Counting Down to Nuclear War

[blucher]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/books/review/Rhodes-t.html?_r=1

Every thousand years a doomsday threatens. Early Christians believed the day of judgment was nigh. Medieval millenarians expected the world to end in 1000 A.D. These fatal termini would have required supernatural intervention; in the old days humans lacked sufficient means to destroy themselves. The discovery, in 1938, of how to release nuclear energy changed all that. Humankind acquired the means of its own destruction. Even were we to succeed in eliminating our weapons of doomsday ? one subject of ?How the End Begins? ? we would still know how to build them. From our contemporary double millennium forward, the essential challenge confronting our species will remain how to avoid destroying the human world.

[rivalarrival]

It's no different than getting into an argument with a guy carrying a gun. As long as you mind your manners, he's no threat to you. If he uses it over something as stupid as a minor disagreement, he's guaranteed his own destruction along with yours.

[blucher]

As long as you mind your manners, he's no threat to you.

Good rules that have thus far served me well. The problem arises from nuts like Kim Il Nutjob and perhaps Pakistan. Toss in a suitcase lugging terrorist and we have a surefire failure to communicate.

[Funetical]

It's more than every thousand years.