90%

[Jolly]

Levin is talking about cyber attacks, etc. On his FOX show tonight. Again, the tv show is much lower key than the screeching radio show.

Peter Pry is his guest on the show and they are talking about EMPs. The last government task force determined if a successful large scale EMP attack happened, 90% of all U.S. citizens would die within 12 months.

90%.

[George K]

@jolly I hate screeching radio people. They make me want to never listen to them again. I was shocked at how obnoxious Hannity was on his radio show years ago. But...I digress.

Random thoughts.

"Major EMP attack." What players can do this. I have little doubt that Russia, China can do this. Emphasis on "Major," of course. Can the NORKS do it? The Iranians? Perhaps, but not "major." In theory they could paralyze, even kill a city like Chicago, NYC, LA...but the rest of the country? I wonder.

If this were to happen, caused by a "minor-ish" player, what are the odds that the US wouldn't retaliate in kind, except increased by an order of magnitude? I put that at less than 1%.

This is the 21st century of MAD. The good thing about MAD was that we knew the players on the "other side" were not crazy MoFo's. The Russians Soviets were ruthless, but not crazy. Today, I'm not sure that we're not dealing with crazy.

[Jolly]

One of the biggest problems with EMP are the number of large transformers which would go kaput. We don't build them here anymore and the lead time for construction is one year. No transformers, no electricity.

One Second After, writ large...

[Horace]

I don’t want to die of starvation or dehydration.

[Jolly]

@horace said in 90%:

I don’t want to die of starvation or dehydration.

Some charcoal and some sand, along with distillation or maybe just boiling can produce potable water.

Food? That would be interesting. Mormons have enough stored for a year. I could probably go six months (I'd have to can everything in the freezer). Most folks couldn't go a week...

[Doctor Phibes]

@jolly said in 90%:

90% of all U.S. citizens would die within 12 months.

Another reason not to apply for US citizenship.

We recently had to hire experts on cyber-security - it's a big growth area for us. We couldn't find any Americans to do the job and ended up hiring from abroad.

[Copper]

@doctor-phibes said in 90%:

ended up hiring from abroad.

Surprising, broads generally aren't as good at IT work.

[Catseye3]

Yeah, whenever I get bored with all the 2500 things the Internet assaults me with to worry about 24/7, I always know I can fall back on worrying about EMPs.

[Jolly]

Well, at least you'll know what percentage you fall under!

[LuFins Dad]

@doctor-phibes said in 90%:

@jolly said in 90%:

90% of all U.S. citizens would die within 12 months.

Another reason not to apply for US citizenship.
.

And that right there is your Post of the Day.

[Jolly]

The EMP threat ties in with the grid threat. I think we saw what happened in Texas this past winter. Now, instead of fixing things or shifting power around as things thaw out, let's consider Achmed and a group of followers determined to take out a half-dozen large transformer stations in any highly populated area.

You don't have 90% deaths, but you could wreck a large part of the economy for quite some time.