IAEA, NIE And The MMFNI

I‘m not sure if I’ve got that third acronym right — Mad Mullahs For Nuking Israel, right? — but the first one sure undercut the second one yesterday, much to the detriment of the third one.

The NIE, National Intelligence Estimate, gave the MMFNI a bunch of breathing room when it came out last December, claiming that to the best of the combined knowledge of the U.S. intelligence community, Iran was not currently pursuing a nuclear weapon. Or at least we were “moderately confident” that was the case.

Israel, for whom mere “moderate confidence” could spell death, was not so sure.

Now it turns out that the IAEA, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, isn’t so sure either. Its report, released yesterday goes way beyond “moderate confidence” to say Iran’s nuclear weapons program is “a matter of serious concern” because of:

• Willful lack of cooperation
• 18 documents that indicate the Iranians are working on explosives, uranium processing and warhead design — activities the NYT bravely reports “could be associated with constructing nuclear weapons.” Duh.
• Failure to report R&D activities on faster, more productive centrifuges
• Iranian denial of access to sites where centrifuge components were being manufactured and where research of uranium enrichment was being conducted

In short:

“The Iranians are certainly being confronted with some pretty strong evidence of a nuclear weapons program, and they are being petulant and defensive,” said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now runs the Institute for Science and International Security. “The report lays out what the agency knows, and it is very damning. I’ve never seen it laid out quite like this.”

To which Baghdad Bob Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the atomic energy agency, responded

… that the report vindicated Iran’s nuclear activities. It “is another document that shows Iran’s entire nuclear activities are peaceful,” the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted him as saying.

Anyone who still believes the NIE presented an honest assessment of Iran’s nuke-quest has two choices when confronting the IAEA’s actions: They can admit they were wrong, and that at a minimum we can be “moderately confident” that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, or they can align themselves with the MMFNI.

Thriller Plot For Sale

Here’s a fascinating follow-up to earlier reports concerning NoKo operatives in Syria’s since-bombed nuclear facility:

A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today.

The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel’s decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington.

Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core’s design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows “remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon,” a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video “very, very damning.” (WaPo)

So, who shot the video and how did it get smuggled out of Syria? That would be the stuff of a great spy thriller. And imagine what diabolical plot developments would occur to violently alter the life of this guy:

“The United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation facilities or nuclear weaponization facilities,” [David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector] said. “The lack of any such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor is part of an active nuclear weapons program.”

OK, sure. Let’s let the Syrians develop fortified underground uranium enrichment facilities like the Iranians before we take out their reactors. Oh wait. We haven’t taken out the Iranian reactors because there have been too many Albrights involved there since the initiation of their program.

Get me rewrite!

The Pandering Party Gets It Wrong (Again)

John Edwards voted for the Yucca Mountain (NV) nuclear storage facility when he was in the Senate. Now that the Dems are whoring for votes in Nevada, guess what? He’s against it!

Here’s the NYT live blogging segment from the debate on the Yucca yuks:

10:27 p.m. | Yucca Mountain All three Democrats want to end the nuclear storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, in the same state where this debate is taking place. That happens to be the position of the Democrats’ majority leader, Harry Reid, who is from Nevada.

But Mr. Edwards takes his time to draw a difference among them, that Mr. Obama wants to build new nuke plants, Mrs. Clinton is agnostic on the question, and he, Mr. Edwards, is against any new plants. This gives Mrs. Clinton the chance to point out, gently, “But John, you did vote for Yucca Mountain, twice.”

Interesting that she’s been studying up on his record. What else is in the suitcase tonight?

While it’s not mentioned there, Obama’s against Yucca, too. What a shocker.

In an only slightly less irresponsible comment, Obama said he opposed dumping at Yucca even though his home state of Illinois has the most nuclear plants. Let’s see whether we follow the logic: His state is contributing more to the problem than any other, but he opposes the only likely solution. (USA Today)

So among the potential Dem next presidents, one has found Gaea and is pandering to the Deep Greens, who want to forsake nuclear power forever, all the while bemoaning global warming, and two are OK with nuclear power, but only if you store the waste at each power plant site, where it cannot be secured for centuries, where it’s close to big population centers, and where it’s vulnerable to terrorist attack.

That’s vision, my friends! That’s CHANGE!

That’s also why we can’t trust the Dems with our future. If there were another site secure enough to deal with the Achilles heel of nuclear power, we would have found it. There isn’t; it’s Yucca Mountain or nothing.

Clinton and Obama are too terrified to make this point in Nevada, home of Harry Reid, and home of Dems who have made it their premier head- in- the- oh- so- prevalent sand issue in desert Nevada. Why? Because unlike the GOP, the Dems don’t understand concepts like “greater public good.”

