The Luddite-like opposition to nuclear power in the United States has waned with 60% supporting nuclear power (70% or men and 50% of women). The American public has been led to believe that nuclear power is extremely dangerous and that nuclear waste disposal is an unsolved problem. Those beliefs are based on preposterous distortions by media and environmental extremists.

The USA gets less than 20% of its electricity from nuclear plants compared to world leaders France 76%; and Belgium 54%. But, the USA produces more megawattage than any other country or course it proportionately uses more power too.

One of the biggest distortions concerns the disposal of spent fuel rods. While any waste has to be disposed of properly ash from coal fired power plants is far more hazardous that such rods primarily because there is so much of it. Scientific ignorance and self-serving hysteria has kept the USA dependent on hydrocarbon power for decades.

There has not been a new nuclear power plant built in the USA or Canada for 30 years. New applications are moving with glacial serenity though the NRC permitting process.

It would be relatively easy to triple US nuclear power production while all alternative fuels (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal) does not now appear to offer anywhere near such potential at least in the forseeable future.

Uranium is very prevelant in the Earth’s crust. Of course it also provides the heat making the planet’s core molten and contributing to the habitability of the Earth. Because the innocuous dull gray metal (see photo inset) is the feeder fuel for nuclear weapons it also fuels the profits of professional naysayers costing the nation its dependence on foreign oil and the dictators many of whom  who rob us and hate us.

A Nigerian man, 23-year-old Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to set off an incendiary or explosive device as a transatlantic flight from Amsterdam descended toward Detroit’s airport on Christmas Day. Passengers and crew subdued the man who tried to ignite the device strapped to his leg.  

First reports were that fireworks had been involved. The TSA has firmly slammed the barn door after this horse bolted.

As the FBI is investigating the incident. Obama is celebrating Christmas in Hawaii at a $3,000 a day estate. Obama was informed about the incident a spokesman said, and he asked his aides to ensure that all measures are in place to provide security for air travel.

How Abdulmutallab, whose name is included in the government’s records of terrorism suspects, was allowed on the flight carrying an incendiary device is unclear. Reportedly he had travelled to Yemen to collect the incendiary device before boarding the commercial flight.

Abdulmutallab allegedly had taped some powdered material to his leg, then used a syringe to mix some liquid chemicals with the powder while on the airplane successfully setting himself afire.

The Christmas Day incident called to mind the bizarre case of “Shoebomber” Richard C. Reid, a British citizen who trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and later attempted to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001.

Reid was arrested in Boston, subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Although he had been perceived by some to be a petty criminal, he did have ties to al-Qaeda, according to interviews and evidence that emerged in the course of his prosecution.

This all follows two recent breaches of White House security.

The Northwest incident comes after a hectic six months in domestic terrorism cases, from the arrest of a Colorado shuttle bus driver, Najibullah Zazi, in an alleged plot to target New York with hydrogen-based chemical mixtures to smaller efforts by groups in Minnesota, Northern Virginia and North Carolina to allegedly translate radical beliefs into action on foreign soil.

The Obama administration says it proud of its efforts during its first year to thwart terrorist plots, most notably in the case of Zazi, a young Afghan immigrant and legal U.S. resident arrested in early fall on suspicion of amassing bombmaking skills after visiting an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan. As the threat of “homegrown” terrorists has appeared to rise in recent months, Obama has asked his top advisers to remain in a state of heightened vigilance.

Most say Obama’s claim is simply blind luck, and it is only a matter of time before his chaotic  appeasement policies claims lives.

In 2003, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden posted a recording on the internet calling on Muslims in oil-rich Nigeria to rise up against one of the “regimes who are slaves of America”.

But links to al-Qaida remained rare, though security forces claimed to break up a linked terror cell in November 2007.

Security at Nigeria’s two major international airports in the capital, Abuja, and Lagos remain a point of concern. Uniformed police officers are often kept busy keeping hagglers and taxi drivers out of the airport. Bags quickly pass through x-ray scanners and those watching incoming passengers don’t usually conduct tests for explosive residue on passengers’ hand luggage or shoes.

At the gate, airline workers often check passengers again with handheld metal detectors. The man , an engineering student at University College of London changed from a KLM flight plane at Amsterdam but it is unclear if he underwent additional security checks if not it  renders all U. S. based security impotent.

