More Nukes, Less Kooks

Here we go again. Trying to scare people. Let's look a little more closely at these incidents.

Last weekend, a computer glitch took 50 U.S. nuclear missiles offline for more than 45 minutes at a Wyoming Air Force base. The military says it still could have launched the weapons had it needed to, and there's no evidence of foul play.

So...nothing happened. No foul play. And we could have (should have?) launched the missles.

Should it prove to be a chronic malfunction, the incident would take its place among the decade's list of even more glaring Homer Simpson-style fumblings of the basics of nuke-handling:

In August 2007, a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles for a flight from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, where the plane sat unattended for hours. The pilot and
crew were unaware that they were transporting nuclear weapons.

Maybe the lesson here is, why are we worrying so much? Obviously no one is interested in a parked B-52. And what difference does it make if they were unaware they were transporting nuclear weapons? Sounds like they did their job and found a good place to leave the plane. Next.

In March 2008, the Pentagon admitted that ballistic missile components had mistakenly been shipped to Taiwan, where they sat for two full years before defense officials discovered the screw-up.

If they sat there for two years where was the screw-up? Mountains out of molehills. Again, speaks to the essential competence and safety of the systems involved because even this amounted to nothing, despite all the hysterical nutjobs who think we have to monitor this stuff 24/7. What's the worst thing that could have happened? Taiwan could have dropped the big one on China and saved us a few headaches. I should be so lucky. Next.

Two months later, the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot failed its security inspection after one airman was found playing video games on his cell phone as he guarded a restricted area perimeter. Another Air Force enlistee on hand was judged to be "unaware of her duties and responsibilities."

Next they'll want to ban cell phones. Christ. Nothing happened. Why are we blowing money on these security inspections when everything is fine. NEXT!

Not long after that, three Air Force officers fell asleep as they were supposed to be in control of an electronic component that contained launch codes for nuclear weapons, though the codes had been deactivated.

Guys are not allowed to get tired? Wouldn't you get bored guarding deactivated launch codes? Maybe we can finally get down to focusing on real problems as opposed to worrying about these freaking bombs we don't have the guts to use anyway.

[Yahoo! News]