Happy Birthday

From Alt Press:

"The Bush Administration seems enamored with nukes.  One major shift comes in the Nuclear Posture, which sets out the potential use of nuclear weapons by the United States.  Previous Nuclear Postures have stated that the US would only counter a nuclear attack with a nuclear attack.  The Bush version of the Nuclear Posture expands the use of nuclear weapons to counter biological or chemical attacks.

Bush’s energy policy encourages the building of many new nuclear reactors for power generation. No new nuclear plants have been built in recent years. The events at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the expense of nuclear reactors, and the lack of a method for safely disposing of nuclear waste, have all been factors in the decision not to build more nuclear plants. Under the Bush energy plan, the nuclear industry would continue to be subsidized and waste would continue to pile up at the reactors. The new “hydrogen technology”, the great eco-liberator, would rely on nuclear reactors to create the hydrogen.

New nuclear weapons, such as the “bunker buster” are proposed for production. A new plutonium pit factory (bomb cores) has also been sought. The US has pulled out of the ABM Treaty to resume implementation of “missile defense” (Star Wars revisited). The time necessary to resume nuclear testing has been shortened.

The public has not raised one arm, let alone both arms against any of these initiatives. The attention of the public has been fixed on the events of 9/11/2001, terrorism, the war in Iraq, religion…

So happy birthday atom bomb. Whether history will record the Nuclear Age on computer chips or stone tablets, only time will tell. Even Jimmy the Greek is not giving odds on that one