Suitcase nukes 2
Tune into the Glenn and Helen Reynolds podcast about the suitcase nuke threat.
posted by wretchardthecat at 1/20/2006 08:13:00 PM
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40 Comments:
Nothing to alter the previous potent observations: nuclear arms are double-edged weapons, as likely to maim their 'owners' as the ones on whom the 'owners' unleash them.
Unless the 'owners' have an ethical basis in fact, ie., the United States.
dan if it wasnt so sad it'd be funny...
syria/assad, who is dripping with actual blood on their hands accuses israel of murder of arafat....
talk about misdirection.....
next we will hear how hama was a mossad episode..
Carter Calls Hamas “So-Called Terrorists”
Carter told CNN in an interview that although Hamas were "so-called terrorists," so far "there have been no complaints of corruption against [their] elected officials."
He conceded that "there is an element within Hamas who deny Israel’s right to exist," but compared the current situation to negotiations with the PLO, which was still outlawed as a terrorist organization during his presidency.
He drew an additional comparison with Menachem Begin’s rise to Israel’s premiership in the seventies. "The Irgun, to which Begin belonged, was also characterized as a terrorist organization," he noted.
Evil Wimp IMO.
Deserving of Eradication for the damage he has done and continues to do.
European Companies Deserting Europe
Europe's most successful companies are turning their backs on EU markets because of red tape, a high-level report said yesterday.
The companies that Europe needed to survive were instead investing more money than ever in the United States and Asia, concluded the report, presented to the European Commission in Brussels.
The findings made unsettling reading for the EU leaders, ripping into their pledges to build a "knowledge-based Europe" that would overtake America in 10 years. The reality was the opposite. Not only were US, Chinese and Japanese firms outspending Europe on research and development, the gap with Europe was growing.
Perhaps most damagingly, Europe's most important countries were pouring more and more of their technology investment overseas, as they despaired of the European Union becoming "innovation friendly".
Unless EU governments took bold action to increase spending on research, freed labour markets so skilled workers could move more easily, and stopped pouring taxpayers' money into dying industries, Europe's post-war way of life was doomed.
The report also noted that "Europe badly needed to extract more productivity from each worker." Lots of luck; it seems that just about any effort to improve efficiency in Europe is responded to with a strike.
Europe's decline might very well be irreversible, not so much because its leaders are benighted--statism always tends to be popular, I suppose, among those who run the state--but because there doesn't seem to be a groundswell of concern among Europe's peoples. When the United States appeared to be in decline during the 1960s and, especially, the 1970s, huge numbers of Americans rebelled against the idea that decline was an inevitability we should all get used to--an idea that was much more commonly expressed, at that time, than many people now realize.
(Jimmah called it "Malaise" as I recall)
The American people chose Ronald Reagan to lead them mostly, I think, because he was the politician who most clearly and eloquently refused to accept the prospect of declining wealth and influence. I don't see any similar process underway in western Europe.
King Arthur held up his part by providing a shrubbery, as demanded. His appeasement led nothing.
The IAEA to Iran, "One day, lad, all this will be yours!"
"All that you can see, stretched out over the hills and valleys of this land! This'll be your kingdom,"
"Make sure the Prince doesn't build a nuke."
GUARD #1:
Uhh, can he build a nuke with us?
Swamp FATHER:
No. You just keep him in here and make sure he--
CONCORDE:
Message for you, sir.
[fwump]
/Say it aint so.....
Now King Arthur has a Dent.
Jimmy Carter is the worst president in our history. To be 'worst', you have to have some momentus historical decisions thrown onto your desk, and then you have to utterly fugaboo the whole ball o' wax to its absolute maximum degree of snafu.
So, really, it's not ALL his fault--the 'world' wouldn't cooperate (aka "act like a peanut farm").
But, he could've done history a favor and let somebody else suggest a different course of action from time to time.
But, no, in his own mind, he was 'chosen'--which is why he so hates RR, who must've been sent by Satan, you see.
Thank you. However, not at all.
Not at all. However, Carter, Kofi EUnuchstania et al have 1. no legs, 2. no arms and 3. a fierce rabbit to confront. Ni.
Buddy, Arthur is working on a thought.
I always thought Cat Steven's Lyrics were amazing, but never thought about them post 9-11 until now.
