Iran enrichment: “One would have thought the agreement was all about Iran not enriching uranium. But that would be to miss the point.”
Operation Empty Chair
Reuters: Iran says to continue building at Arak nuclear site despite deal
Peace In Our Time
‘Geneva talks a facade, US-Iran worked secretly on deal for past year’
The report, which relied on unnamed senior Israeli officials, said the US team to the secret talks was led by Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. Her primary interlocutor, the report said, was the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi. The talks have been taking place in various Gulf states.
In the course of the talks, the report said, the Americans offered the Iranians a series of “confidence-building measures,” which underlined American readiness to conclude a deal and undercut sanctions pressure.
Global Test
So, it’s come to this – the only thing standing between the western world and World War III are the French.
Western and Iranian negotiators were putting the finishing touches on a far-reaching nuclear deal. Then, at virtually the last minute, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius joined in the talks. It didn’t take long for the negotiations to unravel — and for Fabius to publicly declare this round of the talks to be over. […]
Fabius, echoing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is said to have had two serious concerns with the deal. First, the agreement failed to prevent Tehran from continuing construction on its nuclear reactor at Arak. Once the facility is operational, a key part of Iran’s nuclear program would be immune to airstrikes because bombing the plant would lead to massive, deadly, radiation leaks. Fabius was also upset that the deal didn’t require Iran to reduce its stockpiles of 20% enriched uranium, which is approaching weapons-grade. The Hollande government, Fabius told French radio, would not be part of a “fool’s game.”
“Never Again”
Operation Empty Chair
Well, who has the most to gain? Citing multiple sources, AP and NY Times say there’s no hard evidence tying Assad to WMD attack
(link fixed, sorry!)
It’s Probably Nothing
Leaked transcripts of a closed-door meeting between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan shed an extraordinary light on the hard-nosed Realpolitik of the two sides.
Prince Bandar, head of Saudi intelligence, allegedly confronted the Kremlin with a mix of inducements and threats in a bid to break the deadlock over Syria. “Let us examine how to put together a unified Russian-Saudi strategy on the subject of oil. The aim is to agree on the price of oil and production quantities that keep the price stable in global oil markets,” he said at the four-hour meeting with Mr Putin. They met at Mr Putin’s dacha outside Moscow three weeks ago.
[…]
The Putin-Bandar meeting was stormy, replete with warnings of a “dramatic turn” in Syria. Mr Putin was unmoved by the Saudi offer, though western pressure has escalated since then. “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters,” he said, referring to footage showing a Jihadist rebel eating the heart and liver of a Syrian soldier.
Prince Bandar in turn warned that there can be “no escape from the military option” if Russia declines the olive branch. Events are unfolding exactly as he foretold.
Via Zerohedge. (h/t Robert of Ottawa)
Operation Empty Chair*
CNN has learned a cabinet-level "Principals Committee" meeting was held at the WH this evening on Syria. No POTUS.
— Jim Acosta (@JimAcostaCNN) August 28, 2013
* Duly stolen.
Benghazi: Did Valerie Jarrett Issue The Stand Down Order?
What We Really Need Is Democracy
US reporters and commentators today portray this week’s protests as the restoration of the Egyptian revolution. That revolution, they remain convinced, was poised to replace long-time Egyptian leader and US-ally Hosni Mubarak with a liberal democratic government led by people who used Facebook and Twitter.
Subsequently, we were told, that revolution was hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood. But now that Morsi and his government have been overthrown, the Facebook revolution is back on track.
And again, they are wrong.
Related: Who Lost the Middle East?
So, planned, all along.
Was giving the info to the ChiComs planned too? Some ‘hero’.
Hold The Phone
Guardian Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama
The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.
The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.
The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.
[…]
The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.
Read the court order.
