Seven Ways To Blow Shit Up Real Good

As a middle-aged American male, the editorial staff enjoys things that explode. (Maybe it's the nihilist in us; home-schooling didn't socialize us very well.) Not people, things. Not even things w/ people in them. 

But this. We didn't know the Soviet Union had "detonated more than 120 nukes to aid civilian aims." Crap. And we certainly never knew that the United Snakes had actually put Project Plowshare into action.Pesky ol' public opinion may have prevented more of this:

Beginning in the mid-1960s, scientists used targeted nuclear explosions to stimulate natural gas production by fracturing the rocks in which the gas was locked to make them more permeable. It worked well enough to warrant progressively larger tryouts. In 1967 Time described the first demonstration, Project Gasbuggy in New Mexico, like this:

On a butte above New Mexico's Leandro Canyon last week, chilled observers fell silent as a voice on the public-address system reached the end of the countdown. For a tense moment, nothing happened. Then the earth jolted underfoot and a dull, distant boom was heard, followed by a second, more gentle, rolling shock. Someone shouted: "We did it! We did it!" Hand shakes were exchanged all around. The U.S. had successfully set off the first nuclear explosion sponsored jointly by the Government and industry.

The natural gas work culminated in 1973 with the explosion of three 33-kiloton bombs thousands of feet underground in Rio Blanco, Colorado. The key problem was that the gas this produced had measurable amounts of radioactivity. Not surprisingly, that created political problems for the method, even though the scientists involved in the experiments claimed the radiation would not be detrimental to public health.

but if a fairly well-informed explosion fan was unaware we were nuking ourselves for the profits of the oil & gas industry (What more can they want from us?) it's hard to imagine the booboisie getting huffy. This is the first thing in close to twenty yrs. we've discovered (on a more than personal level, & we'll certainly spare you that crap) that's stopped us in our keystrokes for a good 45 seconds. Certainly the most pointedly amazing factoid we've seen on the Internet. (Hey, whatever. Maybe we did know but forgot about it. It's been a while. It's not as if the stupid "liberal" media have been on it like wrinkles on a cheap suit beyond TIME®'s bit in 1967.) We may just be amazed that we neither knew of nor remembered Project Gasbuggy & al.; the devotion to BO (Big Oil, that is. Texas tea.) that elements of the gov't. display is shocking, but shouldn't be surprising any longer.  As long as you duck & cover, everything will be alright.