A Suspect Commitment to Recycling

Under a proposed Pentagon program, Trident II missiles armed with conventional warheads would be available to accurately hit a terrorist target anywhere on the globe, in about an hour.

However, the idea of using a three-stage SLBM for anything but scrap metal is too much for some to process:

But the program has run into resistance from lawmakers concerned it could increase the risk of an accidental nuclear war. Under the Pentagon plan, both non-nuclear and nuclear-tipped variants of the Trident-2 missile would be loaded on the same submarines.

"There is great concern this could be destabilizing in terms of deterrence and nuclear policy," the newspaper quoted Senate Armed Services Committee member Jack Reed as saying.

"It would be hard to determine if a missile coming out a Trident submarine is conventional or nuclear," the Rhode Island Democrat said.

It wouldn’t be “hard to determine,” as Reed (2005 ADA rating: 100) knows, but impossible. Fortunately, the success of the program wouldn’t hinge on the rapid discrimination of Reed's impossible test, but on: 1.) quick notification of other nuclear powers (implementing telephone hotlines with all ICBM-armed countries would be desirable); and, 2.)whether other countries' command, control and communications could reliably get the message out in a compressed time frame.

Thought for the Week

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."
- John 14: 5-7

Hugo Channels Algore

Hugo Chavez is in London to embarrass Tony Blair, have a photo-op with Red Ken, and (huge surprise) promise cheap heating oil to oppressed workers. He even finds time to channel Algore:

Senor Chavez said that Western countries needed to have a good look at their energy consumption, as there was not enough oil to supply the world’s population if global economic development followed the US model.

"The planet can’t take a car for everybody," he said. "This model, the so-called American way of life, will end the planet if we carry on this way. It is a crazy waste of energy."

Yes, Hugo, a car for everybody. Walk all you like, but everyone rides in a Cadillac once.

Bible Banned in Australian Hospitals

The Australian reports that Victoria hospitals have banned Bibles for the usual multi-culti reasons (e.g., not wanting to offend ROP):

BIBLES have been banned in Victorian hospitals and some schools out of concern of offending non-Christians.

Almost all Melbourne's main hospitals have withdrawn Bibles and several schools no longer hand out free Bibles.

Royal Melbourne spokesman Rod Jackson-Smith said the Bible was not banned, but said: "We don't (have Bibles in each room) any more."

"Because we have so many people from different religious backgrounds it is considered inappropriate. It is also an infection control measure."

Infection control measure?!? What in the -- I think Hillary has found her White House Press Secretary.

Hat tip: Michael Savage

Any Colour You Like

In another move to cope with open source competition, Microsoft has raised the bar with a partly open high-powered RTOS for the small but fast-growing mobile and embedded market.

At their annual Mobile and Embedded DevCon in Sin City, the company gave attendees a beta version of Windows CE 6, which again gives access to miles of source code. This will allow developers to customize user interfaces while retaining IP rights over their innovations.

A lot of tech gadgets you probably use daily, from PDAs to GPS devices, use the current Windows CE 5.0. With a September release date likely, CE 6 will power the next generation of devices starting in 2007.

Eurabia, Outskirts of

Vladimir Putin references Russia’s Topol-M and Bulava missiles in his state of the nation address, but avoiding payload destruction with hypersonic maneuver is arguably a less pressing matter for Russia than avoiding the demographic destruction he alludes to in the same address:

Expressing concern over what he said was an annual decline of nearly 700,000 people a year, Putin said that childcare benefits should be increased and other incentives created to raise the birthrate.

``We must at least stimulate the birth of a second child,'' said Putin, lamenting that concerns about housing, health care and education and income prompt many families to stop at one.

The excuses he wheels out are a red herring, as these factors are often worse in other countries. Russia’s 2-to-1 ratio of abortions to live births (still the world’s worst) needs the trajectory change.

Ahmadinejad Harmless?

Juan Cole argues unconvincingly that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a harmless fellow:

It is often said that Ahmadinejad is more dangerous because he is a millenarian, i.e. he believes in the near advent of the messianic Twelfth Imam, the promised one of the Shiites. But in fact, most millenarians are fatalists, and are willing to wait passively for God's will to intervene in history. So, his belief in the near advent of the last days may actually make him less dangerous than a practical, hardnosed secularist might be. Besides, he cannot be dangerous if he is not a commander of the armed forces, which the president in Iran is not.

Putting aside the notion that someone who might one day supply nuclear material to terrorists can't be dangerous because he is not a "commander of the armed forces," I'll grant Cole that many millenarians are indeed passive fatalists. However, Ahmadinejad’s history of incendiary rhetoric immediately excludes him from their number. Even on his best behavior (and meds?), the guy is more Shoko Asahara than Joachim of Fiore.

I think Charles Krauthammer, not Cole, understands Ahmadinejad's incentives:

So a Holocaust-denying, virulently anti-Semitic, aspiring genocidist, on the verge of acquiring weapons of the apocalypse, believes that the end is not only near but nearer than the next American presidential election. (Pity the Democrats. They cannot catch a break.) This kind of man would have, to put it gently, less inhibition about starting Armageddon than a normal person. Indeed, with millennial bliss pending, he would have positive incentive to, as they say in Jewish eschatology, hasten the end.

Advertisers Hanged Last?

In “Money is a Curse,” Air America co-founder Sheldon Drobny really brings the scare with that time-tested way of achieving socialism: The threat of mob violence.

A few years ago I visited my daughter in Spain while she was an exchange student. One of our tour guides was politically savvy and asked me why the rich and powerful in America are insensitive to the needs of the masses. He explained to me that after the death of Franco in 1975, the emerging socialist movement gave the wealthy classes two possible choices. Plan A was an insurrection in which they would lose all their property. Plan B was that they pay higher taxes to create the safety net needed by the masses and more fairly redistribute the wealth. Given that choice, the wealthy in Spain chose plan B.

I am afraid that in our country, it may come to the fear of losing everything through an insurrection that will finally convince the wealthy class that it is time to make a change. But, it will take a massive grass roots effort to make that happen. Hopefully the very wealthy will recognize this before they self-destruct.

It’s not the scariest threat, is it? I mean, even if it weren’t so vague, the idea of our socialist knuckleheads organizing a “massive grass roots effort” to scare “the wealthy class” just makes you giggle.