I am off to Beijing for the next week, to participate in the Seventh US-China Conference on Arms Control, Disarmament and Nonproliferation, co-hosted by the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association and the Monterey Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The image, obviously, is not from CACDA. A free beer to anyone who can …
Another Bulava Failure
by | 2009-12-10 | 13 Comments
After a brief UFO-scare — really, people — the Russians have confirmed that the spiraling light seen from Norway was yet another failed Bulava test. Pavel Podvig has a nice post up. This is pretty much the best video I can find. Brian Williams, by the way, is an idiot. “Never seen-before spiral”? Says who, …
History Proves…. What?
by | 2009-12-10 | 14 Comments
Original Caption: “Professor Bernard Brodie conducting a class.” September 1946. Walter Sanders, photographer. George Santayana managed to have it both ways. He once opined that, “History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.” And yet Santayana also said, quite famously, “Those who do not remember the …
SMART
by | 2009-12-09 | 11 Comments
When the real life disappoints, as it is wont to do, human beings often take comfort in fiction, imagining an alternate reality where our problems aren’t so daunting and where we aren’t so fallible. We dream, in short, of a better world. Sometimes, those dreams can rekindle our sense of hope or inspire us as …
