Yellowcake journalism
[in the 'for the record' department:]
Remember Joe Wilson? He's the diplomat who went to Niger to investigate Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium, a raw material used in building nuclear bombs, from Africa.
He wrote in a July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed that he had spent the previous February in Niger, "drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people ... associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place."
A story that has to be the most underplayed news item of the decade exposes Mr. Wilson's utter cluelessness, dishonesty or both. According to The Associated Press and other news services, the U.S. military transferred 550 tons of yellowcake, enough to produce 142 nuclear bombs, from Iraq to Canada at the Iraqi government's request...
[expect 60 Minutes expose 'soon']
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Monday, July 21, 2008
“[W]hat Americans need now is leadership to get moving again — rather than more platitudes about hope, squabbling about race and gender, and endless rhetoric about who is really a maverick or a true conservative or the most liberal. What we need to know from our two presidential candidates are specifics about how to jumpstart America.
“So, how many more barrels of oil, refineries and megawatts will America produce — and when and how? How much debt will the next administration retire — and when and how. How and when will our schools return to knowledge-based rather than the present (and failing) therapeutic curriculum?
“Americans, in short, should be tired of hearing that we are a post-industrial, postmodern, post-anything society. Instead, we want to be known again as a can-do producer nation that sweats as much as it thinks. And the confident presidential candidate who can best assure us of that will surely win this election.”
[big fan of VDH, but that last may prove optimistic: the media has repeatedly proven it can sell TV watchers anything, pushed hard enough, and their promotion of Obama is breaking all records...]
Iraqis say they like Obama, divided on his policies
By Khaled al-Ansary and Mohammed Abbas
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is popular among Iraqis. In two dozen interviews across the country, many told Reuters a black man would understand their plight. [snip]
"I support Obama. I think he is the best for Iraq and for the world ... if McCain wins I will be devastated," said Mustafa Salah, an office worker in the southern city of Basra.
Hisham Fadhil in northern Kirkuk added: "He is much better than others because he is black and black people were tyrannized in America. I think he will feel our suffering."
[sample size of two dozen - "many" of which preferred Obama. no spin suspicions here...]
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ADVISORY: Baghdad story on views on Obama is withdrawn Reuters,
by Staff Original Article
"The BAGHDAD item headlined "Iraqis say they like Obama, divided on his policies" is withdrawn. The story was transmitted in error."
Comments: This is the entire transmission from Reuters editors.
[and means the first two 'big' stories {see following piece} re: Obama's international campaign tour are both factually inaccurate - will the corrections be aired on TV as the initial stories were?]
IRAQ: PM NOT ENDORSING OBAMA TIMEFRAME ON TROOP WITHDRAWAL
Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has not endorsed any specific timeframe for possible U.S. troops withdrawals, a government spokesman said Sunday.
The statement by Ali al-Dabbagh came after an article was published by Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine which quoted al-Maliki as favoring the 16-month withdrawal window proposed by Barack Obama.
Al-Dabbagh said al-Maliki’s views were “misunderstood and mistranslated” by Der Spiegel and that the prime minister backs a general vision of pulling out U.S. combat forces based on talks with Washington “and in the light of the continuing positive developments on the ground.”
The al-Maliki comments that were published came ahead of Obama’s scheduled meeting with the leader. The report from the magazine gave Obama fuel in his argument that U.S. involvement in Iraq soon must draw to a close. [snip]
“Apparently, he’s confident enough that he won’t find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable,” McCain said...
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Media reports on Afghanistan battle 'exaggerated'
Col. Charles "Chip" Preysler, commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade said his paratroops and their Afghan allies were involved in a fierce attack at a small post near the village of Wanat. But the attack is not a sign of conditions worsening in the country, he said.
The small outpost consisted of protective wire and observation posts surrounding strategically placed vehicles. "That’s all it was, a series of vehicles that went out there," ... "People are saying that it was a full-up combat outpost, and that is absolutely false and not true. There were no walls ... a vehicle patrol base, temporary in nature."
The Army did not "abandon" the 'base' after the attack, as many media reporters have suggested. The decision to move from the location following the attack was to reposition, which his men have done countless times throughout their tour. "If there’s no combat outpost to abandon, there’s no position to abandon,"
He also didn’t like the media’s characterization that his men were "overrun."
"As far as I know, and I know a lot, it was not overrun in any shape, manner or form," an emotional Preysler said. "It was close combat to be sure — as a matter of fact, it was, I think, the bravery of our soldiers reinforcing the hard-pressed observation post, or OP, that turned the tide to defeat the enemy attack."
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Petraeus on Obama Plan: 'The Enemy Is Sometimes an Independent Variable'
What if someone sued for peace but the enemy didn't go along?
DAVID PETRAEUS: It depends on the conditions; depends on the mission set. It depends on the enemy. The enemy does get a vote and is sometimes an independent variable. Lots of different factors, I think, that would be tied up in that and the dialogue on that, and the amount of risk. Because it eventually comes down to how much risk various options entail. That's the kind of discussion I think that is very important as we do look to the future.
Give Hardball credit for airing the clip, but how much will the MSM pick up on what was a diplomatic—but ultimately devastating—critique of the naivety of Obama's plan?
View video here.
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Waste no tears on Khadr
[HT:PG]
Media misinterprets Gitmo video
The drama-queen response in the media to the Omar Khadr videotape out of Guantanamo entirely misses the point as to why the boy terrorist likely broke down in tears... [snip]
Omar Khadr thought the cavalry -- i.e. the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, as they had his terrorist father, Egyptian-born Ahmed Said Khadr, in 1995 arrest for his alleged role in the bombing of the Egyptian embassy... [snip]
"It is part of the Khadr legend that whatever they did, the Canadian government would coming running to their rescue," ..."But, when the tough questions began being asked, he knew the jig was up, and that's when the tears began... [snip]
"It was not because he was being ill-treated, because he wasn't."
