Kathleen Ryan

Rochester… marginally better than Buffalo since they get snow off Lake Erie *and* Lake Ontario. They often get bombarded while we have minor flurries. ❄️❄️❄️

Have a great week everybody! We are headed off to the theater to see some play that I’ve never even heard of, and then we’re gonna be battening the hatches because we’ve got big snow coming soon! Thanks, Jezza! @porpster.bsky.social
#AT40

Done!

LoL

Good God… the rat song in the middle of a good countdown! Ugh!

#AT40

Trump, who lost on 34 felony charges, after losing the 2020 election, doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “loser.”

Oh man! I love the 5th Dimension! This song is 🔥!

Greetings, #AT40 Friends!
I’ve been here, just listening while I get some cooking done. Now it’s in the oven so I’m here for a while. 1972, my first semester of my freshman year at college. Man… truly a long time ago! Amazing how the music is timeless, and I remember lots of the lyrics! 🎶🎶🎶

I love American City Suite!
#AT40

A brown cloud arising from an underground nuclear test in Nevada. Dry Nevadan hills are in the background. The scientific encampment to control the test and take data is in the lower right. This is the Baneberry nuclear test, and it is not how underground nuclear tests should look.

Screenshot of a Facebook post: Terry Wallace On December 18, 1970, a nuclear weapons test was conducted in an underground shaft at the Nevada Test Site. The test, code-named Baneberry, was detonated at a depth of about 900 feet. Baneberry was a relatively small weapons test and was conducted at Yucca Flats (a large playa) in alluvial soil derived from surrounding deposits of volcanic tuff. Within the alluvium, there were intermittent seams of montmorillonite clay that were saturated with water. The drill hole was filled with a concrete plug and sorted materials; the procedure for plugging the hole was consistent with previous tests at Yucca Flats, which aimed to fully contain the radioactive products within a cavity produced by the nuclear explosion. In the case of Baneberry, the detonation seemed normal until about 3 ½ minutes after the “boom,” when a large fissure opened up a few hundred feet from the test shaft, and a boiling cloud of radioactive debris rose above the Nevada desert (Figure 1 is an image of the Baneberry release). The cloud rose about 10,000 feet above the test and was visible in Las Vegas, 100 miles away. The cloud spread radioactive dust across a broad area, contaminating 86 workers at the test site. The total radioactive release was 6.7 megacuries (for comparison, Chernobyl released 200 megacuries), including 80,000 curies of iodine-131. Two of the workers who were contaminated died in 1974 from myeloid leukemia. The accident resulted in a six-month suspension of nuclear weapons testing, and a root cause analysis revealed three geological issues that combined to create the release: an unrecognized fault in the alluvium, a buried escarpment between the alluvium and limestone, and the structural weakness of the water-saturated clay.

Post continues (2) the structural weakness of the water-saturated clay. The summary conclusion of the root cause analysis indicated that a thorough geological analysis was needed for all future nuclear tests, and it recommended the establishment of a containment evaluation panel (CEP) for the approval of any tests. This panel required that “successful containment means no radioactivity detectable offsite, and no unanticipated release of activity onsite.” Of the 200+ tests that occurred after the creation of the CEP, only four tests had releases—the worst of which was a test called Diagonal Line, detonated about a year after Baneberry, and resulting in a release of 6,000 curies. I started my career at Los Alamos National Laboratory as an undergraduate student in 1975 employed by the J Division, which was responsible for providing the containment package for LANL nuclear tests. My first project involved modeling the small earthquakes that occurred after an explosion. Once an explosion is detonated, it creates a cavity by vaporizing and compressing the surrounding materials. This cavity is expected to collapse over the following days or weeks to create a porous chimney that traps the gases produced in the explosion. This containment strategy is unique to the geology of the Nevada Test Site and is not applicable to other testing environments, especially crystalline rock (like the North Korean Test Site). Over the three years I worked as a student at LANL, I analyzed data from more than 70 tests, which initiated my career in forensic geophysics and eventually led to my becoming the 11th Director of LANL. On September 23, 1992, the U.S. conducted its final explosive nuclear

