Israeli military maps Hezbollah bunkers - The Washington Post

Israeli military maps Hezbollah bunkers - The Washington Post

Israel Defense Force video exposes Iranian arms shipment to Hamas disguised as humanitarian aid | Mark Tapscott | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner

Israel Defense Force video exposes Iranian arms shipment to Hamas disguised as humanitarian aid | Mark Tapscott | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner

Sky News: Take Obama's Peace Prize

Sky News: Take Obama's Peace Prize:

Bolivian President Evo Morales has called for US President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize to be revoked following his decision to attack Libya.

'Two years ago we heard that President Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, but is he defending peace in the world now, or isn't he instead fomenting violence?' Morales told reporters, days after Obama ordered the bombing of Libya military targets as part of an UN-approved effort to protect civilians.

'How is it possible to give the Nobel Peace Prize to someone who has launched an invasion, a bombing? It's a violation, an assault, an aggression,' said Morales, one of Latin America's most left-leaning leaders and a vocal critic of the United States.

'Obama is the leader of group of thugs who led an assault and an invasion - and that has nothing to do with defending human rights,' he declared.

The Libyan Kinetic Military Action � Commentary Magazine

The Libyan Kinetic Military Action � Commentary Magazine:

Q But it’s not going to war, then?

MR. RHODES: "Well, again, I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone. Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end."

Sleeping Controller Possibility Probed After U.S. Landings - Bloomberg

Sleeping Controller Possibility Probed After U.S. Landings - Bloomberg: U.S. investigators are examining whether two airline flights landed at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport today without tower guidance because the lone controller on duty was asleep.Pilots of the American plane aborted a first landing attempt when no one in the tower responded to calls and then landed without assistance, Knudson said. The United pilots landed the first time, and crews from both planes treated the airport the same as one that doesn’t ordinarily have controllers in early morning hours, he said.

Power Line - His Royal Highness Will Be Pleased to Welcome Your Support!

 

Questions about our military action in Libya, and in particular why President Obama did not seek Congressional support for it, are reverberating around the capital. Congressmen and Senators across the political spectrum are complaining about the administration's handling of the crisis. In particular, the fact that Obama sought the approval of the United Nations, but not Congress, has made many in the latter institution unhappy.

Power Line - His Royal Highness Will Be Pleased to Welcome Your Support!

Sarah Palin Meets With Prime Minister Netanyahu (Video) | The Gateway Pundit

 

In this handout image provided by the Israeli Government Press Office, Governor Sarah Palin and her husband Todd Palin meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu March 21, 2011 in Jerusalem, Israel.

Sarah Palin Meets With Prime Minister Netanyahu (Video) | The Gateway Pundit

Report: U.S. considering strategic outreach to Hezbollah - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Report: U.S. considering strategic outreach to Hezbollah - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News: "The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is considering reaching out to the political elements in Hezbollah, the Washington Post reported on Friday, stressing that the at this stage it was an intelligence effort, not a policymaking one."

Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Calls for Airstrikes on Israel « Commentary Magazine

 

After assuring both Libyans and Turks that Turkey was not involved in airstrikes on Libya, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, of Turkey, said, “We wish that the United Nations had made such resolutions and countries had taken action in the face of incidents in Gaza, Palestine and the other regions.” While Namik Tan, Turkey’s ambassador to the United States, tries to assure Jewish groups that his government really isn’t anti-Semitic and anti-Israel, someone might want to ask him why his boss is calling for airstrikes on the Jewish state?

And perhaps Senators Levin and McCain on the Senate Armed Service Committee might finally want to ask some tough questions about why the United States plans to give Turkey the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter replete with its stealth technology?

Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Calls for Airstrikes on Israel « Commentary Magazine

YouTube - Marketplace, Tel Aviv

YouTube - Marketplace, Tel Aviv

RealClearScience - Putting Chernobyl in Perspective

RealClearScience - Putting Chernobyl in Perspective

In 2006, 20 years after the accident, a group of eight UN agencies, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization, assessed the damage in a study incorporating the work of hundreds of scientists and health experts from around the world.

