Terrible Beauty

Eight test warheads from an LGM-118A Peacekeeper MIRVed nuclear missile come down over Kwajalein Atoll, 2004.

I was set off on this trail by a blowhard post on a Russian blog, to the effect that a couple of Topol Ms dropped on our foggy isles would settle the Litvinenko business once for all.

That led me on to Dr Strangelove, and a slightly unnerving parallel between the fictional U.S. President Merkin Muffley and our own G. W. Bush. Look up 'merkin' if you don't get m'drift. History repeats itself, the first time starring Peter Sellers..? I hid in the kneehole of my desk for a minute while I thought about that one.

Here from another launch, warheads dropping through the clouds.