A few weeks ago The Board took a look at one of the most important purposes of nuclear weapons, deterrence against conventional attack. This has always been a part of why nuclear armed nations have sought the weapons they have and is much more morally ambiguous than the popular notion of Classical Strategic Deterrence (CSD). […]
Read more "Nuclear Friday: And I would Fly 300 Miles…"So The Board thought of something for Holocaust Remembrance Day almost a day late. Like many bass players my age, Geddy Lee of Rush was a huge influence on my decision to take up bass guitar. But what I didn’t know until just not that long ago was that Geddy’s parents were Holocaust survivors. In […]
Read more "A Belated Holocaust Remembrance Day Post"Had too much band rehearsal last week. The Board will get back to the INF Treaty next week. Today we will take a visit to Oak Ridge National Laboratories and hear Rose Boll explain how her department extracts and refines radioisotopes from what the folks at Oak Ridge call “legacy material”. This is fascinating stuff. […]
Read more "Nuclear Friday: Cancer Cures from Radioactive Waste"A couple of weeks ago The Board posted a video of a talk by Eric Schlosser, author of Command and Control. He argues that the United States needs to have a public discussion about nuclear weapons policy. We can’t know what weapons we should have without clarity about the goals of having such weapons. Schlosser also […]
Read more "Nuclear Friday: Your Slice of Salami"Sometimes the worst part of Christmas is the music. There are plenty of songs that are well written and skillfully performed, and it’s good that there is widely-shared heritage of traditional carols. For instance, if I want to explain how a song in a minor key can shift to that key’s relative major, the best […]
Read more "Some Cures for Christmas Music"There’s nothing like taking a break during the busy holiday season to do have a little “me time”. And what better way to relax than to watch an exciting documentary about a fire in a missile silo loaded with 9 megatons of destructive power? The Titan II missile was a holdover from the first generation […]
Read more "Nuclear Friday: For your Holiday Viewing Pleasure"So it has been really cold all across North America. That’s an occasion to consider that much of the Cold War required constant vigilance. The Cold War was a polar war. Looking on a flat map it always seems like the enemy is to the east or west. But the globe tells a different story. […]
Read more "The Cold Cold War"o
I came across this image of a page from And the Band Played On a couple of weeks ago. Randy Shilts makes an apt comparison here. Just something to think about on World AIDS Day.
Read more "A Reminder on this World AIDS Day"
the big board 