• Iran,  Iran Nuclear Watch,  Israel

    Shocker: Iran Will Have Means to Test Nuclear Weapon Within Six Months

    iran nuclear installations

    In the meantime, the United States has allowed Iran to stall and develop their nuclear capacity despite countless United Nation’s resolutions.

    Iran is blocking U.N. nuclear agency attempts to upgrade monitoring of its atomic program while advancing those activities to the stage that the country would have the means to test a weapon within six months, diplomats told The Associated Press Friday.

    The diplomats emphasized that there were no indications of plans for such a nuclear test, saying it was highly unlikely Iran would risk heightened confrontation with the West—and chances of Israeli attack—by embarking on such a course.

    But they said that even as Iran expands uranium enrichment, which can create fissile nuclear material, it is resisting International Atomic Energy Agency attempts to increase surveillance of its enrichment site meant to keep pace with the plant’s increased size and complexity.

    For Iran to amass enough fissile material to conduct an underground test similar to North Korea’s 2006 nuclear explosion, it would likely have to kick out monitors of the IAEA—the U.N. nuclear agency—from its one known uranium enrichment site at Natanz. Technicians then could reconfigure the centrifuges now churning out nuclear-fuel grade enriched uranium to highly enriched, weapons-grade material.

    Iran is unlikely, however, to want to do that. Such a move would immediately set off international alarm bells and could bridge rifts on how strongly to react—Russia and China, which have resisted Western calls to increase pressure on Iran over its nuclear defiance, would likely endorse more sweeping U.N sanctions and other penalties.

    With the U.N. nuclear agency strictly limited in its nuclear monitoring of Iran, the existence of a hidden enrichment site that could supply the weapons-grade uranium needed for a nuclear weapons test is also possible.

    nternational Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed Elbaradei has repeatedly warned that his agency cannot guarantee that Iran is not hiding nuclear activities. Iranian nuclear expert David Albright on Friday put the chances that such a secret site exists at “50-50.”

    The United States has screwed around while the centrifuges at Natanz have been spinning. Then, one day, either Israel will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, including the secret ones or Iran will kick out the IAEA inspectors and declare it is a nuclear power.

    You cannot say the United States and Europe have not known about the Iran nuclear subterfuge. They have just decided to do nothing.


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  • AARP,  Day By Day,  Joe Biden

    Day By Day by Chris Muir July 17, 2009 – The AARP Birthday Card

    day by day 071709

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Yeah, Flap received a birthday card on my 50th birthday at my dental office. Now, how they found this address and not my home address is anyone’s guess.

    But, like other Left-Wing advocacy groups pretending to be charities or non-partisan, their mailers soon hit the trash bin before my receptionist even carried back the bills and correspondence. I really have never had any use for them.

    Joe Biden is becoming a liability for President Obama. Does anyone think he will remain on the ticket in 2012?

    When will Hilary and Bill finally figure out that Secretary of State is a dead-end job and demand to be placed as Obama’s second in command? Uhhhhh – when the heat ratchets up on Biden’s gaffes from the Clinton Cabal.

    +++++++++++

    A reminder to all Flapsblog readers:

    The annual Day By Day fundraising drive is under way.

    Day By Day FundraiserPlea09

    Please donate generously so that Chris Muir can keep up his great conservative cartoon work.

    So, what are you waiting for?

    Click here and give Chris a few bucks.

    Flap knows you will be glad you did.


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  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2009-07-16

    • Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law. Unless revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits. Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy. The following chart shows our projection of federal debt relative to GDP under the two scenarios we modeled.
    • Instead of saving the federal government from fiscal catastrophe, the health reform measures being drafted by congressional Democrats would increase rather than reduce public spending on health care, potentially worsening an already bleak budget outlook, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this morning.

      Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose "the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount."

    • Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said on Thursday that President Obama had hindered his efforts to reach a bipartisan compromise on sweeping health care legislation by opposing a tax on some employer-provided health insurance benefits.

      “Basically, the president is not helping us,” Mr. Baucus told reporters outside his office. “He does not want the exclusion. That’s making it difficult.”

      The tax on benefits, or limiting hte so-called ‘exclusion’ of benefits from income taxes, was a main way Mr. Baucus and his committee had planned to help pay for the health care bill and would have generated about $320 billion toward the roughly $1 trillion 10-year price tag.

    • As CIA director in 2004, George Tenet terminated a secret program to develop hit teams to kill al-Qaida leaders, but his successors resurrected the plan, according to former intelligence officials.

      Tenet ended the program because the agency could not work out its practical details, the officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program.
      Porter Goss, who replaced Tenet in 2005, restarted the program, the former officials said. By the time Michael Hayden succeeded Goss as CIA chief in 2006 the effort was again flagging because of practical challenges.

      CIA Director Leon Panetta drove the final stake into the effort in June after learning about the program. He called an emergency meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence committees the next day, informing lawmakers about the program and saying that as vice president Dick Cheney had directed the CIA not to inform Congress about the operation.

    • A Social Security Administration motivational management conference held at a high-end Valley resort last week cost $700,000, the SSA told the ABC15 Investigators.

      Costs for the conference at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa included airfare, hotel entertainment, dancers, motivational speakers, and food, an administration official said.

      A spokesperson outside the SSA's Phoenix office declined to comment.

    • A leader of the conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats told CNN Wednesday he and other group members may vote to block House Democrats' health care bill from passing a key committee if they don't get some of the changes they want.

      "We remain opposed to the current bill, and we continue to meet several times a day to decide how we're going to proceed and what amendments we will be offering as Blue Dogs on the committees," said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Arkansas.

      Ross said the bill unveiled Tuesday by House Democratic leaders did not address concerns he and other conservative Democrats outlined in a letter late last week to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

      The conservative Democrats don't believe the legislation contains sufficient reforms to control costs in the health care system and believe additional savings can be found. Their letter to leaders raised concerns about new mandates on small businesses. Blue Dogs also say the bill fails to fix the inequities in the current system for health care costs for

      (tags: Obamacare)