Will President Barack Obama speak of nuclear matters during his second inaugural address? If past is prologue, he will offer a sentence or two. Only twice in the nuclear age has a Presidential inaugural address not touched on nuclear danger. George W. Bush’s second oration in 2005, marked by soaring rhetoric about the expansion of …
Missile Defender Day
by | 2013-01-16 | 8 Comments
Patriot launch unit rearmed after making first “kill.” Battery A, 2d Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery, after becoming the first Patriot unit to successfully engage a SCUD missile, 18 January 1991, XVIII Airborne Corps History Office photograph by SPC Randall R. Anderson, DS-F-117-07. Janne Nolan informed me that today was “Missile Defender Day” — when …
Death Star Amendment
by | 2013-01-14 | 5 Comments
The internet is abuzz with the White House’s official, very amusing response to the online petitionto build a Death Star (This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For). (I will admit that I got a little silly myself on Twitter: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9) Even before the White House responded, there was a very amusing little gem making …
How Much Is Enough?
by | 2013-01-14 | 5 Comments
Alain C. Enthoven wrote a book with K. Wayne Smith titled, How Much is Enough?, published by the RAND Corporation in 1971 and re-issued in 2005. Professor Enthoven has been asking this question his entire professional life, most recently about health care. Back in the 1960s, his subject of inquiry was the Pentagon’s budget. His …
