My Sunday newspaper carried a story about the Russian military resuming strategic bombing patrols along the Russian-U.S. border. Read the story here. A big step backwards and a reminder of cold-war times. There are a few things that can make life on this little planet very unpleasant; and I mean for the average reasonably well-to-do American. These are

  1. The impact to a comet or asteroid a la K-T.
  2. A supernova explosion of a nearby star (less than 200 LY away, say).
  3. Nuclear War.

It is hard to put any numbers on the probability of any of those potential show-stoppers, but the third one has just become a good deal more likely. To my surprise, no one seems to care a great deal. Some people think that nuclear confrontation is highly likely in the near future. See the insightful article by Robert S. McNamara, Apocalypse Soon. Our current administration can only be described as incompetent to allow this threat to increase. Instead of the usual confrontational course that is a hallmark of the Bush administration, dialog with the current Russian administration is likely to reduce the thread of nuclear confrontation.