The Tsar Bomba was clean because they set off only 2 of the 3 stages. It had the fission primary and fusion secondary, but had a steel/lead casing rather than the U-238 casing it was designed with, bringing it down from possibly 150MT to the 50MT we saw.

2 reasons:
They didn't want to poison half their arctic forever just to impress us.
And the plane that dropped it barely got away as it was. Dropping the 150 version was probably going to be suicide.

The full bomb would have been very, very dirty. And the cobalt variant would have been dirtier still.

Mr. dpidcoe is still correct. You pointing out that politicians also see us as a product changes nothing.

Heh. The funny part is that the banks have probably been doing a better job of governing this whole time...

One could hope though, that after 50+ years you would see some reduction in the targeted problems. A slight decrease in the percentage of those living in poverty; something.

Would you actually say that we have more order and civility in our cities than we did 60 years ago?

Nice analysis, but one little part is wrong. You used the word 'share'. No matter how you dress it up, it's not sharing when it is government enforced.

Not going to get in the substance too much (like no one recovered from sickness, pursued education, cared for children, etc. before the nanny state) just use the right word. Whatever the right word is, it isn't 'sharing'.

Funny that you would use CBS as your barometer of truth. The place where Dan Rather was caught lying red handed over partisan politics, and as punishment was gently retired a few months later. It's not like they turned things around after that.

CBS bears a good chunk of the responsibility for Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and now Trump. Considering how much I trusted them under Walter Cronkite, they have fallen far.

Oh, and bite me with your name calling.

thehill.com is a political rag, desperately clinging to the teat of the Koch Soros Buffet establishment, and the reason why Trump is doing well in the primaries in the first place.

I heard his other spokeswoman (attractive blackish woman with long black hair) say "of course not American citizens" just this afternoon on CNN before leaving work. Not that CNN isn't also part of the problem. They meant to tear her up and she held her own.

I don't find any part of it ambiguous. And if Trump gets elected and then gets us into trouble with his mouth, then we have only ourselves to blame. And it didn't just happen this year.

" illegal Mexican aliens they are all rapists"

Again with the lies. He did not say that. You put it in quotes so don't say you were paraphrasing.

This is precisely why he has support. I would say stop lying, but I think it's too late for that already.

OK, just to be clear, he did not say that. New immigrant Muslims, temporarily, until we can vet them, Not citizens.

This is why he has support, because of all the fucking lies that fly around since Walter Cronkite died.

"ICBM's are solid-fueled in general. So, no, you won't be coming in "at full power""

I don't get that. What does solid fuel have to do with where you drive your ICBM? To my knowledge, you can't shut off a solid fuel rocket, which would be perfect for this application.

And I said ICBM, but for this purpose there is no inter-continental and you don't necessarily even have to be ballistic, so it's really just more of an M. I was just trying to give a sense of scale. A land launched missile can be as big as they want it to be. And if anybody can build a bunch of something cheap, it's the Chinese.

Modern MIRVs being 60s & 70s tech btw. And they don't use nukes because the missiles are inaccurate, they use nukes because the point of the thing is to carry a nuke.

When nuking a city, you don't have to be that accurate. But my freakin' iPhone knows the difference between my living room and my backyard. Which was built in China I remind you. Any country capable of putting a satellite into orbit today has the ability to bring that same missile down within a meter of a target.

Perhaps I misuse the word 'hypersonic'. Most people here are better at physics and math than I, so you tell me; a medium sized small satellite launching type rocket, that uses 2/3rds of it's fuel to get stratospheric, arcs over, and comes straight down, still under full power, hits the sea surface how fast?

I submit that it is fast enough that the surface speed of the target ship becomes irrelevant.

Obama's DoJ can't file charges unless and until the FBI comes up with something.

I would predict Sanders loses to Trump too, but then Trump shot his mouth off pretty hard about Muslims yesterday. I like Trump, but he could go too far.

Given where we are right now, to say that something is too crazy to happen in a year, is a little crazy.

It's to give everybody but Russia and China a hard time. Your WWII comparison is apt; it's not going to be used for that. Which is why we only needed 3.

"First off, there are no hypersonic missiles and will not be for a good 5 or 6 years at least"

Wut? Hell an old fashioned ICBM is a hypersonic missile if you use it as one, and they have better nowadays. If you don't actually need to traverse a continent, you have the fuel to come all the way down at full power. And be smaller.

The latest Chinese missiles are estimated to come down at up to mach 22. They've put a lot of money into them for a while now. Which is why they don't really bother with a navy to counter ours. They figure they need the one carrier for show, and they can give the Philippines a hard time if they need to.

But they don't have to beat our navy with their navy to win.

Propaganda. The propaganda is that surface ships have a viable defense. There is none. Against a single harpoon type missile, yes; the Phalanx does exactly what you say it does; propaganda is usually true.. Against what they would actually shoot at our ships, no.

Multiple, staggered, svelte ICBMs coming down at mach 22. With nuke warheads if they are serious. There is no defense against that. All surface ships are stupid and redundant in the real war that the United States is worried about. I guess they are still handy against the Iraqs of the world.

And for that, apparently we only need three.