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MEDICAL ALERT!!!
A recent study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.
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What if we needed to push the button and it did not work? (See 1 below.)
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Why Obama and Kerry are always shocked when adversaries do not go along with their importuning. (See 2 below.)
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Some food for thought. (See 3 below.)
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Israel continues to make major strides in developing amazing weapon systems. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)
| Report: US clueless regarding unauthorized changes in design drawings for nuclear weapons |
CLASSIFIED NUCLEAR WEAPON DRAWINGS MISSING AT LABS SECRECY NEWS from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2014, Issue No. 27 April 3, 2014 Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists Classified design drawings used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons have not been properly and reliably maintained at nuclear weapons labs managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Department of Energy Inspector General said in a report last week. http://energy.gov/ig/downloads/audit-report-doeig-0902 "NNSA sites could not always locate as-built product definitions or associated drawings for nuclear weapons and components in official records repositories." At the Pantex Plant, "officials were concerned and surprised at the difficulty in finding as-built product definitions for the nuclear weapons," the DoE IG report said. http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/ig-config.pdf At Los Alamos, the information system "allowed changes to classified nuclear weapons drawings without using an approved change notice. This practice could permit unauthorized changes to weapons drawings." Questioned about undocumented changes to a particular weapon drawing, "officials were unable to explain why changes were made, but told us that they 'assumed' the changes were needed." "Over the decades of nuclear weapons development, neither NNSA nor its sites treated the maintenance of original nuclear weapons... information as a priority," wrote DoE Inspector General Gregory Friedman. "Not having complete and accurate [weapon production] information can have significant effects on surveillance and safety, and can lead to time-consuming and expensive recovery efforts." See National Nuclear Security Administration Nuclear Weapons Systems Configuration Management, Audit Report DOE/IG-0902, March 26, 2014. "NNSA is on a trajectory towards crisis," said Norman Augustine, the venerable engineer and aerospace executive who serves as co-chair of the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise. http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/cap-interim.pdf "The 'NNSA experiment' involving creation of a semi-autonomous organization [within the Department of Energy] has failed," he said. NNSA "has lost credibility and the trust of the national leadership and customers in DOD that it can deliver needed weapons and critical nuclear facilities on schedule and on budget," Mr. Augustine said. He spoke at a March 26 briefing for the House Armed Services Committee. http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/hearings-display?ContentRecord_id=0093295E-8F29-41E0-9BD1-4ED8A982178A&ContentType_id=14F995B9-DFA5-407A-9D35-56CC7152A7ED&Group_id=64562e79-731a-4ac6-aab0-7bd8d1b7e890 The problems are not entirely attributable to NNSA itself, he said, but are due in part to an eroding consensus concerning the role of nuclear weapons in national security policy. "At the root of the challenges are complacency and the loss of focus on the nuclear mission by the Nation and its leadership following the end of the Cold War," Mr. Augustine said. He cited "the absence of a widely accepted understanding of, and appreciation for, the role of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology in the 21st century, with the resultant well-documented and atrophied conditions of plans for our strategic deterrent's future-- in DOD as well as in DOE." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) |
Think Again: A foreign policy from ‘cloud cuckoo land’
By JONATHAN ROSENBLUM
A bright line of narcissism and naivete runs through the Obama administration’s foreign policy, from Crimea to the
Middle East. The inability to grasp that other nations have a different hierarchy of values and view their national interests
in ways irreconcilable with those of the US has repeatedly caused America to be surprised by events and left with “no
good choices.”
Secretary of State John Kerry’s shocked response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea captures both qualities: “You just
don’t, in the 21st century, behave in the 19th-century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up
pretext.”
To which Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively replied, “Oh yeah, who’s going to stop me?” Leon Wieseltier of
the liberal New Republic observed, “There can be no doubt that President [Barack] Obama was caught off-guard by
Russia’s takeover of Crimea, and his surprise was typical. The president is too often caught off-guard by enmity, and by
the nastiness of things. There really is no excuse for being surprised by evil.”
According to the regnant theory in Washington, the world is simply too “interdependent” for such behavior: Nations will
not risk their international standing and trade for the benefits of empire. It simply did not occur to American
policymakers that Putin might value other things above the state of the Russian stock market.
Not that Putin needed to worry much on that score.
