Category Archives: Life & Death

SCHMEGELSKY & MCLEOD: THE SENSELESS STORY OF TWO KILLER KIDS

Two teens terrorized western Canada in July, 2019 with their murderous mission. These kids cold-bloodily killed three innocent victims before cowardly taking their own lives in a suicide pact. Their senseless spree sent shock worldwide through the international media because two victims were young American and Australian visitors. The third man—a Canadian senior.

A national manhunt for 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky and 19-year-old Kam McLeod lasted 24 days. Hundreds of police officers led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) searched for the outlaws using every tactical tool. They finally found Schmegelsky and McLeod dead in the Manitoba wilderness 2,000 miles (3,200 km) east of northern British Columbia where the teens executed their prey.

This week, the RCMP released their investigative report establishing beyond all doubt that Schmegelsky and McLeod acted together—and without aid—to commit three counts of first-degree murder. The report concludes the two teenagers fatally shot Chynna Deese, Lucas Fowler and Leonard Dyck before ending their own lives. What the RCMP report did not find was Schmegelsky and McLeod’s motive for these senseless acts that became an international news story about two killer kids.

The Deese and Fowler Murders

Chynna Noel Deese was a 24 year old from Charlotte, North Carolina. Her 23-year-old boyfriend, Lucas Robertson Fowler, was from New South Wales in Australia. Fowler was in Alberta, Canada on a work visa, and Deese traveled up from the United States to join him on an adventure trip to the Canadian Yukon. On July 15, 2019, a road maintenance worker found their bullet-ridden bodies in a ditch along the Alaska Highway near Laird Hot Springs in British Columbia’s far north.

This area is truly remote. The Deese-Fowler homicide scene was a 3.5-hour drive from Fort Nelson which had the nearest RCMP detachment. Uniform officers held the scene until detectives from the Northern BC Major Crimes Unit took over.

It was obvious that Deese and Fowler were intentionally shot multiple times. Autopsies and scene examination indicated the first wounds were from the back indicating they were taken by surprise. The detectives also recovered spent cartridge casings later identified as 7.62x39mm caliber rounds fired by two different Soviet-made SKS assault rifles.

Deese and Fowler’s murder motive baffled the detective team. There was no robbery or sexual assault evidence. The couple was completely clean of criminal connections. They seemed to have simply pulled off the road with temporary vehicle troubles when their lives were senselessly taken.

The RCMP had absolutely no idea—not a clue—why this happened. They had no suspects with nothing to go on but firearm evidence. They also had international media attention bearing down because of the victims’ citizenship and that Fowler’s father was a high-ranking Australian police officer.

Leonard Dyck’s Murder

While the RCMP investigation focused on the Deese and Fowler homicides, another body turned up fatally shot in northern British Columbia. This was on July 19, four days after Deese and Fowler were executed, and 250 miles (400km) to the British Columbia west as the crow flies, or a full day’s drive by the windy roads.

The tiny village of Dease Lake, B.C. is on Highway 37 which is another northern road connecting the south with the north. Another highway worker found a burned-out truck with a dead body nearby at the Stikine River crossing just south of Dease Lake. It took three days for the police to identify 64-year-old Leonard Dyck as the deceased. Dyck was a botany professor from a Vancouver university who researched in British Columbia’s wilderness.

Although it took the RCMP time to identify Leonard Dyck, they soon connected his homicide with Deese and Fowler’s demise. Dyck was also a gunshot victim and a matching SKS spent cartridge was near his remains. Now the police knew they had someone on a traveling murder spree, but they had no idea who or why.

Detectives quickly identified the burned truck. It was an older Dodge Ram with a sleeper-canopy registered to a youth named Kam McLeod. There was no association to Leonard Dyck with this torched truck, and Dyck’s newer model Toyota RAV4 SUV was gone.

Officers contacted Kam McLeod’s family in Port Alberni, British Columbia located on Vancouver Island across the water from Metro Vancouver. McLeod’s family told police that Kam McLeod left home on July 12. He was heading for the Yukon Territory looking for work. With MacLeod was his long-time friend, Bryer Schmegelsky.

The McLeod and Schmegelsky families told police they’d not had recent contact with the youths. Now they were worried the teens may also be homicide victims. The police initially treated the pair as missing persons—certainly not as persons-of-interest or murder suspects.

Schmegelsky and McLeod Become Murder Suspects

That changed on July 22 as word of MacLeod and Schmegelsky’s disappearance circulated through Port Alberni’s community. Police learned from youth sources there was strong suspicion Bryer Schmegelsky had a dark side and Kam McLeod had one, too. Police heard that Schmegelsky spent hours viewing online material about twisted acts, and he’d made social media posts with Nazi and extremist regalia. It was also alleged that Schmegelsky made verbal threats to shoot random people and then commit suicide.

