And Now for the Good News! The government is debating what to do with its aging arsenal, specifically the nuclear device known as W-76, now some twenty years old. They want to spend a couple of billion dollars updating them, but the thing is that they are not sure if they even work properly.
Some within the government insist a basic design flaw will cause them to do much less damage, if they are ever used, than expected. On the other side of the coin, if they are not updated, they will need to be replaced, which will require renewned underground testing, in violation of international agreements, not to mention common sense.
Oh, yes, there is a third option: just get rid of the damn things. No one seems to have thought of this. Let's see, we invade Iraq because of non-existant nukes, and now we need to figure out how to kill every living thing on earth ten times over.
Speaking of Aging: The social security system figures to go broke in about seventy-five years, especially if people live to the government's projected life expectancy at that time: 150 years of age.
It seems that when the social security system was devised people lived about half as long on average as they do now, so the government did some simple minded math and projected life expectancy to double again over the same time frame. Using that kind of muddy thinking, we can expect people to live to a thousand years of age within a couple of more generations—even if we are eating our selves to death. (See today's New York Times' article, "Drug Makers Race to Cash In on Nation's Fight Against Fat.")
Intelligence: Now that at least a glimmer of truth is coming out about the absolute failure of intelligence with regards to the lead up to the Iraq war, an interesting note is the virtual uselessness of the President's Daily Briefs. One analyst referred to the one-sided documents as "disastrously one-sided … daily drumbeat[s]" of sensationalist headlines. Sounds like the man was reading somebody's blog.
According to Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. Director, preparing the daily brief eats up as much as six hours of his time every day. It's good to know his time is being used so wisely.
Your Pay Raise: So how much did you get last year? If you're like most people, your pay has remained stagnant for almost thirty years. Fortunately, America's top CEOs are making up for the rest of us. The chiefs of 179 companies were paid an average of $9,840,000 last year, up about 12 percent from the previous year. It restores your faith in the American way, don't it? And to think, not one of them can play short stop or has a decent curve ball.
The Arts: Sin City is now in a theater near you. Reports indicate it's racking in the moola as adolescent boys rush to see another comic book made into a movie. I can hardly wait for the video.
Some within the government insist a basic design flaw will cause them to do much less damage, if they are ever used, than expected. On the other side of the coin, if they are not updated, they will need to be replaced, which will require renewned underground testing, in violation of international agreements, not to mention common sense.
Oh, yes, there is a third option: just get rid of the damn things. No one seems to have thought of this. Let's see, we invade Iraq because of non-existant nukes, and now we need to figure out how to kill every living thing on earth ten times over.
Speaking of Aging: The social security system figures to go broke in about seventy-five years, especially if people live to the government's projected life expectancy at that time: 150 years of age.
It seems that when the social security system was devised people lived about half as long on average as they do now, so the government did some simple minded math and projected life expectancy to double again over the same time frame. Using that kind of muddy thinking, we can expect people to live to a thousand years of age within a couple of more generations—even if we are eating our selves to death. (See today's New York Times' article, "Drug Makers Race to Cash In on Nation's Fight Against Fat.")
Intelligence: Now that at least a glimmer of truth is coming out about the absolute failure of intelligence with regards to the lead up to the Iraq war, an interesting note is the virtual uselessness of the President's Daily Briefs. One analyst referred to the one-sided documents as "disastrously one-sided … daily drumbeat[s]" of sensationalist headlines. Sounds like the man was reading somebody's blog.
According to Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. Director, preparing the daily brief eats up as much as six hours of his time every day. It's good to know his time is being used so wisely.
Your Pay Raise: So how much did you get last year? If you're like most people, your pay has remained stagnant for almost thirty years. Fortunately, America's top CEOs are making up for the rest of us. The chiefs of 179 companies were paid an average of $9,840,000 last year, up about 12 percent from the previous year. It restores your faith in the American way, don't it? And to think, not one of them can play short stop or has a decent curve ball.
The Arts: Sin City is now in a theater near you. Reports indicate it's racking in the moola as adolescent boys rush to see another comic book made into a movie. I can hardly wait for the video.
posted by Jim | 6:34 PM
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