The Nuclear Testing Business

Hey, get this ... the North Koreans have been dropping some obese hints that they may be in the nuclear testing business sooner rather than later.

Ahh, that’s not a good thing. I think we might have to find out what day the test is and then, in essence, bomb their bomb test. They wheel out their pukey little starter bomb and we trump it with a state-of-the-art "Fat Boy." Define the pecking order early on, as it were.

Now while the preceding scenario might seem a tad exaggerated, so is the naive dream that all the world’s peoples will one day drop our nukes into a huge transmogrifying Bessemer Converter of Peace operated by Rod McKuen (search) that smelts the weapons down into gold tickets to the Wonka Factory where we all share one big multi-national lollipop together.

Why has even the threat of nuclear weapons been taken off the table? When did our nuclear arsenal become like our “mothers good China syndrome” where we’ll never use it?

For God’s sake, don’t say we’ll never use them! What good does that do? At least act flaky about it. When we’re asked under what possible circumstances we would ever possibly consider using nuclear weapons I think we should pull a Sean "Spicoli" Penn and say, “Dude, uh ... if we can’t find the other ones?”

If the North Koreans are serious about this test, and I don’t sense they’re the masters of the practical joke, I think we have to test one of ours first. When Ma’s clangin’ the Armageddon triangle, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be the last one to the table.

I think we pick out the most desolate spot on the planet, say, in the middle of a desert, and have our meteorologists pick out a day where there’s no wind and blow off the biggest bomb we have just to remind everybody that we’re sitting on an incredible hole card?

Ya know, if you don’t periodically showcase the "Big Portobello," people tend to forget what a great little persuader it is.

It’s this simple: Do we want to be Neville Chamberlain (search), or do we want to be Wilt Chamberlain (search)? I say we’re better off being the Dipper and it’s time to take the rock to the hole.

Got that?