The RCMP investigation team processed what was left of McLeod’s Dodge Ram. They found a charred metal cartridge container holding military surplus rounds of SKS ammunition. The police also learned McLeod legally purchased a non-restricted SKS semi-automatic assault rifle at a Cabalas store near Port Alberni on the day he and Schmegelsky left home.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police now considered Kam MacLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky viable suspects in the planned and deliberate Deese, Fowler and Dyck murders. They swore charges and obtained arrest warrants with Canada-wide jurisdiction. The RCMP also issued a nation-wide public warning, and the already over-heated media attention broadcast the story around the world.

The Schmegelsky-McLeod story generated hundreds of tips. Some were far-out, but a few were deadly accurate. Soon, the detective team established a travel pattern for the pair as they drove Dyck’s stolen SUV 2,000 miles (3,200km) eastward across the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The trip took them four days, and their trail ended at the extremely remote northern Manitoba town of Gillam.

The Manhunt on Foot Begins

On July 23, Leonard Dyck’s RAV4 turned up east of Gilliam in an area called Sundance Camp near the Bird First Nations settlement of the Cree people. It was on fire. Police from Gillam were already alerted about McLeod and Schmegelsky from country-wide bulletins and the massive mainstream news coverage.

There was no doubt the fugitives reached the end of the road, but there was no sign of them personally at Sundance. This area is inhospitable, to say the least, and the thought of two inexperienced boys taking on wilderness survival seemed absurd. The thick forest and bog teemed with flies, and the woods harbored dangerous predators like polar bears, black bears and timber wolves.

Little by little, as the ground search progressed, clues appeared that proved the pair were on foot and moving east along the banks of the massive Churchill River and towards Hudson Bay. Searchers found clothing and identification as well as SKS ammunition boxes belonging to Schmegelsky and McLeod. It appeared they were lightening their load.

While the main ground search focused on the Sundance area, inevitable red herrings occurred. Search efforts diverted to a distant location after a seemingly credible sighting placed two suspicious young men near a landfill. Other reports came in from miles away in Ontario which also claimed valuable investigative resources. Ridiculously, internet sites like Facebook Groups bashed the police and trolls encouraged the killers.

The RCMP had help from the Canadian military in their search for McLeod and Schmegelsky. Two high-tech search planes used sophisticated tracking equipment but came up empty. So did the Emergency Response Team and canine units beating the bush and risking their lives to an ambush. By August 3, 2019, the police were ready to scale back and conclude that the pair had perished. Things suddenly changed.

Schmegelsky and McLeod are Found Dead

A seasoned river guide reported a suspicious find on the Churchill River’s banks. He’d spotted a small boat trapped along the shore 5 miles (8km) east of Sundance where the burnt RAV4 was found. Police suspected McLeod and Schmegelsky may have stolen the boat and fled downriver. Possibly, the theory went, the pair might have capsized and drowned.

This area had already been searched from the air with no luck. However, a ground search hadn’t been done due to the prohibitive terrain, and previous runs on the river were negative. Police efforts zeroed-in on the north shore of the Churchill River close to Sundance, and they hired a talented man to guide them.

Billy Beardy was well-known in the Cree community for his outdoor skills. Beardy was a life-long Bird First Nations resident and a top-notch hunter and trapper. He was also a master riverboat operator.

Beardy took an RCMP team of trackers and divers to the found-boat site. They found nothing in the water, but they located more belongings that McLeod and Schmegelsky dropped on the land. This evidence enhanced police suspicions that Canada’s most-wanted youths were somewhere nearby.

It was Billy Beardy who solved the mystery. On August 7, Beardy made another river run with the police. He saw something only a woodsman would recognize. From a steep draw tangled with bush on the north river bank, 3 miles (5km) from the burned RAV4 site, a raven swooped up as the boat went by. Beardy recognized it as a carrion site, and the scavenging bird was feeding on meat.

Billy Beardy turned his jetboat and carefully navigated his craft through the fast-flowing water. Approaching the shore, Beady and his police crew saw Kam McLeod’s body on the bank along the river edge. Nearby—also dead—was Bryer Schmegelsky.

RCMP Recover Evidence from the Death Site

Beside Schmegelsky and McLeod’s bodies were two SKS rifles. One was the legally-bought firearm McLeod purchased on July 12. The other was a black market weapon assembled from various SKS components. Both rifles were later conclusively linked through forensics as being the Deese, Fowler and Dyck murder weapons.

