OK, so the new iPad doesn't slice, dice or make coffee. It doesn't steam your shirts. And it doesn't yet have an app that negotiates peace in the Middle East.

It's faster. It will run on 4G LTE networks. For now, in the Fredericksburg area, only those on the AT&T network will be speeded up. LTE hasn't been built out to our area yet. But the AT&T version of the new iPad will also have High Speed Download Packet Access (HSDPA) capability, producing "3.5 G" speeds. Verizon Wireless' network isn't capable of that.

The new iPad has a higher-resolution screen, slightly better graphics, a better, 5-megapixel camera and a voice interface that's something like the iPhone 4S' Siri, except with a male instead of a female voice. It goes on sale March 16, and there will be no price increase over what the iPad 2 has cost. But the iPad 2 price will be slashed $100.

The launch this week was anticlimactic, but the new iPad will do much better than New Coke did. Apple will continue to sell iPads by the boatload, as fast as it can ship them from Chinese sweatshops. Well, actually, Chinese sweat factories. You know what I mean.

And eventually, one of those ships, making a stopover in the Middle East, may very well pick up a container with a nuke inside. And it could blow one of our ports to iKingdomcome. Not to single out Apple unfairly. Maybe it will be a boat bringing outsourced toys from China to WalMart.

If Iran develops nuclear weapons of mass destruction--or even if it doesn't, even if it's "just" a far less powerful "dirty bomb" that sets off a panic--that's the likely scenario for delivery of a nuke to America. Not aboard an intercontinental ballistic missile launched and arriving in a matter of minutes. No, in a cargo container aboard a slow boat from China. Not one sent by the Chinese government, which is making lots and lots of money off us. One placed on a ship somewhere along the way.