Intelligence Agencies Assess Nuclear Technology

The National Intelligence Council, representing all sixteen American agencies, has just released the global forecast that it prepares every four years. One of its conclusions, according to the New York Times, was:

"The chance of the use of nuclear weapons, while remaining 'very low' would rise in the next two decades as nuclear technology spreads."

That is just an assessement of the threat that more nations will produce nuclear weapons, as Iran may be trying to do, and will actually use them.

If you add the threat that terrorists will sabotage the storage or transportation of nuclear material or will steal nuclear wastes and use them to make dirty bombs, and if you project all these threats to the end of the century instead of just twenty years, you have a very good argument against nuclear power.

The Grapes of Wrath - Updated

From an article in today's New York Times about the suffering caused by the current recession:

"... a data security specialist, moved into Mountain House last year, buying a foreclosed property on Prosperity Street for $380,000. But the decline in values has been so fierce that he too is underwater. He has cut his DVD buying from 50 a month to perhaps one, and is waiting until the Christmas sales to buy a high-definition television. He does not indulge much anymore in his hobbies of scuba diving and flying."

I don't know how anyone can endure such hardship.