The police also recovered a video camera that belonged to Leonard Dyck. In its video bank were six recordings made by Schmegelsky and McLeod where they confessed to murdering their three victims and making a suicide pact. The two stated they had no accomplices or outside help, but they made no comment about their motive or rationale for these senseless acts. They showed no remorse.

The RCMP’s report states that, in the end, McLeod shot Schmegelsky in a suicide pact. Then he turned the gun on himself. It appears the pair earlier torched the RAV4, then walked east along Churchill River’s high bank, They likely descended for drinking water and got trapped at the bottom of a steep ravine along the high river bank. They were unable to climb back up and were blocked by the river torrent below. Their situation was hopeless, and they refused to be captured.

The police report doesn’t speculate on when the pair expired. The coroner found both died from single gunshot wounds which were immediately fatal. And the report concluded Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod were the sole killers responsible for tragically taking three other lives.

Schmegelsky and McLeod’s Motive for Killing Deese, Fowler and Dyck

Motive is the real mystery in this senseless story of two killer kids. Their pre-death confession took full responsibility for the murders, but they gave no hint of their reason for callously causing these innocent peoples’ deaths. It seems their motive will never be known.

We’ll never know exactly what Schmegelsky and McLeod said in their videos. Wisely, the RCMP deferred to their Behavioral Analysis Unit and a world-renown forensic psychiatrist for advice. They were told to keep the video content sealed forever, and this is the report’s rationale:

“The RCMP Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) conducted a review of the videos of McLeod and Schmegelsky. BAU was concerned with a behavior called “identification”, which is considered a “warning behavior” in the context of threat assessment. In that, the videos may influence or inspire other individuals to carry out a targeted act of violence, essentially creating copycat killers. In BAU’s experience, those who commit mass casualty attacks are heavily inspired by previous attackers and their behaviors.

The BAU consulted with Dr. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist and a world-leading expert in threat assessment and he agreed that the videos should not be released. His and others research has shown that those individuals who commit mass casualty attacks are often heavily inspired by previous attackers and their behaviors.

BAU believed that McLeod and Schmegelsky may have made the video recordings for notoriety and releasing them will be seen as an injustice to the victims and their families. In an effort to not sensationalize the actions of McLeod and Schmegelsky and to mitigate the potential of other individuals being inspired by McLeod and Schmegelsky to commit similar acts of violence, the videos will not be released to the public by the RCMP.”

What Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod did to Chynna Deese, Lucas Fowler and Leonard Dyck is inexcusable. It’s indefensible and beyond justification. Their motive—whatever it was—is unfathomable and incapable for the rational mind to understand.

This isn’t an issue of two troubled youths ignored by an uncaring society and acting out. It’s not a case of desperate fleeing felons. No. What these killer kids did for perverted gratification is beyond sick and disgusting. It’s a truly senseless story.

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Read the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Report on the Chynna Deese, Lucas Fowler and Leonard Dyck Murders Committed by Bryer Schmegelsky & Kam McLeod

THIRTEEN TERRIBLY CLOSE CALLS WITH NUCLEAR BOMB ACCIDENTS

Nuclear bombs are the most destructive devices ever devised by humans. By conservative estimates from ArmsControl.org, there’re approximately 13,885 known nuclear warheads in the world’s arms stockpile—probably far more. Although there’ve only been two actual combat nuclear deployments in history, hundreds of test activations took place. No one truly knows how many near-miss incidents happened, but we do know of thirteen terribly close calls with nuclear bomb accidents.

By definition, a near-miss is a “narrowly avoided collision, discharge or other accident”. In nuclear weapon terms, that’d be closely avoiding unintentionally setting off an explosion—an explosion with unfathomable consequences. So how is it that people get so careless when handling an instrument of Armageddon? The answer seems to lie in human nature.

The world has eight countries with known nuclear arsenals. By alphabetical order, that’s China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Three more states have active nuclear weapon acquisition and development programs—Iran, North Korea and Syria. There’s a lot of effort by “responsible” nuclear weapon powers to curtail the rogue countries before they become more of a menace.

Two international agreements regulate the world’s nuclear-equipped countries. One is the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968. The other is the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 1996. They divide the countries into three categories of Nuclear-Weapon States, Non-NPT Nuclear Weapons Possessors and States of Immediate Proliferation Concern. According to ArmsControl.org, here’s where they fit and what they apparently have.