He passed through security in Ameterdam but obviously was not carefully screened even though his name is on internationally posted watch lists.

The suspect told authorities he had an extremist affiliation, and said he was directed by al-Qaeda. He said that the device was obtained in Yemen, along with instructions from al-Qaeda as to how to use it. Authorities have not yet confirmed his statements.

A counterterrorism official told The New York Times that his claim “may have been “aspirational” Officials with law-enforcement information access told him the suspect may have had contact with Anwar Al Awlaki; al-Awlaki is the former imam linked to al-Qaeda, three of the9/11 bombers, and Nidal Hasan, the suspected Fort Hood shooter, among others.

Pete Hoekstra, Senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said: “The question we’ll have to raise is was this imam in Yemen influential enough to get some people to attack the US again.” Hoekstra said in an interview: “The suspicion is also that” the suspect “had contact with al-Awlaki. The belief is this is a stronger connection with al-Awlaki” than Hasan had.

Here we go, many things on the mind of the rambling lunatic. Maybe, or maybe not.

It looks like a healthcare bill is about to emerge from Congress, mark the date. A major reconstruction of America is at hand. If anyone happens upon these writings, say twenty or fifty years from now, what I say will seem like ramblings, most certainly. Or, in more probability, augury.

It’s like the political correctness of our media, or worse, the publishers of our academic reading material, is in line with the agenda the leftists wish to take us. That’s right, they want to control what our children are taught in school. Like Hitler and Stalin once said, give me your children and I shall rule the world. Teach a generation what you want them to know, hide or taint what truly took place in the past, and one has molded a new society. That my friends, is what I see happening.

In our current school books, high school history, American history, there is no mention of American Indians as being barbarians, savages, or the scalping of white men. Fact of the matter is, that was truly the old west. Despicable yes, but a reality nonetheless. Unfortunately it isn’t polite, politically correct, or in the current fashion of what our liberal society wants one to know. It falls in line with Ahmadinejad’s insistence that the holocaust never happened. Or Russia’s insistence, and what they now have in their texts that they teach their children, that Stalin was a kind, benevolent and altruistic person. According to Russia’s current government he was responsible for the financial, social and industrial expansion of the Soviet Union. Odd, why did it collapse? And why doesn’t Russia teach or promulgate what Stalin really did? Mass murder, rape, psychiatric abuse of an entire society and, inter alia, the erasure of an entire culture. He was an onerous dictator, a man whose lot in life was to make less of others and cause whole races to become extinct.

Have we traded one tyranny for another? Was the rein of Bush any more tyrannical than what faces us now? I fear the future could be worse. When a government rules for the few over the many, decadence and extinction shall follow. Antediluvian governments moved forward into the feudal system, where we the serfs served them well. At least well enough until we could take no more. Anarchy and chaos took over. Revolution and rebellion, one after another, has ravished mankind since antiquity. What does the future hold? Unknown. But I’m certain it’s along this line.

Make no mistake about it, plutocracy rules the world and oligarchy dominates in America.

The White House tree in the Blue Room has been the center of Presidential Christmases since the Harrison administration.  This year though, the tree reflects Obama’s leanings and Anti-Christian philosophy.  The tree does not celebrate a season but includes propaganda and politics.

According to World Net Daily, several ornaments on the tree, depict the extremist views of the administration.  One ornament contains the face of Mao Zedong, who killed many of his country men.  Another a transvestite with rainbows around the ornament.  Another pictures Obama added to Mounty Rushmore.  A Communist, a transvestite, and our most pompous president to date deck this anti-American, anti-Christian tree.

Not only does our President promulgate his Anti-Christian views in America’s home, he also does overseas.  He made one statement in Turkey last April that, ”We [America] do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.”   Other statements are, ”Whatever we were, we are no longer a Christian nation,” and “The Sermon on the Mount [is] a passage that is so radical that our own defense department wouldn’t survive its application.”  These statements are all according to Chuck Norris’s column in World Net Daily.

When Obama first started his presidency last January, he was not even attending a church, something many American Presidents have done as soon as they moved to DC.  He went to the gym instead.

Many Americans are hoping that Santa brings us a new president.  In 2012 those Americans will probably get there wish.  One that is filled with the Christmas spirit.  One who is filled with the American Spirit.  God Bless America!