This is curious, because at the macro level, i.e., when they’re hiding in the distant bowels of Congress, they put the government above the individual, driving us to the Nanny State. At the local level, however, they stand for the Glorious Individual, who is supreme … but only when you have to look those individuals in the eye.

Being the president of America requires having to make difficult decisions. Once again, the Dems have proven than pandering is their expertise, not leadership. And unfortunately, America is a country where the majority are registered members of the Pander To Me! Party.

Oh, did I say Yucca Mountain was the only viable nuclear waste disposal site? Today’s USA Today editorial proves me wrong:

In the East, a spot that has been discussed as a promising place to store nuclear waste is the granite formations of, yes, New Hampshire, home to the nation’s first presidential primary. As if!

Sunday Scan

Saul Alinsky’s Playbook

What do you make of a quote like this, from Mike Huckabee?

“Many of us who have been Republicans out of conviction . . . the social conservatives … were welcomed in the party as long as we sort of kept our place, but Lord help us if we ever stood forward and said we would actually like to lead the party.”

As a Christian social conservative, I think it’s just not true, since there are a lot of conservative Christians in the GOP in positions of authority. President Bush, for example. At NRO, Mark Levin feels the same way, and has found the right way to put it:

Huckabee continues to use his faith as a weapon against those who question not his faith, but his political populism — much of which he shares with secular progressives. And he is clearly hoping to stir up resentment among Evangelical Christians against the other elements of the conservative movement and Republican Party as a way of encouraging them to vote in the caucuses and primaries. This is a tactic right out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook. Of course he wants us to believe the Reagan coalition is dead because he cannot win with it intact. But he cannot win either the nomination or presidency with the narrow focus of his appeal. This is why I find Mike Huckabee’s tactics and candidacy so deplorable.

In the primaries, we are not voting for who we want to win our local primary; we are voting for who we think should be our next president. That’s why Huckabee is not even on the margins of my consideration for the Cal primary.

As much as I wish Huckabee was the pastor of my church, were he just a pastor, I wouldn’t have him as the pastor of my church, given the dishonorable way he’s running his campaign. (hat-tip: memeorandum)

France Offers Atoms To Arabs

Give ’em an inch of nuclear technology, M. Sarkozy, and they just might take a mile.

Nicolas Sarkozy might be a Bush ally of sorts — after all, he’s touring the Middle East at the same time W. is — but he has that cavalier Gallic attitude about selling nuclear technology. If it brings money to France, how bad can it be? Read this from BBC and ponder:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has begun a Gulf tour, during which he is due to sign an nuclear co-operation deal with the United Arab Emirates.

He has arrived in Saudi Arabia and will go on to Qatar and the UAE over the next three days. All three are seeking to develop civilian nuclear programmes.

Mr Sarkozy has said the Arab world should have the same rights to such programmes as other states.

France has already signed nuclear agreements with Algeria and Libya.

Mr Sarkozy said the sale of such technology could foster trust between the West and the Muslim world.

Or a terrifying thermonuclear nightmare of obliterating consequences. Your choice.

But if that’s the way it’s going to be, then any nation threated by the thought of Sunni theocracies having nuclear power — be it bombs or reactors — should also have it. Ethiopia, the Balkan states, Central African states like Kenya and the Congo Republic.

Fine and dandy. Atoms for all. But just this, Nicolas, mon ami, the first time one of ’em screws with an inspection, the whole program must be withdrawn and their facilities destroyed. No more Irans, no more North Koreas.

All That Glitters

Here’s a long list of celebrity contributions to political campaigns. Yes, folks, it’s true: Movie stars like Obama best. The contribution edge over Dem runner-up Clinton includes such glitterati as Jennifer Aniston, Tyra Banks, Halle Berry, George Clooney, Larry David, Morgan Freeman, Leonard Nimoy and Brooke Shields.

Almost completely, black entertainers are lined up behind Obama. Starlets overwhelmingly put race ahead of gender … you don’t really think they’re poring over the issues with the intensity they pore over scripts, do you? Exceptions (not counting those who contribute to multiple campaigns) are: Quincy Jones (Clinton) and … oh, that’s it; Quincy Jones.

GOP donors? Well, that’s pretty easy: Pat Boone (Brownback and Romney), Jerry Bruckheimer (McCain, natch), and Kelsey Grammer, Adam Sandler and Ben Stein, all for Giuliani.

It’s not at all curious that the most curious contributor was SNL major domo Lorne Michaels, who gave $4,600 to Dodd and $2,300 to McCain. I’m trying to figure that one out.

Now Be Nice!

Sacramento, like many cities around the country, is facing fiscal hard times: Budget shortfall, huge and costly infrastructure needs and various local controversies that are stymieing the city’s vision and future.

So here’s what Sacto mayor Heather Fargo said in a State of the Downtown speech:

We each need to change one light bulb to a compact fluorescent because it’s good for the environment. Oh, and be sure to walk more and drink tap water to promote a “green Sacramento.”

