Coal is responsible for many orders of magnitude more deaths and radioactive emissions than all nuclear incidents combined. But people don't care about simple things like facts or numbers. Talking about renewables when a significant portion of baseload power is still produced by coal is pointless. Let people have their feel good green tech (made in China, powered by a lot of coal of course ; ), but replace coal with modern nuke.

Denying the place of recent generation nuclear power as a viable strategy of supplying cleaner baseload power is much like denying man made climate change. Fucking moronic.

Thorium salt reactors do produce waste, but it's incredibly safe compared to breeder/lwr reactor byproducts. In fact, you can introduce older reactor waste in to the liquid mix in small amounts and the LFTR will break it down to less harmful components by accelerating decay in the core.

http://lftrnow.com/

"LFTRs can also burn radioactive “waste” we are currently storing, made from the LWR units of today. We could actually reduce our radioactive waste using LFTRs and other Molten-Salt Reactors (MSRs) (more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1fqB6p9pgM)."

So LFTR is a strategy for both power supply and cleaning up existing waste storage. Who'da thunk it??

It's too bad that the Addams Foundation basically used youtube's shitty flagging to nuke any and all episodes from Melissa Hunter, the lady creating the parody. Nevermind that it was a parody, long held to be protected via fair use, gotta keep that chedda in the pockets of the Foundation!

$314 million for one bomb that does more damage to terrain than any enemies.

You could have dropped 1000 cluster bombs for the same price and done way more targeted damage, or 10000 JDAMS / Laser guided bombs.

This is all just Trumps ego. He wanted to show how serious he is, and nobody would let him drop a nuke, so they used his short attention span to dangle this MOAB in from of him to make him feel good.

"Yeah, yeah, it's the biggest one we have"

He's not even good at war mongering.

I say we dust off and nuke the site from orbit.
It's the only way to be sure.

It's amazing to see just how smooth and clean Putin's or "Russia's": "Coup O' America" is running, using empty-headed our power-hungry Republicans as the tools to make it work. (Yeah sure it's I don't believe this; but does it really matter when it is still turning OUT the same way?!)

Essentially just putting a person in each office that wants to tear it apart, so that they destroy America from the inside. Then put an administration on top that would run like a classic Dictatorship-lite. Right now our military branch and side branches--like the courts, taxes/money, infrastructure, etc... Are the only things that can actually respond and do jack-shit. Our country is running around like a chicken with its head chopped off.

Trump has NO idea what in the hell he is doing at all at the wheel. We ALL know this by now; if you don't agree on this you are absolutely lying to yourself. He has yet to make ONE announcement as President, that is actually--you know--presidential... Like after North Korea and it's missile test, then it's warning about Nuke use. Iran's proclamation. Russia's little boat fiasco (HHRrrmmm...Me Trump...Not Good!...)...

You could tell that Trump has absolutely no handle on anything at the last press briefing where all he did was bitch and moan, and didn't do anything useful at all. All he did was sit there and act like a spiteful little crybaby--Obama should've tried that out at the start when everybody called him a Muslim, non-citizen, the anti-christ, and whatever shit popped in their mouth.

Then we have the folks that say, "See, look the same thing happened to Obama too! So we are j-u-s-t-f-i-e-d!". Now that is the worst way to make a case for equivalency, ever...

Its easy to surprise people if you just make s#!t up.

Reminds me of that one time Ronald Reagan joked about nuking the Soviet Union with the mike switched on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgSSRE27GQ0

... except Donald does it all the time and keeps a straighter face. Or maybe he is not joking? Is that why he elicits such uncomfortable laughter?

Death sentence, maybe, maybe not, but so dangerous that they didn't go, and the rest, yes. He's the polygamist leader that had sex with all the group's children....in prison now, but in charge of his own fiefdom for decades with next to no interference.
Edit: sorry, that's Warren Jeffs
That makes no sense. You don't prove the need for the military by having it sit idle while you're attacked.

I actually do think we should have done far more, if not gone to war with Pakistan when it was clear the military and government were harboring Osama (and others, and supplying terrorists, etc.) and claiming to be our allies....but, they've got nukes, so it won't happen....well, wouldn't happen, today all bets are off, so who knows.

