The Cold war is over...or is just cold?

[Red Cat Jenny]

The soviet's Dead Hand - Some scary sht

"It would immediately transfer launch authority to whoever was manning the system at that moment deep inside a protected bunker—bypassing layers and layers of normal command authority. At that point, the ability to destroy the world would fall to whoever was on duty"

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all

[hitman]

Oddly enough that doesn't scare me. The russkies convinced we were going to take the first shot and due to a complete lack of dependable bombers not having a fail safe scares me more. The operating theory for us was that the Soviets new we wouldn't fire first a misconception that wasn't noticesed until we tapped their phone system.

Edited September 28, 2009 by hitman

[Red Cat Jenny]

well put,

what scared me is the idea of an underpaid russkie with no sure future given the economy and govt there now, and maybe a little too much Vodka (is there such a thing?) being the button man simply because he's on shift. No offens to Russians btw..

Lots of things in the world scare me. Chernobyl scared me. That mess of plastic in the middle of the Pacific, ice storms, and the trade defecit to name a few.

But hey...gotta live.

[hitman]

This is true to.