It turns out that two decades after the fact, the death toll had not reached the tens of thousands that were predicted. In fact, fewer than 50 deaths could be directly attributable to radiation from the disaster, almost all of them among rescue workers who had been exposed to massive amounts of radiation on the disaster site at the time of the fire and its immediate aftermath. In addition, nine children in the area died of thyroid cancer that is thought to have been caused by radioactive contamination, but even among the nearby population, there was neither evidence of decreased fertility nor of congenital malformations that could be attributed to radiation exposure.

Any loss of life, particularly among children, is tragic. But clearly the mass causalities that were almost universally predicted – not just by the newshounds, but by the many “experts” who commented at the time – have not materialized. “By and large,” the report concludes, “we have not found profound negative health impacts to the rest of the population in surrounding areas, nor have we found widespread contamination that would continue to pose a substantial threat to human health…”

It is worth putting even the UN’s low casualty figures in perspective. As the report notes, over 1,000 onsite reactor staff and emergency workers received heavy exposure to high levels of radiation on the first day of the accident, and some 200,000 workers were exposed in recovery operations from 1986-1987. But only 50 had died of cancer 20 years later.

RealClearScience - Putting Chernobyl in Perspective

RealClearScience - Putting Chernobyl in Perspective: "With the world gripped by fear that the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants may turn into “another Chernobyl,” perhaps it’s worth examining just how bad Chernobyl actually was.

There’s no doubt that the scale of the accident was unequalled, either before, or so far in Japan, since. The Soviet-style nuclear reactor had been built without a containment structure, and when the graphite moderator components caught fire, they spewed more than 400 times more radioactivity into the environment than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima."

Supersonic Cruise Missiles Coming to the Med � Theoptimisticconservative's Blog

Supersonic Cruise Missiles Coming to the Med � Theoptimisticconservative's Blog:

That’s certainly possible – in fact, likely – although at this point not independently confirmed. What is confirmed, however, is that Russia reasserted last week her determination to provide the P-800 Yakhont (SS-N-26) anti-ship cruise missile to Syria. Assuming the missile does come to Syria, it will mark the first deployment of any missile of this kind in a Mediterranean nation.

The Yakhont is a supersonic (up to 2.5 Mach) cruise missile, a variety in which Russia has paced the world. None of the NATO navies deploys a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM). Russia and China have supersonic ASCMs in their active forces; Iran has the older SS-N-22 Sunburn, acquired in the last decade. (The Iranian frigate in the Med is not equipped with the Sunburn, however.) India tested a supersonic BrahMos missile, developed jointly with Russia, in March 2010.

Asia has thus seen much more active and urgent development of supersonic cruise missile technology than Europe or North America. The Yakhont is also a relatively long-range ASCM, capable of reaching targets up to 185 statute miles (300km) away using a high-altitude approach. With the stealthier low-altitude, sea-skimming approach, the Yakhont’s range is around 75 miles, or 120km. (In seafaring terms, the ranges are between 60 and 180 nautical miles.) In all cases, the Yakhont can be launched well beyond line of sight.

Power Line - The car from Atlas Shrugged motors

Power Line - The car from Atlas Shrugged motors:

Michaels briefly recaps the well-known consumer fraud in which GM has touted the Volt as an all-electric mass production vehicle on the supposed basis of which its sales receive a $7,500 taxpayer subsidy, which still renders it overpriced and unmarketable. Michaels notest that "sales are anemic: 326 in December, 321 in January, and 281 in February." There seems to be a trend here.

Michaels adds that GM has announced a production run of 100,000 in the first two years and asks what appears to be a rhetorical question: "Who is going to buy all these cars?"

But wait! Keep hope alive! There is a positive answer to the question. Jeffrey Immelt's GE will buy a boatload of those uneconomic GM cars. Here the case study opens onto the inevitable politcal angle:

Recently, President Obama selected General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to chair his Economic Advisory Board. GE is awash in windmills waiting to be subsidized so they can provide unreliable, expensive power.

Consequently, and soon after his appointment, Immelt announced that GE will buy 50,000 Volts in the next two years, or half the total produced. Assuming the corporation qualifies for the same tax credit, we (you and me) just shelled out $375,000,000 to a company to buy cars that no one else wants so that GM will not tank and produce even more cars that no one wants. And this guy is the chair of Obama's Economic Advisory Board?