If politicians think Greenie platitudes will fix anything, they should ready themselves for legions of voters who are green around the gills with Greenie platitudes. Or, as SacBee columnist Marcos Breton put it:

There is no political risk in promoting the idea of a “Green Sacramento.” It’s like saying we should all be nice to each other.

Ouch. Breton is right on here, but way off course here:

When you have a room full of large-scale developers, as Fargo did, why not use your pulpit to educate them on how “green” building materials can be cost-effective too? Why not show them that they can still make their money and build projects that are better for the environment?

The arrogant little pencil-chewing twit! Who knows more about the economics and benefits of green development than builders? They started the movement in the 1970 energy crisis, putting their existing and planned buldings through rigorous energy audits and investing in more energy technologies that would pay for themselves.

Who do you think has saved more energy in the last couple decades, free market building owners who are seeking lower costs, or power-hungry bureaucrats who are seeking to force their view of reality on the world? Of course, a newspaper columnist, so far removed from reality, would wrongly think the latter.

Curses, Foiled Again!

Fars, the Iranian Propaganda Ministry news service, is not a trustworthy news source to put it mildly, so I’ll give US fencer Ivan Lee the benefit of the doubt, but hardly a pass, on the comments he made while participating in a fencing competition in Iran recently. According to Fars, here’s what Lee said:

“If the Iranian people and government posed a problem (for us), the US fencing team would never take a second trip to Iran,” Ivan Lee, who is currently in Iran to attend the 2008 International Fencing Competitions in Iran’s Persian Gulf island of Kish, told FNA on Sunday.

“Everyone analyzes issues by using his own mind and logic; we know that all the negative propaganda against Iran is unreal and, thus, we attended Iran’s international competitions for a second time,” he said.

Feint is the word, Ivan, feint. The Iranians showed you something that wasn’t real in order to make you miss what was real. Anyone who thinks for a moment that a repressive, totalitarian regime would let any visit get a brush with reality has had one too many épée hits on the cognitive organ. (Yeah, yeah, everyone knows Lee is a saber fencer, but épée is such a cooler word.)

And Now From The Euro-Libs

It’s not enough that some SCOTUS members think it’s just fine to cite European Community law in their American legal decisions. Now Euro-Libs are asking for the right to vote in US elections. From an editorial in the Brussels rag De Standard, courtesy of Brussels Journal:

American presidential elections are not “home affairs.” American decisions have repercussions all over the globe. The American mortgage crisis affects banks in Europe. The insatiable American demand for oil makes the Arabian sheiks rich. The American refusal to care for the environment causes the North Pole ice to melt and coastal areas in Asia to flood. A weakened dollar and an immense budget deficit affect the global economy.

Hence, the world should be given the right to vote. Because the current situation is a blatant case of taxation without representation, against which the Americans rebelled in 1776.

Never mind that Brussels would be a Nazi nation were it not for decisions we Americans made as part of our “home affairs” sixty years ago; Europe can do no harm. It does not pollute, it does not have financial woes, it has never seen its currencies falter. Its efforts to impose a multicultural political mindset on the planet, and to spend our way out of the alleged human causes of global warming does not, apparently, also represent taxation without representation.

Did we have a say in any of that foolishness? Not that I recall. (hat-tip: What Bubba Knows)

A Chair By Any Other Name

The must-read read of the day is Armando Iannucci’s column in The Guardian on Barack Obama and American politics. By the time you read this, at the beginning of the third paragraph …

So why does Obama, billed by everyone as a cross between Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln, but without the terrible looks of either, just leave me puzzled? Maybe it’s because his is a rhetoric that soars and takes flight, but alights nowhere.

… you’ll be hooked.

Iannucci does a lovely spoof on Obama-speak by suggesting that this is how Obama would rhetoric to death a chair:

‘This chair can take your weight. This chair can hold your buttocks, 15 inches in the air. This chair, this wooden chair, can support the ass of the white man or the crack of the black man, take the downward pressure of a Jewish girl’s behind or the butt of a Buddhist adolescent, it can provide comfort for Muslim buns or Mormon backsides, the withered rump of an unemployed man in Nevada struggling to get his kids through high school and needful of a place to sit and think, the plump can of a single mum in Florida desperately struggling to make ends meet but who can no longer face standing, this chair, made from wood felled from the tallest redwood in Chicago, this chair, if only we believed in it, could sustain America’s huddled arse.’

The problem with Obama and all our politicians is that that’s enough; one must never bother with the harsh facts of what you’re actually going to do about the chair, or be brave enough to say nothing needs to be done by government about the chair; one only has to stir the feeling of “chair” that’s in all of us.

