The Perfect Plate for the Nuclear Family Car

In what must be a dream come true for some, Nevada has approved a License Plate commemorating the Test Site and the connections Nevada enjoys with Nuclear weapons in the United States. The Associated Press article on the subject notes that a lot of people are up in arms about the new design, as Nevada is embroiled in controversy over the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility. The license features an atom. a mushroom cloud as the background and the equation E=mc² on the plate. I was unable to find a picture of the plate on the web (I saw it in my morning paper). I'm sure a picture must be on the web somewhere. I'll leave it to slashdotters to suggest the best personalized lettering for the plate. My entry: DUKNCVR?

Comments

Here's a photo

[headkase]

CNN has one here.

How about a /. plate?

[elflet]

You too can request a custom plate design, if you can get 250 Nevadans to promise to buy it:

A number of charitable organizations and causes have proposed special license plates which may or may not actually be issued, depending on public demand for them. These are called "Letter of Intent" plates. Motorists interested in seeing the plates produced fill out a Letter of Intent stating they would purchase a set. A given type of plate will be produced if the Department receives more than 250 requests for it before the date listed on the form.

(See Nevada License Plates)

On the other hand, you'd have to get the Legislature's approval...

Re:How about a /. plate?

[handsomepete]

It would never happen. Too many of the people interested would boycott it because they'd have to pay for it.

License plates dont have to be politically correct

[shoppa]

License plates don't have to be universally approved or politically correct to have meaning and relevance. If that were the case, we'd have nothing but boring "beige" plates on all the cars.

Let's see, off the top of my head:

• New Hampshire - Live Free or Die. Luckily this resonates strongly on both sides of the aisle.
• District of Colubmia - Taxation without Representation. Makes a point, does so with historical relevance, yet the possibility of a DC vote in congress is hated and despised by the majority of congress - who are forced to view it every day :-)

Excising the Manhattan Project and the Cold War from history is something I'm sure that a certain fraction of the world would like to do. But face it, millions of Japanase civilians and probably a million US serviceman would've died if the conventional war had continued. If Nevada wants to take pride in this, it's fine by me.

Other Nevada Plates

[batobin]

I found this page at Nevada's DMV sites. Doesn't have the nuke one, but it has others:

http://nevadadmv.state.nv.us/platesmain.htm

Someone else posted the new nuke one:
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2002/ALLPOLITICS/04/26/atomic . icenseplates.ap/story.nevada.license.ap.jpg

Re:ahh, something to be proud of.

[hij]

I spent a year in the mountain west, and there is a very strong anti-us government undercurrent there. Last year a Utah congressman aired commercials saying that his father was a "down-winder" (local parlance for those downwind of the Nevada test sites). This was his way of making sure everybody knew he had the requisite distrust of government needed for someone in the government.

The license plate is the sort of thing that serves as a reminder for many people who in the words of one former governor "fear the government in Washington DC more than the one in Moscow." Many people see this as a symbol of the way they have been abused and is not a symbol of pride in any sense!

what about whores and blackjack?

[gelfling]

they're as big a part of NV history as big ass bombs

nother plate proposition--funny :-)

[JimBobJoe]

I'm a huge licene plate fan...here in Ohio...I've assisted with several license plate projects.

For the amusement of the /. crowd, I submit an article, written last year, in which I half seriously proposed another plate for the great state of Ohio. Any Ohioans out there wishing to help me...please send me an email.
___________________
Every time I see a bumper sticker or a t-shirt that says, "Don't mess with Texas" I find myself snickering. It's not that I do not like Texans, on the contrary, I've met a bunch of them, and they are quite an independent lot. (A Texan I know, in protest of his local school taxes, intends to pay his property tax in person with 63,000 nickels. It's that type of ballsy bravado that does Texas, and America for that matter, proud.) Regrettably, most Texans these days are just as milquetoasty as people from any other state.

But Texans do make a good marketing campaign. The Alamo has become a fantastic tourist trap in spite of being a horrific military failure. We Ohioans have much to learn about marketing our own state.

A great example of this is our license plates. Finally, with the introduction of the new Bicentennial Plate on October 1, we can actually put a halfway nice looking license plate on our cars. However, it is still encumbered by the "Birthplace of Aviation" slogan. The problem is, another state claims to be the birthplace of aviation, and they're doing a better job marketing it. (The North Carolina plate is a more elegant salute to the Wright Brothers than our half-ass'd slogan.) Unfortunately, the slogan on the plates is state law, and will require action by the state legislature to change (and that is akin to an act of God.)

Perhaps we should go into our history books and find something of consequence to feature on a special plate--something which encapsulates Ohio, its people and its history. You wouldn't need to look far, because Lancaster's own Gen. William T. Sherman blessed Ohio history with the type of achievement over which other states regularly drool.

In November 1864, he burned Atlanta down.

In commemoration of this event, work should begin immediately on a special license plate devoted to this incident in history.

First, we must find an appropriate tagline and graphic. If we choose a graphic that's, say, a little building burning, then a good tagline may be "Sherman burning Atlanta --Nov. 1864." I guess the plate could be devoted to General Sherman himself, with a little picture of him and the tagline "Gen. Sherman--the man who burned down Atlanta."

I am however much more in love with a tagline saying, "Don't mess with Ohio or we'll burn down Atlanta...again." (Consider the new tagline a swipe not at Georgia, but at Texas--I mean, what have they ever burned down?) I think that nicely summarizes this feat in Ohio history, in addition to describing the feistiness that Ohioans should be known for. (Admittedly burning Atlanta down today would require a lot of work--its metropolitan area now extends into Tennessee and Florida.)

There is precedence for acridity on license plates. New Hampshire started it all with "Live Free or Die"--homage to our Revolutionary roots. Washington DC's new plates are emblazoned with "No Taxation without Representation"--another commemoration of America's Revolutionary history, not to mention the District's unique political situation. Even "Birthplace of Aviation" is a passive-aggressive swipe at North Carolina. Not all Ohioans may wish to have the Sherman plate; some may wish to drive south of Covington, Kentucky. But for those who do, I don't see why "Don't mess with Ohio or we'll burn down Atlanta...again" cannot be issued to the proud Ohioan interested in memorializing our state, and our nation's, history.

To the critics who say that license plates are meant only for vehicle identification purposes, my response is that special plates are doing an adequate job identifying vehicles. However, they are a medium for so much more. Pennsylvania's ex-Governor Tom Ridge said that license plates are moving billboards for a state. Ohio must learn to leverage this advertising space in its favor in order to establish a unique state identity. The new Bicentennial plate is a start.

A petition must be circulated to collect 1000 names, addresses and current plate numbers of individuals willing to buy the plate when it is introduced. Contact me if you're interested in helping get the petition started.