If you'll note - -
We can always try for simple, sans simplistic (or wishful) - can't we?
Believing this 'issue' too important to get drowned in generalities of the day,
I intentionally omitted the *very many* means whereby fuckwits like our current ruling junta -- regularly elide 'intents of laws' in their march for that homogenization-of-mindset -- that which precedes the methodical militarization of the whole place. We've done that one, repeatedly. Nobody here's forgotten, I trust.
Nor did I attempt to assign %relative-risk of radioactive VS the n-thousand other means by which deranged humanoids can create chaos in a massively techno-dependent house-of-cards modern, excessively-rich, consumer-besotted environment. cf. The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper.
What I said was: it is relatively easy to make at least coarse sweeps of an entire town - *simply* for the purpose of early-detection of any radiation source that is clearly well beyond natural [1]background.
I said, "We Should Do This".
(I Don't Care if.. 'mosques' are the first place inspected /detected-from-afar; get on to the remaining 99.9% too. Methodically. For the duration.. of all mob madness. Hey, that might be longer than 'Iraq' - such as We Are. This genie has been out of the bottle since 1939 and 'we' haven't gotten any smarter, or even mature. Let alone informed.)
I have experience/lore of what happens with radiation from pervasive low-levels to the agonizing deaths of high-levels. I aver that my concern is neither exaggerated nor misplaced, (nor 'sentimental'.)
Why would I? - a one manifestly anti- all the oft-mentioned excesses of Bestial Authority - renege in This Case. D'oh! think cataclysms: when you multiply exceeding-small probabilities X exceeding-dire consequences (like ~towns built atop lava channels! of volcanoes) - a different math must be done. So, ultimately this matter, and Now, devolves to classic forensics -
MOM: Means, opportunity and motive.
We are fully aware of motives of the religio-mad seppuku-intent.
Every putative Open Society is rife with opportunities for crashing its fragile, intricately interdependent systems. Some with no reboot, in a generation or so.
THAT's why "we monitor" even for the highly improbable: because it is no longer Impossible, and we Know that there are rapturin-out folks East & West, those besotted with delusions of Certainty (I'm Right/They're Wrong):
those who care not an iota re the trashing of the planet -- if'n they get their virgins / and-or angel-wings, earlier / and get to enjoy watching the heretics Burn.
(For some, clearly the schadenfreude is even more delicious than the virgins - sitting next to the Imagined anthro-Bearded One and watching the perps fry: that's the ticket! to Bliss. Roller Ball for miniscule-brain washed twits. The Few: drawn from the millions with lesser gumption to Fix Things, terminally.)
Fortunately (for us) as Scott has suggested: the means for acquiring, accumulating kiloCuries of some spent fuel (short of a core dump like Chernobyl) are not so simple. In the US, thus far.
Elsewhere ..?.. then it becomes a matter of transport.
Wanna bet we have that Covered 100.0% ? maybe by Michael Brown's housekeeper..
Carrion
Avge. Kenwood background, over months: 14.7 cpm. YMMV
[1] Background: which varies greatly with altitude, local geology, etc.
Ever turn on your pocket Geiger counter in an airliner?
I have.. [with the audio off, lest the uninformed panic.]
Physics Works: instead of 10-20 cosmic ray counts/minute - think 500-700. (Long-time aircrews surely suffer enhanced probabilities of Bad Things, especially those with weaker immune systems. We have little hard data on prolonged lo-level exposure; have lots of cant re "threshhold" or None. Etc.)
