Musings

As Russia and the United States return to the nuclear negotiating table, we need to cross our fingers or pray, as the case may be, that somehow Russia will drop the artificial minimum limit they have set at 1500 warheads. I am pretty sure that the USA would like to take it down to zero, if possible. The reality is that a zero tolerance can only be achieved if all of the other nuclear powers on the planet do likewise.

In thinking about this, I recalled a poster I saw some time ago in my local computer store pitching, ‘Duke Nukem’, a game offered by Take Two Interactive. As I think video games are an idiotic waste of time, I never play them, but the title sure tweaked my curiosity.

A more interesting (to me) variant is an exploration of real world effects of a nuclear blast on your own hometown that is being offered by Google Maps. You can select the weapon used, and then set it off and see what happens. Find it at: Ground Zero

Now, I have blogged in the past that nuclear weapons are as useless as teats on a boar hog. 1st use would invite massive retaliation and there would be no winners. And, as I mentioned, even a ‘regional’ use of nuclear weapons would have a very negative global impact. They represent a sort of military pissing contest and have no strategic or tactical value. Here is the straight skinny on the global effects of regional use: Nuclear effects

I hope the nutcases in Iran, North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, India, and China read this (doubtful), and consider other means to becoming a world military power.

I am not too concerned about the countries that have had these weapons since the 1950s, because they already know the futility and danger of hanging on to them. But, self-preservation requires that they do so until everyone else is convinced of this truism. Unfortunately, the Islamic countries, and some Christian ones as well will be the last to embrace this reality as they need global destruction and the subsequent descent of a Savior or Imam to fulfill their religious prophecies.

As I write this, North Korea has apparently turned their weapons-bearing cargo vessel around rather than risk confrontation, and we can all be grateful, as the USA would likely move to a hair-trigger status had they not done so. It seems to me that the world’s mass media needs to get on the non-proliferation band wagon and write articles and broadcast educational videos about this until we are all sick of it, and thoroughly indoctrinated.

The first thing they should do is to demand that the governments involved in the open air tests, as shown below, release their estimate of the lives lost around the world over time as a result of the testing:



And, it would be a lot more interesting than the Michael Jackson tributes or the latest misadventures of television or movie stars and fashion bimbos.