Nuclear Weapon States

  • China — 290 total warheads
  • France — 300 total warheads
  • Russia — 1,461 active warheads with 4,490 stockpiled and 2,000 retired warheads
  • United Kingdom — 120 active warheads and 200 stockpiled warheads
  • United States — 1.365 active warheads with 3,800 stockpiled and 2,385 retired warheads

Non-NPT Nuclear Weapons Possessors

  • India — 130-140 active warheads
  • Israel — 80-90 active warheads
  • Pakistan — 150-160 active warheads

States of Immediate Proliferation Concern

  • Iran — No confirmed warheads but in active development
  • North Korea — Known to possess but unknown quantity estimated at 20-30 warheads
  • Syria — No confirmed warheads but in active development

Incidentally, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine inherited nuclear bombs upon the Soviet Union break-up. They returned their stockpiles to Russia, but it’s feared some nuclear devices are unaccounted for and open to terrorist possession. South Africa had a nuclear weapon program with active warheads, but they disbanded it. Argentina, Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan also stopped their nuclear development programs.

Different Nuclear Bomb Types

Before getting into the thirteen terribly close calls with nuclear bomb accidents, it’s worth a review of what these weapons of mass destruction really are. Most people are aware that nuclear weapons arrived at the end of World War II when America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. These were first-generation devices. “Little Boy” was a uranium fission atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, and “Fat Man” was a plutonium fission A-bomb that caused Nagasaki’s destruction.

Fat Man and Little Boy were basic A-bomb nuclear weapons that drew energy by splitting plutonium and uranium atoms through a fission process. They weren’t the tremendously-powerful thermonuclear hydrogen bombs that use a primary fission activation to cause nuclear fusion from hydrogen atoms. A fusion-activated H-Bomb uses a fission reaction to release massive energy contained in hydrogen gas.

The two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan were puny compared to today’s extremely energetic thermonuclear weapons. The Japanese destructors held a power equivalent to approximately 20,000 tons of TNT each. Thermonuclear bombs start at about 1/10 million tons of TNT and go up. This energy gets measured in the terms of kilotons (KT) which is 1,000 tons of TNT and megatons (MT) or 1 million TNT tons.

Today, a small-yield nuclear bomb such as a W76 battlefield tactical nuclear weapon would have a 100 KT explosive power. A larger-capacity B83 nuclear bomb would release 1.2 MT in power. Big or small, both designs are enormously destructive and would be devastating if discharged. It’s certainly nothing to risk having an accident with.

Nuclear Bomb Accidents — Broken Arrow

But, accidents do happen with nuclear bombs. They have, and likely will continue as long as there’s a human element handling them. The United States military has a public record of accidents they’ve experienced with nuclear weapons.

It’s called Broken Arrow. Officially, Broken Arrow lists 32 specific incidents where American nuclear bomb handling went beyond safe handling parameters. Some speculate there are way more—possibly hundreds that haven’t been reported or, worse, covered up. Here are the “official” parameters a nuclear bomb incident/accident must have to make the Broken Arrow list.

  • Accidental or Unexplained Nuclear Detonation
  • Non-Nuclear Detonation or Burning a Nuclear Weapon
  • Radioactive Contamination
  • Nuclear Asset Lost or Misplaced in Transit
  • Jettison of Nuclear Weapon or Component
  • Public Hazard, Actual or Implied

The military loves its code words and phrases. They use Empty Quiver for having a nuclear bomb stolen from them. Dull Sword refers to minor nuclear arms incidents like a malfunctioning vehicle hauling a nuclear bomb. Faded Giant is a failing nuclear reactor. And, NucFlash is an intentional or unintentional discharge that starts a nuclear war.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is a watchdog keeping track of close calls with nuclear weapons. They say since the nuclear age started, political and military leaders faced a daunting challenge with their nuclear bomb program. They wanted it free of accidents but still wanted bombs immediately available when and if needed.

So how secure are nuclear weapons against accidental firings, incidental loss and damage from careless root causes? Well, the good news, they say, is that there hasn’t been a single reported incident where a nuclear or thermonuclear bomb actually went off by accident. The bad news, they report, is there’ve been many, many close calls where accidents and errors nearly nuked us. Here are thirteen terribly close calls with international nuclear bomb accidents.

Thirteen Terribly Close Calls With Nuclear Bomb Accidents

13. February 14, 1950 — A U.S. Air Force B-36 bomber en route from Alaska to Texas experienced mechanical trouble. Most of the crew parachuted out and survived, although the plane crashed and burned in the British Columbia coastal mountain. The one 1-MT Mark 4 nuclear bomb on board was jettisoned into the Pacific Ocean for safety sake. Despite a massive search, the operational nuclear warhead has never been recovered. It’s still out there waiting to go off.

