therefore, the challenge set out before me was to design a new Geiger counter that was not only more intuitive and easier to use than the current crop, but was also sufficiently stylish so that civilians would feel natural carrying it around on a daily basis.

We need one of these on every block, and lots of radiation detectors with IP addresses, widely dispersed. Because we need that many, essentially in a distributed network, we should be able to manage large economies of scale, with substantial reductions in  price.

Iranian Scientist Rezai-Nejad Gunned Down at Home – NYTimes.com

Gunmen riding motorcycles fatally shot an Iranian scientist in front of his house in Tehran on Saturday, Iranian news agencies reported. It appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks that Iranian authorities have called an assassination campaign directed by Israeli, American and British intelligence agencies against the country’s nuclear program.

The scientist, Darioush Rezai-Nejad, 35, died, and his wife was wounded and taken to a hospital, the news reports said. They also gave varying descriptions of his expertise, with some describing him as an electronics specialist who worked with Iran’s Defense Ministry. It was uncertain what role, if any, he played in Iran’s nuclear program, which American experts believe is aimed at developing a weapons capacity. Iran denies that it is trying to build a nuclear bomb.

According to the semi-official ISNA news agency, Mr. Rezaeinejad was a doctoral student at Khajeh Nasroldeen Toosi University.

ISNA quoted Safarali Baratloo, political-security deputy for the Tehran’s governor’s office, as saying that whether Mr. Rezai-Nejad “is a nuclear scientist is currently under review and we are not certain.” In earlier reports, several Iranian news outlets identified him as being involved in Iran’s nuclear program but later hedged or backed away from that identification.

The shooting came amid Western concerns that Iran may be accelerating its production of nuclear materials to get closer to being able to make a weapon. The expanded effort is overseen by Fereydoon Abbasi, the nuclear physicist who runs the country’s Atomic Energy Organization.

On Nov. 29 Dr. Abbasi was driving to work when a motorcyclist approached and attached an explosive device to the door of his car. The physicist rushed away, pulling his wife with him, and they escaped with minor injuries.

But on the same day, Majid Shahriari, a colleague on the faculty of Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University, was killed in a similar attack, and his wife and driver were injured. Iranian authorities said Professor Shahriari had managed a major nuclear project.

via Iranian Scientist Rezai-Nejad Gunned Down at Home – NYTimes.com.