Post continues (3): On September 23, 1992, the U.S. conducted its final explosive nuclear test, code-named Divider (a LANL test). Shortly after the test, President Bush announced a test moratorium that was extended indefinitely by President Clinton. This ushered in a new era in which nuclear weapons were evaluated not through explosions but by scientific tools that verified material properties through dynamic testing and advanced computer simulations that encapsulated the complex physics of nuclear reactions and explosions along with the material properties derived from non-explosive experiments. The Directors of Los Alamos, Livermore, and Sandia are required to write an annual stockpile assessment letter that assures the nuclear stockpile's reliability; this letter is finalized after a yearlong assessment of the safety, reliability, and performance of both the nuclear and non-nuclear components of all weapon types in the U.S. arsenal. The letters are highly classified and closely held, but no letter has indicated that the U.S. needs to return to nuclear testing. This is hugely significant not only for the U.S. but also for the world—the moratorium on testing represents a small step toward a world that recognizes that nuclear weapons are not weapons of war, but rather instruments of deterrence. On October 28, President Trump announced that the U.S. would restart nuclear weapons tests: “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I

This needs to be shared more widely. It's on Facebook, which AFAIK doesn't allow direct links to its posts. Terry clearly wants it to be shared, so I don't feel bad about posting it in multiple screenshots.

Terry Wallace was the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

OMG !

This is horrible , some of the blows could kill someone.

Trump Announces Tariff Increase on Canada Over Reagan Ad Spat

Trump Announces Tariff Increase on Canada Over Reagan Ad Spat www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/w...
He’s so goddam crazy. Isn’t it well past time to invoke the 25th Amendment?

Those are some great #1 tunes from 1974!! Thanks, Casey! #AT40

Hey, Bill! Headed to NYC for Thanksgiving this year. First time seeing the Macy’s parade in person. Sorry I’ve been slacking on Penny pix! Here ya go! 😎 #AT40

The volunteer staff were spectacular. It was such a well-oiled machine. I was one of only 2 female veterans on the trip. The other lady was an 85-yr-old Marine. She and I got lovely recognition at the Women’s Memorial, complete with news reporters. Quite an honor.

There were hundreds of people cheering at the airport when we arrived home. As the plane approached the gate after landing, there were two fire trucks spraying water arches onto the plane in a salute. A truly humbling experience, for sure!

Yes… Senator Bob Dole fought like crazy to get the WWII memorial built and it’s just amazing. But by the time it was completed, most of the WWII vets were pretty old and Honor Flight was established to get them to DC to visit. Absolutely no cost: banquet and overnight at the Hilton included. Fab!

Greetings, #AT40 Friends! I’ve been missing in action for a few weeks with lots going on. First week in Oct I went on the Honor Flight w/ my brother to Wash DC with a group of 55 vets, 55 companions and lots of staff. It was so very cool! Visited the war memorials and were treated like royalty! 😎

Hegseth’s sprawling hunt for Charlie Kirk critics spans nearly 300 investigations The inquiry, resulting in a smattering of disciplinary action so far, follows an extraordinary directive aimed at silencing criticism of the slain activist and Trump supporter.

wapo.st/48SLBj5k

Hey… great work on the Ollie’s rug and decorating! You wanna do mine next?!? 😎

Dogs are amazing

A horrible battle… just awful.

Such a powerful memory. These experiences never leave us, I’m certain.

If only we’d known in 2015 that we could just turn off the escalator.

OMG, this afternoon's ANTIFA Board of Directors meeting went on and on. I thought Jesus would *never* stop talking!

The first time there was almost a vote on the Epstein files, Johnson sent the House on vacation early to avoid it

Now he's on the brink of shutting down the entire government

No one loves protecting child sexual abusers like Mike Johnson does

Precisely!!!

What’s crazy is my father served 2 tours in Vietnam, the first 1966-67, then a second from 1968-69. It’s surreal to remember how “normal” it was for us to watch Walter Cronkite every night to see if we could ever see him on TV. That, and the body count numbers every day… it was so very normal. Sad.

Look up McNamara’s 100,000. Most people are unaware of this little “project.” Disgraceful.

Your parents weren’t unlike most people with draft-age boys back then. It was just awful. My boyfriend’s best friend’s draft number was 3. He split to Canada as soon as that year’s lottery was announced.

Veterans in VA hospitals and nursing homes love having kids around. One of the nurses I worked with would arrange a Senior Ball for the vets in our nursing home. They would get dressed up and families, high schoolers, staff would as well. Music, decorations, prom dresses, food… they loved it!