12. March 11, 1958 — A U.S. Air Force B-47 Stratojet left Savanah, Georgia during a storm. It carried a 1-MT Mark 6 nuclear bomb, and the violent turbulence caused a crew member in the bomb bay to grab on for stability. He accidentally pulled the nuke’s emergency release pin which sent the bomb earthward. It landed at Mars Bluff in a children’s playhouse near three little kids. The bomb failed to detonate but caused a fire that burned down the family home. Fortunately, no one was injured although the children were stunned by the impact concussion.

11. May 22, 1957 — A U.S. Airforce B-36 bomber ran into bad weather over Albuquerque, New Mexico. It had a 10-MT Mark 17 hydrogen bomb in its bay that was accidentally released by a crew member who grabbed the bomb jettison lever to steady himself. The bomb hit the ground with enough force to leave a 12-foot deep by 25-foot wider crater in the desert sand. It didn’t blow up because the fissionable plutonium activator failed to activate. The official report noted that the Mark 17 was the largest nuclear bomb in the American arsenal.

 

10. March 10, 1956 — A U.S. Air Force B-47 left Florida for Morocco. Somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea, the plane simply vanished. There was no distress call and no wreckage was ever found. In its bay was one 3.4 MT Mark 15 nuclear bomb as well as an undisclosed number of dismantled nuclear bomb parts. No sign of the plane, its nuclear bomb and the spare parts ever surfaced.

9. September 19, 1980 — Near Damascus, Arkansas, a military personnel working in a Titan Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) silo dropped a wrench down the tube and damaged the fuel tank on a Titan II rocket. The leak caused an uncontrollable fire which destroyed the silo and its contents. On top of the Titan missile was a 9 MT W-53 nuclear warhead. It failed to go off but was burned beyond salvage. Should it have exploded, the blast may have set off a chain reaction blowing up 17 other nuclear bombs in the silo complex.

8. January 24, 1961 — A U.S. Strategic Command B-52 bomber experienced a mid-air collision while attempting to refuel with a KC-135 Flying Tanker near Goldsboro, North Carolina. Both jets broke apart and crashed. The B-52 held two 3.4 MT hydrogen bombs that jettisoned under parachute control. One chute failed and the bomb hit the ground at 700 mph. The other’s chute worked and let the bomb down slowly where it got hung up in a tree. Neither thermonuclear device exploded, but the investigation revealed the arming sequence actually activated on the second bomb that was stopped by the tree. It was only a simple switch with two little wires that prevented a major nuclear disaster.

7.  July 27, 1956 — At Lakenhearth AFB in the United Kingdom, an American B-47 bomber on a touch-and-go training mission lost control. It plowed into a UK missile silo containing three 3 MT Mark 6 nuclear warheads. The silo, or “igloo” as it’s called, caught fire and burned. Once out, the investigation team found that the warheads were still operational and one bomb’s detonator had been sheared off in the impact. No one could clearly explain why it failed to go off as it should have.

6. January 17, 1966 — The Palomares Incident occurred when an American B-52 bomber had a mid-air collision with its fuel supplier over Palomares, Spain. Both crashed and burned, but the bomber made a controlled jettison of its four 1.5 MT hydrogen bombs. Two parachuted safely to the ground. One’s chute failed and its fission nuclear ignition device exploded. However, the actual fusion nuclear reaction didn’t happen. The preliminary fission nuclear blast caused massive radioactive pollution. The attempted cleanup effort was enormous, and the site still radiates today. Searchers eventually recovered the fourth nuclear bomb from the sea after a long and expensive venture.

5. January 21, 1968 — Four 1.1 MT B23 thermonuclear hydrogen bombs were on board a U.S. B-52 when it caught fire near Thule AFB in Greenland. The situation was hopeless, so the crew set the plane on an autopilot descent towards the open ocean and then bailed out. Every crew member survived, but the bomber did something unexpected. With a mind of its own, it crash-landed itself on the Greenland ice causing the primary fission nuclear ignition material to explode. The main warheads didn’t follow suit. However, the radioactive contamination from the small nuke blasts caused an environmental nightmare for the Greenland area. One investigator said, “It was like four dirty bombs went off.”

4. August 29, 2007 — Although no damage was done, this is likely the most embarrassing nuclear accident the United States Air Force ever experienced. They lost six live AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles equipped with W80-1 variable-yield nuclear warheads for a 36-hour period. Yes, they lost them. The bombs got mistakenly loaded at Minot AFB in North Dakota for transport to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana.