Israel vs. the “Axis of Terror” | FrontPage Magazine

 

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich speculated that this incident was tied to last month’s passage of two Iranian warships through the Suez Canal for the first time since the Iranian Revolution of 1979.  The Victoria, which set sail from the Syrian port of Lattakai and then stopped in Mersin, Turkey, was bound for Alexandria, Egypt.  From there the weapons were to be transported to Gaza by land. The Jerusalem Post notes that Lattakai was the same port visited last month by the two Iranian warships.  Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel had been tracking the ship for days, and that the goal of this smuggling attempt “was to harm Israel’s security” and that his country would continue to pursue any challenge to that security “determinedly, and everywhere, to defend the country.”

Israel vs. the “Axis of Terror” | FrontPage Magazine

Anti-terror measures make toilets the most dangerous place on planes, unions say | Mail Online

 

New anti-terrorist measures have made toilets the most dangerous place on passenger planes, trade unions warned today.

From next week Air France will remove all oxygen cannisters from WCs on all A320 aircraft and three Airbus A340s because of fears that they can be turned into bombs.

Anti-terror measures make toilets the most dangerous place on planes, unions say | Mail Online

Nuclear Disaster in Japan - Reason Magazine

Could it happen here? Although earthquakes can and do occur all over the United States, the West Coast and Alaska are the most seismically active regions. The facilities whose physical locations most closely resemble that of the Fukushima plants are two nuclear generating plants built on the coast of California, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant and the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The two reactors at the Diablo Canyon began operation in the mid-1980s and are built to withstand 7.5-magnitude earthquakes on the Richter scale. The reactors are located 85 feet above the coast. A recent analysis downgraded the most likely earthquake in the area to about half that. 

The two reactors at San Onofre began operations in 1968 and are built to withstand a magnitude 7.0 earthquake. Seismic analysis indicates that the largest likely earthquake near that facility would register a 6.5 magnitude. The San Onofre reactors are enclosed by a 30-foot high tsunami wall. It should be noted that nearby Newport Beach experienced a 12-meter tsunami surge (39 feet) in 1934. The Sendai surge may have been about 33 feet in height.

Nuclear Disaster in Japan - Reason Magazine

U.S.-trained forces arrested in brutal jihad murder of Jewish family in Israel - Jihad Watch

JERUSALEM – Two members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' official security forces were arrested in conjunction with this past weekend's bloody massacre in which five family members were brutally stabbed to death inside their home in the Jewish village of Itamar, WND has learned.

U.S.-trained forces arrested in brutal jihad murder of Jewish family in Israel - Jihad Watch

Israel Seizes Syrian Ship Bringing Iranian Weapons To Gaza — Will Nukes Be Next? | NewsReal Blog

 

Early Tuesday morning (Israel Time), IDF fighters boarded the cargo ship Victoria at sea, then 200 miles out from Israel. The Victoria is a German-owned vessel, operated by a French company, and flying the Liberian flag. The commando unit executing this raid was Shayetet 13. This is the commando unit that was involved in the Mavi Marmara raid last year. That was the terrorist-carrying ship which created an international incident when it tried to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza. (AKA the Guerilla Floatilla).

Israel Seizes Syrian Ship Bringing Iranian Weapons To Gaza — Will Nukes Be Next? | NewsReal Blog

An Austrian MP Tells the Turkish Ambassador to Take a Hike | NewsReal Blog

 

Mr. Federal Minister, I want to make a request—and knowing that this debate will be followed closely at the Turkish Embassy, I will give it in the exact wording:

The federal minister for European and International Affairs is requested to declare the Turkish ambassador Kadri Ecvet Tezcan, ‘persona non grata’ and demand his immediate dismissal.  Gentlemen of the Turkish embassy, I am not gonna be as polite as my colleague van der Bellen, falling on my knees speaking of your “excellency.”  No, ‘gentlemen’ of the Turkish embassy—there are no ladies there… ‘Gentlemen’ of the Turkish embassy, members of Parliament, let me begin with a murder case.

