Ah, how complex life has gotten, what with Shoe-Bombers, Dirty-Bombers and Guys Who Don’t Bomb Anything But Kill Us With Powder. Wouldn’t it be so nice to get back to the pleasant, yet eccentric, joys of nuclear winter? Well, just slightly after the holidays, the Pulitzer Prize winning Richard Rhodes delivered a talk at the GooglePlex regarding his new book, “Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race“.
It’s a long talk, but worth the time and worth taking notes. We learn how Robert McNamara, having already made numerous decisions costing somewhat-countable American lives, almost doltishly brought the whole biosphere to collapse. We see again and again why exactly Pakistan is the scariest place in the universe (sorry, Danny Pearl and Benazir). And it’s always fun to know what’s been happening with the folks who have worked in the long wake of Carl Sagan’s death. Mostly, however, we’re glad to be in the temporary company of someone who knows that a marble of plutonium weighs a kilogram. Here’s to imagining those 400MPH fire-winds and EMPs while we fall asleep tonight. Thanks Richard…we here at the Pasigraph will keep buying your books all the same!
