Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from July 2004

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from July 2004

A time of testing.(Editor's Note; nuclear weapons)
July 1, 2004... THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S NUCLEAR AGENDA IS A DAZzling, 180 degree turn toward the abyss. It makes a certain cockeyed sense--if the president's goal is to go down in history as the man who wiped away 50 years of arms control efforts, that is....

Riding with Oppie.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... THE ARTICLE ON J. ROBERT OPPENheimer (March/April 2004 Bulletin) brought back fond memories of my own encounters with the scientist. As a 20-year-old undergraduate, I was a Signal Corps-trained electronics specialist, and (though not in...

Build soldier-bots.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... PAUL ROGERS'S ARTICLE "NOT SO FAST, Not so Far" (May/June 2004), about the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)--sponsored desert race for robotic ground combat vehicles, was enlightening. Of particular interest was the $1 million...

Saving Vanunu.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... AFTER 16 YEARS WORKING FOR THE RElease of Mordechai Vanunu, I finally met him after his April 21 release and talked with him over three days. I was certain to find him in a fragile and exhausted state after his almost 12 years of total...

A new game in town.(Update; nuclear proliferation)
July 1, 2004... Last year, Greenpeace distributed decks of its "Nuclear Poker" playing cards to delegates at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee meeting in Geneva. The cards, a takeoff on the U.S. military's "Iraqi Most Wanted"...

Justice v. Padilla.(Update; terrorism)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... On June 1, the Justice Department released details on its case against Jose Padilla, alleged would-be dirty bomber. But the department shows no intention of releasing Padilla, a U.S. citizen, who has been held for more than two years without a...

Up and away.(Bulletins; space privatization)
July 1, 2004... PRIVATIZING SPACE isn't new. Commercial satellites circle the globe, companies pay governments to conduct research in orbit, and rich folks even hitch rides aboard Russian spacecraft. But private interests have always taken a back-seat to...

Disposal in the doldrums.(Bulletins;; chemical weapons )
July 1, 2004... APRIL 29 CAME AND WENT with little fanfare for the federal agencies responsible for destroying the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons. It was supposed to be the day they met the latest deadline imposed by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)...

Soon to be playinq in the West Wing?(Bulletins; Homeland Security TV show)
July 1, 2004... EVER WONDER WHAT THE president watches on television? A safe bet this fall might be a new show called D.H.S.: The Series. That's D.H.S, as in Department of Homeland Security, and the show's producers are hoping that protecting the homeland from...

Did you know?(unqualified nuclear employees)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Of 28 high-ranking government officials found by the General Accounting Office to have listed fake degrees on their resumes, three were employed by the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, held top-secret security...

"A land untouched by modern dentistry".(travel spoof)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... A mock guidebook to the fictional East European country of "Molvania" describes it as the birthplace of whooping cough and the owner of Europe's oldest nuclear reactor. Co-author Tom Gleisner told BBC Today, "It's a very beautiful country now...

How frequently asked?(hurricanes)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The May 2004 edition of Harper's reprinted this gem from the "frequently asked questions" Web page of the U.S. government's Hurricane Research Division: [Question:] "Why don't we try to destroy tropical cyclones by nuking them? [Answer:]...

Government gotcha.(USA Patriot Act )(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... In early April the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit challenging a provision of the USA Patriot Act that permits the FBI to engage in secret search and seizure activities. Because of the Patriot Act, though, the ACLU could...

At the public trough.(nuclear power plants)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Nuclear Power 2010, a Bush administration program designed to revitalize nuclear power plant construction in the United States, has energy companies lining up to take advantage of its provisions: namely, to get their dukes on the millions of...

Give a hoot ... and a dollar?(emissions trading)
July 1, 2004... The Environmental Protection Agency's annual SO2 Allowance Auctions were originally intended to allow sulfur dioxide-spewing utilities to purchase other power companies' unneeded "rights to pollute." The idea was that if more heavily polluting...

Radiation everywhere!(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Who would have thought kitty litter would cause such a fuss? But it is one of an odd assortment of benign objects and materials that has been triggering radiation detectors throughout the country. With screening programs now in place to support...

Space patrol petering out?(meteorite collisions)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... British scientists believe there is at least one area in which they can lead the world--scouring the skies for dangerous Near Earth Objects that could come crashing down (BBC News Online, March 12). But, they say, the British government has...

And in this corner, the state of Nevada ...
July 1, 2004... SEVERAL LONG-FESTERING disagreements are still preventing the federal government and the state of Nevada from playing nice with each other. Here's an update: The Energy Department is paying the law firm of Hunton & Williams $12 million...

Back in the game.(Bosnia; politics/religion)
July 1, 2004... ON THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERsary of the Sarajevo Winter Olympics, I found myself at the top of Mount Bjelasnica, site of the men's downhill competition, standing next to the war-ravaged remains of the summit observatory. The ski lift to the...