An Austrian MP Tells the Turkish Ambassador to Take a Hike | NewsReal Blog

Fukushima Nuclear Accident – a simple and accurate explanation � BraveNewClimate

Fukushima Nuclear Accident – a simple and accurate explanation � BraveNewClimate: "I am writing this text (Mar 12) to give you some peace of mind regarding some of the troubles in Japan, that is the safety of Japan’s nuclear reactors. Up front, the situation is serious, but under control. And this text is long! But you will know more about nuclear power plants after reading it than all journalists on this planet put together."

I have been reading every news release on the incident since the earthquake. There has not been one single (!) report that was accurate and free of errors (and part of that problem is also a weakness in the Japanese crisis communication). By “not free of errors” I do not refer to tendentious anti-nuclear journalism – that is quite normal these days. By “not free of errors” I mean blatant errors regarding physics and natural law, as well as gross misinterpretation of facts, due to an obvious lack of fundamental and basic understanding of the way nuclear reactors are build and operated. I have read a 3 page report on CNN where every single paragraph contained an error.

Earth's day length shortened by Japan earthquake - CBS News

Earth's day length shortened by Japan earthquake - CBS News: "(Space.com)

The massive earthquake that struck northeast Japan Friday (March 11) has shortened the length Earth's day by a fraction and shifted how the planet's mass is distributed.

A new analysis of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan has found that the intense temblor has accelerated Earth's spin, shortening the length of the 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds, according to geophysicist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif."

Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet; shifted Earth's axis - CNN.com

Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet; shifted Earth's axis - CNN.com

The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.

"At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters).

Israel’s Defense Minister Must Go. Now. � Commentary Magazine

Israel’s Defense Minister Must Go. Now. � Commentary Magazine: "Yesterday Alana wrote that Israel’s government urgently needs to improve its public relations. That’s just become a lot more urgent, and the first step is obvious: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should fire his defense minister immediately.

In an interview in today’s Wall Street Journal, Ehud Barak announced that Israel might ask Washington for another $20 billion in aid due to the unrest now sweeping the region. As an Israeli, I’m cringing in shame."

Nyiragongo Crater: Journey to the Center of the World - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Nyiragongo Crater: Journey to the Center of the World - The Big Picture - Boston.com In June 2010, a team of scientists and intrepid explorers stepped onto the shore of the lava lake boiling in the depths of Nyiragongo Crater, in the heart of the Great Lakes region of Africa. The team had dreamed of this: walking on the shores of the world's largest lava lake. Members of the team had been dazzled since childhood by the images of the 1960 documentary "The Devil's Blast" by Haroun Tazieff, who was the first to reveal to the public the glowing red breakers crashing at the bottom of Nyiragongo crater. Photographer Olivier Grunewald was within a meter of the lake itself, giving us a unique glimpse of it's molten matter.

Air Force's X-37B Space Plane Launching on Secret Mission | Space Weapons & Military Space | X-37B Space Plane, Robotic Spaceships & Space Technology | Space.com

Air Force's X-37B Space Plane Launching on Secret Mission | Space Weapons & Military Space | X-37B Space Plane, Robotic Spaceships & Space Technology | Space.com: "The U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane is poised to launch on its second mission Friday (March 4), though what exactly it will be doing once it leaves the ground remains a mystery.

The robotic X-37B mini-shuttle is slated to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday atop an Atlas 5 rocket, weather permitting. Its launch window opens at 3:39 p.m. EST (2039 GMT), according to the launch provider United Launch Alliance, which is overseeing the flight."

Portraits of the Peace Process in Its 92nd Year � Commentary Magazine

Portraits of the Peace Process in Its 92nd Year � Commentary Magazine: "We are now in the 92nd year of a peace process in which the Palestinians are the first people in history to be offered a state seven times, reject it seven times, and set preconditions for discussing an eighth offer."

Israeli Trophy Technology May Prove of Great Value to U.S. � Commentary Magazine

Israeli Trophy Technology May Prove of Great Value to U.S. � Commentary Magazine: "It’s not getting a lot of notice in the U.S., but it’s big news in Israel: an Israeli Merkava tank patrolling near the Gaza Strip yesterday was targeted by a Palestinian rocket — but the rocket was deflected by the tank’s active-protection system, known as Trophy. The Trophy system, manufactured by Israel’s Rafael Defense Systems, uses radar to detect a missile launch and automatically fires small projectiles to stop the incoming rocket."