Nuclear Transparency

In a tiny obscure wire service article tucked away on the back page of the Traverse City Record-Eagle a few days ago was a report that, "in an unprecedented accounting of a secretive arsenal," the Pentagon had announced that the United States has 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile and "several thousand" more "awaiting the junkpile." Hillary Clinton, speaking at the U.N., said that the disclosure was in the interests of "transparency."

A quick look at Google tells me that there are 336 cities in the world with a population over one million, and another 256 with a population of between 600,000 and a million. Accordingly, if we were to drop one nuclear bomb on each of those 592 cities, we’d still have 4,521 left over. Hmmm. Tough decisions ahead. Just what will we do with all those unused bombs? Well, you never know, do you, when a little extra will come in handy.

Since we’ve experienced the awesome fright of the shoe-bomber, the underpants-bomber, and now the Times Square non-bomber, hopefully we’ve learned several times over that it always pays to have a few of the really big bombs in reserve. We just can't have too many of those nukes at the ready.

So, the Times Square scare notwithstanding, if you missed the article and are learning about this now for the first time, I’ll bet you’re feeling safer already.

Aren’t you?

Oh, and by the way, where the hell is that "junkpile" located? We could use a little transparency on that subject, too, Hillary.