Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Study: All 107 U.S. Nuclear Reactors Vulnerable to Terrorists
Aug 17th, 2013
Daily NewsCBS
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Every commercial nuclear reactor in the United States is insufficiently protected against “credible” terrorist threats, according to a new report from the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

The report found that facilities were vulnerable to the theft of bomb-grade nuclear materials and sabotage attacks designed to cause a meltdown.

While all 107 commercial nuclear power reactors were thought to be vulnerable, the report spotlighted 11 that were most at risk. That included eight reactors that were deemed unprotected from attacks from the sea: Diablo Canyon in California, St. Lucie in Florida, Brunswick in North Carolina, Surry in Virginia, Indian Point in New York, Millstone in Connecticut, Pilgrim in Massachusetts, and the South Texas Project.

Three civilian reactors fueled with bomb-grade uranium were also deemed particularly vulnerable. They are housed at the University of Missouri in Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology – which is within 25 miles of the White House. Unlike military facilities that hold bomb-grade uranium, the report found, these facilities are not sufficiently defended against a credible terrorist threat.

As a release announcing the report notes, the Sept. 11 hijackers considered flying a passenger get into a New York City-area nuclear reactor.

Proud to be the Home of the . . . Weak?
Aug 17th, 2013
Daily NewsCaroline B. Glick
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

This week, after a three and a half year delay, US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was finally placed on trial for massacring 13 and wounding 32 at Ft. Hood on November 5, 2009.

Hasan was a self-identified jihadist. His paper and electronic trail provided mountains of evidence that he committed the massacre to advance the cause of Islamic supremacy. Islamic supremacists like Hasan, and his early mentor al Qaeda operations chief Anwar al-Awlaki view as enemies all people who oppose totalitarian Islam's quest for global domination.

Before, during and following his assault, Hasan made his jihadist motives obvious to the point of caricature in his statements about the US, the US military and the duties of pious Muslims.

But rather than believe Hasan, and so do justice to his victims, the Obama administration, with the active collusion of senior US military commanders went to great lengths to cover up Hasan's ideological motivations and hence the nature of his crime. On the day of the attack, Lt. General Robert Cone, then commander of III Corps at Ft. Hood said preliminary evidence didn't suggest that the shooting was terrorism. Cone said this even though it was immediately known that before he began shooting Hasan called out "Allahu Akhbar." He called himself a "Soldier of Islam" on his business cards.

In an interview with CNN three after the attack, Army Chief of Staff George Casey said, "Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

The intensity of the Obama administration's participation in this cover-up became clear in May 2012. At that time, Congress had placed a clause inside the Defense Appropriations Act requiring the Pentagon to award Purple Hearts to Ft. Hood's victims. Rather than accept this eminently reasonable demand, which simply required the administration to acknowledge reality, Obama's emissaries announced he would veto the appropriations bill and so leave the Pentagon without a budget unless the clause was removed.

Rather than define Hasan's attack as an enemy attack or a terrorist act, the administration has defined it as a case of "workplace violence." Following this determination, those wounded in the attack, as well as the families of the murdered are denied the support conferred on soldiers killed or wounded by enemy fire.

At the first day of Hasan's trial this week, he admitted that he perpetrated the murderous attack because he is a jihadist who "switched sides" in the war. That is, he told the court that he conducted the attack as an act of war against the United States to advance the goals of the global jihad.

Hasan's statement made clear, once again, that in its efforts to describe his actions as "workplace violence," the administration is engaging in a cover-up. Its purpose is to deny the American people the truth about the nature of the jihadist threat to their country.

Outside the conservative media, and certain circles of the Republican Party, there has been no public outcry over the government's decision to cover up the nature of Hasan's actions. The public's passivity in the face of the government's mendacious, unjust behavior owes to the fact that the mainstream media have not castigated the administration for its decision to hide that Hasan was not a garden variety disgruntled employee but a traitor who acted in the service of declared enemies of the United States.

In the absence of a media-induced public outcry, the administration has no reason to change its behavior. It has no impetus to acknowledge the truth and act accordingly.

The same is the case with regards to the September 11, 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. Already on the day of the attack, it was apparent that the US mission and the CIA annex had been targeted in a premeditated, preplanned attack. Footage of the attack broadcast in real time showed armed men attacking the consulate with rocket propelled grenades. It was not an act of savage mob violence. Mobs do not carry RPGs or act in a coordinated manner. That is, already at the time of the attack it was apparent that it was not a simultaneous protest in response to an anti-Islamic video on YouTube.

And yet, from the outset, the administration covered up what happened. And the media colluded. Fox News was the only major network that pursued the story. A US ambassador was raped and murdered on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. US personnel were under multi-pronged attack for hours. Their desperate pleas for assistance were denied by the administration. And the US media went along with the fiction that the attack was a spontaneous outburst of rage over a YouTube video no one had ever seen.

The media's collusion was so great that CNN anchor Candy Crowley threw a US Presidential debate when she defended Obama's handling of the attack by inserting false information in the middle of the debate that she was moderating.

