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The Perfect Plate for the Nuclear Family Car 223

Posted by chrisd from the nevada-is-americas-holster dept.
In what must be a dream come true for some, Nevada has approved a License Plate commemorating the Test Site and the connections Nevada enjoys with Nuclear weapons in the United States. The Associated Press article on the subject notes that a lot of people are up in arms about the new design, as Nevada is embroiled in controversy over the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility. The license features an atom. a mushroom cloud as the background and the equation E=mc2 on the plate.
I was unable to find a picture of the plate on the web (I saw it in my morning paper). I'm sure a picture must be on the web somewhere. I'll leave it to slashdotters to suggest the best personalized lettering for the plate. My entry: DUKNCVR?
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The Perfect Plate for the Nuclear Family Car More

The Perfect Plate for the Nuclear Family Car

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  • This is a disaster waiting to happen...

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:22PM (#3421825)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Yeah, I agree with you here. Most people are upset at the very thought of any sort of nuclear research and any celebration of it.

        For me, I think it's pretty silly of Nevada to include a mushroom cloud on the plate, but I guess if that's what they want to be associated with, that's their choice. :)

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • much worse than that (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            American Ground Zero by Carole Gallagher

            She set out to debunk the allegations of high illness rates associated with the Manhattan Engineering District.

            She instead wrote a book about the "downwinders." Extremely sobering, even heartbreaking.

      • Nuclear waste in outer space (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:43PM (#3421896) Homepage
        Its amusing that people are opposed to nuclear waste in outer space...after all, the mass of all nuclear waste in the sun is probably greater than the mass of everything on earth. For that matter, the mass of radioactive materials on earth is probably orders of magnitude greater than all the radioactive materials mined/produced/enhanced by human beings.

        Only idiots are fundamentally morally opposed to radioactive material or its production. The only rational basis on which to oppose it is safety. Not that this is a trivial basis =)

      • As I see it, the real problem is that when it comes to something people don't understand that sometimes has the ability to maim or kill them they don't want to take the time to learn more about it. They want it banned, damnit, banned! Out of my children's face!!!

        For further proof of this statement you only need to look at firearms control laws.
        • Your position is flawed. Yes, people often ban things they don't understand, but that doesn't mean they'd be OK with it if they only understood it. I have taken the time to learn more about guns, and the more I learn the more I support firearms control laws.

          I have also taken the time to learn more about nuclear waste, and the more I learn the more I oppose nuclear power plants. I think our only real hope is turning the waste into glass, but they refuse to do that because of cost, even though it will be far more expensive to clean up the Columbia river once those tanks at Hanford leak.

  • Anyone have a photo of the new plate?

  • and why not? (Score:3, Funny)

    by nostromo_42 ( 130573 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:13PM (#3421787)
    since the test site is bigger than Rhode Island, and we let *them* have their own liscence plates....

  • Most plates are designed to attract tourism... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dr. Spork ( 142693 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:16PM (#3421805)
    I wonder how Nevada could be proud of being the official "most worthless place on the continent" as judged by the government which decided that if some place must be irradiated, it might as well be Nevada, because it's not really much of a loss.

    To commemorate this on a license plate is very strange.

    • the official "most worthless place on the continent"

      That would be New Mexico, followed by Utah, with Nevada in a close third. How can you say that? Nevada has casinos, and legal prositiution!
    • I wonder how Nevada could be proud of being the official "most worthless place on the continent" as judged by the government which decided that if some place must be irradiated, it might as well be Nevada, because it's not really much of a loss.

      Nevada relies heavily on tourism. Of course there are the idiots who go to Vegas, and the people who are attracted by Nevada's marriage and prostitution laws. Aside from that, Nevada has a strong appeal as an extremely desolate place- and it's the right kind of desolation, with Indian reservations and weird rocks and nuclear testing grounds. Not flat desolation like you see in the Plains States.

