BLOGSWARM: See What Congressman Jim Matheson Says About DIVINE STRAKE

The June test will detonate 700 tons of heavy ammonium nitrate-fuel oil emulsion -- creating a blast equivalent to 593 tons of TNT -- in a 36-foot-deep hole near a tunnel in the center of the Nevada Test Site, according to official reports. It aims to allow scientists to model the type of ground shock that will be created, and to weigh the effectiveness of such a weapon against its collateral impact.

"To my knowledge, this will be the largest open-air chemical explosion that we've conducted," said Darwin Morgan, spokesman for the Energy Department's test site. Larger blasts have been carried out at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, including the nation's biggest open-air detonation, in 1985, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

In a letter to James Tegnelia, Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Congressman Jim Matheson states, "I am understandably worried that this demonstration is publicly being billed as a conventional demonstration when it's actual intent is to further the pursuit of a new nuclear weapon."

View the rest of Congressman Jim Matheson's letter to James Tegnelia, here.

To learn more about DIVINE STRAKE go here, here, and here.

I watched the old smokestack in Murray go down. The dust and residue kept going, and going, and going, and that my friends was nothing compared to what this explosion could do. We also know that our U.S. Government has not always been so honest with us about big explosions in Nevada. The fact is why do it if they know what will happen? They do it because they don't know. Until the citizens of Nevada, Utah and the rest of the USA are satisfied that this test is safe, the government of the people, by the people, and for the people needs to BACK OFF!