Saturday, December 26, 2020

Some awkward questions about the Nashville explosion

We interrupt Walt's yearend review to ask innocent questions re the news out of Nashville. In case you were sleeping off the Christmas cheer and missed it, Metro Nashville police officers responded around the dawn of Christmas Day to a report of shots fired in the downtown Nashville area. 

When they got to the scene, they encountered an RV blaring a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes, which it did. Fortunately police evacuated nearby buildings before the blast. Law enforcement officials have said since shortly after the explosion occurred that they believe the blast was intentional, but have not talked publicly about a target or motive except to suggest the possibility of a suicide bombing. 

The obvious questions are: (1) Was this a terrorist attack? Suicide bombings are a stock-in-trade of a certain kind of terrorist. 
(2) What sort of terrorist(s) am I talking about? Let's not jump to any conclusions. There are two other questions worth asking.
(3) What was the point of giving the 15-minute warning? Wouldn't your typical Islamic terrorist want the attack to be a surprise, so as to kill as many "infidels" as possible?
(4) How is it that the detonation of a single car bomb somehow damaged 41 (count `em, 41!) buildings, caused power outages, and disrupted communications services not just in Nashville but in Louisville KY, Knoxville TN, Birmingham AL, Atlanta GA, Gallatin TN and South Charleston WV?

The President of Technology at T-mobile tweeted today, "We continue to see service interruptions in these areas following yesterday's explosion. Restoration efforts continue around the clock & we will keep you updated on progress." he said in a tweet Saturday. 

And believe it or not, Governor Bill Lee asked the White House -- yes, the TRUMP White House -- for federal assistance due to the "severity and magnitude" of the impact of the explosion. 

I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but let me just throw out [Watch your language. Ed.] the suggestion that the Nashville explosion, was either a test to see how much damage a sophisticate device could do OR the premature detonation of a number of such devices, linked by the Internet, set to go off a bit later on Christmas morning, when all the good Christians would be in church. Just sayin'....

DISTURBING FOOTNOTE ADDED AT 1945: Dr Suzanne Pearson, who I met some years ago at a conference organized by the late Father Nicholas Gruner, used to talk about electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons, which she (and many others) could be used to damage or destroys the electronic systems in an object by means of damaging current and voltage surges. 

EMPs have been around for a century or so, and you can buy an EMP generator online for under $200. According to a 2013 article on the ExtremeTech website, North Korea has these weapons and could use them to produce a blast like this. 


Even a small EMP could do a lot of damage, and would account for the power outages and disruption of electronic communications observed in Nashville. Makes you think, eh.

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