Wonder if this is related — NSA building new $2 bn communications data-mining center in Utah set to open Sept. 2013: wired.com/threatlevel/20…
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) June 6, 2013
“Now that [Assad] has already crossed all of these red lines…”
Since the civil war began two years ago, Assad’s complete dependence on Iran and Hezbollah – as well as on Russia – has been exposed for all to see. There is little doubt that whatever checks the US was able to exert against him before the civil war began no longer exist. And if he survives in power, he will be completely indifferent to US pressure and so will behave far more violently than he did before the war began.
And yet for all Assad’s horrific behavior and the reasonable presumption that his actions will only become more violent and dangerous with each additional day he remains in power, the most telling aspect of the Syrian civil war is that Israel, the US and Europe are incapable of deciding whether he is better or worse than the alternatives.
And much, much more. Read the whole thing.
h/t Adrian
It’s Probably Nothing
Indication of anomalous heat energy production in a reactor device
An experimental investigation of possible anomalous heat production in a special type of reactor tube named E-Cat HT is carried out. The reactor tube is charged with a small amount of hydrogen loaded nickel powder plus some additives. The reaction is primarily initiated by heat from resistor coils inside the reactor tube. Measurement of the produced heat was performed with high-resolution thermal imaging cameras, recording data every second from the hot reactor tube. The measurements of electrical power input were performed with a large bandwidth three-phase power analyzer. Data were collected in two experimental runs lasting 96 and 116 hours, respectively. An anomalous heat production was indicated in both experiments. The 116-hour experiment also included a calibration of the experimental set-up without the active charge present in the E-Cat HT. In this case, no extra heat was generated beyond the expected heat from the electric input. Computed volumetric and gravimetric energy densities were found to be far above those of any known chemical source. Even by the most conservative assumptions as to the errors in the measurements, the result is still one order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources.
From the PDF
“The device subject to testing was powered by 360 W for a total of 96 hours, and produced in all 2034 W thermal. This value was reached by calculating the power transferred by the E-Cat HT to the environment by convection and power irradiated by the device. The resultant values of generated power density (7093 W/kg) and thermal energy density (6,81 · 105 Wh/kg) allow us to place the E-Cat HT above conventional power sources”
Lance: “nickel powder plus unknown additives pressurized with hydrogen gas”. Was that Timmins, Ont. I just heard screaming in joy?
“This is not going away, this is a Pandora’s box now open.”
Rep. Mike Kelly grills IRS outgoing commissioner Steven Miller.
Related: IRS: ‘Please Detail the Content of Your Members’ Prayers.’
Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?
Would You Believe The Administration Bugged Phones In The House Of Representatives? « The Greenroom hotair.com/greenroom/arch… via @hotairblog
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) May 16, 2013
Benghazi: U.S. diplomat contradicts White House
What difference, at this point, does it make?
The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has told congressional investigators that a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command South Africa.
The account from Gregory Hicks is in stark contrast to assertions from the Obama administration, which insisted that nobody was ever told to stand down and that all available resources were utilized.
Benghazi: The Whistleblowers
The lawyers said their clients believe their accounts of Benghazi were spurned by the Accountability Review board (ARB), the official investigative body convened by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to review the terrorist attacks, and that the two employees have faced threats and intimidation from as-yet-unnamed superiors.
“I’m not talking generally, I’m talking specifically about Benghazi — that people have been threatened,” Toensing told Fox News on Wednesday. “And not just the State Department; people have been threatened at the CIA. … It’s frightening. …They’re taking career people and making them well aware that their careers will be over.”
DiGenova told Fox News on Thursday, by way of describing his and Toensing’s respective clients: “There were people who were material witnesses, who wanted to talk to [the ARB], and they were not allowed to talk to them.
“The people that we are representing are career civil servants…people who have served the country overseas…in dangerous positions all over the world, have risked their lives and only want to tell the truth.”
Via Drudge
Powering America: Uranium Mining and Milling
Filmed at Cameco’s McArthur River and Key Lake mines.
They Need To Get That Hiroshima Team Back
IAEA: Japan nuke cleanup may take more than 40 yrs