These six thermonuclear hydrogen bombs were wrongly taken from a stockpile that were live rather than the decommissioned ones that were supposed to be the day’s cargo. The unguarded nukes sat on a runway all night and then arrived in Louisiana where the ground crew treated them like duds. This SNAFU caused heads to roll right up to the Secretary of Defense because of lax nuclear bomb safety policies.

3. October 03, 1986 — The Russians aren’t without their nuclear bomb accidents. However, they’re usually very tight-lipped so who knows how many they’ve had. This one was impossible to conceal as they rescued their sailors from the Russian K-219 nuclear-powered attack submarine. The sub was near Bermuda when a hatch cover failed. Water leaked in and mixed with nuclear-grade fuel which is not a good thing. Despite all efforts to save the ship, most of the crew was saved.

The submarine fared otherwise. It was put under tow by a Russian freight and taken towards the motherland. Once over very deep water in the mid-Atlantic, the sub broke free and went 18,000 feet to the bottom. With it were two nuclear reactors and 34 operational nuclear-tipped missiles. None of them have been recovered.

2. March 01, 1954 — Not all nuclear accidents come from near misses. This one came from a live and planned thermonuclear hydrogen bomb test the Americans pulled off at remote Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific. This was in nuclear bomb research infancy, and the United States military was going for the biggest and best bomb they could build. This day, they tested a project called Castle Bravo which engineers designed for a five MT yield. Somehow, they miscalculated.

The controlled blast was at least three times the expected force—somewhere between 15 and 20 MT. Observers placed outside the expected danger zone were radiated like they’d entered a blast furnace. Twenty-three pour souls on a Japanese fishing boat perished immediately with hundreds of native dwellers on nearby atolls consequently dying of radiation poisoning. Some were children who played in white fallout ash which they thought was this thing called snow.

The radioactive area was enormous. One analyst stated, “If ground zero had of been Washington, DC every resident in the greater Washington-Baltimore would have been instantly dead. Even in Philadelphia, 150 miles away, the majority of inhabitants would have died within an hour from radiation poisoning. In New York City, half the population would be dead by nightfall. And, all the way to the Canadian border inhabitants would be exposed to lethal radiation.”

1. October 30, 1961 — Leave it to the Russians to do something really big and radically brazen. They built a gigantic thermonuclear hydrogen bomb—a magnificently monstrous bomb. They called it Tsar Bomba but used the creative code-name “Ivan”. This was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever made. However, it doesn’t appear they intended Ivan to be this large.

Soviet RDS-202 Tsar Bomba was 26 feet long and 7 feet wide. Ivan’s static weight was 27 tons, and it needed a specially-modified Tu-95 bomber to carry it. The Russian crew detonated Ivan on a deserted island far in the barren north. The area was mostly uninhabited by Siberian terms which seemed like a good place for destructive nuclear testing.

The Russian military, being the secretive bunch they are, never declassified the intended design yield they built into Tsar Bomba. It certainly wasn’t the 57 MT thermonuclear explosion that ensued. This bang was so big that the flash was seen for 630 miles distant. The mushroom cloud extended 40 miles up and spread out hundreds of miles with radiation spreading over multi-thousands of square miles. Windows 560 miles away blew out from the concussion.

Western observers monitored the Tsar Bomba blast and confirmed the energy. They equated Tsar Bomba as using more energy than all the munitions expended by all sides during World War II. That included the nukes on Japan. There are no verified records of how much environmental damage Tsar Bomba accomplished or how many people perished in its aftermath.

The Future of Nuclear Bomb Accidents

It’s naive to think the world will rid itself of nuclear bombs any time in the foreseeable future. The NPT countries continue to cooperate in reducing their nuclear inventories—within their parameters of trust. Many monitoring protocols keep participating countries “honest”, but it’s the non-NPT nuclear weapons possessors and the immediate proliferation countries that present a high risk for accidents—never mind using a nuke with intention.

Allowing belligerent countries like North Korea, Syria and Iran to possess nuclear bombs is a serious mistake. It’s an unacceptable threat. It’s not just their instability in aggressively firing the first nuclear shot. It’s the chance they’ll make a terrible error and inadvertently activate a bomb.

The “responsible” nuclear community avoided intentional thermonuclear bomb-throwing since the lesson learned at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But they, too, still haven’t got the safety memo. As long as there’s human involvement with nuclear weapons, there’ll always be a potential accident.

It’s human nature to be careless with things like instruments of Armageddon. But, close calls with nuclear bomb accidents have terrible consequences. Just think of the innocent atoll kids who played in the snow.