Sooner or later it had to happen. Man’s best friend is being tagged as one of the environment’s worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

Farm animals have already been flagged for their flatulence and corrective proposals vary from affixing filters or collectors to their posteriors.

But the revelation in the book “Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living” by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand analyzed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

Combine the land required to generate its food and a “medium” sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) — around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4×4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.

To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.

“Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat,” Barrett said.

Other animals aren’t much better, the Vales say.

Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.

But Reha Huttin, president of France’s 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says the human impact of eliminating pets would be equally devastating.

“Pets are anti-depressants, they help us cope with stress, they are good for the elderly,” Huttin told AFP.

“Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don’t eat meat, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?”

Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs — the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars — says defiantly, “Our animals give us so much that I don’t feel like a polluter at all.

“I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.

“I don’t want a life without animals,” she told AFP.

And pets’ environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.

With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.

Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faces cause high bacteria levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.

And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo — owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.

But despite the apocalyptic visions of domesticated animals’ environmental impact, solutions exist, including reducing pets’ protein-rich meat intake.

“If pussy is scoffing ‘Fancy Feast’ — or some other food made from choice cuts of meat — then the relative impact is likely to be high,” said Robert Vale.

“If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower.”

Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areas and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals’ blood.

As with buying a car, humans are also encouraged to take the environmental impact of their future possession/companion into account.

But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.

“Rabbits are good, provided you eat them,” said Robert Vale.

According to whistleblowers the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have spent five million dollars to bring 3, 600 managers to a conference in Atlanta critics say this was no more than an excuse to throw a three-week-long Christmas party.

Undercover footage of a video will be broadcast Wednesday evening on ABC World News, which shows FAA managers drinking heavily after a day of meetings. This comes at a bad time especially as Americans continue to simmer over the economy.

The News report suggests the FAA slipped in a 21-day holiday disguised as a managers meeting earlier this month. One employee mentioned to an undercover reporter “It is nothing but a party,” In response the FAA said that it was not a party but essential training sessions for the managers to learn. Another manager bragged to ABC News about nearly being arrested for drunkenly dancing on a table.

The “seminar” featured lavish food and hosted bars. The hotel was so pleased to have the extravagantly spending federal agency there it threw extravagant weekly parties.

The FAA claims the 3-weeks of debauchery was actually necessary to train managers on a new National Air Controllers’ union contract. It could not explain why it had to convene the party at the 4-star Omni Hotel in downtown Atlanta flying the managers there; housing and feeding them for 3-weeks, plus provide them an $81 per day per diem in addition to their salaries that average in excess of $100,000 annually and send taxpayers the $5,000,000 bill.

Adjacent is a frame from a video of the recent $5 million FAA “seminar” hosted at Atlanta’s 4-star OMN I HOTEL.

Freshman Democratic Representative Parker Griffith of Alabama is switching to the Republican Party so he doesn’t lose his job in 2010.. Griffith was narrowly elected last year from a region of northern Alabama that includes Huntsville and Decatur. President Barack Obama lost the district badly to Republican John McCain.Griffith is a radiation oncologist. His switch comes as Congress is trying to pass a much-contested healthcare bill. Democrats will still control the House by a substantial margin but this is a step closer.

Do you believe that huge snowstorm in D.C.? Pretty  amazing. President Obama spent one day in Copenhagen and global warming is solved.– Leno

A Kansas mother is praising a neighbor as “Superman” after her 6-year-old daughter told her he somehow found the strength to lift a full sized Mercury sedan off her. The girl escaped with minor injuries after she and neighbor Nick Harris said she was pinned under the vehicle that accidentally rolled backward over the child. Nick says he doesn’t know how he did it.

Eliot Spitzer’s former hooker now has a sex advice column in the New York Post. Why do people get rewarded for this? Her number one piece of advice: Get the money up front.—Leno

According to MSNBC, Tiger Woods paid some of his mistresses between $5,000 and $20,000 a month to keep quiet about his affairs. That’s the second bailout plan this year that didn’t work.– Leno

A health care bill passed the U. S. Senate with 58 Democratic and  1 Independent and 1 avowed Socialist votes, and now goes to conference with the House of Representatives. The Senate bill contains over a thousand earmarks for Democrat pet projects. The reconciliation bill only requires 51% votes so expect duplicity by Democrats trying to save their jobs.