On the day the US announced its first sanctions, the Moscow stock market rose 3.7 percent in relief.
Nor did it occur to the American policymakers that interdependence cuts two ways. Europe cannot even match the
feeble sanctions imposed by the US: Bankers in the City of London, real-estate agents in better neighborhoods across
the continent and those running posh boarding schools have grown too fond of the Russian oligarchs, with billions to
spend freely.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius tweeted a succinct description of “interdependence” from the European
standpoint: “On the one hand, we cannot imagine delivering arms to Russia [a $1.7 billion submarine ordered by
Russia]. On the other hand, there is the reality of employment.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S assumptions about the international arena derive not from any study of other nations and
cultures, but from looking in the mirror and projecting himself on every other country. That narcissistic habit of mind has
led to one foreign policy mishap after another.
Obama came into office confident that he could “reset” relations not just with Russia, but with the entire world, because
“I look different than other presidents.” With sufficient apologies for past American behavior, a few obsequious bows
, deference to international institutions, and disavowal of American power, all would be well.
Things have not quite worked out as he imagined.
America’s long-standing allies no longer trust her, and enemies do not fear her. Even in European capitals, Obama
commands less respect than his “cowboy” predecessor.
Last week, Kerry pleaded in vain with Arab League heads of state not to issue any statements on Israel as a Jewish
state, and thereby strip the “peace process’’ of its last fig leaf. They announced instead their “total rejection of the call to
consider Israel a Jewish state.”
To “reset” relations with Russia, Obama reneged on American promises of anti-missile defenses to Poland and the
Czech Republic, while asking for and receiving nothing in return. The president convinced himself that Putin is a
partner for solving the Iranian nuclear conundrum, and he gratefully accepted Putin’s face-saving offer of help when
Syrian President Bashar Assad ignored Obama’s self-imposed “red line” and unleashed chemical weapons against
civilians.
How has that partnership fared? Putin’s first response to American sanctions over Crimea was to announce via his
deputy foreign minister that Russia was reevaluating its stance towards the P5+1 world powers’ negotiations with Iran.
And he took advantage of Obama’s reluctance to bomb Assad to rescue his Syrian client, thereby returning Russia to a
position as a regional player that it has not enjoyed since Egyptian president Anwar Sadat sent his Soviet advisers
packing nearly 40 years ago. Russia, Putin proved, knows how to defend its clients.
Obama also came into office with a plan to win favor with Iran by advancing Iranian interests rather than thwarting them.
His hand extended in friendship to the mullahs, he remained on the sidelines during Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution,
and consistently opposed sanctions legislation until it was forced on him, and has since then issued numerous
waivers. Rather than seizing upon the rebellion against Assad in 2011, before extremist groups took over the
opposition, as a means of striking a blow at Iran’s hegemonic desires and breaking up the Shi’ite Crescent from Iran
to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria, Obama used America non-intervention in Syria as a bargaining chip to be offered to
Iran.
Obama’s foreign policy, writes Walter Russell Mead, was predicated on the assumption that acceptable compromises
could be achieved with longtime adversaries, and that he has the smarts to discern who could be trusted. He decided
Putin was a partner; Assad a “reformer” (in Hillary Clinton’s words), who could be induced to become a citizen in good
standing of the international community; and Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood moderating influences because of
their willingness to participate in elections en route to dictatorship, and because their ranks include “doctors and
lawyers” (as per CIA chief John Brennan). Lately, he has discerned moderate tendencies in Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani, who has absolutely no say over Iran’s nuclear program.
What Obama failed to consider in dealing with countries like Iran and Russia, writes Mead, “is that some countries
around the world may count the reduction of American power and prestige among their vital interests.” Putin’s
resentment of the “dissolution of the bipolarity [i.e.
the Soviet Union and the US] on the planet” in favor of arrogant Americans touting their own exceptionalism was on full
display in his Crimea speech. And he has not missed an opportunity to humiliate Obama.
IN THE ’30s, Western leaders refused to read Mein Kampf or to take Hitler’s plans seriously. And similarly today,
Obama clings stubbornly to the belief that religion doesn’t matter, traditional Russian aspirations to empire are relics
of the past – in short, that enemies can’t really mean what they say, because all people and nations primarily seek
just
a little more material plenty.
