Free Republic

Once a huge champion of all things digital, I’ve come to develop serious doubts about the pace at which humanity made the switch from analog to the cloud. The hackings, outages, data breaches, and extended breakages all make the point. But the danger is even greater. Most of the things we use today have not been stress tested. They are centralized and have a single point of failure. And they are very vulnerable. It could all stop in an instant with no sure guarantee of when it will come back. A turning point came for me recently, while visiting a...

The United States is now the top energy producer in the world. For that, we are thankful. But all the shale gas, crude oil, coal, nuclear energy and renewables on earth are of little benefit if we do not have a secure means of delivering energy to our homes, our hospitals, schools and even our military. For this reason, we must focus on securing the U.S. electrical grid, the means of delivering our energy, at all costs. Throughout history, literature has played a key role in educating and inspiring the public to “think beyond” to a world of possibilities as...

A wave of plasma stoked by an X-class solar flare, the most intense type, is headed towards Earth. This blast of charged particles, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), is forecast to ignite a geomagnetic storm on Earth over the weekend. NOAA predicts it will be minor, maybe moderate. NASA says it will be moderate to severe. I ask: which intensity will it be and why aren’t these two science agencies on the same page? The intensity of the inbound CME matters. If NOAA’s right, and the ensuing geomagnetic storm is minor, it’s no big deal. It means the...

Most Americans do not know this, but a single EMP attack could potentially wipe out most of the electronics in the United States and instantly send this nation back to the 1800s. If a nuclear bomb was exploded high enough in the atmosphere over the middle part of the country, the electromagnetic pulse would fry electronic devices from coast to coast. The damage would be millions of times worse than 9/11. Just imagine a world where nobody has power, most cars will not start, the Internet has been fried, the financial system is offline indefinitely, nobody can make any phone...

National Security: The Sept. 11 commission stated that our biggest failure was one of imagination. Imagine an Iranian nuclear device detonating high over the American heartland. They're working on it. On the same day the 9/11 Commission issued its report, another commission issued a report on a threat that could change our world and way of life in ways we can scarcely imagine. It is a real and credible threat, and it is largely being ignored. The threat is a phenomenon known as electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, and demonstrates why the issue of homeland security extends beyond the need for...

In light of the recent events in Korea and the "missile launch" off of the California coast I'd like to reccomend the book One Second After, by William R. Forstchen. It is about the aftermath of an EMP attack on America. Set in a smal North Carolina mountain town, the book depicts the very real consequences of our modern society instantly thrown 150 years back in time. The author has done his research well and gives a very accurate account of what would happen. It's gut wrenching but good. In the postscript the author describes testing by the Iranian government...

I have just finished reading William R. Forstchen's new novel One Second After. Briefly, it is about the instantaneous breakdown of American way of life as the result of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which disables the nation's electrical grid as well as all sophisticated electrical components in cars (they stop), planes (they crash), telecomunications of every sort, etc. leaving the population in a world similar to that of the Eighteenth Century. Shortages of every variety create societal strains, chaos, death and destruction in a matter of weeks and months. Forstchen's book (with a forward written by Newt Gingrich), while fiction,...

Power Shortages Loom by: Evan Sumortin, August 10, 2009 William Forstchen’s latest New York Times bestseller, One Second After, is a cautionary tale that explores the consequences of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack on the United States. An EMP explosion over the continental United States would have devastating consequences for our country. According to General Eugene Habiger, Former Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Strategic Command, “Our technologically-oriented society and its heavy dependence on advanced electronic systems could be brought to its knees with cascading failures of our critical infrastructure. Our vulnerability increases daily as our use and dependence on electronics...

Last night I watched Hal Lindsey (www.hallindsey.com). He does a 30 minute show on one of the Christian channels and it's all based on current news and how it relates to the Bible. His show last night, in particular, was about 'EMP's'--electro magnetic pulses. He said that many of our enemies are training and planning on inflicting an EMP on us, where they launch a rocket 180 miles above the US and the gamma rays obliterate our entire electric grid and every single electrical component we have. Of course he connected the fact that Obama is doing away with our...

The basic bargain is sound: countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them.” -- President Barack Obama, Prague, April 6, 2009 As far as nuclear weapons are concerned, the President of the United States wants America to disarm: “Countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament.” It is hard to imagine a more destructive goal. A nuclear disarmed America would lead to massive and widespread killing, more genocide, and very possibly the nuclear holocaust worldwide nuclear disarmament is meant to prevent. There is nothing moral, let alone realistic, about this goal. Here...