Just a couple of weeks after I joined the Carnegie Endowment at the beginning of March last year, I found myself in a musty agricultural exhibition hall in east Beijing, across Dongsanhuan Beilu from the Sanlitun diplo quarter. In the corner of one wing of that Mao-flavoured building, an engineering subsidiary of China’s leading nuclear …
Reflections of A Nuclear Weaponeer
by | 2011-06-21 | 17 Comments
Most readers probably know how much I love books and that I have amassed a formidable library of rare books relating to nuclear weapons. There are some holes in the collection, though and Frank Shelton’s privately printed memoir, Reflections of a Nuclear Weaponeer, is one of them. A copy of Reflections of a Nuclear Weaponeer …
Hunting, Muting, and Filtering
by | 2011-06-21 | 9 Comments
Why do television ads use males acting stupidly to sell products? Why do so many people drink Bud Lite? Or worse yet, lite beers with lime flavoring? Is advertising making us dumber, not to mention unhealthy, obese, attention deficit disordered, and prone to recreational shopping? And how can I possibly connect these stray thoughts to …
B61 Mod 12 Revisited
by | 2011-06-21 | 33 Comments
Question: What’s a national lab to do when the GAO releases a report warning that a major effort, the B61 Lifetime Extension Program, is headed for trouble? Answer: Write an article about how essential the B61 LEP is to “21st Century Deterrence” with a seriously creepy patch that shows a Genie going bowling. I can’t …
