Difficile est satiram non scribere.
(It is difficult not to write satire.)
--Juvenal
Physicist Edward Teller dies at 95
DRIVING FORCE BEHIND H-BOMB SUCCUMBS AT STANFORD
By Dan Stober
Mercury News
Edward Teller, the ``father of the hydrogen bomb,'' a Hungarian-born physicist who tirelessly promoted the development of nuclear weapons for half a century, died Tuesday at his home on the campus of Stanford University.
He was fascinated by all things nuclear and was known in the weapons world as a fountain of imaginative ideas, the details of which he left to others. He promoted the idea of using hydrogen bombs to dig a harbor in Alaska, to deflect killer asteroids approaching Earth and mused about whether they could be used to change the direction of hurricanes.
Teller championed nuclear power plants and nuclear space ships. In the 1980s, his campaigning for a hydrogen bomb that could theoretically emit enough X-ray laser beams to knock down a fleet of Russian missiles helped propel the creation of the Reagan-era ``Star Wars'' program.
After firmly wedging open the funding gates for that program, Teller turned to promoting other ideas, including a nuclear-powered popcorn popper, the use of plutonium residue from nuclear reactors as a tooth whitener, and using hydrogen bombs to mow the grass in municipal parks.
He consistently refused to answer questions regarding the existence of his own nuclear arsenal, insisting that the South end of his basement was 'sovereign territory' and 'none of the IAEA's damn business.'
His one regret was said to be his inability to solve the theoretical problems behind the Atomic Death Ray that he struggled with in his declining years. He was believed to be close to a breakthrough when Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby-Do discovered that he was the 'ghost' which had been haunting the Stanford Linear Accelerator Building in order to scare people away form the site of his experiments.
Teller is survived by his son, Paul, daughter Wendy, four grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and ten thousand U.S. nuclear warheads. He was quite fond of the latter, and would brighten up when given the chance to show his pictures of them. He had pet names for many of them, including the B61-11 nuclear bunker buster and the W-88 submarine missile warhead, which he called "my little noisemaker."
(Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product. The rest is the fakey part.)
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