Super Fun With Lithium

Well.  Kinda.
If, by "fun" you mean "a terrifying balancing act on the traumatic tightrope of terror" and if I could think of any more alliterative words that are synonyms of "scary" they'd be in there, too.  

Cute doggeh asleep.
To see if this comes up on Facebook as the default.

     For those who know, lithium has another, far more sinister use, than treating bipolar disorder.  As the compound lithium deuteride it forms the fusion core of thermonuclear warheads, the very stuff that gets compressed and heated, so much so that the hydrogen isotopes present (the "deuteride" bit) fuse and create the BANG.
     Here Conrad would like to introduce the word and concept of "Frazzle", the diametric opposite of a "Fizzle".  A fizzle is an underperforming nuke where a Frazzle is the reverse, a BANG very much bigger than expected.
     Castle Bravo is the outstanding example of a Frazzle.  This warhead's fusion core consisted of two isotopes of lithium - here Conrad has to wrinkle his brow at the concept of a molecule that consists of two separate isotopes - of which the Lithium 7 isotope was deemed to be inert and unreactive.

No, Art, not that kind of - oh I give up

     You can see where this is going, can't you?
     The supposedly inert Li7 turned out, in the raging neutron flux triggered by the explosion of the primary, to be exceedingly reactive.
     "Oh, no problem," I hear you mutter.  "A slightly bigger bang, eh?"
     Well.  Kinda.

Only we can prevent - er - islands?

     If, by "slightly" you mean a two hundred per cent increase in the warhead yield.  Castle Bravo's top yield was predicted to be 5 megatons, which is a staggeringly big BANG in the first place.  It actually came in at an estimated 15 megatons, estimated because the explosion caused serious damage to the structures and equipment in place on the Pacific atolls used to house the operations staff.  The fallout contaminated a huge area, and the political fallout was equally enormous - but, this being BOOJUM! we won't go there.
     This 1954 test predictably ramped-up international pressure to stop atmospheric nuclear testing, meaning we Brits as Johnny-come-lately to the H-bomb research field had to hurry along with our own tests.
     Still, we did get Godzilla out of it ...

Either that's a super-huge human or -

The Underpinnings Of Stranger Things
What of consequences?  No, I'm not merely trying to bait traffic with the hit television series title, because it's not the title of the blog tonight, and I cavil at your arrant insult.
     Where was I?  Oh yes, going off on a tangent*.  Conrad has postulated, and dared to write about, an arm of UNIT that works under the codename "Project Broom".  Their job is to come along in the aftermath and sweep up all the bits of Auton or Dalek, dispose of them in a (mostly) responsible manner, and insist to you, the public, that it was all ball lightning in swamp gas reflecting Venus.

See?  Ball lightning.  Can't argue with that.

     Did this happen in Hawkins?  because the body count at the school was in the dozens.  Conrad suspects that the only survivors there were the gang.  Not only that, the agents and soldiers between them must have fired getting on for a thousand rounds, with no obvious target or effects.  Plus, there's an impact-profile in the wall of a classroom from a creature about nine feet tall ...

On hearing that it's application for Mary Quant modelling had been turned down

     Then again, recall Will Byers.  We had a body and a coroner's report and a funeral.  Then suddenly, here's Will, all alive.  After being dead.  Surprise surprise, the press and media are entirely absent from camping on his front porch.  What?  Come on!  The biggest story since Lazarus and nobody pays attention?  We see a single press clipping from Page 9 of the Hawkins Intelligencer and that's it.
     Of course, I may be over-thinking this ...

"Yup!" agreed Jack Burton.

Of Weather
Yesterdays, actually.  Quite horrendous, actually.
     As mentioned briefly on Facebook, I swam to the car park, paddled across it and sailed home in the car.  Parts of the journey home were more akin to travelling upriver than along a road and I half-expected to see Captain Willard scoot past**.  If we'd hung a net from the exhaust I bet we'd have had a fine catch of chub and dace.
     At times I felt as I was auditioning for a part in "The Cruel Sea".
     "Heavy seas off the port quarter"
     "ASDIC CONTACT! Oh-three-oh magnetic."
     "Issue the rum ration."
     Well, I concur with the last.

The Compass Rose.

Blimey, almost at count.  That'll teach me to work up a creative head of steam waffling on about wonder-weapons of World War Three.

Finally -
Conrad.  Raised by weasels.

RABID weasels!

     It'll all make sense tomorrow.

"Yup!" agreed Jack Burton.
R J Macready!   I meant R J Macready!

*  I do this a lot.  It drives people mad!
** "Apocalypse Now" reference.  You're welcome.