      If you're wanting to see the Milky Way, or you're wanting to take some pictures with your new Canon D-30, or you're looking to justify your SUV purchase (and you don't realize that your Ford Explorer is going to need a tow truck), you could do a lot worse than Nevada. Of course, the nearest large population center is the west coast, and California itself has a lot of cool places to visit. Nevada's problem is that it's surrounded by states with similar terrain and features, so it doesn't get the fair share of tourists that it deserves. So they are always looking for things that make them stick out from AZ, CA, UT, etc., like gambling, prostitution, marriage laws, etc. (Utah might have funny marriage laws as well but if it does, they're of a different sort because I never heard of anyone going to Utah just to get married.)

      The Manhattan Project sites are great things to have in your state. The bomb test areas themselves might still be radioactive and nasty places, but they have the status of historical sites, which is great for attracting tourists and so you can build tourist traps around them at a safe distance.

      Yucca Mountain, on the other hand, is nothing but bad news because it cannot be leveraged to generate tourism at all- it's for waste, which repels tourists. As far as Nevada is concerned, the federal government might as well be dropping a smelly hog farm in the middle of Vegas. So you won't see Yucca Mountain plates anytime soon unless it's part of a political ploy during the next election, when Nevada's 4 electoral votes are up for grabs.
      • The Manhattan Project sites are great things to have in your state.

        Well perhaps, but that would be New Mexico (Los Alamos, and the Trinity site at White Sands), not Nevada. The original bomb test site (Trinity) is open to tourists one day a year, and is now negligably above background radiation. Somewhere in my collection of stuff I have some of the green, fused sand (melted by the explosion) called trinitite.
      • Not flat desolation like you see in the Plains States.

        The Plains States may be flat, and even boring, but they are certainly not desolate -- they are filled with farms and small towns for crying out loud.
      • Parts of Nevada are quite beautiful. I go to Black Rock City [burningman.com] every year, and enjoy views like this [sulli.org] and this [sulli.org] and this [sulli.org] (the last is Pyramid Lake, about 50 miles south of BRC). Anyone who claims that Nevada is a wasteland is just fucking wrong - it's well worth the visit for the scenery alone.
      • Minor nitpick:

        So you won't see Yucca Mountain plates anytime soon unless it's part of a political ploy during the next election, when Nevada's 4 electoral votes are up for grabs.

        Make that 5 electoral votes...there'll be a 3rd congressional district beginning in 2003. (Visit this site [darioslittleproblem.com] to learn who not to vote for if, like me, you're in this new district.)

  • New Mexico... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by ghack ( 454608 )
    ...is truly the only state that deserves such a license plate.

    The Trinity Site [army.mil] on white sands missile range.

    Just because there were nuclear tests in nevada, should they get a license plate featuring a nuclear blast? I think NOT!

    • Re:New Mexico... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jimhill ( 7277 )
      Sadly, that goddamned balloon fiesta has commandeered any and all "Yay, NM!" stuff. Dollars to dildoes when our state quarter comes out it (like the license plates) will sport a Zia-marked balloon.


  • CNN has a story [cnn.com] about it, with a (somewhat decent) picture.

    Makes me want to move to Nevada just so I can put these on my car. Too bad it's not a Delorean with a Mr. Fusion.

  • The only truly appropriate custom ID for such a plate:

    NEVRAGIN

    b&

    • Re:My Entry (Score:2, Funny)

      by jo42 ( 227475 )
      Nah:

      BLOWME

      Is far more suitable for an NV plate: covers nuking and prostitution in NV.

  • If you didn't mind sharing the area with lots of venomous creatures, nasty non-venomous creatures, aliens, secret government projects and a handful of radioactive yokels, it wouldn't be a bad place to live if you liked the heat. Front row seats to any nuclear accident that may occur in the area. Tickets go on sale now, call your local Ticketmaster for details.

    • lots of venomous creatures, nasty non-venomous creatures, aliens, secret government projects and a handful of radioactive yokels

      Sadly, you just described my 20 year high school reunion.


  • to have his most recognizable work put on a licence plate celebrating nuclear weapons - which he came to oppose.
    • Very appropriate, actually. It was Einstein's 1939 letter to President Roosevelt (albiet at the request of Leo Szilard) that helped kick off fission research and later the Manhattan project.

      (Mind, this was in a political climate where it looked like nuclear research in Nazi Germany might get them there first.)
  • Here's a shot [cnn.com] of the plate... looks like an explosion out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon or something.

