Just a reminder, dear colleagues and friends, I am giving a talk tomorrow at 4 pm at the Carnegie Endowment, followed by a happy hour at the Big Hunt. Here are the details: On behalf of Physicians for Social Responsibility, you are invited to “Steps to Zero,” an informative talk on steps the next administration …
Trim the Shrubs
by | 2008-12-07 | 17 Comments
I recently heard a funny story about the negotiations for the START II treaty. It turns out that when the US START II treaty negotiators tried to explain to their Russian counterparts the need for a “strategic reserve” of nuclear warheads, they called it a hedge. The Russian interpreters alternately translated that as either “cheat” …
US-Israel Deal for CTBT Ratification?
by | 2008-12-05 | 10 Comments
After the US-India deal and the possible China-Pakistan deal (which, the US is now officially opposing, by the way), a US-Israel deal was always going to be a possibility. The price? Unknown, but CTBT ratification appears to be part of it, the latest CTBTO newsletter gleefully reports: Mark Hibbs of Nucleonics Week reports that if …
In GoogleEarth, Shadows are Your Friend
by | 2008-12-04 | 8 Comments
If you are anything like me, you suffer a death of a thousand cuts when you see something on GoogleEarth and want to know how tall it is. For instance, you can measure the diameters of Iran’s heavy water exchange columns (3.5 m) but if you could only measure their height then maybe you could …