President Obama has signed a new $1.1 trillion spending bill. See, the reason it’s called a spending bill is they get to spend it and we get the bill. — Leno

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that just 25% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President .

Fifty-three percent (53%) of men Strongly Disapprove along with 39% of women. Most African-American voters (58%) Strongly Approve while most white voters (53%) Strongly Disapprove.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans Strongly Disapprove as do 52% of unaffiliated voters. Forty-seven percent (47%) of Democrats Strongly Approve.

For the second straight day, the update shows the highest level of Strong Disapproval yet recorded for this President. That negative rating had never topped 42% before yesterday. However, it has risen dramatically since the Senate found 60 votes to move forward with the proposed health care reform legislation. Most voters (55%) oppose the health care legislation and senior citizens are even more likely than younger voters to dislike the plan.

Headline Huffington Post: Robert Byrd’s Death Seemingly Wished For By Tom Coburn

Enough is enough already. This Huffington Post headline is ridiculous and definitely in poor taste.

Heaven knows that the last person I am interesting in defending is Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). But unless he specifically referenced Sen. Byrd by name or made some veiled reference to “the good gentleman from West Virginia” then neither Senator Durbin or the author of this post knows what was in Sen. Coburn’s mind.

Have many of the Republicans acted like hateful, petulant children about health care reform? Of course.

Have some of the Democrats acted in their own self interest? Yes, to that too.

Have members of the Senate used the idea of prayer and religion to advance their very own agendas? Yes indeed. Coburn’s comment was out of line.

And do persons on all sides of the debate secretly harbor thoughts of throwing a few members of the Senate under a moving train? You Bet. I know that I have my list and it’s pretty long.

But to say that Tom Coburn seemed to be wishing for Senator’s Byrd’s death is irresponsible and the very type of comment that gives progressives and bloggers everywhere a bad name.

Shame on the Huffington Post for this headline. You have now officially stooped to the level of a Rupert Murdoch rag. All may be fair in love, war and the health care reform debate but this headline is too much for this progressive to stomach.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama reportedly told representatives of the Chinese government recently that the US may not be able to restrain the Israelis from launching a massive military strike on Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities for much longer.

According to the Israeli Newspaper Ha’aretz on December 17: Obama has warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for much longer, senior officials in Jerusalem told Ha’aretz. They said Obama warned President Hu Jintao during the American’s visit to Beijing a month ago as part of the US attempt to convince the Chinese to support strict sanctions on Tehran if it does not accept Western proposals for its nuclear program.

The Israeli officials, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the United States had informed Israel on Obama’s meetings in Beijing on Iran. They said Obama made it clear to Hu that at some point the United States would no longer be able to prevent Israel from acting as it saw fit in response to the perceived Iranian threat.

However, Iran appears to be in denial of the danger and continues to be its own worst enemy with a constant campaign of bluster, hyperbole and threats.

As with a number of well-known Middle Eastern leaders, including the late and largely unlamented Saddam Hussein, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad continues to put what purports to be national pride before common sense or a rational approach to international relations.

The Iranian government, its military and intelligence services go out of their way to needle the West in a manner that suggests that they still harbor the illusion of surviving such a military confrontation.

Iran incapable of defending its strategic targets

 
The truth is that Iran is quite incapable of defending its air space and strategic targets against a determined Israeli attack, let alone one that involved US air assets.

Iran’s air force and air defense forces are a generation or more behind its potential foes. According to the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington in May 2009, “Without Russian air defense systems, Iran is a sitting duck.”

CSIS said, “Iran’s current air defense umbrella is antiquated and could not stop an Israeli or US strike. Iran’s air defense network could be easily penetrated by the air forces of Israel and the United States.”

The CSIS report continued, “Iran’s aging US and Russian-origin assets could not intercept Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighters … Iran lacks the modern weapon systems, integration and C4I battle management to reduce the potential destructive effectiveness of any offensive interdiction missions by Israel.”

The report, titled “Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Development Facilities”, said: “One can predict a very low attrition rate to an Israeli strike.”

