I think the most bang for a rogue nation's buck when it comes to devastation would be to fire of a couple of nukes to create a lahar on the Cumbre Vieja of the Island of La Palma in the Canary Island. The ensuing tsunami would pretty much wipe out all the coastal cities of West Africa, Europe and North America.
Heck most medium sized nations with nuclear capability would have a hard time beating that devastation. And I don't believe it would take too much ingenuity to pull such a thing off.

I am currently watching something called "Apocalypse Island," which evidently is part of Armageddon Week. I sincerely hope things get better as the week goes along. Apocalypse Island is so dreadfully bad that is unclear whether I am watching the History Channel or the Comedy Channel.

ROTFLMAO

The fate of the History Channel is truly Armageddon in its own right. They have aired some good stuff, and occasionally they still do, but when they spew this sort of garbage, you realize that it all about entertainment and not any kind of veracity. What will they be serving on Tuesday?

Well, there's less money to be made by focusing on disasters that are likely to happen. Car accidents, power outages, earthquakes, and ice storms just aren't as sexy as the "apocalypse."

I especially enjoyed the "enhanced" imagery of the "sculpture."

That paragraph encompasses at least 95% of Americans. That is very scary.

Our population of 300 million could not be sustained if we lost the power grid and energy resources to fuel transportation, food and medicine production, water supplies and sanitation.

I was watching "Jericho" recently, a show which I think was ambitious and before its time (it ran on CBS from 2006-2008 and is available on DVD). While the entertainment series falls short in some factual respects and production value, it hit upon in thought-provoking ways many fundamental issues of survival in a just-in-time society that's suddenly upended by war just as it heads into winter: notably in regard to food supply, medicine, power grid, fuel supply, communications.

In addition to the initial nuclear calamity, a few episodes into Jericho's first season there was a subsequent EMP attack that finished off the power grid, newer cars, cell phones, computers, etc.

Amazon is still selling Jericho, it's worth a watch for anyone interested in the subject.

The History Channel is a curious mish-mash. Seems they're running a lot of religious history and prognostication shows lately.

By the way ... let me throw out a useful fact.

If you go back and look at the atomic testing that was done in the USA in the 1950's (Nevada test range), you will discover that the radiation that was released across America did not fall evenly. Many people assume that the radiation blows in the air as a dust cloud. Although dust problems are possible. there is another concern. In fact, local "hot spots" of radiation in the USA were often associated with areas of rainfall. The radioactive dust from the nuclear blast gets picked up into the clouds, then comes down later in the subsequent rain.

If you are generally "downind" from a nuclear detonation, you need to ba careful about contaminated rain water in the days after the event.

Close to the bomb blast, your main concern is heat.

other Pete

Interesting, Pete.

History Channel also has a show on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, focusing on the famous Doomsday Clock and how and why it evolved from its inception in the late-1940s.

Back issues can be read online. Interesting to read contemporaneous columns and articles.

http://books.google.com/books?id=9gsAAAA...l_issues_anchor

I especially enjoyed the "enhanced" imagery of the "sculpture." [/quote]

Right! Never say they lack imagination. What really got me were the novel climbing techniques. When does one lead a pitch and then throw down a seat harness to the "belayer"? And on and on....

And you can be quite a way downwind and still be hit by fallout. Two days after a Nevada-based nuclear bomb test in 1953 a thunderstorm in upstate New York blanketed the area with radioactive fallout.
The Troy Incident

This fallout was discovered by one of the professors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (my old school) and has been blamed for all sorts of weirdness since then.

-Blast, who has never been the same since.

That glowing personality?