How do you say....

..."new world order? I'll show you some new world order!" in Russian? Feeling their oats the Russians have now issued a thinly veiled threat to Poland over it's deal to sigh up to the American son-of-the-son-of-the-son-of-Star-Wars. The threat was so thinly veiled that nuclear weapons were mentioned.

Today Yesterday in infamy

I almost forgot. Yesterday was the 63rd anniversary of the largest and worst terrorist attack in the history of humankind.

Let's be prudent

Look, I don't think that this lunatic from Texas is right that doomsday will start today with a nuclear conflict but let's keep Captain Codpiece away from that briefcase today just as a precaution!

Worrisome

The International Atomic Energy Agency, whose opinions I respect unlike those of the Captain Codpiece administration and the right wing talking heads, says that Iran has not been meeting its obligations to the agency re its nuclear energy programme especially as regards weapons research. I do not think it wise that Iran end up with nuclear weapons, although given Jimmy Carter's recent revelations (see post below) I can understand their motivation. In any case the last thing that Captain Codpiece and the steroid snorting neo-con mob need is anything to add any substance, however minor, to their case for attacking Iran.

A warning to Jimmy Carter

Now that you've blabbed about the size of Israel's double top secret nuclear arms cache I would be careful about returning to Israel anytime soon. You don't want to become another Mordecai Vanunu, do you?

One has to admit that they have a point!

Before anyone accuses me of coddling Islamofascistjihadievildoers I don't think it will make the world a better place if Iran develops a nuclear weapons capability, but then I don't think anyone, including us, should have nuclear weapons so Iran's new position that they will refuse nuclear inspections until Israel allows nuclear inspections seems perfectly rational and an entirely good idea.

Somehow I don't see it happening and, no matter who gets elected to the US Presidency, the US will continue to pretend that Israel isn't a nuclear power and that there is no reason to suspect otherwise.

Now where did I put them damn triggers again?

It wasn't all that long ago that the US Air Force "accidentally" mislead a number of hydrogen bombs and "accidentally" flew them across the US. Now a military contractor has "accidentally" sent triggers for atomic bombs to Taiwan. China is not well pleased. It is understand that the US government will apologise for the mistake and explain that the triggers were meant to be "accidentally" sent to Iran where they would have provided justification for a unilateral attack by the US.

Truth in the margins

The new 11th commandment? Thou shalt not criticise Israel (or Japan or the US) whilst justifying war on Iraq.

Uh-oh

What if God's on their side? Well She could be, couldn't She?

I am sure that this is all just a misunderstanding

I mean what reason could the FBI possibly have to lie about the existence of one silly little file just because it might contain evidence that the US government might be a source of nuclear secrets for those that the US government claims it doesn't wish to have nuclear secrets?

And all of this from a Murdoch newspaper as well!

Question of the day

I have long been fascinated by the idea of the many worlds interpretation of quantum theory in which each time a quantum choice has to be made causing a probability wave to collapse unique universes are created; one for each possibility. So Schrödinger's is both dead and alive.

I can only assume that this means that there is a universe in which, after the United States became aware of Israeli's illegal and destabilising nuclear weapons in 1974 that the US exercised the right of preemption, invaded Israel and saved the world. Had this occurred perhaps the Palestinian problem would be resolved by now (and would not have to wait until later next year), Iraq would not have been invaded and Iran would not have once had a nuclear weapons programme!

Why didn't I get to live in that universe?

Today in infamy - destroyer of world's edition

On this day in 1953 US President Harry Truman announced that the US had developed a hydrogen bomb. And now Captain Codpiece has his finger on the trigger. The late Mr. Truman has a lot to answer for I should think.

They're not taking no for an answer

The state of Israel is not willing to take the recently released American National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which concluded that active work on a nuclear weapons programme ended four years ago, as the final word on the subject. The country's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has said that he will work to expose Iran's perfidy and prove the entire US intelligence community to be the idiots we all know them to be (and the neo-con punditry to be the geniuses they all know themselves to be).

I do think that Mr. Olmert should tread carefully though. What if his statements should encourage a worker in Iran's non-existent nuclear programme to leak information about this non-existent programme to the western press? After all Iran is not an open and free democracy where such behaviour is encouraged and never punished. Should such a brave individual come forward and subsequently be imprisoned for for 15 or 20 years for treason and Mr. Olmert would than have those tragic events on his previously clear conscience.

Department of unintentional irony

Actual headline from the Israel National News: "U.S. Report Won't Change Israeli Anti-Nuke Efforts

Department of not really news

That up and coming superpower and member of the axis of skin cancer the Bahamas is to ratify the nuclear test ban treaty. Perhaps the world would have to more to gain if someone would work on getting China, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States to sign up.

Where do we go from here?

The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency has produced a new report on the Iranian nuclear programme and it has something for everyone. The IAEA admits that the Iranians have made some efforts to clear up issues previously identified but are not being proactive in their cooperation. Additionally the report notes that Iran now has nearly 3,000 centrifuges on line for processing nuclear fuel. This level of capacity would be enough, if diverted to a weapons programme, to produce sufficient nuclear fuel for a weapon in about 12 months' time. The Iranians are, under the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which they are a party, clearly entitled to process fuel for civilian purposes even though the United States insists that they cannot be allowed to develop or possess the capability (unlike Israel which does have the capability and who remain outside of the NPT).

The US has dismissed the report and spokeswoman Dana Perino said that "Iran seems uninterested in working with the rest of the world", meaning doing what the US wishes.

I anticipate that the war drums with ratchet up a notch or two and the calls for sanctions/air attacks/invasion by the chicken hawk brigade will be incessant on the Sunday morning chat shows.

In which I note that John Bolton is less valuable than a stopped clock

Resplendently mustachioed former-interim American ambassador to the United Nations has taken time out from his busy schedule of fear mongering and outright deceit to attack the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, for being an "apologist for Iran". Well Mr. Bolton, I would call you Ambassador Bolton if you had ever been a real one, I think that if we go back to the most recent situation where both you and Mr. ElBaradei expressed public opinions, and that is the non-existent atomic weapons programme in Iraq, we will find that Mr. ElBaradei was right and you were wrong. So I would suggest that you crawl back to whatever extremist right wing "think tank" you are working for and just SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Oh just bomb them and kill the suspense will ya?

Israel wants the head of the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El Baradei, sacked for failing to prove that Israel Iran has a nuclear weapons programme. Why should Israel, who is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, even get a say on this?

What me worry?

I do not think that any of us should be at all concerned over reports that former, and potential future, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is worried that, amidst the country's current turmoil and repression of democracy, President Pervez "The General" Musharraf might not have complete control of the country's nuclear arsenal. I mean they've probably only got thirty or forty bombs, right?

Today in infamy

The United States military exploded Ivy Mike, the world's first hydrogen bomb, fifty five years ago today on the Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.