To be fair, we have an obligation to physically defend Ukraine. They gave up their nukes for our promise (by treaty) to keep their borders secure. It was Putin starting a war by invading them, we just walked away from our obligation to avoid war.
And no, I don't want war with Russia, but neither do they. If we had mobilized troops into Ukraine, I doubt the Russian invasion would have continued to expand, but even if it did come to war that's what we promised, we lose all future credibility if we don't keep our international obligations.

Strangely, the thing that seems to be most important in stopping nuclear war with Russia is Trump's outrageous friendly relationship with Tsar Putin, because he's already made it clear that he has no qualms about using nukes against those he thinks are enemies.

Do you have to demonize a man who assassinates his enemies and expands his country? There's no question that he's done those things, so I don't get his point at all. You don't have to demonize a demon.

How does he think he knows what classified proof there may be? His statement makes him seem silly, he's complaining he hasn't seen this proof, knowing he shouldn't be able to see it.

Russia incontrovertibly militarily and financially supports our enemies and attacks our allies. That alone makes them threat #1. Period. They are also expansionist on multiple fronts, which is hyper threatening.

It's only unwise to build up Polish border forces if you want Poland to be Russian.

Be clear, Putin didn't "put Trump into the whitehouse", but he certainly helped. The argument that he didn't just install him is a red herring, designed to distract from the legal and illegal things Russia did to effect the election, a plan that worked better than they ever hoped.

Fake news hysteria?!? Fake news is one of the most important issues today, because it denies progress on ANY other issue by confusing the facts, making negotiation impossible.

I hate hearing about Bakers "promise"....it wasn't in writing, it wasn't from America or NATO, it wasn't binding in any way even then, and thinking we should stand by it in the face of Russia breaking treaty after treaty is just insane and naïve. Remember, Russia promised to never invade Ukraine (including Crimea).

I don't really think Aleppo was liberated....there's nothing left to liberate there but rubble.
Really, he's claiming that when Mosul was "liberated", Iraq just let the enemy drive away? That's bullshit. We have bombed the fleeing militants, and the Iraqi have fought them with vigor this time.

For a professional on US, Russia relations, he's got some strange ways of seeing things.
I do agree with him that, to Russia, bolstering Assad IS fighting terrorism. I think we failed miserably when we didn't take Assad out after he gassed the populace AND support/safeguard the local populace (if not their militias)....no question in my mind, that's when we lost Syria. Once Daesh and others were allowed to take over the anti-Assad side, there was no "winning" that war.
I also agree, with our current leaders, the nuclear safeguard is no safeguard at all, it's a sword of Damocles, not a shield.

Ban Arab Muslims, except from places that have attacked us, and tell all other Muslim countries that more is coming, they may be next.
Terror linked is a different category from terrorist sponsoring, and those nations are not banned. That's absolutely retarded.

I guess he's ignorant of the fact that the right was frothing at the mouth because Obama refused to just arm anyone fighting against Assad and insisted on VETTING them before he armed them. Had Trump and the Republicans been in control, Daesh may have been given battlefield nukes.

The "exemption" to the un-American refugee ban doesn't start for 120 days, and is then ONLY if Trump's people think it's in the national interest to let them in on a case by case basis (based on what, determined by whom?)....which is not likely for those worth less than $5000000. I guess he didn't read the text before calling others delusional or he would have read that.

Oops, the 2014 attack was also preformed by an American, as others have been....I guess we have to ban Americans too.

Yes, because America VETTS those we invite in...contrary to what most right wing idiots believe. They use Europe as an example of what will happen if we don't stop the scary Muslims, conveniently ignoring the vetting process that's completely non existent in Europe.

He's saying that people treated as the enemy often become the enemy, you feculent douche. Learn to read...and think.

Trump is just the bigot. Period. It's absolutely correct that if Muslims were as dangerous as portrayed and treated by Trump and the right, he would have been assassinated. That's a good indicator that Trump is wrong, not that all Muslims are easily radicalized or a call for assassination like the right spent 8 years doing directly and personally towards Obama.

Not a single Syrian that supports Daesh has made it through the vetting process to America.

They don't ban Israelis because of religion, they are banned because they are all in the military and that military is an expansionist fascist oppressor of and provocateur to Palestinians and most other Arab nations. I'm fairly certain Jews from America can go there.

