Word of the Day!

[rinselberg]

overburden


To wit: "overburden" is defined ...


So, there are two ways to use it: First, as a verb. And secondly, as a noun. I don't want to overburden myself trying to think of an example of how to use "overburden" as a verb, so ... I am going to offer an example of how to use "overburden" as a noun ... right here! And it starts with a question:


Is Natanz so deep that a nuclear bunker buster is necessary?


You mean one of these ..?


Iranian officials claim Natanz is more than 18 meters underground. Hersh suggests 23 meters. Anyway, this is the bottom line: Natanz is about 20 meters underground ...

Depth, though, is less important than the ... "concrete overburden equivalent" of a Hard and Deeply Buried Target (HDBT). Natanz was constructed using the "cut and cover" method: First, dig a hole; then build a reinforced concrete roof; cover with rock and soil; and repeat. It’s a Persian mille-feuilles, with dirt, rebar and concrete.



Persian mille-feuilles: Select ("click") image to enlarge. I'm not sure I can tell which layers are the dirt, which are the rebar and which are just concrete - but the whole thing looks scrumptious.


"Concrete overburden equivalent" measures the combined strength of the concrete, rock, and soil [as if it were all just] concrete. In other words, how [many meters] would an equally strong structure of reinforced concrete amount to? The "concrete overburden equivalent" at Natanz is probably considerably less than the actual meters of structure, rock, and soil above the facility. Generally speaking, shallow cut and cover facilities are thought to be vulnerable to the current suite of earth penetrating munitions ...


"Cut and cover" ..? I thought it was supposed to be "duck and cover" ... I could sure use a coffee (black) with that extraordinary looking Persian mille-feuilles ... ummm ... can't we do better than this?


Currently, two basic types of construction methods are used to create an underground complex, "cut and cover" and tunneling. Cut and cover facilities are created by digging deep trenches in the ground, constructing a steel-reinforced concrete bunker deep in the trench, and back filling the excavated earth over it. The amount of earth and/or rock on top of the buried facility is called "overburden" and typically, the greater the amount of overburden, the [more protected] the facility is against aerial assault from bunker busters; i.e. bombs designed to burrow deeply into the earth before detonating ...


Now that's more like it ... but we still need a picture!



An artist’s concept of an underground facility with ventilation shafts and an entrance more than a mile-and-a-half from the main facility. The overburden is the amount of material (soil; rock; concrete; etc.) covering the roof of the buried facility.


I mean a real picture.


Select ("click") image to enlarge.

Additional layers of reinforced concrete and fill dirt create a multi-layer sandwich (i.e. overburden) designed to defeat conventional earth-penetrating precision munitions. Date: 8 June 2003. Image Source: DigitalGlobe.


Fantastic!





Countdown Iran
High profile OptiBoard poster rinselberg reports on the Pentagon's latest plans ...

[rinselberg]

Manicheism is a religion founded by [a Persian named "Mani"] in ... the Third Century. It purported to be the true synthesis of all the religious systems then known, and actually consisted of Zoroastrian dualism, Babylonian folklore, Buddhist ethics, and some small and superficial additions of Christian elements. As the theory of two eternal principles, Good and Evil, is predominant in this fusion of ideas and gives color to the whole, Manicheism is classified as a form of religious dualism. It spread with extraordinary rapidity in both East and West and maintained a sporadic and intermittent existence in the West (Africa, Spain, France, North Italy, the Balkans) for a thousand years, but it flourished mainly in the land of its birth (Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Turkestan) and even further East in Northern India, Western China and Tibet, where [around] A.D. 1000, the bulk of the population professed its tenets and where it [eventually] died out at an uncertain date.

-- from the Catholic Encyclopedia online


Michael Heller, a Polish cosmologist and Catholic priest and scholar, alluded to Manicheism or manicheistic doctrine in a statement accepting the 2008 Templeton Prize:

Adherents of the so-called "intelligent design" ideology commit a grave theological error. They claim that scientific theories, that ascribe the great role to chance and random events in the evolutionary processes, should be replaced, or supplemented, by theories acknowledging the thread of intelligent design in the universe. Such views are theologically erroneous. They implicitly revive the old manicheistic error postulating the existence of two forces acting against each other: God and an inert matter; in this case, chance and intelligent design. There is no opposition here. Within the all-comprising Mind of God what we call chance and random events is well composed into the symphony of creation.

For more about Michael Heller, see OptiBoard: Michael Heller awarded the 2008 Templeton Prize.

[chip anderson]

Snob:
Meaning: A snooty person; someone who puts on airs.
Origin: "It seems that Oxford freshmen were required to register 'according to rank.' Those not of noble birth added after thier names the phrase sine nobilitate which was then abbreviated to 's. nob.,' thurs creating a perfect definition fo the commoner who wishes to mingle with nobles" (From Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origions, Vol. III, by William and Mary Morris).

Chip

[ksquared]

Copenhagen Syndrome - A belief in your own miracles. It is thinking that those who crowned you king actually knew what they were doing. It is buying into your own tulip bulb mania. It is the floating evanescent bubble of self. God help you when it bursts.