Showing posts with label Miscalculations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscalculations. Show all posts

November 11, 2016

Fall Of The Wall - Take 2

I thought this was cool this week when at a local university in Downtown, Washington DC, they did a reenactment of the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

The division between East and West came tumbling down on November 9, 1989 ushering in the end of the Cold War.

The students graffitied the wall with things they disliked like fascism, socialism, high taxes, a PC culture, censorship, and poverty. 

Later, they added Neo-Nazi's, corruption, and more.

By the afternoon, they knocked down the wall in the playful reenactment.

I found it hopeful to think that we can do the same in real life.

With President-elect Trump, perhaps there is the opportunity for new and better relations with Russia. 

Rather than escalating tensions and pointing new more advanced nukes at each other and encroaching ever closer toward confrontation, we can stop the madness. 

Truly reset the mindset of conflict and instead work together and walk it back. 

With respect for each other, there is enough world pie for everyone.

Tear down the wall, and build trust, respect, and peaceful relations again. 

No nonsense peace through strength and cooperation is the sane way forward--the alternative would be disaster!

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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June 4, 2015

Losing Deadly Control

So today we hear that there was a horrible mistake in which at least 52 sites (in 18 states here and 3 other countries) were inadvertently sent LIVE anthrax!!!

This after a prior incident in December where ebola had been mishandled and a technician potentially exposed. 

Again last August, they announced that a lab had accidentally cross-contaminated benign bird flu virus with a deadly strain of it. 

And there are at least five other major mishaps just since 2009 including more with anthrax and bird flu as well as with Brucella and botulism--these involved everything from using improper sterilization and handling techniques to inadvertent shipments of deadly live germs. 

Also in July, the CDC discovered six vials of LIVE smallpox in an unused storage room at the NIH.

This is reminiscent of similar gaffes by the military with an inadvertent shipment in 2007 by the Air Force of six nuclear warheads while the crew was unaware that they were even carrying it.

And here we go again (a doozy this time), information was disclosed in 2013 that we nearly nuked ourselves (specifically North Carolina) with 2 hydrogen bombs (260 times more powerful than that exploded on Hiroshima) in 1961. 

Yes, mistakes happen, but for weapons of mass destructions that we are talking about here, there are layers of safeguards that are supposed to be strictly in place. 

After each incident, it seems that some official acknowledges the mistakes made, says sorry, and claims things are going to be cleaned up now. 

But if the same or similar mistakes are made over and over again, then what are we really to believe, especially when millions of lives are at stake?

We have too much faith in the large bureaucratic system called government that despite how well it could be run, very often it isn't and is prone to large and dangerous errors and miscalculations.

With all due respect for our experts in these areas, we need to spend a lot more time and effort to ensure the safety of our most dangerous stockpiles--be it of nuclear, chemical, biological, or radiological origin. 

We can't afford any more mistakes--or the next one could be more than just a simple (not) embarrassment.

What good is all the preparation to win against our enemies, if we are our own worst enemy or we have meet the enemy and it is us! ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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