    Also, if anyone's interested, here's [216.239.33.100] the cached version of a supposedly related design contest for the plate. Sounds like they had virtually no requirements except for size. Neato.
    • exactly, they want you to think of it much like a cartoon. That's exactly what the government did for 20 years after the first nuclear weapon was used in WWII. They would give information out to movie makers, authors, etc, but would limit this info to make a push for movies/stories that were centered on horrendous creatures. Attempting to move the public away from the truth that this is a devastating weapon that causes LONG-TERM, horrific damage to REAL fucking people.

      Thermonuclear war is NOTHING like the Acme rocket.
      • Actually the horrendous creature movies of the 50s and early 60s are probably what embedded some of the ridiculous notions about atomic energy in the public's mind.

        As for weapons that cause "LONG-TERM, horrific damage" -- one, weapons are supposed to cause damage, and two, dead is about as long term as you can get. If you look at the objective facts, nukes actually have a pretty good record for keeping the peace: they ended one world war, and have deterred any others in the nearly sixty years since -- precisely because they are so horrific.

        (It was Alfred Nobel's hope that his invention, dynamite, would make war so horrific that it would never be fought again. Didn't quite work out that way.)

  • How about a /. plate? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by elflet ( 570757 ) <elflet @ n e x t q uestion.net> on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:24PM (#3421831)
    You too can request a custom plate design, if you can get 250 Nevadans to promise to buy it:

    A number of charitable organizations and causes have proposed special license plates which may or may not actually be issued, depending on public demand for them. These are called "Letter of Intent" plates. Motorists interested in seeing the plates produced fill out a Letter of Intent stating they would purchase a set. A given type of plate will be produced if the Department receives more than 250 requests for it before the date listed on the form.

    (See Nevada License Plates [state.nv.us])

    On the other hand, you'd have to get the Legislature's approval...

  • I wonder, should Ukrainian (for Chernobyl) and Japanese (for Hiroshima) license plates feature a similar design?
    • Chernobyl wasn't a nuclear explosion, it was primarily a fire fueled by the graphite moderator of the reactor. Quite nasty enough, but after they got the fire out and thousands of cubic yards of concrete dumped on the debris, Chernobyl's remaining reactor (there were two) continued to produce power for many years. But yes, it did litter the countryside with radioactive material.

      (Power reactors elsewhere in the world use completely different designs, (non-positive void coefficients, or additional safety mechanisms) and can't catch fire.)
      • AJWM wrote:

        > (Power reactors elsewhere in the world use completely different
        > designs, (non-positive void coefficients, or additional safety
        > mechanisms) and can't catch fire.)

        Perhaps not, but safety measures have to be kept in place to be effective. The September 1999 accident in Tokai Japan (Japan's worst ever, though not as bad as Chernobyl) was due to a complete lack of safety mechanisms. To save money, somebody got the bright idea of preparing nuclear fuel by mixing it with nitric acid in a really big open bucket. None of the recommended cooling procedures were in place to make this remotely safe. Of course nuclear fission started in the open acid vat, and did a nice job of irradiating the neighborhood. It took a while to contain it, and there were fatalities. Needless to say, Japan is no longer fond of "safe" nuclear power.

        Funny thing is, this plant was filmed by Toho to be the subject of an attack by Godzilla in an upcoming movie. The movie mentioned Chernobyl by name (and the mention was by an actress born in Hiroshima) as Godzilla's attack on Tokai would have a similar effect. After most, if not all, the film was in the can, the accident occured. Three months later, "Godzilla 2000 Millenium" opened in Japan. The next summer it opened in the US as "Godzilla 2000".

        Nuclear plants are only as safe as the people who run them. When the people who run them are imbeciles, Godzilla will pay a visit sooner or later. Live and in person!

        Godzilla, Godzilla! God of Radioactive Fire:
        Come and save us! Please don't stomp us!

