[Rob Instigator]

and this is purely delirious speculation, and in no way based on anything except my active hate for totalitarian govenments

What if the chinese government, in a severly twisted effort to garner sympathy from the world, and to draw attention away from the brouhaha concerning their opression of Tibet and Tibetans leading up to the Olympics, deliberately exploded a large hydrogen bomb underground, causing the "earthquake" and creating public sympathy? Would this be too horrible?
just a delusion.

but I would not put anything past a government such as that.

[tesla69]

As much as I loathe the Chinese state they seem to be doing more for their people more quickly than the US did after Katrina. I sort of see response by the Burma junta as analogous to that of Bush.

Rob, the way my mind works, I consider this could have been a scalar wave attack by the US/UK that caused the earthquake, to create a deadly and embarassing situation for China before the Olympics, and also create chaos which would allow intelligence operatives to penetrate more deeply into China for whatever reasons they might have. And perhaps that is the right move.

[demonrail666]

Firstly, I'd intended to rep you for your use of the word 'brouhaha' but got the usual 'spread more' thing.

Anyway, while I doubt it'd happen, like you, i'm sure the little bastards would do it if they thought they could somehow get away with it. Major disasters invariably garner international sympathy. However they also tend to spotlight faults in the governing regime. Think of New Orleans and the burmese hurricane which, while generating sympathy for the people affected, hardly cast their respective governments in the best of lights and, if anything, weakened their international standing.

Still, have to congratulate you once more for the 'brouhaha' use.

[Rob Instigator]

it is all completye supposition of course, but events such as this, like you say, are exactly what benefits undercover operatives. They can travel and infiltrate much easier in times of distress you know?

It must be horrific though.

almost 500 MILLION people in China live at subsistence poverty levels, where even the slightest thing can cause widespread deprivation and starvation. Fucking horrible.

You know that something along the lines of over 3000 foreign aid workers from bith nation's armies and the red cross/red crescent are stationed in Thailand waiting for fucking travel VISAS from Myanmar before they can enter to help?
horrible horrible shit.

[pbradley]

Sounds like an underachieving James Bond novel.

[floatingslowly]

what if china had a death-laser stationed on the moon. I'm completely convinced that they would use it on our olympic athletes to cause much humiliation and panic!! once death-lasered, the unsuspecting athletes might then be put into a giant mixer and turned into noodle soup (which will undoubtedly be served with great fanfare during the closing ceremonies). oh ,the horror. the horror. the horror.

[Rob Instigator]

the us has been working on satellite technology to actually cause earthquakes for at least two decades now.

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Firstly, I'd intended to rep you for your use of the word 'brouhaha' but got the usual 'spread more' thing.

///
Still, have to congratulate you once more for the 'brouhaha' use.

Gee, no one ever congratulated me when I've used the word. You must be in a thankful state of mind today.

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

the us has been working on satellite technology to actually cause earthquakes for at least two decades now.

Tangentially, the episode of the History Channel's "Dogfights" series last week ("Dogfights of the Future") featured a segment on ABL beam weapon technology.
http://www.history.com/shows.do?epis...&action=detail
(ed. The article on landing page should read "SU-47" not "SU-37." The author is in error.)
The weapon is front-mounted to the nose of a Boeing 767. The first real test to intercept missiles and drone fighters is scheduled for sometime next year in 2009.
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/abl.htm

 

artist's rendering of enemy target being zapped like a bug at the speed of light itself

[✌➬]

Ugh, Rob I love you, but no.

[Rob Instigator]

it's cool.

[demonrail666]

I think the very fact that even the most outrageous of ideas have a certain level of conceivability just goes to demonstrate the sheer madness of today's political world landscape. Or maybe it's just that advances in technology have allowed regimes to give a fuller vent to their insanity than was possible in the past. Imagine the shit-storm that would've occured if the Romans had gotten hold of a nuclear bomb, or even worse, the internet!

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

and this is purely delirious speculation, and in no way based on anything except my active hate for totalitarian govenments

What if the chinese government, in a severly twisted effort to garner sympathy from the world, and to draw attention away from the brouhaha concerning their opression of Tibet and Tibetans leading up to the Olympics, deliberately exploded a large hydrogen bomb underground, causing the "earthquake" and creating public sympathy? Would this be too horrible?
just a delusion.

but I would not put anything past a government such as that.

i think seismographs would be able to detect the difference between a natural earthquake and a nucular one. really.

[Rob Instigator]

you mean the seismographs IN CHINA?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

you mean the seismographs IN CHINA?

russia, europe, japan, etc

they'd feel the first blam

---

The dynamic, transient seismic waves from any substantial earthquake will propagate all around and entirely through the Earth. Given a sensitive enough detector, it is possible to record the seismic waves from even minor events occurring anywhere in the world at any other location on the globe. Nuclear test-ban treaties in effect today rely on our ability to detect a nuclear explosion anywhere equivalent to an earthquake as small as Richter Magnitude 3.5.

http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/lo...mic-waves.html

[!@#$%!]

more cool science shit:

The use of seismology to detect remote explosions is not limited to nuclear test monitoring. It can also be used to learn about large explosions due to other causes, especially in foreign countries or inaccessible areas. Seismologists using publicly available information, for example, were able to determine that two separate explosions occurred when the Russian submarine Kursk sank in August 2000. A small explosion was followed about two minutes later by a second explosion that released about 16 times as much energy as the first and produced a magnitude 4.2 earthquake that was recorded as far as 5000 km away. It was further determined that the energy released in the second explosion was equivalent to that which would have been released by 2000 to 4000 kg (about 2 to 4 kilotons) of TNT. The depth of the second explosion was estimated from a bubble pulse produced during the explosion, which was caused when a bubble of hot gas oscillates while rising quickly through the water. The calculated depth of 100 m is about the same as the seafloor depth at the location of the Kursk accident, so the second explosion probably occurred when the sinking submarine struck the seafloor. More than 150 earthquakes with magnitudes of 1.4 to 1.6 occurred in the months after the sinking. They were probably caused by depth charges that were detonated by the Russian navy to discourage foreign submarines from visiting the wreckage. Similar studies have shed light on incidents such as the 1995 attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City; the 1998 truck-bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya; and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

http://www.espionageinfo.com/Re-Se/S...xplosions.html

[Rob Instigator]

why has Preznit Dubya not had a press conference rgarding Myanmar or China yet?

is he on Fema time? katrina time?

[krastian]

^I actually saw him say that Myanmar was a "disaster" and that we are sending aid.....that was like 6 days ago I think.

[nature scene]

it would probably be possible to discern between a natural earthquake and a man-made one

[Rob Instigator]

I know that entire region is prone to earthquakes, and crazy seismic activity.

but it would make for an interesting thriller novel to write a story about china doing such a thing on purpose no?