Science in service to the ego

hiroshima.jp
[Hiroshima tricycle]

On the heels of reports from Guantanomo about medical professionals helping the military torture prisoners, Los Angeles Times reports that scientists are literally salivating at being able to work on the next generation of nuclear bombs.

Science, instead of being used in service of humanity, is now being used by scientists to titillate their bored brains.

Well, what else can you say about how the heads of the two labs, both competing to work on these new nukes, characterize the enthusiasm of their scientists? Mental masturbation backgrounded by the image of millions of charred and vaporized bodies?

To remind these cavalier cerebrals of the cost to humanity, perhaps they should be required to hang a photograph by their desk of the Hiroshima tricycle (pictured above) on which little Shin's body was crisped by a satirically named bomb called Little Boy.

Here's what the lab heads had to say:

'I have had people working nights and weekends,' said Joseph Martz, head of the Los Alamos design team. 'I have to tell them to go home. I can't keep them out of the office. This is a chance to exercise skills that we have not had a chance to use for 20 years.'

A thousand miles away at Livermore, Bruce Goodwin, associate director for nuclear weapons, described a similar picture: The lab is running supercomputer simulations around the clock, and teams of scientific experts working on all phases of the project 'are extremely excited.'