I bought a geiger counter last week.

[Liberal In Texas]

With the threat of a nuclear exchange between S. Korea and the U.S. a real possibility, anybody firing off nukes will bring a cloud of radiation drifting this way

Just thought I'd see how screwed we are if that happens.



I never thought of this before the Siberian Candidate was elected.

There you have it, I'm officially paranoid.

[still_one]

1. There is a bigger risk from Radon

[Liberal In Texas]

2. Not if they light off the bombs.

Right now, I agree. Radon will eventually give you lung cancer.

But when nukes are lit off anyplace in the world, the radiation will get here. It gets into food and water. In the bad old days of nuke testing a lot of fallout came to the US via the winds. If they do any atmospheric testing or we have a war, the fallout will effect generations. The radiation breaks DNA, causes cancers even years later.

[NickB79]

3. The US and USSR lit off almost 100 nuclear tests in 30 years

A few low-yield NK nukes, or even a few US retaliatory nuke strikes, wouldn't come close to what all those Pacific tests released.

And if you're worried about WW3, living long enough to die of cancer is a best-case scenario if a few thousand nukes fly.

[Liberal In Texas]

5. Actually the bombs are bigger now.

Don't know what N.Korea has, but even back in the bad old days of the 50s, and 60s with the Hiroshima sized bombs, the radiation wasn't anyway near what we can do now.

And I firmly believe that the nuke tests done back then caused cancers.


The photograph shows John Wayne with his two sons during a break in filming on the set of The Conqueror, a big budget blockbuster about Genghis Khan shot in the Utah desert in 1954.

And then, as years passed and cast and crew fell sick, it acquired a darker reputation. Powell got lymph cancer and died in 1963. “It got him pretty quickly,” said Norman. The same year Pedro Armendáriz, a Mexican actor who played Khan’s right-hand man, Jamuga, shot himself after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Hayward, who played a Tartar princess, died of brain cancer in 1975. By the time Wayne succumbed to stomach cancer in 1979, The Conqueror had been dubbed an RKO Radioactive Picture. His sons Patrick and Michael battled – and survived – their own cancer scares. A People magazine article in 1980 reported that of 220 cast and crew, 91 had contracted cancer, with 46 of them dying. No bombs were tested during the filming, but the article quoted Robert Pendleton, director of radiological health at the University of Utah, saying radioactivity from previous blasts probably lodged in Snow Canyon/
Wiki


And I'm just saying, it could drift into every state on this side of the hemisphere.

[progree]

7. First US H-Bomb test was in 1952 followed by first Soviet H-bomb test in 1953

[womanofthehills]

10. Trinity Site detonation - generations of illnesses and deaths

Some people were living 15 miles from the test and never warned.

New health survey at nuclear test site details decades of illnesses, deaths

More than 70 years after the detonation of the first atomic bomb, residents of Southern New Mexico who were unwittingly exposed to the fallout, as well as their descendants and advocates, have released a new report that details the decades of illnesses and deaths they believe were caused by the Trinity Site test, and other detrimental effects to their communities.

The health impact assessment, titled “Unwilling, Unknowing and Uncompensated,” focuses on four main ways that families have been affected by the Manhattan Project blast in 1945: generations of illnesses and deaths, lack of access to health care, economic struggles and fears of severe health problems for future generations.

The document was commissioned by the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, an organization that for years has been advocating for these residents. It was paid for with a $35,000 grant from the Santa Fe Community Foundation, with help from the Kellogg Foundation. The overriding purpose of the assessment, said consortium co-founder Tina Cordova, is to present a case for why the downwinders should be included in the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a law that provides benefits to many people exposed to nuclear fallout during bomb testing but excludes those living near Trinity.
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/new-health-survey-at-nuclear-test-site-details-decades-of/article_4cfc0b66-67ae-5a5d-a542-6977b5164e7d.html

[Sunlei]

4. I always wanted one of those! So tell us, what readings in your area?

[Liberal In Texas]

6. Pretty much nothing.

Wondered about the Japanese car we have, but it was purchased just before Fukushima.

[womanofthehills]

8. I always wanted one because I live 50 miles from the Trinity Site & above White Sands Missle Range

I'm directly north of the Trinity Site. One of the radioactive plumes went north/east. There is still plutonium south of me on Chupadera Mesa. I'm also right above White Sands Missle Range which is creepy as they are now doing lots of anti-missile testing and who knows what's in the air.

Every time it rains, Plutonium from the 1940's runs down the Rio Grande (but the Albuquerque Journal told us "not to worry." Back then, all the radioactive debris was just dumped in the hills around Los Alamos. The Rock Shop in Bingham, NM still sells Trinitite.



Have you checked any Pacific seafood with your geiger counter? Fukushima!!!

[Ninsianna]

9. Have you checked your countertops? There was some panic a few years ago with

radioactive granite counters.