Comrades in arms.(Britain; nuclear weapons)
July 1, 2004... BRITAIN IS PREPARING TO EXtend its agreement to cooperate with the United States on nuclear weapons programs, despite increasing pressure on Tony Blair to distance himself from George Bush. The British government is keen to get the 1958...

The saga continues.(Missile Defense; space weapons)
July 1, 2004... SOME TIME BEFORE THE November election, President George W. Bush will appear in Alaska or California for the grand opening of his very own version of missile defense--a descendant of "SDI," a.k.a. "Star Wars," and its intermediate variants...

A slow sort of security: energy's tepid response to security concerns at nuclear facilities is all too apparent--just take a look at its bottom line.(Opinions)
July 1, 2004... THE ENERGY DEPARTMENT CAN HUSTLE WHEN IT wants to. It moved with alacrity when it came to pursuing new nuclear weapons concepts, pressuring Congress to overturn restrictions on research into low-yield bombs. Ditto when it came to requesting...

The power of protest: the campaign against nuclear weapons was not simply an ideological movement; it was a potent political force.
July 1, 2004... ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING FACTS ABOUT the modern world is that, for the past 58 years, we have managed to avoid nuclear war. After all, a nation that has developed weapons tends to use them. For example, immediately after the United States built...

Blindsided or blind? Highly qualified but strangely inattentive, Condoleezza Rice has missed the signs of the Soviet collapse, the importance of terrorism before 9/11, and more.
July 1, 2004... PRESIDENTS RELY ON THEIR NATIONAL security advisers for a host of services. Although the position of adviser is not specified in the law that created the National Security Council (NSC), the needs of presidents in formulating policies,...

Pretty poison.(The Center Spread; 100 Suns )(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... MICHAEL LIGHT'S 100 SUNS, A BOOK OF PHOTOGRAphy documenting the era of aboveground nuclear testing, revisits a dark chapter of U.S. history. Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, leafing through the thick black pages of this coffee-table...

Peacekeeping, bloody peacekeeping: the business of peacekeeping has been getting a lot tougher. Rich nations are putting their muscle where their immediate interests lie, leaving the job of patrolling in hardscrabble territory to their less financially capable U.N. colleagues.
July 1, 2004... LAST WINTER, DEFENSE SECRETARY DONald Rumsfeld, pushed NATO defense ministers to "accept their responsibilities" and play a larger role in Iraq--and tried to get them to take over Operation Enduring Freedom, the neglected war on terror in...

Nuclear policy: France stands alone: Leaner and meaner? France is trying to do more with less--and that includes its smaller, but more flexible, nuclear arsenal.
July 1, 2004... IN THE FALL OF 2003, THE FRENCH MEDIA reported that a major shift in the country's nuclear policy was under way. On October 27, the headline of the daily Liberation screamed, "Chirac's Small Bombshell: France Will Soon Revise its Deterrence...

Weapons of Miller's descriptions: spoon-fed information about Iraq's WMDs, New York Times reporter Judith Miller authored many stories later found to be misleading or downright false.
July 1, 2004... BY JUNE 3, 2003, ACCORDING TO A HARRIS Poll, 35 percent of Americans believed that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) had been found in Iraq, while 10 percent were not sure; in October, 30 percent were still persuaded, although six months of...

Time to panic.(Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil)(The Hype about Hydrogen )(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil By David Goodstein W. W. Norton, 2004 140 pages; $21.95 The Hype about Hydrogen By Joseph J. Romm Island Press, 2004 240 pages; $25.00 IN THE 1950s, GEOPHYSICIST MARION King Hubbert predicted that...

Mao and beyond.(Mao: A Reinterpretation)(Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 )(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... Mao: A Reinterpretation By Lee Feigon Ivan R. Dee, 2002 229 pages; $24.95 Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 By Robert L. Suettinger Brookings Institution Press, 2003 559 pages; $39.95 THESE TWO...

Marching against war.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... ON THE CHILLY MORNING OF MARCH 20, A BUS CARRYING 49 peace advocates rolled out of Groton, Massachusetts, and headed for a demonstration in New York City. The youngest participant in our bus was 11 years old, the oldest, 72. We arrived...

Russian nuclear forces, 2004.(NRDC Nuclear Notebook)
July 1, 2004... THE PAST YEAR HAS SEEN A RENEWED interest in nuclear weapons by President Vladimir Putin and the Russian military. There are several reasons for this: the abandonment of the START II treaty; the impending deployment of the first stage of a U.S....

When one minute = $3.7 billion.(And another thing ...)
July 1, 2004... EARLIER THIS YEAR CONG. DUNCAN HUNTER, CHAIRman of the House Armed Services Committee, pledged that a record $447 billion for military spending would show that fiscal 2005 would be "the year of the soldier." Some considered this a welcome...