I can share two more lovely lines from the essay without giving away too much of your future enjoyment of it:

American politicians take time out from their busy lives to makes speeches that sound empty; British politicians fill the emptiness of their lives with words that make them sound busy.

And

The chair, by the way, was made in China.

We’re All Gonna Die!

And I’ll be 40,000,057 years old when it happens, according to this report in Science Daily.

Well, actually, that will be when Smith’s Cloud impacts the Milky Way (the pink burst in the image above). Our sun is noted a bit to the right, so I’ll probably have a few more years to spend with the grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grandkids.

Smith’s cloud, which if flush with hydrogen (enough to fire up a million suns), is a bit bigger than a puff in the sky: eleven thousand light-years long and 2,500 light-years wide. It’s 8,000 light years away and is rushing at us at 150 miles per second (a tad faster than my German V8).

And that’s something that’s close to us. No wonder SciFi writers have to invent hyperspace and worm holes to get their heroes from here to there.

It’s really too bad we won’t be around when Smith’s Cloud hits, since this is what it’ll look like, according to astronomer Felix Lockman:

When it hits, it could set off a tremendous burst of star formation. Many of those stars will be very massive, rushing through their lives quickly and exploding as supernovae. Over a few million years, it’ll look like a celestial New Year’s celebration, with huge firecrackers going off in that region of the Galaxy.

Shoot. It’ll be a real shame to miss that!

Lebanon Biggie Praises Iran’s Nukes

Here’s an interesting tidbit from Fars, the Iranian news service Ahmadinejad mouthpiece:

Iran’s N. Power a Back Up for Arabs against Israel

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran’s nuclear capability brings balance of power to the region and strengthens Muslim and Arab world against the Zionist regime of Israel, a former Lebanese minister said. …

Speaking in an exclusive interview with FNA in Beirut, head of Towhid Movement and former Lebanese Minister Weam Vahab viewed Iran’s role in Lebanon and the region as significant and outstanding, and said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran plays a remarkable role in supporting the Islamic resistance movements of the region and Lebanon and renders support to the Lebanese nation and resistance without imposing its will and aspirations.”

Vahab, who is among the respected heads of Lebanon’s important Darouzi tribe, also defended Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities, saying that Tehran’s nuclear power brings equilibrium to the region and a point of reliance for the world of Islam.

Yeah, yeah, Iran is arming and training Hezbollah and Hamas to kill Jews; knew that, but what am I missing here? How do “peaceful nuclear activities,” oh, like generating electricity or using nuclear medicine to diagnose disease, help create a balance of power and a “back up” against Israel?

I can hear it now; “Stop murdering innocent Palestinians, you Jew devils, or we’ll … we’ll … we’ll turn on more lights in Tehran!”

The only ones stupid enough to buy Tehran’s “peaceful” nuclear program are Western leftists and academics.

Obama Goes Soft On Nukes

We don’t know exactly what Barack Obama is going to say about nuclear weapons today, but according to the NYT, which was given an approved leak of it, it’ll go something like this:

I am announcing today that when I am President, I will set a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world. The United States should lead the way by greatly reducing its stockpiles, which will lower the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Let’s forget about the fact that the Bush admin has tripled its nuke-dismantling rate and is on track to reduce our nuclear arsenal by about half, since we know it’s just plain silly to let facts get in the way of politics.

Since there’s no initiative in the first part of this brilliant-not new Obama foreign policy initiative, let’s focus on the second part, Obama’s belief that if the U.S. works toward dismantling its weapons, it will somehow convince the Iranians, North Koreans, al-Qaeda and others that, gee, maybe their nuclear ambitions have all been Just A Big Mistake.

When those words role off Obama’s lips today at DePaul University, he will show us that his foreign policy principles are identical to those of the pacifistic disarmament activists of the 60s and 70s — the ones that wanted to foil President’s Reagan’s efforts, which ultimately conquered the Soviets, ending the Cold War.

Like Obama, they believed that unilateral disarmament by the West would be perceived as so noble that the Soviets would happily follow suit. We can’t predict futures that never happened and are now in the past, but my hunch is that the Soviets would have gotten a big kick out of the peaceniks.

As will L’il Kim Il Jong, the Tehraniacs, Obama’s near-name-kin Osama, and the others who want to use nukes against us, either economically or much more personally.

It’s a safe-enough call for Obama since Dems love idealistic presidents and have been looking for a second fair-haired Kennedy for 30 years now, and are putting a lot of money behind the nappy-haired Obama.

But it’s not a safe-enough call for America, since it is predicated on the supposition that if we were just nicer, they would stop hating us so. If that’s the slope Obama is leading us towards, we will see a return to a Carter approach to foreign policy: look the other way, befriend the terrorists, send money and cross fingers. It didn’t work for Carter as this generation of Islamists birthed in the 1980s, and it won’t work for Obama today.