First published May 2002
No longer is it safe to bury your treasure or your weapons or your head in the sand. Because the National Security Administration is setting up design teams at three nuclear labs - Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore to explore possible designs for a new nuclear weapon called the “Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.”
Unlike conventional nuclear weapons, designed to obliterate entire cities, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator will merely demolish parts of cities – specifically underground parts - like hidden foreign storage facilities, command bunkers [No! of course not our bunkered shadow government, silly. Theirs.] It could even hit, say, a basement day care center.
The new darling in America’s ever-growing arsenal is a teensy weensy
mini-nuke. It’s kind of like a mini-corn dog, only coming up with its
design alone will cost approximately $14,999,999.75 more than it cost
to come up with the time-tested stick-up-the-middle corn dog design.
And to its credit, unlike the mini or maxi corn dog, it promises to
operate completely without the need for mustard of any kind.
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator…Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. Say
it out loud and trill that first “R.” Sexy! Let’s think about it for
a minute. The guys whose job it is to name bombs and things thought
merely calling it the Nuclear Earth Penetrator wasn’t intimidating
enough. It seems the word “nuclear” does not pack a big enough punch
for them, so they felt the need to enhance it with the word “robust.”
I don’t know about you, but just saying the word “nuclear” takes six
and three quarters years off my life. It’s a pretty darn robust word
all on its own– I’d even go so far as to call it feisty. And, yes, I
said ‘guys’ because they are mostly. If a bunch of women came up with
the name it would be plainly called the Underground Nuclear Bomb: Run.
Not to worry, it’s a low yielding nuclear bomb you say. What? Exactly
just how low yielding can a nuclear weapon be? And, if it’s so low
yielding, why not just use some of the high yielding non-nuclear
weapons like those Daisy Cutters that spill out jellied gasoline on
impact and then suck the air out of around a quarter mile radius or
whatever it is that they do. That sounds pretty damn Rrrrrobust to
me. That’d save us a few gazillion bucks, too. And besides isn’t the
whole point of a nuclear weapon the fact that it is so mind-bogglingly
high yielding? Isn’t that why they are such a deterrent to all those
evil axes out there?
Perhaps calling this nukelette “robust” was to compensate for the
“Flaccid Nuclear Earth Penetrator-We-Hope, -But-Can’t-Promise-Anything”
ones they spent 72 trillion of our tax dollars on last year. You
didn’t hear about them, because, well, they didn’t get any action –
just wilted right over in their little missile silos. Done before they
were ever out of the gate. At least they didn’t promise.
Hmmm…robust penetration…robust penetration…why would a bunch of aging
men sit around talking about robust penetration?? Someone get Freud on
the phone. I can see a Pentagon/Energy Department meeting now:
“The Penetrator gets the job done, gentlemen. It makes the first move
and takes no prisoners. And it’s guaranteed to perform every time. It
can penetrate even the tightest of spots, plunging hard and long,
deeper and deeper into the forbidden dark, cavernous target until…oh
yeah…Mission. Accomplished.”
[A quivering silence.]
“Uh…General, Sir, I’m sorry, but you can’t smoke in here. It’s against regulations. Sir?”
“What? Oh…yes, of course. Well, gentlemen, this is the newest in military offensives.”
Yes, Sir, offensive it most certainly is.
I can think of lots of things that could use a little robust
penetration, some of which I won’t go into here, but how about the
Robust Economic Disparity Penetrator or the Robust Truth About Enron
Penetrator or the Robust Skewed National Budget Priorities Penetrator
or even in my city, at the very least, we could really use a Robust San
Francisco Fog Penetrator. But, we definitely don’t need anything else
nuclear and we certainly need to stop violating the Earth because,
honestly, hasn’t she gotten screwed enough already?
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