Monthly Archives: October 2010
Daily Benefactor News – Iran Loads Fuel Rods Into Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant – More Articles
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Iran Loads Fuel Rods Into Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant – CSM
Iran today began loading fuel rods into the core of its first nuclear power plant, saying the reactor in Bushehr would begin operation by January.
If confirmed, it would mark the end of long delays in bringing online the plant at the center of Iran’s nuclear power program. The last time Iran proclaimed it was ready to power up the Bushehr plant, in August, it sparked alarm that it could be used to create fuel for weapons, although the United States recently withdrew its opposition to the 1,000-megawatt plant.
The move comes as the European Union is pressuring Iran to hold talks on its nuclear program next month. The West accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons, which Iran denies, saying the plant is only for civilian power. Nuclear fuel requires enrichment to 3.5 percent, while weapons grade fuel requires enrichment to 90 percent.
The progress at the nuclear reactor was reported by Iran’s state-run Press TV on Tuesday. The nuclear reactor would begin operating after all 163 fuel rods are inserted into the core, and is expected to begin generating electricity by early 2011, according to Press TV. Iran has declared plans to build 20 nuclear power plants in the next 20 years.
The New York Times reports that Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said the country had succeeded in its “peaceful nuclear activities” despite political pressure and sanctions. “The Bushehr power plant is a major project which will help us to take one step toward future alternative energy supplies,” he said. “We will also pursue our peaceful nuclear activities in other areas.”
Since June the UN, the EU, and the US have passed sanctions against Iran. On Friday, reported Reuters, EU Foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton urged Iran to conduct talks on Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna in November with United States, Russia, France, Britain, China, and Germany.
The Bushehr nuclear reactor has a long history of delays. Iran began building the plant in 1975, but its contract with Germany was derailed by the Islamic Revolution four years later. Iran inked a deal with Russia to finish the plant in 1995, but it was repeatedly delayed.
The latest delay was in August, when the fuel rods were delivered to the plant and scheduled to be loaded into the nuclear reactor. Many questioned if the delay came from the Stuxnet computer virus found on computers at the site, as The Christian Science Monitor reported. Iran denied the virus was the reason for the delay.
According to the Times, the US dropped opposition to the plant after Russia “provided assurances” that the spent fuel rods would not be used to create weapons-grade plutonium. The used fuel rods are supposed to be collected by Russian nuclear officials under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, reports Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The Times reports that it is unclear whether the IAEA is currently supervising the fuel loading as agreed.
Under its normal procedures, IAEA inspectors would oversee the final processes of fuel-loading and then seal the core of the reactor to prevent tampering. The reactor is also supposed to be kept under surveillance by closed circuit television cameras that would detect any movement of fuel.
The Bushehr reactor… is separate from Iran’s other operations at which it is seeking to enrich uranium. Iran says it wants the enrichment facilities to provide fuel for future reactor use and a for a medical research reactor. But the West and Israel suspect those programs are designed to produce weapons-grade fuel.
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Tsunami Kills At Least 113 In Indonesia; Scores Missing – Fox News
A powerful, 7.7-magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that pounded villages on remote islands off western Indonesia, killing at least 113 people and leaving scores more are missing.
The fault that ruptured Monday, running the length of the west coast of Sumatra island, also caused the 9.1-magnitude quake that unleashed a monster tsunami around the Indian Ocean in 2004, killing 230,000.
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Harry Reid’s Name Pre-Checked On Boulder City Ballots – KVVU
Some voters in Boulder City said they are concerned about fraud at the electronic ballot box. Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid’s name was already checked.
Ferrara wasn’t alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.
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NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Key Architect Of FCC Government Takeover Of The News – Townhall
As Vivian Schiller explained to the NPR board of directors in 2009, it is public radio’s responsibility to fill the gap in journalism left by dying local television stations and newspapers.
The former New York Times executive is one of a few dozen power players working with the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and a leftist group called Free Press to “reinvent journalism.”
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Volcano Erupts In Indonesia, Forcing Thousands To Flee – CNN
The Mount Merapi volcano in Indonesia erupted on Tuesday, forcing thousands of nearby residents to flee for thier lives, the Antara national news agency reported.