IS THE MEANING OF LIFE A HAM SANDWICH? (ONE OF THOSE QUESTIONS MAKING YOU WANT TO PUNCH SOMEONE IN THE FACE)

Thanks to Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck) – NYT #1 bestselling author, prolific blogger, deep thinker and common-sense guy for sharing his take on life’s meaning and your unique purpose. Really special to have Mark musing here at DyingWords.

You know the question. It’s the ultimate question. The question you and I and everyone has laid awake at night thinking about. The question that brings equal parts wonder and terror to our feeble minds. Why are we here? What is the point of it all? What is the meaning of life?

Well, fortunately, I figured it out while I was at the gym this morning. I’m pretty sure it’s a ham sandwich. And no, I’m not saying that just because I’m hungry. There’s an explanation here. I’m going to explain it, click-bait titles and all, in, oh, the next eight minutes or so.

First off, before we can even appropriately ask “What is the meaning of life?” we must first settle something more subtle and something more important. Namely, what is meaning?

What is meaning? That may strike you as terribly navel-gazey and ultra-philosophical. And if that’s the case, I invite you to think about ham sandwiches for a moment, and just stick with me for a minute. Because it’s important.

What does it mean for something to mean something? As humans, we have a constant need to attach meaning to everything that happens in our lives.

My mom hugs me—that must mean that she loves me. My boss complimented me—that must mean I do good work. It’s going to be sunny tomorrow—that must mean I can wear my super-cool SpongeBob tank top to school.

Meaning is the association that we draw between two experiences or events in our minds. X happens, then Y happens, so we assume that means X causes Y. Z happens, and we get really bummed out and feel awful, therefore we assume that Z sucks.

Our brains invent meaning the way dogs shit—they do it gleefully and not even realizing that they’re ruining the carpet. Our brains invent meaning as a way to explain all the crazy shit that is going on in the world around us. This is important, as it helps us predict and control our lives.

But let’s be real: meaning is an arbitrary mental construct. Fifty people can watch the exact same event and draw fifty different meanings from said event. That’s why there’s so much arguing in politics. That’s why eyewitnesses are so unreliable in court. That’s why your friends are sometimes the biggest assholes—because that meaning you just shared, to them, meant something completely different.

TYPES OF MEANING IN LIFE

Our brains slap together two different types of meaning:

Cause/Effect Meaning: You kick the ball, the ball moves. You tell your friend his hair is ugly, your friend slaps you in the face. You do X, and with reliable certainty, Y will result.

We all need Cause/Effect meaning to survive. It helps us predict the future and learn from the past. Cause/Effect meaning primarily involves the logical parts of our brain. Science, for instance, is the constant search of more and more Cause/Effect Meaning.

Better/Worse Meaning: Eating is better than starving. Making money is better than being broke. Sharing is better than stealing. Better/Worse meaning has to do with the nature of our values—what we perceive to be most important and useful in our lives. Better/Worse meaning relies mostly on the emotional parts of our brains. Generally what makes us feel good is what we immediately assume to be “good” or “better.”

Both forms of meaning evolved in our brains to help us survive. For thousands of years, humans needed to remember where certain food could be found, how various animals would respond when hunted, how weather patterns change and how to read the terrain. They also needed to know what would gain them acceptance within their tribe, what would curry favor from friends and earn approval from that sexy guy/gal in the loin cloth over yonder.

So in that sense, meaning is nature’s tool for motivation. It’s how evolution made sure we got shit done. Meaning drives all of our actions. When there is great meaning attached to something, like our child is sick and starving, we will go to insane lengths to make things right. People will often even go as far as to give up their lives for some grand sense of meaning (religion: every war ever). Meaning is that effective at moving people.

Conversely, when we feel we lack meaning in our lives, when shit just doesn’t seem to matter, when there’s no clarity on how or why things happen to us, we do nothing. We sit on the couch and twiddle our thumbs and watch lame reruns while complaining on the internet about lame reruns.

But here’s the kicker (and I swear I’m going to get to the ham sandwich): Meaning is a resource that we must cultivate in our lives.

Meaning is not something that exists outside of ourselves. It is not some cosmic universal truth waiting to be discovered. It is not some grand ‘eureka’ moment that will change our lives forever.

Meaning requires action. Meaning is something that we must continually find and nurture. Consistently.

Meaning is like the water of our psychological health. Without it, our hearts and minds will shrivel and die. And like water, meaning flows through us—what is important today is not what was important years ago; and what is important tomorrow will not be the same as what is important today. Meaning must be sought out and replenished frequently.

