[Pukin Dog]

Pure unadulterated nonsense.

The article fails to mention that the range of these so-called poor-mans EMP weapons is very, very small. That would mean that these devices would have to be deployed WITHIN a facility to do any damage at all. EMP weapons with any decent range are too large and way too sophisticated to be of any use to terrorists.

Our own government used to have to use a nuke to get enough available power for decent EMP ranging.

So, relax.

[Psalm118]

"The article fails to mention that the range of these so-called poor-mans EMP weapons is very, very small. That would mean that these devices would have to be deployed WITHIN a facility to do any damage at all. EMP weapons with any decent range are too large and way too sophisticated to be of any use to terrorists.

Our own government used to have to use a nuke to get enough available power for decent EMP ranging.

So, relax."

Okay boss, I'm relaxed...

...well...I AM TRYIN!

Now tell me what about going under some transmission line way way out in the boonies and firing one of 'em crackers at the overhead lines?. Still a dud, you say?.

[Lurker]

But could it destroy, say an obnnoxiously loud 'boom boom' type car stereo as it was passing my house?

Just asking for no reason....honest.

L

[tortoise]

The article fails to mention that the range of these so-called poor-mans EMP weapons is very, very small.

More or less true. However, US defense contractors bought some newer more sophisticated designs (i.e. not a classic FCG design) from the Russians in the early 90s for something like $11 million (fuzzy memory -- I haven't worked in that industry for years); the Russians were selling off many of their designs to curious defense contractors back then. The US took the sexier Soviet generator design, modeled them in supercomputers and completely re-engineered the materials, and came up with something MUCH more powerful than what you get out of a simple FCG and with much better range and performance than anything the Soviets could build.

The modern US version of the system is sufficiently powerful that it has been tested for use as a single-stage fusion trigger. Obviously though, there is very little in the way of specific details on it.

[blam]

"EMP weapons with any decent range are too large and way too sophisticated to be of any use to terrorists. "

I agree.

[HitmanLV]

Well said. Too many 'gloom & doom' predictions look like a 6th graders science project that got a "D."

The Y2K issue was a big one - a legitimate problem that some overstated. Most obvious was the banking scare - that somehow all our savings and checking account records would have been lost at the stroke of midnight when the computers all were supposed to get confused.

I didn't think, for one second, all the banks and lending institutions would have lost all our debt records, which would have gone 'poof' also. Imagine how the banks would have had to explain how our savings records got lost, but they have all our debt information secured. Laughable!