Mount Merapi, which looms on the horizon north of the major city of Yogyakarta, is one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes and lies in one of the world’s most densely populated areas.
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Democrat Alex Sink Caught Cheating At Florida Gubernatorial Debate – Bucks Right
Democrat Florida Gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink was caught reading crib notes from a mobile device during a break in a CNN debate in violation of rules to which she had agreed.
An aide who rushed on set ostensibly to apply makeup to Sink during a break also shoved a mobile phone with a text message under Sink’s nose, and Sink read the message although she knew it was prohibited.
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Congressional Report Casts Doubt On Constitutionality Of Obamacare’s Individual Mandate – CNS
A report from the Congressional Research Service casts doubt on the two main arguments used by the President to defend the individual insurance mandate that is the central component of Obamacare.
The CRS report examines the arguments both for and against the constitutionality of the individual mandate, which requires every American to purchase government-approved health insurance or else pay a fine.
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Chinese Boy Survives Fall From 20-Story Window – Gawker
A 10-year-old Chinese boy on Monday fell from the window of his family’s 20th floor apartment and miraculously survived by crashing through the rear windshield of a car.
Xinhua News reports a pillow in the backseat cushioned his head. The boy, who the news agency calls “Xiao Xiao,” fell from the apartment window onto the roof and rear windshield of a Citroën car in the Guiyang city.
Doug Hagin Radio Show If You are Left You Just Ain’t Right
Back with an episode about Liberal Lunacy!
Daily Benefactor News – WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued In Iraq With Surprising Results – More Articles
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WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued In Iraq With Surprising Results – Danger Room
By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
But WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction.
An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime – the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict – and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.
In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base.
Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.”
Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab… substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”
Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”
In WikiLeaks’ massive trove of nearly 392,000 Iraq war logs are hundreds of references to chemical and biological weapons. Most of those are intelligence reports or initial suspicions of WMD that don’t pan out. In July 2004, for example, U.S. forces come across a Baghdad building with gas masks, gas filters, and containers with “unknown contents” inside. Later investigation revealed those contents to be vitamins.
But even late in the war, WMDs were still being unearthed. In the summer of 2008, according to one WikiLeaked report, American troops found at least 10 rounds that tested positive for chemical agents. “These rounds were most likely left over from the [Saddam]-era regime. Based on location, these rounds may be an AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] cache. However, the rounds were all total disrepair and did not appear to have been moved for a long time.”
A small group – mostly of the political right – has long maintained that there was more evidence of a major and modern WMD program than the American people were led to believe. A few Congressmen and Senators gravitated to the idea, but it was largely dismissed as conspiratorial hooey.
The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war.
But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that “neuroparalytic” chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iran.
That same month, then “chemical weapons specialists” were apprehended in Balad. These “foreigners” were there specifically “to support the chemical weapons operations.” The following month, an intelligence report refers to a “chemical weapons expert” that “provided assistance with the gas weapons.” What happened to that specialist, the WikiLeaked document doesn’t say.
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Caprio’s Reaction To Snub? President Can ‘Shove It’ – Providence Journal
Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate Frank Caprio, in a radio interview Monday morning, reacted angrily to President Obama’s decision not to endorse him during a visit to the Ocean State Monday.
“He can take his endorsement and really shove it as far as I’m concerned,” Caprio said. He went on to criticize Mr. Obama for not visiting Rhode Island during this spring’s record floods.
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Debt Has Increased $5 Trillion Since Speaker Pelosi Vowed, ‘No New Deficit Spending’ – CNS
When Rep. Nancy Pelosi gave her inaugural address as speaker of the House, she vowed there would be “no new deficit spending.” Since that day, the national debt has increased by $5 trillion.
“After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” Pelosi said in her speech from the speaker’s podium.
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Forces Free Seized German Cargo Ship Off Africa – MSNBC
Rescue forces using a ship, a plane and a helicopter freed a German cargo vessel being held by Somali pirates off eastern Africa on Monday, but the hijackers got away, officials said.