What a fucking brain dead, dishonest idiot.
Mostly good tags though, this is certainly chock full of fail and lies, fearmongering, and has mostly been debunked....but it's absolutely not news in any way. I'll let someone else fix that though.

Surely, I can't be the only one who starts humming/singing CONELRAD songs during videos/articles about nukes/nuclear warfare...

Pence probably wouldn't nuke Mexico City as a bargaining tool.

Last week when they, again, threatened us with nuclear missiles. Granted, there wasn't much about the conditions, but they were mentioned. I hear about them at least once a month, usually more, but I watch a lot of news.

I can't believe I'm arguing that average Americans are informed, even just a little bit. Did I wake up in bizarro world?

Edit: They don't have much oil or natural resources, and they do have nukes, you can be certain the west won't find the will to stop the atrocities, that's not how we roll.

@enoch, you seem to be under the impression that you or I or anyone else has some kind of right to say whatever the fuck we feel like saying on the sift.

We don't. This isn't some public forum, it's a privately run website and @dag or @lucky760 have the right to decide if they don't want @gorillaman calling Obama a "nigger prince".

The sad thing is, I mostly agree with his post, but that one stupid epithet undermined his whole point and made him look like an ignorant fool.

And yeah, I'll fucking say it, calling Obama a "nigger" offends me, and not in some sensitive snowflake way. It should fucking offend you too, and frankly, I have no problem whatsoever with either dag (in his Siftler guise) or us as a community deciding that that's not cool and we don't want it here.

Free speech is not absolute, and anyone who thinks it is is deluding themselves. There are well-documented limits to free speech (yelling "fire" in a public theatre, joking about bombs at airports). Once you accept that something is not absolute, you then simply have to argue the degree to which limits apply (same as gun control, if you accept that civilians can't have nukes, then you're already in favour of gun control, you're just arguing over the extent).

I do agree that unilateral disarmament is a difficult thing to achieve, but there are other arguments as to why it should be pursued. I am sure we agree on a lot of things on this subject, but let me at least put the other side out there:

1. America as the over achieving nation in the world has a duty to lead by example. How can the country with the largest nuclear arsenal expect other countries to start the process that we all signed up to? Hey France, why didn't you get rid of your 87 nukes? Well America, why haven't you touched that pile of 500? (making up numbers here to illustrate the point)

2. The US isn't worried about Best Korea nuking them because they would need a staging platform and a functional ballistic missile. They can be launched from subs, but NK isn't really your worry there. The most developed nations are the concern, and if you could get an agreement it could happen, with peacekeepers and mutually open inspections, and pressure on smaller countries to abide or be trade embargoed to stop them (which the west does/has done already). Unlikely as things are right now, i agree.

3. We have ageing equipment housing extremely dangerous explosives. They require a huge amount of maintenance and whatnot, costing billions. The UK has to replace their system soon to the tune of hundreds of billions of pounds. Imagine what kind of alternative modern anti-nuclear defence system we could develop using all that money and all our technology? That way we could be safe from nukes without using nukes and it would cost less in the long run.

Also if you claim your weapons as part of a defence, it's a bit of a giveaway that you're bullshitting if you then go off around the world antagonising other countries, knowing that they can't really fight back. So i think in fairness we should crack open that self-defence argument and see what percentage of it is referring to "a good offence".

Having said all that, binning all the US nukes overnight wouldn't be a great idea. The UK would be less of a target and safer without nukes imo, but the US would probably make the world a lot safer just by having less.

Let's be honest here, the amount of nukes we have is preposterous. No one could possibly have any reason to use that many, the potential for absolute worldwide devastation is far too high to need that many - you could potentially finish the world off in a nuclear winter, according to the average figures given, in about 100 'small' nukes. Not 100 each per country, but 100 total worldwide.

And remember, that doesn't mean you can use 90 and be safe. The figure 100 was enough to likely cause a global famine by causing temperature drops leading to crop failures. That doesn't account for extinction of animals and the devastation of the natural balance (which would lead to our eventual extinction) which can be wildly unpredictable. You could shoot 40 at a country, win the conflict, and cause the starvation of millions+ in your own (and other) countries for the next 20 odd years..... or worse.