On September 26th 1983, in the Soviet Union, a computer using the latest satellite-based early warning sytem identified an incoming U.S. missile. It was up to the watch officer to report the attack immediately to his superiors - forcing a counterattack.
The entire thing didn’t make sense to the officer, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov. So he let it go.
Then another attack was detected. A few more missiles this time. Again, why would the enemy attack with so few missiles, knowing that full-scale retaliation was the only possible response.
He decided not to immediately report the attack as was expected of him. Had he followed protocol, the blog technology used to post this article may have never developed.
Neither would have Mad Men, True Blood, Lost, Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, broadband, the iPod, the Lord of the Rings movies, the Star Wars prequels, laptop computers, Ebay, Amazon, Starbucks, Best Buy, Lady Gaga, Guns and Roses, Madonna, and about six-billion people.
For a real education on the subject, look up “Able Archer” and “Stanislav Petrov”. Check out this article also. Not much on Snopes to counter that. And always remind yourself that in the end what will save us is the quality of the people not just at the top, but at all rungs.
Considering that it’s amazing we’ve made it this far. Perhaps it says something about humanity and people we’d normally demonize on the “other side” of spectrum. Hitler not withstanding.
I am thirteen years old, and about five feet two inches tall. I have got a lot of freckles. I have hazel eyes, and blond hair which is plenty hard to keep down because I have many licks, and so much of it. I am not very fat, but fat enough…
I have a pretty good character on the whole, but my temper is not too good. I am not jelous of any one, I have a very loud voice, and talk alot, but sometimes my talk is not very interesting.
Smiled when I reminded myself whose older brother had written it.
For some reason, over the past few months and through various “sources”, I rewatched four feature-length doomsday movies. These movies aren’t like typical disaster flicks - think ”Armageddon”, “I am Legend”, and “The Day After Tomorrow.” After watching one of those movies I don’t feel that same sense of dread. Nothing in them inspires me to fight for the cause of world peace.
The next few articles will review four movies that affected my ideas on war, nuclear weapons, and human nature. They’re not strict documentaries. A couple even do lean towards the disaster genre I described above. But they all have one thing in common - Nuclear War. And so… click to read more »
I’ll start my “Nuclear Apocalypse Movie Week” tomorrow in recognition of September 20th 26th. You three readers out there, stay tuned till then to find out what’s so special about that day.
To cheer myself up, listened to “Identity Theft” and “Testify” on the drive to work this morning. A shame there aren’t any performances of these songs posted online.
But here’s an old one from a few years ago.
A good one. Since then Nellie McKay has gotten a whole lot better.
She is, I think, one of those artists you have on your music player, and when one of her songs comes on someone in the room will ask ”who is she?” followed by “I like it.” I usually take note of the person who asks that question. A positive note.