None of the 16 crew members aboard the Beluga Fortune, which was seized by Somali pirates about 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) east of Mombasa, Kenya, on Sunday morning, was harmed in the ordeal.
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The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to hire an environmental protection specialist who will help the agency accomplish its “environmental justice goals.”
The job, in New York City, pays up to $84,146 a year, and according to the job listing on the government Web site, “You do not need a degree to qualify for this position.”
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Mexican Border Town House Party Turns Into Gang Massacre – The Blaze
Mexican prosecutors say at least 12 youths aged 14 to 20 have been shot dead at a party in Ciudad Juarez.
Chihuahua state prosecutors spokesman Fidel Banuelos says gunmen in three cars drove up to a house party in the border city across from El Paso, Texas, around 11 p.m. Friday and began shooting. At least 18 people were wounded, the youngest a 9-year-old child.
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A cyclone that struck Myanmar’s western coast late last week killed at least 27 people, damaging thousands of buildings and displacing tens of thousands of people, state television reported Monday.
Cyclone Giri arrived from the Bay of Bengal on Friday evening with winds of up to 110 mph (180 kph), lashing several coastal areas of western Rakhine state that are home to poor families who live mostly in bamboo huts.
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Time For Heads To Roll Over New Black Panther Dismissal – Pajamas Media
Today the Washington Post graces its front page with a long overdue expose on the dismissal of the New Black Panther case. The story is extremely bad news for the Eric Holder Justice Department.
Through multiple deep sourcing within the Voting Section and Civil Rights Division, it confirms everything that Christopher Coates and I testified about before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
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Taiwanese Woman To Marry Herself – MSNBC
Chen Wei-yih has posed for a set of photos in a flowing white dress, enlisted a wedding planner and rented a banquet hall for a marriage celebration. But there is no groom.
Chen will marry herself. Uninspired by the men she’s met but facing social pressure to get married, the 30-year-old Taipei office worker will hold the reception next month in honor of just one person.
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Man Collects 26 Years Of Belly Button Fluff – Orange News
A librarian has won a place in the Guinness Book of World Records after collecting fluff from his belly button every day for 26 years.
Graham Barker has amassed 22.1 grams of lint since embarking upon his unusual hobby, reports the Daily Telegraph. “One evening, when a little under-occupied, I noticed the lint in my navel and started wondering about it,” he said.
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Escaped Snakes Take Over Town – Godlike Productions
Terrified householders had to abandon an entire town after 3,000 illegally bred king cobra eggs hatched out and gave their owner the slip.
The eggs – bred to supply the traditional health industry – had been stored in a cage in a house in Xianling, south west China. But the newly hatched snakes escaped through a hole in their enclosure and took over the entire town.
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Photos Show Domino’s Employees Washing Oven Parts At Car Wash – WSOC
Two Domino’s employees were spotted washing parts of a pizza oven at a Gastonia car wash on Tuesday. The sight outraged a Channel 9 viewer.
“My wife and I were absolutely disgusted,” said the viewer, who sent Channel 9 photos he snapped at the car wash on South New Hope Road. “There could be road kill or insects (or) antifreeze on that ground.” “It’s not right,” Pamela White said.
Anyone who hates Mike Huckabee as much as I do deserves a link!
Good old Mike “I will say any damn thing to get elected” Hokeybee, is, in my view, the phoniest Republican going today. Here is a good take on him
Second, Mike Huckabee is a big spending, bleeding heart, philosopher-king-like Obama wannabe
NAILED IT!
Nancy Pelosi in 2007: NO NEW DEFCIT SPENDING!
Gateway Pundit has the video of Speaker Face Lift having her read my lips Botox receptacles moment. And, looks at how “no new deficit spending” has tripled our national deficit! TRIPLED! In ONE FREAKING YEAR!
The Obama-Pelosi-Reid Regime tripled the national deficit in one year.
My blogging Role Model defends Conservative women
Give them Hell Michelle. And I missed wishing Michelle a happy birthday last week, so, here is your belated Happy Birthday Michelle. Cannot believe she is 40. Wow! She still looks 25 or so.
My blogging Role Model defends Conservative women, posted with vodpod
And since Michelle shares a birthday with the great Tom Petty, here is a song for her.
