Posts Tagged ‘nuclear weapons’
“If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned mostly about trees”*…
Lightning strikes around the world– in real time.
* Lao Tzu
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As we reach for our rods, we might recall that it was on this date in 1957 that the U.S. detonated an atomic weapon on a test range in the Yucca Flats in Nevada-a test of the Air Force’s AIR-2 Genie missile with a nuclear warhead, part of the Plumbbob series, the biggest, longest, and most controversial test series in the continental United States: 29 tests, of which only two failed to detonate. Exactly seven years later– on this date in 1964– the Soviet Union performed a nuclear test in Eastern Kazakh.
“Now, you can continue to protect your home and family even after you are gone”…
The craftsmen at Holy Smoke will take the cremated remains of a loved one and pack them into firearm ammunition: one pound of human ash yields 250 shotgun shells, 100 rifle cartridges, or 250 pistol cartridges. The company’s website avers…
The services provided by Holy Smoke are a fraction of the cost of what most funeral burial services cost – oftentimes saving families as much as 75% of traditional costs.
The ecological footprint caused by our service, as opposed to most of the current funeral interment methods, is virtually non-existent.
Now, you can continue to protect your home and family even after you are gone.
Or, as one of the company’s founders suggests in recounting how he conceived the service, one can use the remains to “share the death”:
My friend smiled and said “You know I’ve thought about this for some time and I want to be cremated. Then I want my ashes put into some turkey load shotgun shells and have someone that knows how to turkey hunt use the shotgun shells with my ashes to shoot a turkey. That way I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second.”
[TotH to Gizmodo]
As we aim for the afterlife, we might recall that it was on this date in 1939 that physicists Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd wrote President Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin develop a nuclear weapon. Their letter was delivered a couple of months later, and led to the formation of the Advisory Committee on Uranium (the “Briggs Uranium Committee”) and ultimately the Manhattan Project.
Einstein and Szilárd (source)
The Dear Leader’s Gaze…
Looking at dinner
Looking at son and Dear-Leader-Apparent Kim Jong-un
More stolen glances at Makemisteaks‘ insightful “Kim Jong-il Looking at Things.” (TotH to Rebecca MacKinnon)
As we reach for our lens cloths, we might recall that it was on this date in 2002 that North Korea rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency’s call to allow inspections, saying the U.N. nuclear watchdog was abetting U.S. policy toward the North. Ten years earlier North Korea had abrogated its participation in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but then agreed the following year to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international aid to build two power-producing nuclear reactors. The following month, in his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush lumped North Korea with Iran and Iraq as the “Axis of Evil.”
Looking at atomic test site (source)
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