HALF-FULL REPORT 05/29/09

The question of the week:  who is stupider, the Norks or all those intimidated by them?

Lot’s of fun stuff happened this week.  Tombstone Burris dug his political grave deeper with a tape of his offering a bribe to Hot Rod Blogojevich. 

Zero’s Chicago gangsterism towards Republican Chrysler dealers – spotted by sharp-eyed TTPers on the Forum (see the thread for A Letter to America from a Dodge Dealer) – is being exposed for all to see.   Drudge is carrying both Rick Moran’s article and that of the Washington Examiner.  My old friend Joe Farah is running solid exposés on WorldNetDaily.  Zero is running a straightforward Political Mafia.

And Zero further solidified his racism by nominating a racist shrew for the Supreme Court who is so IQ-challenged she’ll be steamrollered by Roberts, Alito, and Scalia in conference – as pointed out by Jack Kelly.

***
But we’ll focus on the Norks, who can’t seem to make a real bomb yet somehow sucker the world into thinking they have.

We first discussed how they cooked their uranium and didn’t get weapons-grade plutonium five years ago, March of 2004, in Is North Korea Faking It?

Then it was explained why their cap-gun fizzle of a bomb in October of 2006 was such good news.  (In fact, you really need to read Why North Korea’s Nuke Test Is Such Good News for a background briefing on Nork nuke science.)

Now here we go again, with the same Nork con-job, claiming Monday (5/25) that they really do have nukes with their second detonation.  The key to knowing it’s a con is the yield.  According to the joint assessment of all our intel and military monitoring, it was around 4 kilotons.  One third the size of Hiroshima, one fifth that of Nagasaki. 

As explained in the "Good News" link above:

"The ‘critical mass’ of plutonium required for fission to take place is between 6 to 7 kilos of more than 90% P-239 or "weapons-grade" plutonium.  Any less plutonium and you can’t get the fission process started.

The minimum explosive yield of a properly designed and built bomb with 6½ kilos of 90+% P-239 is 20kt.  For the yield to be smaller, you have to do it on purpose and be willing to waste a lot of plutonium (such as for a small portable tactical nuke)." 

That the Norks only got 4kt instead of 20 can mean just one thing:  their plutonium is lousy quality, too contaminated with extra neutrons or P240/242.

These neutrons will escape too quickly so the explosion will disassemble (go off prematurely) before it can generate significant yield.  The way to overcome this is to pack lots of high-density explosives – several tons – around the plutonium pit to absorb the extra neutrons.  You can also use an extra heavy and thick shell or "tamper" around the pit – like what Iran has ordered recently made of copper with tungsten dispersed through it.

The seismic signature of the second Nork nuke shows that they used either or both these methods to get a significant increase in yield over their first (0.5kt), yet still only a fraction of what high-quality Pu would produce.

This means two things.  First is that after all this time, the Norks still can’t make real weapons-grade plutonium, and if they can’t by now they are unlikely to in the foreseeable future.

Second is they can’t deliver whatever bombs they make by missile.  The bomb they exploded this week weighs several tons, at least 12 to 15,000 pounds, vastly heavier than any missile could carry.  It is only deliverable by boat.  The nuclear missile threat from North Korea is non-existent.

Those 11,000 artillery tubes just across the DMZ aimed at Seoul remain a definite threat.  We discussed how to neutralize them in How to Make North Korea Senile way back in December 2003.

(This is one of the most fun articles I’ve ever written:  how to chemically induce temporary symptoms of Alzheimer’s in Nork soldiers manning the artillery tubes through an "incapacitating agent" called quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ.)

For now the Nork nuke threat is still a fake – no missiles threatening to wipe out South Korea or America’s west coast.  Now is obviously the time to call Pyongyang’s bluff and shut the Norks down.  Board and inspect every ship coming out or into North Korea – including Russian and Chinese.  Isolate them in every way possible, and demand (meaning refusals to cooperate are unacceptable) that Russia and China comply.

And now is obviously the time for Bibi to order a full decapitation strike by Israel on Iran, in cooperation with Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  The more time a nuclearizing Iran has to help North Korea improve its plutonium, obviously the worse.

America’s Pantywaist-in-chief will of course do none of this and try to prevent Israel from securing its survival.  So it’s up to Bibi.  If he shuts down Iran, the Norks have little chance to ever develop a nuke warhead light enough for a missile nose cone.

That’s a glass half-full.  Let’s raise it in hopes that Bibi will do what’s necessary.

***
I also need to raise a full stein of Guinness Stout brewed by Cerveceria Nacional brewery in Panama City, Panama to Fred and Helen Fleming with whom my wife and I spent last weekend at their marvelous home in Panama.

"Panama Fred," as he is known to Forum denizens, was wonderfully hospitable to us, and is happy to extend that same hospitality to any TTPer who wants to experience and learn more about Panama.

This is a country well be focusing on.  It’s banking secrecy is second to none, it’s the financial capital of all Latin America – the skyline of Panama City is so riddled with skyscrapers it looks like Shanghai – new president Ricardo Martinelli is a pro-capitalist pro-American super-successful businessman… this is a very interesting place and becoming more so by the day as Zero proceeds with dismantling the US.

I encourage you to get to know Fred on the Forum (via the thread to this article, for example, as he’ll be participating), and consider paying him and Panama a visit.

Thanks, Fred!