The Benghazi story keeps getting more and more outrageous. Last week we learned that some two dozen CIA personnel were on the ground during the attack. The administration has reportedly scattered these operatives throughout the US and forced them to adopt new identities. They have reportedly been prohibited from speaking to the media or Congressional investigators, and subjected to monthly polygraph tests.

US personnel wounded in the attack have been hidden from investigators since the attack took place.

This behavior is scandalous, and unprecedented. Yet, outside of the "usual suspects," in the conservative media and the Republican Party, there is no outrage. The media coverage of this shocking revelation is nearly non-existent, and where it exists, the reportage is laconic, indifferent.

Here too, the administration feels comfortable perpetuating its cover-up. As in the case of Ft. Hood, why come clean if there is no price to pay for lying and covering up?

Speaking of the frequent US failures in understanding events in faraway lands, Winston Churchill famously quipped, "We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities."

But what if the other possibilities are never exhausted? The media's collusion with the Obama administration's false portrayal of jihadist attacks on US targets gives foreign leaders concerned about the US's lackadaisical attitude towards jihadist threats no reason for confidence. In the absence of public pressure, the Obama administration has no reason to change course when its policies fail.

In Israel's case, the first place where the lesson of this state of affairs needs to be internalized is in in regards to Iran's nuclear weapons program. Since taking office, Obama has repeatedly claimed that he will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. But in practice, his actions have enabled Iran to vastly expand its nuclear weapons program. Due to his malfeasance, today Iran has arrived at the cusp of a nuclear arsenal.

More than his words, Obama's actions have made clear that he has no intention whatsoever of conducting military strikes against Iran's nuclear installations to prevent the regime from developing nuclear weapons.

Obama's latest ploy for running the clock down is his embrace of the fiction that Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani is a moderate interested, (and perforce empowered), to cut a nuclear deal with the US that would see Iran voluntarily and credibly end its uranium enrichment activities.

Speaking of Rouhani this week Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu referred to him as "a wolf in sheep's clothing," and warned US and European officials not to be taken in by his act. Netanyahu also noted that Iran has expanded its nuclear activities since Rouhani was elected two months ago.

But he might as well save his breath. Rouhani's act - like that of his supposedly moderate predecessors Mohammad Khatami and Ahkbar Hasemi Rafsanjani - is so thin that it can only work on people who will be taken in by anyone. And indeed, the Obama administration was taken in by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For five years Obama insisted on conducting self-evidently futile negotiations with Iran while Ahmadinejad - the anti-moderate - was serving as president.

The US and Europe are not taken in by Iran because Iran is good at hiding its true intentions. They are taken in by Iran because they want to be taken in. They want to believe that they don't have to attack Iran and overthrow the regime to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. They want to believe they can appease Iran by pretending it isn't a danger just as they believe they can end the threat of terror by jihadists in the US military and Benghazi by pretending they don't exist. They want to believe these threats can be ignored, or appeased away. And just as Obama and his followers are willing to pretend away Hasan's actions to protect "diversity," and pretend away the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi to protect the myth of the Arab Spring, so they are willing to permit Iran to go nuclear to protect the sanctity of appeasement.

The only thing they are willing to put their foot down about is the prospect of an Israeli strike. And they have put their foot down on this issue for the past decade. It isn't that the US is deliberately enabling Iran to acquire a nuclear arsenal. It is just that the US elite in government and the media care more about protecting their faith in diversity and appeasement than they do about preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

They have convinced themselves that the prospect of appeasing Iran will evaporate if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear installations. And so we have seen a parade of senior US defense officials descending on Israel every time it appears that Israel is planning to attack Iran. We have seen a parade of former Israeli military and security chiefs with close ties to the US defense establishment declaring before every available microphone that Israel must not strike Iran and that we can count on Obama to protect us.

But we mustn't believe their assurances or succumb to their pressure. Obama will not change course. He doesn't have to. So long as he maintains faith with the god of appeasement, the US media will protect him. And so long as they protect him, he will pay no price for his failures. So he will repeat them.

Israel cannot countenance a nuclear Iran. So Israel needs to attack Iran's nuclear installations. No more needs to be said.

Let the Headlines Speak
Aug 17th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Iraq seeks help from US amid growing violence
A resurgence of violence and a renewed threat from al-Qaida have recently revived flagging U.S. interest in Iraq, officials said Friday as Baghdad asked for new help to fight extremists less than two years after it forced American troops to withdraw.  

Israel Keeps a Wary Eye on Turmoil in Egypt
Before the violence this week in Cairo, the Israeli government was quietly pleased with the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi and the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which has always been hostile to Israel. But now the mass killings have left Israel in the uncomfortable position of being a spectator to the crisis unfolding in Egypt, though one with a huge stake in the outcome.  

