h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://tailrank.com/1161937/smoke-and-giant-space-mirrors

Thank you Lucky! To answer your original post, yes, the Bush administration has taken leave of its senses. But I reject the word "finally" - it happened before he was even elected.

Arnie,
Your comment reminds me of a photo I saw of GWB with dad after GWB's first presidential 'win'. It was taken in your Maison Blanc. GWB was sitting in a large black chair with a cable running to a plug socket on the wall behind. I had a strange feeling that a robot had been installed in the oval office. It seems I may have been right. It's all a bit like Dr. Strangelove looking from where I'm sitting. Hope GWB doesn't press the wrong button. I feel he may want to try limited scale nuclear - just to see how it goes.
By the way are you all back on pommes frites these days or is it still freedom fries?

He was in fact pushing for development of "tactical" nuclear weapons, to make more powerful bunker buster, and blur the line between nuclear and conventional forces.

The Freedom fries may still be served at the capitol, but I never saw them anywhere else.

arnie, yep, you got my intent right! Thanks for the clarification.

Arnie,
There's a Greenpeace report somehwere on the net about a nuke tactic called THE NEW MODEL TRIAD. The whole thing has a Doctor Strangelove movie kinda feel to it. I see in my paper today that the chief nuclear scientist in Iran has just been 'bumped off', allegedly by u.k.w.

No prob Arnie - I've been in the DOE/NNSA complex since 1995, so I've had plenty of time to get cynically disillusioned, if not downright disgruntled (when is one ever "gruntled" to begin with, one wonders? or if that's central to how people become disgruntled by being, ipso facto, actually gruntled in the first place ... ). Try not to let it get to you too bad at first, you'll get disgruntled before your time without the advantage of developing a keen, finely honed, razor sharp sense of cynicism with which to amuse yourself during meetings.

Just kidding. It's all wine and roses after the first two weeks, then there's ... uh ... can't fool ya, can I? Yeah, that's what cynicism does to you - makes you honest.

- JD

Thanks JD. I'm surviving OK, and I don't know if I'm a in it for the long - haul - I'm just a post-doc.