  • and for New York (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SysadminFromHell ( 535868 ) <yvanNO@SPAMsanctamaria-aarschot.be> on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:26PM (#3421839) Homepage
    I propose the skyline-licence-plate. And as a primer, it should come in two kinds. On front of the car it pictures the New York skyline before september 11th, on the back you get the same picture, but without the WTC.
    • I really like that. I propose that there be two versions - in-state and out-of-state. Those of us who don't live in NY and still want one could get official NY license plates (not valid for placing on a car and driving with, but still produced by NY state).
  • Nevada has at least 5 or 6 different license plate styles - just like California and various other states. Basically you pay more for one of these "themed" plates and part of the proceeds get donated to the cause. People like the idea bucause your talking about $50-$100 *extra* for a set of these themed plates. If you don't like the idea of the 'Nuclear' plates then get standard plates, or the Tahoe plates, or the Art for Kids plates, or the Firefighter plates or......

    Its just another revenue stream for this historical society - if enough geeks in Nevada banded together you could get some moronic "Slashdot.org Society" plates if you wanted. These plates neither support or oppose Nevadas desire to have Nuclear waste in the state. Its JUST a license plate!
  • Like scorpions, legal prostitution, Japanese tourists, organized crime, or Wayne Newton?

    Come to think of it, maybe a mushroom cloud is the best thing to come out of Nevada. Never mind...

  • I wonder if Nevada will aprove a plate for all the casinos there.

    The real interesting plate will be the one Nedava's DMV will make celebrating prostitution; I would love to see that plate. It would probally cut down on road rage too!

    • 1.) It is illegal to advertise brothels or prostitution in Nevada other than a sign outside the facility

      2.) Prostitution is only legal in a couple counties in Nevada - even then those counties COMBINED all have a population LESS than 250 people :P

      Even if enough people got together to make a Prostitution plate it would be illegal because it would be 'advertising'. Not to mention - who would the proceeds go to? Health Clinics for hookers?
      • Prostitution is only legal in a couple counties in Nevada - even then those counties COMBINED all have a population LESS than 250 people

        No. This is not true. While prostitution is legal here on a county by county basis, many counties allow prostitution, including Elko, Wite Pine, and Nye counties. The only places that I know of right off where prostitution is not legal are Las Vegas County, and perhaps Carson County. It may also be illegal in Reno, as there are no brothels in town here, but there are several "bunny ranches" just outside of town. Elko County alone has a population of at least 20,000 (with some 10,000 in Elko alone). In Elko County, there are at least five brothels, three in Elko and two in Wells, 60 miles east of Elko.
      • Prostitution is only legal in a couple counties in Nevada - even then those counties COMBINED all have a population LESS than 250 people

        Just what the hell are yout talking about? I don't know about Storey county, but the [216.239.35.100]
        census figures for Lyon county show 34501 for this county alone. Although the median family income is only $33k, the economy here is moving ahead pretty well...
      • Prostitution is only legal in a couple counties in Nevada

        It's the other way around. It's illegal in Clark County (which includes Las Vegas) and Washoe County (which includes Reno). It's legal nearly everywhere else in the state.

  • License plates dont have to be politically correct (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shoppa ( 464619 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:33PM (#3421861)
    License plates don't have to be universally approved or politically correct to have meaning and relevance. If that were the case, we'd have nothing but boring "beige" plates on all the cars.

    Let's see, off the top of my head:

    • New Hampshire - Live Free or Die. Luckily this resonates strongly on both sides of the aisle.
    • District of Colubmia - Taxation without Representation. Makes a point, does so with historical relevance, yet the possibility of a DC vote in congress is hated and despised by the majority of congress - who are forced to view it every day :-)
    Excising the Manhattan Project and the Cold War from history is something I'm sure that a certain fraction of the world would like to do. But face it, millions of Japanase civilians and probably a million US serviceman would've died if the conventional war had continued. If Nevada wants to take pride in this, it's fine by me.

  • Nevada can't change its past (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dfn5 ( 524972 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:37PM (#3421875) Journal
    In Nevada's past nuclear testing happened. It led to a Nuclear weapon that helped put an end to WWII which ultimately led to fewer lives lost on our side. That, in turn, led to a form of power generation that is, I hate to say, cleaner to the environment than fossel fuels. The waste merely needs to be dealt with responsibly.