That theory prevents him from asking why Iran’s leaders have denounced the US as the “Great Satan” since 1979; or
wondering why, despite the fact that “everyone already knows the lines of the eventual settlement” of the Palestinian-
Israel conflict, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas cannot sign an end-of-conflict agreement with Israel
without himself becoming a “sacrifice for peace”; or entertaining seriously the possibility that the Iranian mullahs view
nuclear weapons as an important instrument for spreading the Islamic Revolution – and might actually use them.
THE “ACHIEVEMENTS” of Obama’s foreign policy have been primarily of the negative variety.
His trust in international institutions to maintain international order in place of American power was exposed by
Russia’s Security Council veto of any UN response to its Crimea invasion.
An increasingly assertive China would do the same with respect to any Security Council resolutions relating to it.
Kerry’s obsessive efforts to secure a framework agreement have served only to make clear that the Palestinians will
not make peace with Israel.
Abbas and his successors will from time to time agree to talk to gain prisoner releases and the like, but they will not
negotiate peace.
With respect to his signature issue, nuclear non-proliferation, however, Obama has made things exponentially worse
. By failing to stop Iran’s nuclear program, he will likely trigger a rush for nuclear weapons in the world’s most unstable
region. If Iran reaches breakout capacity, Saudi Arabia will surely rush to acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan, and
Egypt and Turkey would probably follow suit.
The experience of Libya and Ukraine after voluntarily giving up their nuclear programs ensures that no other country will
ever emulate their example.
In 2003, the “Great Loon” dismantled his nuclear program, which the International Atomic Energy Agency estimated
was three to seven years from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Nine years later, the international community, with the US
leading from behind, deposed Muammar Gaddafi and left a vacuum in Libya quickly filled by terrorist groups and local
militias.
In 1994, Ukraine surrendered the nuclear weapons it acquired in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in return for
guarantees of its territorial integrity from the US, Britain and Russia. The worth of those guarantees is now painfully
clear.
In short, treating the rest of the world as a gentlemen’s club of fine fellows engaged in a bit of harmless bartering over
a little bigger piece of the pie has proven to be a policy guide from what the Germans call das Wolkenkuckkucksheim,
or cloud cuckoo land. ■
The writer is director of Jewish Media Resources, has written a regular column in The Jerusalem Post Magazine since
1997, and is the author of eight biographies of modern Jewish leaders.
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3) These three, short sentences tell you a lot about the direction of our current government and cultural environment:
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1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works.
And here’s another one worth considering.
2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money. How come we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money? What's interesting is the first group "worked for" their money, but the second didn’t.
Think about it..... Last but not least
3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our military and cutting our army to a level lower than before WWII, but we are not stopping the payments to illegal aliens. This is what illegal’s receive monthly, $1500.00 per child, $500 for housing, Food Stamps, and in some States, Free education including college.
4) Israeli Iron Beam laser air defense system 'brings down mortars like flies' creator says
US laser weapon technology
(Photo: US Navy Illustration)
A new air defense system being developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which uses lasers to shoot down low altitude threats, is able to bring down “mortars like flies,” Rafael's CEO told the Israel Defense website on Wednesday.
Vice Admiral (Ret.) Yedidia Yaari, former chief of the Israel Navy, said the Iron Beam system will be “very effective” once it becomes operational.
Israel Defense cited Yaari as saying that that Iron Beam successfully passed a feasibility test, and is currently in development stages.
Iron Beam fires lasers at mortar shells, and has proven a high rate of accuracy, Yaari said, describing the system as “highly impressive.” It was first unveiled formally by state-owned Rafael during the Singapore Air Show last month.
The system is designed to deal with threats that fly on too small a trajectory to be engaged efficiently by Iron Dome anti-rocket batteries.
Iron Dome is complemented by Arrow II, an Israeli interceptor designed to shoot down ballistic missiles at atmospheric heights. Israel plans to integrate them with the more powerful rocket interceptors Arrow III – which will intercept ballistic missiles in space – and David's Sling – designed for large rockets and cruise missiles – both of which are still under development.
The United States has extensively underwritten the projects, seeing them as a means of reassuring its Middle East ally as instability rocks the region.
An industry official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters in January that Iron Beam would form the “fifth layer” of integrated missile defense.
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