Yes, “today is _that_ day”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/4/newsid_2685000/2685115.stm. And you can make your very own “*Sputnik in a Biscuit Tin*”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7049002.stm to celebrate.

Frank Munger “has a neat video”:http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/munger/2008/09/how_secure_is_heumf.html in which he prods Y-12 officials on just how secure the “new Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility”:http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2008/9/10/7c57556f-6571-4114-bfab-29b5f3d32d4d.html is. I love how vague they are on the “DBT”:http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/design-basis-threat.html. Check it out.

“This bit”:http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/munger/2008/10/message_to_terrorists_dont_try.html is also a classic.

Asked what he’d say to people who might try to penetrate Y-12’s new high-security storehouse for bomb-grade uranium, Ron Wantland [head of Y-12’s operational security group] responded:

*”Think about a dozen times before you even wake up in the morning . . . Don’t even try it.”*

NNSA “announced today”:http://www.nnsa.energy.gov/2170.htm the completion of conversion to low-enriched uranium of two research reactors, one at UOregon and one at UWashington, as well as the initiation of decommissioning of the ZPPR at Idaho National Lab. I wonder what other surprises (“hopefully something like this?”:http://russianforces.org/nuclear/2008/09/russia_prepares_to_bring_spent.shtml) are in store for the “international RERTR meeting”:http://www.rertr.anl.gov/meeting_announcements/2008meeting/ that kicks off Monday in DC. Can’t wait. 🙂

Yesterday, I was doing a tiny tasking on Russia’s nuclear regulator Rostekhnadzor. (The poor agency has recently been restructured under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology, a far cry from the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission here.) In the process, I came across *a very lovely picture of Rostekhnadzor’s former head Konstantin Pulikovskiy*. (This picture was so good that I had to share it with you. Don’t you just love the Putin photo on his desk?) Anyway…

!/images/58.jpg!

…Having headed up the agency since December 2005, *Pulikovskiy resigned from Rostekhnadzor “for personal reasons”* (or shall we say, “was resigned” or even “restructured out”) *in early September 2008*. Though he frequently appeared on television looking all busy and important, a Russian rag “noted ^ru^”:http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2008/09/05_a_2831898.shtml that Pulikovskiy’s replacement at Rostekhnadzor, his former deputy Nikolay Kutyin, actually *ran the agency during the last three years*.

_For some reason, I had this weird feeling that I had seen Pulikovskiy’s picture before, though I couldn’t remember where. (Fast forward a few hours…) During a humble dinner (a tofu scramble), it came to me…_

*_A book by Pulikovskiy was actually on my bookshelf._*

Pulikovskiy got the Rostekhnadzor job after a stint as Putin’s plenipotentiary in Russia’s Far East from 2000 to 2005. *His book, titled _The Orient Express: Through Russia with Kim Jong Il_, describes Pulikovskiy’s train travels with the Dear Leader*. Though it has no literary value, the book is a real collector’s item. (And not just because Pulikovskiy is seemingly an egomaniac.)

For your enjoyment, a _New York Times_ review of the book is “available here”:http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E5D81F38F930A35751C1A9649C8B63. This paragraph is quite telling.

On a stop at Omsk, the North Korean *rejected a plate of barrel-salted pickles, dismissing the offer as shoddily marinated cucumbers from Bulgaria*, not prepared in the authentic Russian style.

“Then they served *tiny pelmenis, kopeck-size, in a small frying pan baked under cheese and mayonnaise*,” Mr. Pulikovsky wrote, recalling crestfallen faces on the Siberian hosts at the arrival of the Russian meat dumplings. “*Kim Jong Il picked at them with a fork and said: ‘What kind of pelmeni are these? They should be big, boiled and in broth’*.”

With all that experience, I can’t help but wonder if Pulikovskiy can get a job as Kim’s personal “pelmeni maker”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelmeni.