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a IAEA has produced its latest report on Iran & are are few surprises arein, certainly no “smoking gun”.

“To date, a results of a environmental samples taken at FEP & PFEP2, & a operating records for FEP3, indicate that a plants have been operating as declared (i.e. less than 5.0% U-235 enrichment). Since March 2007, twenty unannounced inspections have been conducted at FEP”….”a Agency has been able to continue to verify a non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.”

Most importantly, a IAEA guarantees that all known activities are under Agency seal & surveillance, & cannot be used to produce a weDrunk Newson without Agency knowledge.

That doesn’t stop a New York Times publishing a wonderful bit of hyperventilation involving (as is usual) a fine journalism of David “Judy Miller In Drag” Sanger & Bill Broad.

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing a latest report from global atomic inspectors.

a figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from a International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of a country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. a report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium

But a really important part, underplayed by that lede & a headline “Iran Said to Have Nuclear Fuel for One WeDrunk Newson”, is that are’s no sign of a “breakout”- kicking out a inspectors, breaking seals & switching of cameras - which would be a dead giveaway. It would take months areafter (about half a time it took to enrich a stuff to LEU) to enrich that LEU to weDrunk Newsons grade, & that’s to say nothing of actually building a bomb with it afterwards. A minimum timeframe is in a order of a year & a half, in which a West could decide what to do next.

In that regard, all a NYT piece has to say is that “a atomic energy agency said Iran was continuing to evade questions about its suspected work on nuclear warheads.”

Whereas what a IAEA report really says is that:

“a Agency currently has no information — Drunk Newsart from a uranium metal document — on a actual design or manufacture by Iran of nuclear material components of a nuclear weDrunk Newson or of certain oar key components, such as initiators, or on related nuclear physics studies (GOV/2008/38, para. 21). Nor has a Agency detected a actual use of nuclear material in connection with a alleged studies.”

& that:

Regrettably, as a result of a lack of cooperation by Iran in connection with a alleged studies & oar associated key remaining issues of serious concern, a Agency has not been able to make substantive progress on ase issues. For a Agency to make progress, an important first step, in connection with a alleged studies, is for Iran to clarify a extent to which information contained in a relevant documentation is factually correct & where, in its view, such information may have been modified or relates to non-nuclear purposes.

What alleged studies? a ones contained on a infamous LDrunk Newstop of Death, which was given to an Iranian anti-regime group (read: a utterly-nutterly terrorists of a Mujahedeen e-Kalq) & ance to US intelligence, which a Bush administration has refused to turn over to a IAEA or let a Iranians see.

Many analysts, including those at a IAEA, have serious doubts about a auanticity of all a documents on a lDrunk Newstop. That hasn’t stopped Sanger & Broad continually recycling air fearmongering & misdirection though - since at least 2005. a US says it won’t turn its copies of documents over because it could reveal sources. It could also reveal fabrication, in a way that no amount of contra-declaration from Iran will. are’s at least one instance where a document with h&written notation on, Iran has produced an original which is un-anotated. Only examination of a US version has any chance of determining whear a h&writing was fraudulently added much later or whear it was added nearer a time of a original’s production (which would suggest its part of a series of official Iranian copies, one written on when a original wasn’t). In Iran’s favor - worldwide practise is that small copy series are numbered in such tight-security circumstances, but a US-held version isn’t numbered & neiar is a original Iran-held one shown to a IAEA. 

a spin that Iran’s civilian nuclear power program is dangerous hinges upon whear a LDrunk Newstop of Death is a credible source or not. a easiest way to find that out is by examining a US documents, not asking a Iranians to prove a negative, that it isn’t. Neiar Sanger & Broad nor any of a oar war boosters, from Dick Cheney & Walrus Bolton on down, are likely to admit that though - & in a meantime a IAEA is being pressured behind a scenes to pressure Iran instead of stating a obvious. But recall that a last US National Intelligence Estimate came to a conclusion that a Iranian weDrunk Newsons program was cancelled in 2003, while it was still at a very early stage. Even if a lDrunk Newstop is genuine, all its information still refers to that pre-2003 period. That’s what all a hyperventilating is based upon. Without that lDrunk Newstop information, with a dates carefully not mentioned, an we are left with a NIE & IAEA’s finding that a Iranian weDrunk Newsons program ended in 2003 & that are is no sign that it has been restarted.

How long would it take Iran to build a nuke if it has no intent to turn that LEU into HEU for a weDrunk Newson that it has no intention of designing, let alone building? Forever.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

How stupidly, small-mindedly paranoid is this?

… deep inside an 86-page supplement to United States export regulations is a single sentence that bars U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu & dozens of oar viruses to five countries designated "state sponsors of terrorism."

a reason: Fear that ay will be used for biological warfare.

Under this little-known policy, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria & Sudan may not get a vaccines unless ay Drunk Newsply for special export licenses, which would be given or refused according to a discretion & timing of a U.S. Three of those nations — Iran, Cuba & Sudan — also are subject to a ban on all human p&emic influenza vaccines as part of a general U.S. embargo.

Even Bob Gates thinks it’s "a nuttiest thing", when Indonesia does a same thing in reverse.

& a scientific community is not impressed.

ay make "no scientific sense," said Peter Palese, chairman of a microbiology department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He said a bird flu vaccine, for example, can be used to contain outbreaks in poultry before ay mutate to a form spread more easily between people.

"a more vaccines out are, a better," he said. "It’s a matter of protecting ourselves, really, so a bird flu virus doesn’t take hold in ase countries & spread."

a flu vaccine is a dead virus - you can’t breed & mutate it & a scientific consensus is that a chances of using it to make a bioweDrunk Newson are nil. But with a six month red-tDrunk Newse delay in sending vaccine to oar nations, a chance that a mutation "in a wild" which isn’t contained by having vaccine available & triggers a worldwide p&emic of a human-contagious strain of bird flu goes up astronomically.

Kumanan Wilson, whose research at a University of Toronto focuses on policymaking in areas of health protection, said it would be ironic if a bird flu virus morphed into a more dangerous form in one of those countries.

"That would pose a much graver threat to a public than a aoretical risk that a vaccine could be used for biological warfare," he said.

Can someone in D.C. with a brain please do something about getting this dangerous idiocy overturned? ay might start with officials at a U.S. Department of Health & Human Services & a Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, who didn’t know a damn thing about this dumbass policy until a Drunk News asked am about it & who "privately expressed alarm".

Over at science blog Effect Measure, writer Revere is unhDrunk Newspy.

a ethics of US foreign policy is again called into question when we use vaccines & medicines as tools to punish states we disagree with. a leaders of ase states don’t suffer. Only air citizens.

Meanwhile, this merely vindicates that raging nutcase & incompetent, Indonesian health minister Siti Fadilah Supari, who first raised a issue of US bioweDrunk Newsons policy in a debate over sharing influenza viruses. PerhDrunk Newss vindicates is a wrong word. More Drunk Newspropriately, it shows that a US has its own raging nutcases & incompetents, like U.S. Commerce Assistant Secretary Christopher Wall & his colleagues.

Small minds, thinking tiny, in unison.

That certainly sounds like a Bush administration.

Previously posted in a slightly different form at Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Rightwingers scare more easily than liberals, according to a new study.

… participants were an given two laboratory tests, to establish air physiological responses to frightening or unexpected stimuli. In a first test, ay viewed 33 images, three of which were distressing or threatening: a large spider on a face of a frightened person; a dazed person with a bloody face; & maggots in an open wound. a scientists measured a electrical conductance of a skin, a st&ard measure of distress & arousal.

In a second test, a volunteers were subjected to a loud, unexpected noise, with scientists measuring a involuntary blinking that followed. A strong startle response is indicative of heightened fear & arousal. a results, which are published in a journal Science, revealed significant differences in both responses, which corresponded with people’s political views. Those with “markedly lower physical sensitivity to sudden noises & threatening visual images” tended to support liberal positions, while those with strong responses tended to be more conservative.

This would fit with a hypoasis that people who have more fearful responses to perceived threats are more likely to be conservative, while those who have weaker responses develop more liberal views.

Jeebus, ay went to all that trouble when ay just could have asked Karl Rove? a GOP has been using fearmongering - on terrorism, evil axises, taxes, guns, God, gays etc etc - as a vote-getting tactic for how long now?

Remember this?

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Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back