"Peace Train"
"act like a peanut farm"
---
There's no guilt as warped as southern planter guilt.
Wretchard's recent post, about East Timor and the fantastical genocidal holocaust that no one over here ever heard an official word about--that was Jimmy's boy Richard Holbrooke's brokerage/handiwork--yes, the same who would've been JFKerry's Secretary of State (esp. with Bagman Berger in the penalty box for a min or two).
so you think you can push me around
and make me run
well i'm gonna tell you now
i'm gonna get me a gun
i'm gonna get me a gun
and all those people who put me down
you better get ready to run,
cuz i'm gonna get me a gun
gonna get me a gun...
...yes, Peace Train (not "pee strain" as i at first thought) is a doozy, but try to catch his "Longer Boats" (are Coming to Win You). Oddly, the lyrics are hard to find anymore.
The statement by Adrian Nastase is incandescent. Thanks, King Arthur.
"For every action there is an equal and opposite government program."
- Bob Wells
Doug, thank you for helping to complete my thought. I forgot I had posted that, over there.
The Cat Stevens song is almost perfect. It is almost brilliant.
Cat Stevens and other disaffected types latch on to what they see as their solution for becoming. Osama went to college a few years back. So did Arafat. OK. Many went to college. Most educated types recoil, discard and run away at the idea 'he blew up just like Dad'.
The CatSteven song, Mr. C's song, is supposed to wake up the decadent western perspective. I'm OK with that.
I find it funny, in a sad, gloomy way, that Mr. C still does not smell his litterbox. A giant litterbox needs a lot of sand.
Buddy,
5:04 PM
I thought it was
"Pee Stain"
May "Pea Strain"
would be a different number?
"Maybe"
Longer Boats
Dan
Doug--there's a missing stanza. Tolja--some editing gwan on.
Almost your Secretary of State
I still remember how anxious we were before the last election.
...and then there was the one before that.
A friend and I were corresponding in real time, repeatedly reloading a CNN results page.
He went to bed.
Things changed.
I recall, felt like I was drowning for awhile there. Those guys are bad, bad, news--not just yer reg'lar oppo, but bad, real bad.
And now Gore's gone COMPLETELY nuts.
---
Carridine:
Korean Scandal, or American Scandal?
The House investigative committee (headed by Congressman Donald Fraser of Minneapolis) thought as many as 115 Congressmen had taken favors from Koreans, ranging from free junkets to outright bribes.[16] Democrats opposed to Nixon were the main takers, but there were many others, including Washington journalists. According to sworn testimony, the KCIA's 1976 scheme called "Intrepid" planned to "invite influential journalists to visit Korea and convert them," to "hire and utilize two American reporters as paid collaborators," and to get Korean and American journalists to "collect intelligence on the policies of high-level U.S. officials."[17]
"Enlightenment Guaranteed" Meets The Liberal Democratic Party
"Most of us who are not Japanese and who study Japan can recall that first epiphany. That moment when we realized Japan's depth and history is intellectually surprising and historically compelling. For me it was sitting through a screening of Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes (1964) at the Smithsonian when I was 17 years old. I'm not sure how I ended up there, on what was literally a dark and stormy night. No one I knew had ever been to Japan, or had any Japanese friends. But as I sat in the dark that evening, transported to an existential sandpit in a nameless coastal village in Japan, I knew where I was going as soon as I could raise the money. "
---
I was sitting in a Tokyo Theater watching a captioned version!
...caught Kurosawa's semi posthumous (the script was all his) "The Sea is Watching" a few months ago. Breathtaking.
No movie ever made will match these, tho.
LOL,
It wasn't 'til this morning when I saw This Ad that I was finally able to put some long held feelings to words:
They are obsessed.
Obsessions are weird.
Paying to watch other people's obsessions is Uber Weird.
Cold Humpcrack Creekwater:
Two retarded Gay cowgirl sisters (Rene Zellweger, Jenna Jameson) defy a fundamentalist sherriff (Hovercraft Phoenix) and discover love in this 1930's period piece set in the Appalachian outback of Nebraskansaw.
Democrat Self Destruction
Victoria Toensing asks a pertinent question of the left in the US:
Do Al Gore and other Democrats really want to keep the government from finding al Qaeda agents in the U.S.?