    So if Nevada wants to be proud of their history instead of ashamed of it, more power to them.

    • Actually, Nevada played no role in the development of the weapons that ended the war. The Test Site was established afterwards when the cost of going out to the South Pacific to blow up islands got exorbitant and someone pointed out that we had a Big Empty right here at home.
    • dfn5 wrote:
      In Nevada's past nuclear testing happened. It led to a Nuclear weapon that helped put an end to WWII

      The Trinity Test [fas.org] was performed at Trinity Site, New Mexico. Nevada had nothing to do with it.

      (And, incidentally, the type of bomb dropped on Hiroshima was not tested before being used since it was of the simpler Uranium 235 gun type. The Trinity Test involved the Plutonium 239 implosion type which was the same as the type dropped three days after Hiroshima on Nagasaki.)

      -nukebuddy
  • More than 100,000 workers helped develop the nation's nuclear arsenal in Nevada, and more than 800 fell ill for their efforts.

    If they're talking about the legacy of the Test Site, I don't think they should use a mushroom cloud unless they show what it did to the people who live here and worked out there,

  • Nuke Nevada (Score:3, Funny)

    by Spankophile ( 78098 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:42PM (#3421895) Homepage
    Maybe it's actually a hidden agenda campaign, trying to rally support for simply nuking Nevada off the map, and all it's sinful habits (guns, gambling)

    (kidding)

  • Other Nevada Plates (Score:5, Informative)

    by batobin ( 10158 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @04:50PM (#3421913) Homepage
    I found this page at Nevada's DMV sites. Doesn't have the nuke one, but it has others:

    http://nevadadmv.state.nv.us/platesmain.htm [state.nv.us]

    Someone else posted the new nuke one:
    http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2002/ALLPOLITICS/04/26/atomic . icenseplates.ap/story.nevada.license.ap.jpg [cnn.net]

  • what about whores and blackjack? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @05:02PM (#3421943) Homepage Journal
    they're as big a part of NV history as big ass bombs

  • It's not even so much the storage... (Score:4, Informative)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @05:09PM (#3421960)
    It's not even so much the storage of nuclear waste in the Yucca mountain are that annoys many - but rather the transportation of the material across the U.S.

    The current proposals to move said waste involve using barges across many waterways including the Great Lakes [lasvegassun.com].

    Not only that, but a new transportation would be starting every four hours [ananuclear.org], using trucks that haven't even finished the design stage yet, designed each to move at only an average of 20-30 miles an hour, carrying 75 or 125 tons at a time [state.nv.us]

    Not that storing the material in one central area isn't a good idea - but moving it in this manner may be more dangerous than anything we've ever encountered with nuclear material - especially the responsibility is handed over to the private sector.

    Ryan Fenton
  • Sure.. Nukes are bad... But you can argue that they are the best thing that happened to us and that its the Nukes themselves that saved human race from ultimate destruction.. How?? You could argue that nukes serve as deterrent that keeps all the major world powers from going into the war.. think about it.. Without Nukes to serve as deterrent US and Russia would have probably went into a war that would have costed millions of lives.. So as bad as they are, you could argue that nukes brought STABILITY since no country is willing to risk complete destruction.. So when u look at the nukes as pacifying factor in world today then really it does not seem as bad. Few times Nukes have been used in Japan probably prevented an all out ground war between Japanese and Americans that could have resulted in far greater number of casualties then it was the case in Hiroshima and Ogasaki..
    • Sure, as it turns out, nukes served as an effective deterant to war and possibly prevented a significant number of deaths. However, the amount of risk associated with nukes is mind-boggling. What would the world be like had Kennedy ordered nuclear strikes during the missle crisis? Nukes were seriously considered for use during Vietnam, where they would arguably have led to a full-scale nuclear war. These are just two incidents which our government has let slip - think of how many more there have been that our government or the USSR have successfully kept under wraps.

      As it turns out, nukes might arguably have been good for humanity, but at the cost of how many close calls? And of course, the possibility of nuclear war is far from over. As more countries develop nuclear weapons, there will be more and more chance of an lunatic or terrorist getting ahold of one.

  • Associating Nukes with Cars (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hanway ( 28844 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @05:13PM (#3421975) Homepage
    One could probably make a case that gasoline-powered automobiles have had much more devastating negative effects on the world than nuclear weapons and nuclear energy put together: pollution, global warming, urban decay, and so on. If you buy that argument, then it's denigrating to nuclear testing to depict it on an auto license plate.
  • There really isn't a controversy surrounding Yucca Mountain - the federal government is going to take a mountain in an area that has already been nuked to death and store waste there. Sure there are protests, but in reality the government made the final decision on Yucca Mountain the moment they proposed the project.

    Any dissnet at the state level is going to be overridden at the federal level. Yucca Mountain is a done deal.

  • The license features an atom... (Score:3, Funny)

    by BlueFall ( 141123 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @05:28PM (#3422017)
    The license features an atom

    Big deal, my license plate features a lot of atoms. ;)

  • nother plate proposition--funny :-) (Score:5, Funny)

    by JimBobJoe ( 2758 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @05:28PM (#3422021)
    I'm a huge licene plate fan...here in Ohio...I've assisted with several license plate projects.

    For the amusement of the /. crowd, I submit an article, written last year, in which I half seriously proposed another plate for the great state of Ohio. Any Ohioans out there wishing to help me...please send me an email.
    ___________________
    Every time I see a bumper sticker or a t-shirt that says, "Don't mess with Texas" I find myself snickering. It's not that I do not like Texans, on the contrary, I've met a bunch of them, and they are quite an independent lot. (A Texan I know, in protest of his local school taxes, intends to pay his property tax in person with 63,000 nickels. It's that type of ballsy bravado that does Texas, and America for that matter, proud.) Regrettably, most Texans these days are just as milquetoasty as people from any other state.

    But Texans do make a good marketing campaign. The Alamo has become a fantastic tourist trap in spite of being a horrific military failure. We Ohioans have much to learn about marketing our own state.

    A great example of this is our license plates. Finally, with the introduction of the new Bicentennial Plate on October 1, we can actually put a halfway nice looking license plate on our cars. However, it is still encumbered by the "Birthplace of Aviation" slogan. The problem is, another state claims to be the birthplace of aviation, and they're doing a better job marketing it. (The North Carolina plate is a more elegant salute to the Wright Brothers than our half-ass'd slogan.) Unfortunately, the slogan on the plates is state law, and will require action by the state legislature to change (and that is akin to an act of God.)

    Perhaps we should go into our history books and find something of consequence to feature on a special plate--something which encapsulates Ohio, its people and its history. You wouldn't need to look far, because Lancaster's own Gen. William T. Sherman blessed Ohio history with the type of achievement over which other states regularly drool.

    In November 1864, he burned Atlanta down.

    In commemoration of this event, work should begin immediately on a special license plate devoted to this incident in history.

    First, we must find an appropriate tagline and graphic. If we choose a graphic that's, say, a little building burning, then a good tagline may be "Sherman burning Atlanta --Nov. 1864." I guess the plate could be devoted to General Sherman himself, with a little picture of him and the tagline "Gen. Sherman--the man who burned down Atlanta."

    I am however much more in love with a tagline saying, "Don't mess with Ohio or we'll burn down Atlanta...again." (Consider the new tagline a swipe not at Georgia, but at Texas--I mean, what have they ever burned down?) I think that nicely summarizes this feat in Ohio history, in addition to describing the feistiness that Ohioans should be known for. (Admittedly burning Atlanta down today would require a lot of work--its metropolitan area now extends into Tennessee and Florida.)

    There is precedence for acridity on license plates. New Hampshire started it all with "Live Free or Die"--homage to our Revolutionary roots. Washington DC's new plates are emblazoned with "No Taxation without Representation"--another commemoration of America's Revolutionary history, not to mention the District's unique political situation. Even "Birthplace of Aviation" is a passive-aggressive swipe at North Carolina. Not all Ohioans may wish to have the Sherman plate; some may wish to drive south of Covington, Kentucky. But for those who do, I don't see why "Don't mess with Ohio or we'll burn down Atlanta...again" cannot be issued to the proud Ohioan interested in memorializing our state, and our nation's, history.

    To the critics who say that license plates are meant only for vehicle identification purposes, my response is that special plates are doing an adequate job identifying vehicles. However, they are a medium for so much more. Pennsylvania's ex-Governor Tom Ridge said that license plates are moving billboards for a state. Ohio must learn to leverage this advertising space in its favor in order to establish a unique state identity. The new Bicentennial plate is a start.

    A petition must be circulated to collect 1000 names, addresses and current plate numbers of individuals willing to buy the plate when it is introduced. Contact me if you're interested in helping get the petition started.

    • Re:nother plate proposition--funny :-) (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "The Alamo has become a fantastic tourist trap in spite of being a horrific military failure"

      Err, no. The stand at the Alamo delayed the Mexian troops while the Texas army finally got it's act together. Not to mention galvanizing them as well. Also, lets not forget that the number of casualites inflited by the Alamo defenders against the vasty larger Mexican army were nothing less than amazing.

      So, we lost the battle but won the war.
      • > > The Alamo has become a fantastic tourist trap in spite of being a horrific military failure"

        > Err, no. The stand at the Alamo delayed the Mexian troops while the Texas army finally got it's act together.

        Err, yes. The Alamo was an indefensible site with no military importance. The defenders could've delayed the Mexican army better elsewhere. Not that the Mexicans did any better; Santa Ana was so impatient that he ordered ill-prepared infantry assaults that predictably got slaughtered. All he had to do was wait for his artillery to catch up and the Texans were doomed (which is what happened in the end). The Alamo was an amazing display of military incompetence by both sides.

        Chris Mattern

    • Re:nother plate proposition--funny :-) (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      How about

      Gen Sherman Inventor of Urban Renewal

      I just came back from Atlanta. It definitely neeeds another renewing.

    • I am however much more in love with a tagline saying, "Don't mess with Ohio or we'll burn down Atlanta...again." (Consider the new tagline a swipe not at Georgia, but at Texas--I mean, what have they ever burned down?) I think that nicely summarizes this feat in Ohio history, in addition to describing the feistiness that Ohioans should be known for. (Admittedly burning Atlanta down today would require a lot of work--its metropolitan area now extends into Tennessee and Florida.)


      So can we just mess with Ohio now and get it over with? Atlanta is overdue for another burning.. and this time it needs to be flattened, so they don't try to route the roads around the rubble again.. And while we are at it, forbid the name 'Peachtree' from being used in any public road/building/work.
  • Doesn't anyone find it funny that people in Nevada celebrate Nuclear Power, while people in California suffer lack of power.

    I can envision California's new license plate: California: Blackout Capital of the world

  • Michigan (Score:4, Funny)

    by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Saturday April 27, 2002 @06:16PM (#3422218) Homepage
    Here in Michigan the license plate used to say "Winter Wonderland". A constant reminder as to how our weather sucks. To me this would be like Florida having a plate that said "Hurricane Target"

  • Unfair (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sivar ( 316343 ) <charlesnburns[@]gmail...com> on Saturday April 27, 2002 @07:01PM (#3422346)
    I don't think it's fair to associate Albert Einstein's theory of relativity with a mushroom cloud. The theory and Einstein himself were about advancing the state of human knowledge, not destroying it. It was even Einstein himself who made the famous quote, ""I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
    • It's perfectly relevant though. Energy = Mass x Speed-of-light squared is the essence of the awesome power of the nuclear bomb.
    • it doesn't matter what einstein wanted.

      you need something science-y on the license plate.

      This is america, man. knowledge isn't required.

  • I'm moving to NV! (Score:3, Funny)

    by phillymjs ( 234426 ) <slashdot@stanTWAINgo.org minus author> on Saturday April 27, 2002 @07:56PM (#3422548) Homepage Journal
    Just so I can get one of these plates, with "DUKNCVR" on it. :-)

    ~Philly
    • So I see I'm not the only one who wants that...

      Maybe they should sell replica plates with that on it to anyone, whether they live in Nevada or not-- like those ones from Universal Studios that read "OUTATIME" like the one on the DeLorean in Back to the Future.

      ~Philly
  • Nevada: First in...First Out

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