Suit filed to block explosion: 700-ton blast scheduled on June 2

WASHINGTON -- The Western Shoshone tribe and a group of Utah downwinders on Thursday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Las Vegas to prevent a 700-ton explosion scheduled June 2 at the Nevada Test Site.

Robert Hager, a Reno attorney who is representing the tribe and Utahns, said he is confident the court will issue a restraining order to block the explosion. "I believe, based on the violations of the National Environmental Policy Act alone, the court will be required to enjoin the Defense Department from following through with this scheduled blast," Hager said in a phone interview.

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection last week halted the test until the federal Defense Threat Reduction Agency showed the blast would comply with air quality standards and that hazardous particles would be tracked.

Hager said he understood the Nevada agency has withdrawn its objection to the test. Calls to the agency on Thursday were not returned. "We continue to provide (the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection) the information requested so we can move forward (with the test)," Darwin Morgan, a test site spokesman, said Thursday.

more...

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Apr-21-Fri-2006/news/6972009.html

and i'm down with it. nevada, not so much.

i mean, hell, we do have to continue to develop munitions, especially bunker-busters, but where to test them?

I'm thinking that you lose the element of surprize when the first of the 40 or more standard dump truck loads of explosives arrives. What is going to be, the ultimate car bomb? You are not going to get any plane to drop a 700 ton bomb. This test is ridiculous in the fact that there is no aircraft capable of carrying such a weapon. If you were hiding something in a bunker, are you going to let someone dig a pit, fill it with explosives and detonate it?

The story here does not even approach reality. Either they are simulating a nuclear device or they are planning on exploding one in Nevada. There is just no other possibility. A 700 ton conventional weapon is not possible.

The intent is to be a model of what a one kiloton nuclear 'bunker buster' bomb would accomplish, and how much earth/rock it would move. The test is to evaluate the use of tactical nuclear weapons and has nothing to do with conventional weapons development. :evilfrown:

So-called bunker busters are NUKES, and they are on the order of the bombs that took out Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The people who want to build and use these weapons are INSANE and EVIL. They are the Masters of War that Bob Dylan sang about. They want to make megatons of money from building the things, and then they actually want to use them.

Bush has already managed to break half the treaties the US signed over his lifetime. He's brought back the Cold War. And now he wants to start World War III.

My son moved out to Las Vegas last August. Great.

Have I mentioned lately how much I loathe everything about the Bush regime?

Hekate

any monkey wrench thrown into the war machine is a good thing.

Nevada History class. The site is away from the primary test area, but not by much (as fallout flies). I have doubts about the 'cleanliness' of the soil . . .

I used to teach at LVHS, so it's good to know there are people still trying to "enlighten" students out in Vegas.

I do like Google Earth -- it's kind of like being an extraterrestrial, seeing everything from that perspective.

Did you teach NV history at LVHS? I teach at CCSN and I know many of my students' have already had the class in high school. It's one of my favorite classes, because you can bring current events into it so easily (a little tougher with the first halves of US and Western Civ -- but I try!)

Surely they must have put something in the Patriot act about this...

There are several of us pointy-headed, liberal, history profs who have our gulag all picked out . . .

Seriously though, I doubt these pictures will do it. The pre-approval document that contains the information on the location and the Google Earth images are all publicly available.

on edit: don't watch 'House' while typing . . .

from this test -- if indeed the govt goes through with it.

However, I've been giving a lot of thought to this "Divine Strake" situation after participating in a good discussion about it here at DU a few days ago. So now I'm starting to wonder if this test might prove to be the ultimate "kick in the pants" many uneasy Americans need to get them to raise their voices in protest against an attack on Iran.

I mean, if the protests and legal challenges against the test all fail and the bastards DO fire off their monster bomb, I think it will make absolutely HUGE news. From what I understand, the blast will be significant, shaking the ground for many miles and throwing up a great deal of soil and dust -- not to mention the ear-splitting "KA-BOOM!"

Such an event, if properly covered by reporters and protested by dedicated and courageous patriotic Americans, should cause even the diehard Bush fans to wonder about his sanity... and that's a scary thought for them to have creeping into their little brains.

but I'm not sure it would do the trick.

For one, they don't let folks anywhere near the test site -- unless they're invited.

For another, this has not received much press in LV; some, of course, but not nearly enough to get people stirred up sufficiently to buck authority to the 'I'm willing to be arrested for trespassing on federal land' point.

But the biggest stumbling block (imo) is that there is an entire generation or two that do not understand why nuclear weapons are something to avoid at all cost. They may have learned about Hiroshima and Nagasaki in HS, but it is so far removed from their reality that it has little impact -- for the younger ones, some now teenagers, Vietnam is their grandparent's war (damn I'm old . . .)

Divine Strake is not a nuke, it's a stand-in -- and in a way, that's more frightening than if it was a nuke, because it suggests not only that they want to develop a new design for a nuke but also that they want to obscure their objective from public scrutiny.

I would prefer the simple, out-n-out megalomania that says, "to hell with the Limited Test Ban Treaty" and SALT and START - I want a bomb and I'm going to have one!"

At least that way you know where you stand.

I don't like this style of insanity -- pushing right up to the edge of legal to avoid repercussions while undoubtedly making plans to ignore international treaties.

wishful thinking, I fear. I'm getting old, too, and events these days are reminding me almost daily of the times when the dread of nuclear war shook up hundreds of thousands of us so much that we protested loud and long against "the Bomb"!

I'm so torn on the issue, too. I don't want anyone to have to experience such fear and dread. But unless young people wake up to the threat our own government is not only to them but to the entirety of humanity on the planet, I'm not sure they will rise up in sufficient numbers and with loud enough voices to STOP this madness!

I would have thought the Divine Strake test would get a lot more media attention there in Nevada at least. I knew it wasn't nuclear but is meant to "simulate" a nuclear strike, but still, the words are out there ... NUCLEAR BOMB.

I guess we'll find out -- if this test happens, that is -- just how much attention Americans are paying to the global threat our insane "leaders" pose. Sadly, from what you say, it sounds like the deceptions of our own government about the true nature of this bomb test are succeeding so far.

I guess I had just hoped that one "good" thing about them doing this test could be a turning point being reached among U.S. citizens, that they would react in the aftermath of the test with the loudest outcry this administration has heard yet. And that our outcry would reverberate around the world, bringing a lot more intense pressure on Bush&Co.

Don't you find it so very frustrating (as I do!) to feel so damned HELPLESS in the face of such an event? I still have photos in old albums of myself with a "BAN THE BOMB" sign I had made when I was just 14! Man were we scared back then, huh?.... :scared: And angry. :grr:

:nuke: BAN THE BOMB! :nuke: