The Air Force has this interesting job skill....the nuclear officer. Basically, you get recruited some degree (or volunteer) after your first assignment. They check your background and intelligence....then send you onto a school where you become this controller of nuclear missions. It's an easy lifestyle. You show up....pull twenty-four hours in some silo....and stand guard over the buttons. If the red light comes on....you start preparing for some message. Ninety-nine thousand and nine-hundred and ninety-nine times....it's an exercise. But if the President gave the order....then you'd read the coded message, and with your buddy....pull out your amazing key....twist it in the mechanism and launch nuke missiles.
At some point twenty years ago....the Air Force came to realize that they had some strongly religious guys coming in to be nuclear officers. Then this question or two came up....over this moral dilemma. What if they disagreed with that split moment and didn't believe nuking Russia or China or whoever was necessary? Naturally, this bothered the instructor folks at the nuclear officer school. So they got the local chaplains to develop this course.
Now, you'd be curious about this....what would chaplains want to teach nuclear officers? Well...they found this amazing logic contained in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible....that you could agree with nuking just about anyone.
Naturally, you'd sit there and ponder over this. Once someone brings up the Old Testament and New Testament.....and start talking about logic of nuking someone....it's going to stir up some kind questions.
But, over the past twenty years....things in this short seminar went rather quickly, and I would speculate that most guys in the class didn't care....if the President said nuke the bad guys....they'd just do it and not care about who the bad guys were. In the last year, somehow, this all got out and some folks took this chaplain's course to court. This week....the group won and the Air Force removed the course.
This makes a guy ponder for a bit. Here we are now....without any moral dilemma class on nuking folks for these officers. Most of them won't even care, I'm guessing. There's this other question though....is there really enough of a lesson in either the Old Testament or New Testament really do this anyway?
I always got to the point when in Vacation Bible School....wondering why the heck to divide up the two Testaments anyway. And what made one old and one new? Who was the editor for such a decision? Did we even need the New Testament?
So in six months....Captain Joe will show up at his bunker in Montana.....his first real 24-hour shift in the silo. Quietly, as the hours pass....Captain Joe will eventually wonder if he can twist the key or if the President really knows what he's doing. Captain Joe will be unsure. His buddy for the silo shift? Captain Ernie? He's mostly sitting there and thinking about this hot lusty gal he met last week in town, and if she really is a DD-size. Captain Ernie will spend the whole twenty-four hours wondering about this. In the end....you can guess which guy has a Old & New Testament issue.....and which guy has a potential transmittable disease issue.
Only in America.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Nuking for a Hobby
So here's the deal. This Swedish guy....Richard Handl....didn't have a lot to keep him busy. For some reason, he got interested in this idea of running a nuclear power plant....but didn't want to mess around with various rules, state mechanisms, or spend big bucks.
So Richard decided that he'd just build a nuclear reactor in his house. It was an interesting experience. He found all the various notes on-line and acquired the pieces necessary. He even kept a blog on his experiments and how things were working.
Then someone woke up....read and grasped what Richard was doing....and called the cops. Swedish cops show up and arrest Richard. Apparently, there laws in Sweden to keep you from doing this in the house.
Swedish law is kinda firm on this......and it could be up to two years in prison for Richard. The cops won't say nothing....mostly I suspect because they rely on a prosecutor who doesn't understand much of this either and is relying on a college professor or two to advise them.
The fascinating part of this? Richard ended up spending around $40k of his money to make this happen. He could have spent the $40k on a lusty woman from Little Rock. He could have spent the $40k on a all-wheel drive terrain vehicle. He could have spent the $40k on some political party. But he had this fascination about having his own personal nuclear reactor.
Adding to this....he is number 38. That means he's the 38th guy to build his own reactor. It is a reputation that you can't ever live down....number 38.
So here's what should worry you. The knowledge he had....is out there and easily obtained by a sixteen year old kid. They could probably accomplish this for less than $40k. This by itself....ought to worry you. We've made technology so dirt-simple....that a major nuclear episode could occur anywhere in America....thanks to Charlie, that kid who mostly hangs out in Dad's garage and just grins when you ask what he's doing.
So Richard decided that he'd just build a nuclear reactor in his house. It was an interesting experience. He found all the various notes on-line and acquired the pieces necessary. He even kept a blog on his experiments and how things were working.
Then someone woke up....read and grasped what Richard was doing....and called the cops. Swedish cops show up and arrest Richard. Apparently, there laws in Sweden to keep you from doing this in the house.
Swedish law is kinda firm on this......and it could be up to two years in prison for Richard. The cops won't say nothing....mostly I suspect because they rely on a prosecutor who doesn't understand much of this either and is relying on a college professor or two to advise them.
The fascinating part of this? Richard ended up spending around $40k of his money to make this happen. He could have spent the $40k on a lusty woman from Little Rock. He could have spent the $40k on a all-wheel drive terrain vehicle. He could have spent the $40k on some political party. But he had this fascination about having his own personal nuclear reactor.
Adding to this....he is number 38. That means he's the 38th guy to build his own reactor. It is a reputation that you can't ever live down....number 38.
So here's what should worry you. The knowledge he had....is out there and easily obtained by a sixteen year old kid. They could probably accomplish this for less than $40k. This by itself....ought to worry you. We've made technology so dirt-simple....that a major nuclear episode could occur anywhere in America....thanks to Charlie, that kid who mostly hangs out in Dad's garage and just grins when you ask what he's doing.
Acceptable Risks
Around the region where I grew up....yesterday....there was a serious and deadly accident. There was this retired NASA engineer who got the itch to go out and buy a ultra-light. He had arrived at some local airstrip up around Fayetteville, TN. He assembled the ultra-light in precise fashion, and then cranked it up. According to press reports....he'd taken a couple of take-offs and landings....practicing. Folks were quick to admit then, that he'd never flown the ultra-light until Tuesday morning. At some point around 1PM, things went wrong....it crashed, and Larry Sheaks met an untimely end.
To be honest, I think seventy-five percent of all guys would readily accept a Ultra-light....without any training...and rush down to some flat area of a farm or field to test their new "toy". Only by luck....do most of them survive the first initial flight. Most simply read a pamphlet or get ten minutes of orientation by another guy who never got any official training himself.
If you ponder upon this subject....you have to realize that it's a dream of guys to simply fly in a high-risk situation. It doesn't matter if you have a PhD or spent forty years in the nuclear fusion business....most guys are willing to accept this kind of risk.
There's likely to be an investigation over the incident with Mr Sheaks and maybe there was faulty gear or maybe he just plain ran out of fuel. You just don't know. My guess is that if he had survived the crash.....he would have been right back here within four months....attempting another flight. It's just the way that guys are wired up to think....acceptable risks are more the norm than the exception.
To be honest, I think seventy-five percent of all guys would readily accept a Ultra-light....without any training...and rush down to some flat area of a farm or field to test their new "toy". Only by luck....do most of them survive the first initial flight. Most simply read a pamphlet or get ten minutes of orientation by another guy who never got any official training himself.
If you ponder upon this subject....you have to realize that it's a dream of guys to simply fly in a high-risk situation. It doesn't matter if you have a PhD or spent forty years in the nuclear fusion business....most guys are willing to accept this kind of risk.
There's likely to be an investigation over the incident with Mr Sheaks and maybe there was faulty gear or maybe he just plain ran out of fuel. You just don't know. My guess is that if he had survived the crash.....he would have been right back here within four months....attempting another flight. It's just the way that guys are wired up to think....acceptable risks are more the norm than the exception.
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