HOW TO FIND MEANING IN YOUR LIFE

In a very real sense, the meaning of life is therefore to create meaning. So how does one create meaning? Two ways:

Solve Problems: The bigger the problem, the more meaning one will feel. The more work you do towards that problem, also the more meaning you will feel. Solving problems basically means finding ways to make the world a slightly better place. It can be as simple as fixing up your aging mother’s dilapidated house. Or, it’s as complex as working on the new great breakthrough in physics.

The point here is not to be picky. It’s easy, when we start thinking of how insignificant we are on a cosmic scale of the universe, to start thinking there’s no point in doing anything unless we’re going to save the world or something. This is just a distraction. There are tons of small, everyday problems going on around you that need your attention. Start giving it.

Help Others: This is the biggie. As humans, we’re wired to thrive on our relationships. Studies show that our overall well-being is deeply tied to the quality of our relationships, and the best way to build healthy relationships is through helping others. In fact, some studies have even found that giving stuff away makes us happier than giving stuff to ourselves. Go figure.

As such, it seems to be a “hack” in our brains that helping out other people gives us a greater sense of meaning and purpose. Just the fact you can say to yourself, “If I died, then someone is better off because I lived,” creates that sense of meaning that can propel you forward.

THE TRAP OF SETTING GOALS

A lot of people find meaning through setting goals for themselves. They want the corner office, the big car, the fancy-pants shoes. It gives them a reason to wake up in the morning, a reason to bust their ass at work. It gives them something that makes them feel important and something to look forward to every day.

But, goals are a double-edged sword. You have to be careful. Goals are good tools for building motivation. The problem is that, by themselves, they are arbitrary and empty. Unless there’s a why behind the goal full of meaning, the goal itself will provide little long-term happiness or satisfaction.

Ever see star athletes flounder after retirement? Or a guy who finally made his millions become deeply miserable because he doesn’t know what else to do with his life?

Goals are dangerous because the meaning they provide when you’re working towards them is the meaning that is taken away once you achieve them. This is why all the superficial stuff like make a billion dollars, or own a Rolls Royce, or get your face plastered on the cover of a magazine all lead to a type of happiness that is shallow and short-lived—because the meaning is shallow and short-lived. There has to be a deeper reason for your goals. Otherwise, the goals themselves will be empty and worthless in the long-run.

Notice that it’s the athletes who aspire to be the best at their sport for some greater reason—to build a charity, to start a business, to transition into another career—who handle retirement the best. Notice it’s the millionaires who spent their life working towards a deeper cause that remain content once all of their goals are checked off the checklist.

But some goals don’t even have to be big and sexy.

Take a ham sandwich. I sat down to write this article hungry. That’s a problem in my life.  And I promised myself I’d pump out this draft before going and making myself a sandwich. That gave this hour some extra meaning.

And you know what? Maybe my wife’s hungry and I can make her one too. You know, make the world a better place and all that shit while I’m at it.

So what’s the meaning of life? Well, for me, right now, it’s a ham sandwich. What will yours be?

*   *   *

Thanks so much to Mark Manson for his witty yet wise insight into all things life. Mark is a writer, blogger and thinker who set the current trend of questioning conventional self-help gurus. His great book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck sold over a million copies and still burns the charts. That’s because Mark connected with people looking for no-bullshit truth.

Mark Manson reads a lot, writes a lot and shares a lot. Born in Austin, Texas, Mark educated in Boston and now lives in NYC with his Brazilian wife. Mark’s work makes himself think about solving problems, helping others, cause & effect and better or worse. He’s a thought leader and non-apologist for sticking-it to conventional self-help opportunists. Here’s Mark Manson’s best books.

The self-help book for people who hate self-help books. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is all about self-improvement not through avoiding problems or always being happy, but rather through engaging and improving upon problems and learning to accept the occasional unhappiness. It’s a radical departure from anything else you’ve ever read, and that’s what makes it so powerful.

In Everything Is F*cked, Manson turns his gaze from the inevitable flaws within each individual self to the endless calamities taking place in the world around us. Drawing on mountains of psychological research, as well as the timeless wisdom of philosophers such as Plato and Nietzsche, he dissects religion and politics and the uncomfortable ways they have come to resemble one another. He looks at our relationships with money, entertainment and the internet, and how too much of a good thing can psychologically eat us alive. He openly defies our definitions of faith, happiness, freedom, and even of hope itself.

Models is a book on becoming an attractive man that’s based not on tricks, tactics, games or techniques, but on self-development. Its truths are backed by decades of psychological research. Its focus is on the emotional process of seduction rather than agonizing over logical steps. Its goal is to create powerful connections with women instead of trying to impress them.

Models is the most mature and honest guide on how a man can attract women without faking behavior, without lying and without emulating others. Stop acting like an attractive man and BE an attractive man.

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