🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 13:03:50 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 12:12:09 AM UTC-4, Jon Elson wrote:
>> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>> 
>> > off topic
>> > Two page ad by United Aircraft describing new B-52 bomber.
>> > 
>> > 
>> https://books.google.com/books?id=ElYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=life%20bus&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false
>> 
>> AAAnd, they are still flying!
>
>Retired airforce pilots have not spoken well of them--the airframes
>are too old.

Those pilots' kids will be retired before the B-52 goes out of
service.

>Anyway, in looking over the above ad, it appears to be a pitch
>by a big defense contractor for more military spending, which
>of course would benefit the contractor.
>
>In the 1950s, the government spent a ton of money for the Cold
>War, building tons of nuclear weapons*, defense radar networks,
>and aircraft and submarines.  Extremely expensive.  Kept the
>military draft going for years.

For certain values of "expensive".

>Was it all necessary?  Very tough to say.  I can certainly
>understand the mindset of the era--the U.S. was caught flatfooted
>after Pearl Harbor and didn't want to be in that position again,
>quite understandably.  Further, the Soviets under Stalin and
>Kruschev were not exactly extending the olive branch and
>causing trouble worldwide.
>
>
>* Nuclear weapons poisoned the atmosphere and ground from 
>above-ground testing. 

I don't feel very poisoned.

>The nuclear plants left behind an
>enormous mess of highly toxic radioactive crap, such as the
>ongoing big mess in Hanford, WA. 

Hanford was the _first_ large-scale nuclear reactor complex, created
during a war in which it was feared that the other side might be doing
the same thing.  It was not a "nuclear plant" in the sense that that
term is usually used.

>It blows my mind that
>they want to _increase_ today's nuclear arsenal--can't we
>now already blow up the world many times over?

You seem to have missed a number of treaties.