G27

It's interesting that one has to seek out this sort of news - none of the major networks are covering it. Even the BBC barely made notice of it. Of course, if you only watch / read Fox or CNN, you'd probably think the riots in Greece and Portugal ended long ago...

Or not.

Meh, I know snopes is like wikipedia, but they show their work here and it looks like most of that is incorrect: snopes.com: Social Security Changes

No, that's the Gonorrhea. You should probably go to the clinic...

What a flippin jerkwad.

Much longer?

Hey TDR - missed seeing you on here!

Heck, how many folks have been exposed to lethal radiation doses in Japan even AFTER a 9.0 earthquake and a 10 meter tsunami? So far the death toll is @ 0, last I saw. Everything - EVERYTHING - that could possibly have gone wrong went wrong and they still probably avoided a deadly exposure. Yah, crappy design indeed...

About 160 miles, though not concerned. Seth's Blog: The triumph of coal marketing

Prayers lifted for David.

I haven't seen that one, but any chance editing might have made it look different than it really was?

Well, here's my thinking... BG breaks in, I grab the shotgun and 1- if it's empty, I *have* to rack the slide, which is potentially time wasted and also unwanted noise 2- I *might* drop the weapon, but the chances of my doing so are rather slim. I dunno, worrying about the possibility of dropping a firearm which then *might* go off rather than having it ready to defend you and yours seems, well, a bit overly cautious to me. But do what you will.

Congrats! Very cool!

Ahh, thanks - that's the part I was mis-remembering...

Do you have to register a homebuilt gun in any way?

I have my kids in my home, so if a BG is in the house, I'm going to find him - camping out in my room isn't an option. Therefore, I have my HD weapons ready to go.

In theory it makes no difference, but if anyone has fairly extensive research on hardening electronics against EMPs, it would be the US and Russian militaries.

Yah, that was my point earlier in this thread - the boogeyman effect has folks thinking in pure ideals. In the real world nothing works across the board like that, and little things that seem insignificant can radically alter the effects. IOW, there's no going back to the 1800's from a few HEMPs. Could screw us up pretty good, yah, but Lights Out and One Second After are just interesting fiction...

I'm no rocket surgeon, but my understanding is that there's nothing simple about lifting a nuclear warhead 200km above the earth's surface. I don't know of any rogue / third world nations that even have that sort of lift capability.

Tennessee governor signs health care freedom into law – Tenth Amendment Center Blog

I'm fairly certain every US report I've read was based on a nuclear detonation @ 220-400 miles altitude above the surface. No fallout, no damage from the explosion, but a very nice EMP is generated...

Oh, a HEMP is absolutely carried via a missile as a launch vehicle, which is the difficult part. Few countries have the tech to get one high enough to do the damage necessary for it to be worth the risk. And again, tests have been run over the years with various results - Starfish Prime is a good example of a US test and the Russians did a few as well - none of them yielded the sort of 'end of times' results that we read about in these threads... Not saying it couldn't happen, just saying in the real world, it's highly unlikely that even if one of the handful of countries with the capability (both warhead and delivery vehicle) decided to do so, that we'd see the total 'frying' of everything. The biggest issue would likely be our agin power grid, which would almost certainly fail considering our high power lines make for perfect antennae. Good luck replacing all those transformers anytime soon...

The reality is an HEMP detonation that cripples everything is likely just working theory - not really possible in the real world. It could put us in a world of hurt, yes, but kill everything? Unlikely. I can't find it now, but I read about a military test fairly recently where 100% of autos were killed by the pulse, yet nearly 80% were able to be restarted and driven off afterwards (with some minor systems not working). I kinda think the HEMP is the modern day boogeyman...

Can the US ships generate 100v/50Hz power? Us generators? We're not talking about something you'd pick up at Lowes here, I bet these plants require HUGE generators, and most of the large generators I've ever seen are built for one specific voltage and operating frequency...