Goodnight, Sweet 'Monster Weapon'
Today the last of the B53 nuclear bombs—a 10,000-pound "monster weapon" way, way more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, if you can imagine—will be dismantled in Texas (i.e. executed on bomb death row), joining its 340 or so brothers and sisters in Cold War-era weapon heaven. Though inaccurate and "dumb" by some accounts, the B53 was special in its own way. "We have nothing that comes close to it in the stockpile anymore, and neither does Russia," Hans Kristensen of the Federation of the American Scientists told Wired. "It's the end of an era."
Aw, don't cry! B53 was lonely and ready to die. Besides, America still has 1,500 other nuclear weapons that seek your affection and attention.