Well, if that is the price to win elections and beat Bush and the Republicans the answer is clear - yes. Democrats will allow Al Qaeda planning in the US to be protected so they can impeach Bush.
If we were at War, doug, those Democrats would be doing the Liberman shuffle. But we are not at War, not by any REAL test.
To bad, the War on Terror has been managed worse than the War on Drugs.
Who'd have thought that, on 9-12-01.
That was long, long ago.
It was a strange and alien world:
---
At the time his son was captured, it was just two months after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and fury was still fresh in the American psyche. That fury was vented unfairly on John Lindh, his father said, particularly by politicians and the media.
He recalled quotes from Sen. Hilary Clinton, D-N.Y. calling his son a traitor and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani calling for the death penalty. Most headlines were no kinder, he said, such as one in the National Enquirer that read, "America's Traitor Tells All."
Lindh's voice shook with anger as he accused CNN of filming his son's most damaging interview after the youth had refused permission. That clip was the one that introduced Lindh to the world when it depicted him, wounded and dazed on a stretcher in Afghanistan, saying he was a holy warrior for Islam.
"The ethical thing to do ... would have been to stop filming at that point," Frank Lindh said, choking up. "But he (the CNN reporter) didn't."
More RR
"If we were at War, doug, those Democrats would be doing the Liberman shuffle."
---
Of course it can be just as easily (and truthfully) said that
IF the Democrats weren't all a bunch of suicidal traitors, Bush's Shuffle would be doing much better.
...and the enemy would have fewer talking points and fighting words to die for.
Record 2,600 Colombia paramilitaries disarm
Can you translate this one, 'Rat?
Want a research project? See if you can figure out what is going on in Nepal.
Doug, your "ad" link above--did you read the text? "Of course, you will never know for sure unless you give it a try".
Gag...really...subversion at the fundamental level.
Sure, doug,
Those are the Governments para military. Often described as
"death squads" in other Latin Countries these guys will, nost likely, be folded into the Columbian Armed Forces. The Government is trying to establish it's Monopoly of Force and clear political and propagansa obstacles to more US support in their campaign aginst the Marxists.
It is much like what may be required to demobilize the Iraqi Militias.
Amnesty and Pardons traded for Peace.
Not to likely that FARC will follow suit, mow that Mr Chavez's State is supporting their efforts.
An interesting article in this month’s Scientific American gives the likely threat for nuclear terrorism will come from our own sources at civilian locations rather than an Iranian suitcase bomb.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000CD53D-0CBB-13CC-8B1583414B7F0101
Scientific American - February 2006 issue
Thwarting Nuclear Terrorism
Many civilian research reactors contain highly enriched uranium that terrorists could use to build nuclear bombs
By Alexander Glaser and Frank N. von Hippel
Extract:
The atomic bomb that incinerated the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the close of World War II contained about 60 kilograms of chain-reacting uranium. When the American "Little Boy" device detonated over the doomed port, one part of the bomb's charge--a subcritical mass--was fired into the other by a relatively simple gunlike mechanism, causing the uranium 235 in the combined mass to go supercritical and explode with the force of 15 kilotons of TNT. The weapon that devastated Nagasaki a few days later used plutonium rather than uranium in its explosive charge and required much more complex technology to set it off.
Extract end
The interesting article points out you could build a bomb with 20kg HEU with a neutron reflector surrounding material that could be stolen from a civilian research reactor. It describes in details the different types of uranium available and the difficulties in building a bomb from materials available in standard commercial nuclear reactors. See wiki for details on different types of uranium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium. It explains that a nuclear weapon a terrorist will construct will require over 100KG of materials practically and a gun type mechanism to explode. It might be hard to see a terrorist hauling that suitcase through customs. IT might have a few heavy stickers on it.)
The real key it points out the portability of a bomb is based upon the conceration of uranium 235 above 80% which requires technology sold from Pakistan to Iran (which is where the real danger came from) (see wiki again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium#The_Zippe_centrifuge).
I think the article really points out it shows that the real dangers currently come from our own nuclear civilian reactors. Nuclear weapons that Iran may obtain have a much greater strategic concern with in the region rather than terrorist threats against the US homeland.
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