The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was signed in 2011, replacing START 1, and runs until 2021.  It limits the number of warheads of the US and Russia to 1550 each. It’s interesting to try to imagine what the United States would turn into if 1550 nuclear warheads were to hit their target here.  These modern warheads are not comparable to the two nuclear bombs dropped in WW2, which are puny in comparison.  The modern warheads are much more powerful – some, for instance, more than 3000 times the explosive capacity of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Major targets are assumed to be hit with not just one but multiple warheads to ensure that at least one warhead gets through.  So it is safe to assume that all major cities would simply be obliterated, given the magnitude of these weapons, leaving intense radiation in the surrounding area.  Most of…

Still Together

You know the type — people who doesn’t hesitate to do that falling backwards routine, into the arms of another person without really knowing that person or even if he is still standing there.  Another how-much-do-you-trust experiment is to find a straight country road with no traffic or an open parking lot with no cars, close your eyes, and see how far you can walk with your eyes closed before you open them.  It’s harder than you might think, even when you know there aren’t any obstacles in the way.  But may be for the trusting kind of person, they just keep chugging along, no problem, eyes tight shut.

The trusting kind of person is going to be heir to a number of bad outcomes just waiting to happen.  Friends are one of those bad outcomes.  Trusting friends without reservation sooner or later is going to mean a…

Isn’t it about time someone actually does something about the murders in Chicago?   The statistics prove that the current city administration, police department, and courts are unable to solve this problem.  They have failed the residents of the city, which has turned into a veritable shooting gallery.

I think it is high time the Federal Government step in with the National Guard, on a more or less permanent basis, and lock down the most lethal neighborhoods of Chicago.  The police departments must keep statistics on which neighborhoods have the most murders and perhaps even down to very precise locations (see the site reference below that identifies the most lethal neighborhoods — it isn’t a secret).    The presence of the National Guard in those neighborhoods  would have a dramatic and immediate impact on all the violence.

What better use could be made of the National Guard than to protect American…

Nations are subject to a particular type of influenza that may be but a brief illness and a fast recovery or may instead imitate the black death visited on the planet in 1919 — a scourge that killed millions.    It all depends on what the leadership decides to do when confronted by this common illness.

That leadership can act like the adult in the room taking steps that will induce an immediate cure so that the nation is unscathed.  Or it can act like an adolescent in the room throwing a temper tantrum, and therefore prolong the illness and seriously disrupt the nation.  Or it can act like the baby in the room balling its eyes out and inconsolable, and bring the nation to its knees or perhaps even destroy it entirely.   The illness, the influenza that nations catch from time to time, on a more or less regular…

I’m fascinated by the Edwardian Age, that period from the 1890’s to World War 1 when civilization had seemingly reached a pinnacle.  The world had been at peace for decades, and it seemed like war itself was a thing of the past, outmoded, irrelevant.  A new age of civility and manners had dawned on mankind, and industrialization had created immense wealth and widespread prosperity.  In America, this was the Newport era where the wealthy (“Robber Barons”)  built their “cottages” by the sea.   The wealthy on both sides of the “pond” enjoyed themselves with extravagant leisure activities like the new game tennis or endless summer lawn parties for the “in” crowd.

The arts were thriving, and culture had seemingly fused the best of old traditions with amazing modern innovations like the automobile and the bicycle.  In one area the Edwardians did achieve a zenith in culture that had never been reached…

It is hard to see what direction Secretary of State Pompeo will take negotiating with North Korea.  I say this because the ultimate objective for the United States is for North Korea to denuclearize, but having nuclear weapons is really the only card North Korea has to play.  So why would they give them up?   They wouldn’t.

If they do give up their only winning card, the question remains, how would North Korea be protected from a US attack, which is what they really fear?  A treaty could be arranged so that Russia or China, even Russian and China, would guarantee the North Korea borders from attack — that if North Korea were attacked by anyone, one or both would come to their aid.  But why would North Korea trust such an agreement, as it would put one or both of these countries at odds with the United States without…