the world needs better nuclear weapons... 4/18/2016 0 Comments   from NYTimes by E.L. Christianson Jr. The major world powers are determined to deliver better nuclear weapons to the world.  Better, in this case, needs lots of definition and understanding.  For example, we don't want to destroy lots of buildings which represent capital wealth, we just want to kill off the people who inhabit those buildings.  The solution for the future is a bomb that will "loft a cloud of radioactive contamination from an underwater explosion that would make target cities uninhabitable." As the world moves forward with the 'arms race', as each participant attempts to gain the lead, everyone involved wants to blame everyone else for everything. American officials largely blame the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, saying his intransigence has stymied efforts to build on a 2010 arms control treaty and further shrink the arsenals of the two largest nuclear powers. Some blame the Chinese, who are looking for a technological edge to keep the United States at bay. And some blame the United States itself for speeding ahead with a nuclear “modernization” that, in the name of improving safety and reliability, risks throwing fuel on the fire. In this country, of course, our motivation is always humanitarian.  We aren't trying to get ahead, we are just trying to modernize our weapons "in the name of improving safety and reliability".  One supposes that 'safety' in this instance must mean that the people who deliver the weapons of death and destruction to the other side will, themselves, remain safe from the effects of the weapons that they are delivering to the other side. Safety also means that if we can eliminate the other side quickly enough, then there will be no retaliation from the other side and we will remain safe... victorious and safe.  This is the 'modernization' of the old theory of MAD - 'mutual assured destruction'.  Now, one imagines only the assured destruction of the other side while we remain 'safe'. And, of course, we must remember that the destruction of the other side means destruction of the people and not the actual cities and capital wealth. As would be expected, American officials largely blame the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, saying his intransigence has stymied efforts to build on a 2010 arms control treaty.   Two Russian jets flew within metres of the ship on Monday, US officials said. Russia's defence ministry said the Su-24 fighter jets "turned away in observance of all safety measures" after observing the USS Donald Cook. Mr Kerry criticised the gesture and said contact had been made with Moscow. "We condemn this kind of behaviour," he told the Miami Herald and CNN Espanol in a joint interview. "It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement, that could have been a shoot-down." ​ He added that the US "is not going to be intimidated on the high seas" and that a message had been conveyed to Russia over the danger of such a gesture. Kerry did not offer explanations as to why our ship was sailing close to a Russian navy base and he didn't comment on what we might have done had a Russian ship been sailing close to a United States navy base. ​He didn't declare our sailing close to a Russian navy base to be reckless, provocative or dangerous. A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile that can carry four miniaturized nuclear warheads was paraded through Red Square in Moscow last May. Credit Kirill Kudryavsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images  On the other side of the planet, Kerry hasn't declared our sailing close to China to be reckless, provocative or dangerous, either.  But we are there.   A United States Carrier Strike Group Arrives in the South China Sea to Deter China.  The head of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), Admiral Harry Harris, said in a senate testimony in late February that “China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea and you’d have to believe in the flat Earth to think otherwise.” “The accusation [that China is militarizing the region] can lead to a miscalculation of the situation,” said Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for China’s National People’s Congress, in response to the admiral’s remarks, according to The Navy Times. “If you take a look at the matter closely, it’s the U.S. sending the most advanced aircraft and military vessels to the South China Sea.” The United States is simply continuing to do what we have been doing, patrolling the earth in our quest for world dominance.  And we are creating circumstances wherein, eventually, we will be 'compelled' to use those better nuclear weapons that we are developing.   You’d have to believe in the flat Earth to think otherwise... and that's the truth !!!