Doomsday clock hands moved from 7 to 5 minutes

[FrankZappa]

Been waiting on this one for over 2 years:

-- Washington, D.C. and London News Advisory for January 17, 2007 --

Simultaneous Announcement to be Made from Washington, D.C. and London; Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to Underscore "Most Perilous Period Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

NEWS ADVISORY//January 17, 2006///The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) will move the minute hand of the "Doomsday Clock" on January 17, 2007, the first such change to the Clock since February 2002. The major new step reflects growing concerns about a "Second Nuclear Age" marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing "launch-ready" status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

The BAS news event will take place simultaneously on January 17th at 9:30 a.m. ET at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., and at 2:30 p.m. GMT in London at The Royal Society.  

News event speakers will include:

- Stephen Hawking, professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of The Royal Society;

- Kennette Benedict, executive director, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists;

- Sir Martin Rees, president of The Royal Society, and professor of cosmology and astrophysics and master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge;

- Lawrence M. Krauss, professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University;  and

- Ambassador Thomas Pickering, a BAS director and co-chair of the International Crisis Group.

A live, two-way satellite feed (with full Q&A) will connect the Washington, D.C., and London news events.    


TO PARTICIPATE IN PERSON: You can join us for the simultaneous, two-site news event taking place on January 17, 2007 -- 9:30 a.m. ET, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Auditorium, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.; and 2:30 p.m. GMT, The Royal Society, Wellcome Trust Lecture Hall, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London.   Please RSVP in advance by contacting Patrick Mitchell, (703) 276-3266, or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com.


CAN\'T PARTICIPATE IN PERSON?: In the U.S., reporters can join this live, phone-based global news conference at 9:30 a.m. ET on January 17, 2007 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442.  (Media in and around London should dial 0800-028-0531. All other reporters outside of the U.S. and the London area should dial 001-412-858-4600, which is not a toll-free line.)  Ask for the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock" news event.  A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at http://www.thebulletin.org as of 6 p.m. ET/11 p.m. GMT on January 17, 2007.  

CONTACT: Patrick Mitchell, (703) 276-3266 or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com.


BACKGROUND
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project and were deeply concerned about the use of nuclear weapons and nuclear war.   In 1947 the Bulletin introduced its clock to convey the perils posed by nuclear weapons through a simple design. The "Doomsday Clock" evoked both the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero). In 1949 Bulletin leaders realized
that movement of the minute hand would signal the organization\'s assessment of world events. The decision to move the minute hand is made by the Bulletin\'s Board of Directors in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 18 Nobel Laureates.  The Bulletin\'s "Doomsday Clock" has become a universally recognized indicator of the world\'s vulnerability to nuclear weapons and other threats.  Additional information is available on the Web at http://www.thebulletin.org.

[davepeck]

err... ok super.

[Drew_Kingsley]

Paul Ryan = too smart for this board...

The fact that he even read this article puts him WAY over my head

[Todd]

And again...the price of tea in china is...

[FrankZappa]

Paul Ryan = too smart for this board...

The fact that he even read this article puts him WAY over my head

So I guess I\'m the only one who got this email then, hu? :hscratch:


The old clock set at 7 minutes to midnight:

I\'m guessing we are heading for 5, 4 at the most.

[Todd]

So I guess I\'m the only one who got this email then, hu? :hscratch:

:drool: mmmmmm Spam :drool:

[FrankZappa]

And again...the price of tea in china is...

Tea bags (pack 25) CNY 16.29 $2.07 £1.09 €1.63
Note that in June, falling production in Kenya had increased the price of tea significantly and thus Pakistani importers are now looking the Indian tea as an alternative. These prices are only for china made tea products, not indian imports















:duck:

[FrankZappa]

:drool: mmmmmm Spam :drool:

you track what is important to you, I\'ll track what is important to me.

[davepeck]

doomsday clock translation:

if you\'re reading this, and you care, then it\'s time for bed.

[FreeSpirit]

So, ummm... Call me blonde, but I don\'t get it.  What\'s the fuss about moving the hands on a clock?  Is it just for the significance of the whole thing, or will something really cool happen when they move the hands? :idunno:

[leith]

2 Minutes to Midnight is an awesome song.

So, ummm... Call me blonde, but I don\'t get it.  What\'s the fuss about moving the hands on a clock?  Is it just for the significance of the whole thing, or will something really cool happen when they move the hands? :idunno:

Really? You really just posted this?

[obsession600]

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clockface maintained since 1947 by the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago in the third floor of 6042 S. Kimbark Ave. It uses the analogy of the human race being at a time that is a \'few minutes to midnight\' where midnight represents destruction by nuclear war. The clock has appeared on the cover of each issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since its introduction.

I just saw a documentary about the clock and its history or else I would probably be clueless as well. This is a very important symbolic event. I think that it will move up to 4 minutes to midnight.

How many people love the song "Two Minutes to Midnight" yet have no idea what it is about?

[FrankZappa]

basically whenever there is a major shift one way or another on the nuclear front, the clock hands move. It moved backwards when the iron curtain came down. It jumped up 5 minutes in the early 50\'s when russia detonated it\'s first hydrogen bomb, etc, etc.

I\'ve been wondering when the clock would move for years now given the fall of ussr and the open market, dirty bombs, and especially north korea and pakistan. I was sure it was going to move in 2001 when north korea landed a missle on the coast of alaska of a size capable of carrying a nuclear weapon.

Oh wait, that happened just months after 9/11 and bush declaired a news blackout on it in the USA because it would drive peoples attention away from supporting an attack on sadam when kim was attacking us. Unless you get your news from non-US based corportations, you wouldn\'t know anything about that, would you?

[jocelyn]

This is not suprising at all.

I have been waiting for the hand to move for a while now, especially considering N. Korea and Iran.

Robyn... basically what happens is... every time they move the hand.... 50 kittens are used for nuclear testing purposes.

[FreeSpirit]

:point: Robyn... basically what happens is... every time they move the hand.... 50 kittens are used for nuclear testing purposes.

ahh, ok.  Thanks for the explanation, joc

::runs & hides Jerry in a locked closet::