Michelle Obama and fashion felonies
Yes, yes, I agree, how the First Lady dresses IS NOT important. Yes, I agree, it has nothing to do with her abilities. Yes, I know all of that! But damn it is still funny. I mean come on, who wears that outside? Yes, OK a crazed homeless person might. But besides a crazed homeless person who wear this? OK, a person who lost a bet might, and a crazed homeless person who lost a bet might too, but other wise…………
Just because we Right Wing types are raaaaacist!
Yep, the Left INSISTS on insisting that all Conservatives are RAAAAACISTS! Yet, they never explain how a bunch of “racists” would love to see this man in higher office. Here is a hint Libs. It is NOT his color, it is his IDEALS!
A poll you ought to take
The biggest Useful Idiot of October? Matt has some fine choices, go take a look. And vote!
Cassy Fiano: You ignorant Fenminist Sluts!
By GatorDoug
I have said it before, I say it again, no one knocks Feminuts, like Cassy!
Sluthood wasn’t always considered a virtue. Most normal, rational people look at sleeping around as something sad and wrong. It’s not healthy, physically or mentally, it can be damaging to a young girl’s reputation, and it can also be incredibly dangerous. Women that sleep around oftentimes end up feeling used and regret their choices when they get older and decide to settle down. Other women end up contracting STDs, which may or may not be treatable. For these reasons and more, being a slut is understandably looked down upon — it can be genuinely harmful. Today’s pseudo-feminists, however, have turned that common sense logic on its head.
Sluthood is now, unbelievably, looked at in their eyes as healthy and empowering. Sleeping with random men every night is not sleeping around, it’s “embracing your sexuality.” This attitude has trickled down into our everyday culture, and it’s had an effect on young girls. Almost two-thirds of teenagers who do have sex end up wishing they hadn’t. Teens who have sex early are more likely to be depressed or suicidal. And while femisogynists act as if birth control and condoms makes sex absolutely risk-free, the truth is not quite as clear. The emotional consequences are clear; physically, the truth is simply that condoms are not foolproof. Consider that 1 in 4 teenage girls now have an STD. And pregnancy can only reliably be prevented through abstinence, something teenage girls need to know, considering that teenage mothers are significantly more likely to live in poverty and rely on welfare.
Dear Rep. Jim Moran, Fuck you!
SO, this asshat thinks that 24 years of service is NOT “public service”?
FOX News reported:“What [Republicans] do is find candidates, usually stealth candidates, that haven’t been in office, haven’t served or performed in any kind of public service,” Moran said. “My opponent is typical, frankly.”
The trouble is, Murray is a retired Army colonel with 24 years of service–including combat in Iraq. The idea that such an extensive military record doesn’t qualify as “public service” has left a sour taste in Murray’s mouth.
Rep. Jim Moran’s opponent is Republican Patrick Murray; a 24 year military veteran with combat service in Iraq. Murray has responded on his campaign blog.
The wisdom of Madison
Via Big Government comes these quotes from the FATHER of our Constitution! Read it all! Excellent piece by Robert Allen Bonelli
James Madison, referring to a bill to subsidize cod fishermen introduced to the First Congress said,
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands;they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.”
Prior to that, in Federalist 41, Madison wrote,
Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.”
Madison’s incredible forethought underscores exactly what all Americans are facing today as we move into the November 2nd Election.
With all the important national issues of the jobless recovery, the obvious need and desire to repeal Obamacare, the runaway National Debt and all the financially unsustainable government spending, the one overriding issue that is not being clearly debated is the choice between central authority control of all aspects of our lives and the restoration of individual liberty as our Founders intended. Make no mistake about it, and James Madison knew this, the shortest distance in a free society is the distance between being citizens living free and being subjects whose lives are controlled by government.
From before the ratification of the Constitution, as is evidenced by the necessity of the Federalist Papers arguing for its passage, to the early beginnings of the First Congress there were those who sought to establish themselves as rulers rather than representatives of the people. These individuals wanted the government to be the basis for their rule and sought more power for such government than originally granted to it by the Constitution.
As I have said before, the Founders had something our current “leaders” do not. Wisdom!
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
