Slashdot Mirror
Oldest Weapons-grade Plutonium Found In Dump
Urchin writes "Researchers have just identified the first batch of weapons-grade plutonium ever made. The batch was produced as part of the Manhattan Project, but predates Trinity — the first nuclear weapon test — by seven months. It was unearthed in a waste pit at Hanford, Washington, inside a beaten up old safe."
Damn, I don't know on which parallel universe you guys live, but even Eisenhower recognized the Nagasaki/Hiroshima bombs were NOT aimed at Japan, but instead AIMED at the Soviet Union and Stalin, so they could stop the Red Army to get to Japan (they were in North Korea and getting close already...).
They knew if they didn't show to Stalin they had a weapon he couldn't fight (at least not at that time...), he will get all the way to Tokyo and the next year to Hawaii, Los Angeles and God knows where else.
The Red Army was unstoppable. The only way to stop them was to scare them to death.
Japanese were just sorry Expendable assets...
...as if thousands of terrorists (and the dinner-jacket wearing leader of a certain country, but I repeat myself) are simultaneously slapping themselves on the forehead and saying "Doh!"
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
87% of the US manufacturing base is devoted to weapons manufacture. The US accounts for over 75% of all military expenditures, world wide, and over 50% is on our own military (not counting the costs of Iraq or Afghanistan).
As to what percentage of the GDP that is, the 3% figure is highly conservative and only counts the direct costs of bombs, guns, payroll, and some of the cost of weapons development.
The compounded cost of that wasted economic output is very high over time. Each year, even assuming 3% is the best figure, you loose 3% of your economic output which could have gone into growth without costing anyone a dime, net. The doubling time at 3% is what, 20 some odd years? So, starting in 1948 would make 60 years of this, so the economy is now roughly 1/2 the size it could be if we hadn't just plowed all that money into the ground.
Now obviously the US couldn't entirely do without a military, but the total cost of the military was considerably over 3% too, so on the whole it looks to me like if we had HALVED our spending (so we're only 1/3 of the total world defense budget) we would be an economic powerhouse right now instead of being a basket case with a military that is still designed to fight the Russians in Europe.
So your '3% is nothing in the grand scheme of things' is just a bit off ;).
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
500,000 Iraqi children could have been saved had Saddam adhered to UN resolutions. But that's not his style. No, dead children was his best weapon against the west and people of your persuasion eat it up. So America topples the man at a terrible loss of over 4000 service men and women (people better than anyone on Slashdot) and it's bloody murder and evil imperialism.
Phish is a blight upon the history of mankind that may never be lived down.
Also, it was The Gourds that recorded the cover of Gin and Juice, not Phish. Just so everyone knows.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.