Indeed, there are so far unconfirmed reports that the five-day Iranian air defense exercise held in late November to test the defense of its strategic nuclear sites was an abject failure. Middle East sources have reported, “From the word go on Sunday, November 22, Iran’s five-day drill demonstrated that its air force and air defense units were unequal to their mission of keeping the skies over its nuclear sites clear of incoming strike aircraft.”

The Iranian navy is limited to counter-attacking allied naval forces in the Gulf in the event of a major conflict, while the Iranian army has no one to attack directly, with Iraq, Syria and Jordan between its armored forces and the borders of Israel.

It goes almost without saying that any serious attempt by Iran to launch a military strike on US or allied forces based in Iraq, the Gulf, Pakistan or Afghanistan, or indeed the strategically vital oilfields of Kuwait, northern Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, could be expected to bring an immediate Western military response with catastrophic consequences for Tehran.

A growing missile threat
This leaves just Iran’s growing missile capability for Israel and the West to ponder.

It is fair to say that Iran has made considerable strides in such technology with the overt help of North Korea and covert assistance by Pakistan, China and very probably a number of renegade Western commercial companies.

Iran does now have a limited ability to strike at Israel and Western targets throughout a wide area of the Middle East.

It was widely reported on December 16 that Iran test-fired an upgraded version of an advanced missile system believed to be capable of hitting Israel and even parts of Europe in an apparent show of strength aimed at discouraging attacks on its nuclear facilities. The test of the medium-range Sajjil-2 was reportedly a success and encouraged Iran to claim that it could retaliate effectively against a future US or Israeli military strike.

The Foreign Office in London said Iran has the “clear intention to extend the range of its missiles”, calling the launch “the wrong signal to send when the international community is trying to find a diplomatic solution” to its growing nuclear program.

James Lewis, a senior defense expert at CSIS, said that Iran probably has up to 300 shorter-range Shahab missiles, while the Sajjil remains in the test phase and currently “it’s not a sophisticated program”. But, Lewis added, “they’ve been putting a lot of money and effort into this program for more than a decade, and we have to take their claims seriously.”

Wednesday’s test was the third for the Sajjil-2 since it was unveiled in May. The missile has the longest range of any in Iran’s arsenal, about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) - putting Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy, and US bases in the Gulf region well within reach. It could also reach parts of southeastern and eastern Europe.

Nuclear capability still years away

However, while Iran may have recently tested a “nuclear trigger” under laboratory conditions - if unconfirmed reports coming out of London are to be believed - and have enough enriched uranium for a single crude nuclear bomb, it still remains likely that Iran is at least five years away from having a genuine nuclear first-strike capability against Israel, even assuming that this is the path it is taking - something Tehran consistently denies.Abridged from a copyrighted article  by Richard M Bennett who is an intelligence analyst.

Before that stage is reached, a considerable amount of weapons-grade material would have to be produced; the bomb and its trigger tested, probably more than once and then the advanced technology developed to build a significant number of miniaturized nuclear weapons to fit the nose cones of its missile force.

Iran is highly unlikely to be able to develop or procure in the foreseeable future the type of advanced strike aircraft capable of delivering an air-dropped nuclear weapon over the required distance and which would have undoubtedly provided a quicker option for developing a nuclear strike force.

Therefore, the Iranian threat in the immediate future will rest on a relatively small number of missiles with conventional warheads, for if Tehran was to use any of its known stocks of chemical or biological weapons in missile attacks on Israel, the response would quite certainly be that which would have followed a nuclear attack; the total devastation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

If Iran continues to be at odds with the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, then it must be a distinct possibility that Israel will indeed launch a massive air assault, feasibly backed up by cruise missiles launched from submarines in the Arabian Sea sometime next year.

Even a successful Israeli attack will still hold grave dangers for Washington, however.

A very significant proportion of the munitions that the Israeli Defense Forces would drop on Iran would be “Made in the USA”. It remains a valid point that Iran may reasonably not be too concerned with who actually drops the bombs and be far more vengeful against those who made the weapons, trained the pilots, built the aircraft and who Tehran ultimately blames for sponsoring and protecting its attacker.

Nor could the Iranian military be 100% certain that any such attack would not include covert US involvement and particularly satellite targeting intelligence and electronic warfare assets. Iran’s response may therefore be to blindly strike back at any and all available targets, whether Israeli or Western, and by any means left to it, including missile strikes and attacks by its worldwide network of supporters, including Hezbollah and Hamas.