Beirut bomb: Hezbollah's Nasrallah blames Sunni radicals
The leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, Hassan Nasrallah, says radical Sunni Muslim militants bombed a Beirut suburb, killing 22 people. Mr Nasrallah's Shia group supports the government of President Assad in the civil war in neighbouring Syria. "I will go myself to Syria if it is necessary in the battle against the takfiris (Sunni radicals)," Mr Nasrallah said, on his own TV channel.  

Brotherhood claims spritual leader’s son killed in Cairo clashes
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood says a son of its spiritual leader was killed during fierce clashes in downtown Cairo, as hundreds of Islamists supporters of the country’s ousted president remained barricaded inside a mosque. The group’s political arm said on its official website on Saturday that Mohammed Badei’s son Ammar was killed on Friday. That’s when the Muslim Brotherhood took to the streets in a “Day of Rage” ignited by anger at security forces over clearing two sit-in camps earlier in the week, leaving hundreds dead.  

Area 51 'declassified' in U-2 spy plane history
The CIA has officially acknowledged the secret US test site known as Area 51, in a newly unclassified internal history of the U-2 spy plane programme.  

Egypt crisis: Tense stand-off at Cairo mosque
Egyptian security forces have surrounded a mosque in the capital, Cairo, amid a stand-off with barricaded Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Dozens remain, refusing to believe the authorities' pledge of a safe exit. The tense stand-off follows a day of bloody clashes on Friday in which more than 80 people died and 1,000 Brotherhood supporters were arrested.  

Christie gives conditional OK to broader medicinal marijuana use
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a potential 2016 presidential contender, gave conditional approval to legislation that would allow wider use of medicinal marijuana in his state Friday, including making it available to children in edible form.  

1,600 Idaho homes evacuated as wildfire grows
Evacuation orders were expanded to 1,600 homes Friday as a growing Idaho wildfire burned near the Sun Valley resort area, a second home to the rich and famous. "Pack your essential belongings, family and pets, and GO NOW," the Blaine County Sheriff's Office instructed residents as the 100-square-mile Beaver Creek Fire burned near the central Idaho mountain resort and the the towns of Hailey and Ketchum.  

Jordan Follows Saudis, UAE in Backing Egyptian Military
Aug 17th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

In contrast to broad Western condemnation, Jordan Saturday joined Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in backing the Egyptian military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. In its first reaction, Amman said it backed Egypt’s efforts to impose the rule of law and combat terrorism. In a statement carried by the Petra news agency, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said “All Arabs and Muslims should stand firm against attempts to tamper with Egypt’s security and stability.” Friday, Saudi King Abdullah pledged his country’s support to Egypt’s fight on “terrorism,” saying it was the military-backed government’s “legitimate right,” and warned against outside interference.

Cleanup Attempt At Japan’s Fukushima Plant Could Release Radiation
Aug 17th, 2013
Daily NewsBusiness Insider
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

Cleanup Attempt At Japan’s Fukushima Plant Could Release 14,000 Times As Much Radiation As Atomic Bomb

The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is preparing to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel from a damaged reactor building, a dangerous operation that has never been attempted before on this scale.

Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) is already in a losing battle to stop radioactive water overflowing from another part of the facility, and experts question whether it will be able to pull off the removal of all the assemblies successfully.

“They are going to have difficulty in removing a significant number of the rods,” said Arnie Gundersen, a veteran U.S. nuclear engineer and director of Fairewinds Energy Education, who used to build fuel assemblies.

The operation, beginning this November at the plant’s Reactor No. 4, is fraught with danger, including the possibility of a large release of radiation if a fuel assembly breaks, gets stuck or gets too close to an adjacent bundle, said Gundersen and other nuclear experts.

That could lead to a worse disaster than the March 2011 nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant, the world’s most serious since Chernobyl in 1986.

No one knows how bad it can get, but independent consultants Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt said recently in their World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013: “Full release from the Unit-4 spent fuel pool, without any containment or control, could cause by far the most serious radiological disaster to date.”

Tepco has already removed two unused fuel assemblies from the pool in a test operation last year, but these rods are less dangerous than the spent bundles. Extracting spent fuel is a normal part of operations at a nuclear plant, but safely plucking them from a badly damaged reactor is unprecedented.

“To jump to the conclusion that it is going to work just fine for the rest of them is quite a leap of logic,” said Gundersen.

The utility says it recognizes the operation will be difficult but believes it can carry it out safely.

Nonetheless, Tepco inspires little confidence. Sharply criticized for failing to protect the Fukushima plant against natural disasters, its handling of the crisis since then has also been lambasted.

Last week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the government to take a more active role in controlling the overflow of radioactive water being flushed over the melted reactors in Units 1, 2 and 3 at the plant.

Ban Ki - Moon Admits UN Bias Against Israel
Aug 17th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines

Visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon admitted that, “Unfortunately because of the conflict, Israel has been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias – sometimes even discrimination.” He was speaking to Israeli students in Rishon Lezion Friday. Ban added that Israel should be treated as “equal to all other 192 members states.” The UN secretary was optimism about the current peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. He urged Israel to overcome its skepticism and the Palestinians to unify, in order to achieve two states living in peace – three states would be unacceptable.