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Experts: Iran Has ‘Resumed’ A-Bomb Project
Intelligence information received by Western diplomats reports that Iran has resumed building equipment used for constructing atomic weapons. According to the London-based Daily Telegraph, the latest intelligence indicates that the work is aimed at developing a bomb according to a blueprint provided by Pakistani scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of the Pakistanian nuclear program who sold information on building atom bombs to Iran in the early 1990s. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, along with senior officials from its Atomic Energy Agency, is reportedly directing the clandestine project that has been concealed from United Nation’s inspection teams....
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“Instead of debating how much longer to continue five years of failed diplomacy, we should be intensively considering what cooperation the U.S. will extend to Israel before, during and after a strike on Iran. We will be blamed for the strike anyway, and certainly feel whatever negative consequences result, so there is compelling logic to make it as successful as possible.
At a minimum, we should place no obstacles in Israel's path, and facilitate its efforts where we can. These subjects are decidedly unpleasant. A nuclear Iran is more so.”
THE RICH WORLD AND THE FOOD CRISIS
Leaders of the G-8 nations gathered in Tokyo, Japan, to root out the culprits in a food crisis that has moved hundreds of millions from subsistence to starvation. In fact, they only have themselves to blame, says Adam Lerrick, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
The G-8 countries' interventions have distorted global agricultural markets to the paralysis point, says Lerrick. Indeed, the new famine is not about a crisis in global supply. Markets are full of food that developing-nation consumers can not afford to buy:
• Prices for rice, corn, wheat and soy beans, the staple crops for world sustenance, have doubled in a single year.
• In poor countries, where many spend 75 percent of their earnings to eat, real wages have been cut by a life-changing one-third.
• One-third of the world's population now lives under food price controls.
• In the name of conservation, U.S. farmers have been bribed to keep fields fallow -- 36 million acres of cropland, the size of Iowa, at a taxpayer cost of $2 billion a year.
• In Europe, large farmers have been compelled to leave 10 percent of their holdings idle.
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EU rediscovers taste for bendy cucumbers
It's official: European diktats on the size and shape of fruit and vegetables are bananas.(Snip) Bananas must be bent – in Euro-speak, “the thickness of a transverse section of the fruit between the lateral faces and the middle, perpendicular to the longitudinal axis . . . must be at a minimum of 27mm”. They must also be longer than 14 cm...
[the list is endless, and the food that doesn't meet spec.? destroyed. at this time of global food shortages. the inevitable path of government involvement]
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hurricane forecaster says global warming 'grossly exaggerated'
"There's been so much hype," the Colorado State University storm prognosticator said. "But I don't think there's a real problem. I think global warming has been grossly exaggerated."
Speaking at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science on Virginia Key, Gray said humans play little or no role in global warming.
He said he has been "appalled" by claims that global warming is on the verge of causing great destruction, such as in Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth...
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There...
Eight new nuclear power stations planned for England
Ministers are to build eight new nuclear power stations across England, the Daily Telegraph can disclose. The new nuclear plants will mainly be based alongside existing facilities and are expected to be constructed over the next decade. New planning laws will be used to fast-track approval for the nuclear plants...
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Why the Gulf Is Switching to Coal
The Persian Gulf may be sitting atop massive oil reserves. But with prices for crude skyrocketing, it makes more sense to sell it than to burn it. Instead, the Gulf is turning to coal for its energy needs.
(Snip) the state-owned Oman Oil Company signed a memorandum of understanding with two Korean companies on the construction and operation of several coal-fired power plants...
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Here...
Gas tax holiday talk dies; Congress eyes increase instead
The political vision of a summer gas tax holiday died a quick death in Congress, losing to a view that federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel will have to go up if they go anywhere... [snip]
Now, lawmakers quietly are talking about raising fuel taxes by a dime from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel fuel. Americans pay about 47 cents on average in taxes for a gallon of gasoline. [CA = 75-cents]
Other ideas that will be on the table when lawmakers write a bill next year include more toll roads [$], more public-private 'partnerships' [$], congestion pricing [$] and user fees [$] where drivers pay a tax based on how many miles they drive.
[we elected them {again} - now what do we do? well, there is November... {president isn't the only thing we'll be voting on}]
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*** SPECIAL ***
.
How China's taking over Africa, and why the West should be worried
Close relations: Chinese President Hu Jintao accompanies Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People in BeijingChina's rulers believe Africa can become a 'satellite' state, solving its own problems of over-population and shortage of natural resources at a stroke. With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled. The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, and it's estimated that China will eventually send 300 million people to Africa... [snip]
Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing... [snip]
Confucius Institutes (state-funded Chinese 'cultural centres') have sprung up throughout Africa, as far afield as the tiny land-locked countries of Burundi and Rwanda, teaching baffled local people how to do business in Mandarin and Cantonese.
From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower's long-term survival.
However, there is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made assault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars over the materials and space the Chinese are desperate for...
[My initial 'trim' of this piece still numbered 13 paragraphs chock full of astounding statistics. If credible - and it seems so - it makes a convincing case that nearly all violent strife on that continent is being fostered directly by China, while the world looks the other way {worse: swoons over China's upcoming Olympics}. As you read it bear in mind that this is a country the UN has seen fit to award 'veto authority' of its Security Council. Long, but for its info., rarity and future consequences a MUST READ > ]
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