I support Nuclear Nonproliferation, and am glad that the signatories reached an agreement.
The 189 member nations of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) last night struck a deal on a series of small steps towards disarmament, including a 2012 conference to discuss a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
After a month of wrangling, signatories to the NPT agreed a deal, despite "deep regrets" from the US over a clause singling out Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear arsenal. A 28-page final declaration requires the world’s five self-confessed nuclear states – the US, Russia, France, Britain and China – to speed up arms reductions. They will report on progress in four years.
But the main point of contention was over an Arab idea for a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, intended to put public pressure on Israel to scrap its nuclear weapons.
Initially reluctant, the US changed tack and went along with the proposal. Iran and Syria had expressed dissent over whether the treaty was tough enough, but no objections were raised in the final session, and Iran’s chief delegate, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, joined other nations in applause at the deal in the UN’s general assembly hall.
"All eyes the world over are watching us," said the conference’s president, Libran Cabactulan of the Philippines, bringing down a gavel on the agreement.
For the US, undersecretary of state Ellen Tauscher said the document "advances President Obama’s vision" of a world free of nuclear weapons. She said the US would work with Middle Eastern nations to organise a 2012 conference; but she added that its ability to do so had been "seriously jeopardised because the final document singles out Israel in the Middle East section, a fact that the US deeply regrets".
Israel, which, like nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, never signed the NPT, is presumed to have a sizable nuclear arsenal. It is not participating in the meeting. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is due to meet Barack Obama in Washington on Monday. Israel had said it would attend a Middle Eastern disarmament conference as long as it was not singled out for criticism.
Signatories of the 1970 NPT have spent a tense month trying to bolster it after crises over Iran, North Korea, and the slow pace of disarmament by the big five.
The NPT is often described as a "bargain" under which the nuclear weapons states move to disarm, while others forgo seeking the bomb in return for help to develop civilian nuclear programmes. Supporters say it was becoming dangerously eroded by cumulative setbacks… [emphasis added]
Nuclear weapons are harmful to living things. To eliminate them altogether would be the second greatest gift humanity could bestow upon ourselves, behind preventing global climate change.
I support the idea of a nuclear free zone in the Middle East and agree that Israel should sign the NPT and scrap its nuclear arsenal. However I think it hypocritical to focus on Israel alone. India and Pakistan also have nuclear arsenals. Israel has never attempted to spread nuclear weapons technology outside their own borders, but Pakistan has. Should there not also be a nuclear free zone in South Asia with equal pressure put on India and Pakistan to scrap their nuclear arsenals and join the NPT?
I had the impression that European conservatives were considerably more compassionate than the hate-mongers that form the bulk of the US right. Johann Hari has proven me mistaken:
In the US there has been a fuzzy sense of admiration for the new British Conservative-Liberal coalition government, but over here the sweet liberal-scented haze has now parted and we are Camer-on. The Prime Minister and his finance spokesman George Osborne this week showed the first flick of their knife, marking out the areas they intend to cut much more deeply into over the next five years. Who have they decided can afford to take the pain first? Not rich people like them: they will continue to enjoy big state subsidies to build up their savings and maintain their estates. No. Step forward instead the unemployed, poor kids who are falling behind in their reading, children in care, the elderly, the disabled, and any feeble little steps we were making towards building a low-carbon economy.
Very few people in Britain would say our first move during a recession should be to shut down programmes that get the growing number of young people with no qualifications or training into their first job. Yet that is what the Conservatives have done. I’ve seen in my own part of east London how the Future Jobs scheme takes demotivated and lost kids and gets them into paid, on-the-job training for six months. It was too small, for sure – but now the programme has been abolished altogether, along with the £1,000 subsidy for employers who take on anyone who has been on benefits for more than six months. The Tories say they are not making cuts to "the front line" – but don’t the long-term unemployed, stuck on £60 a week, live on the front line of British life?
The next set of cuts is well disguised. When you hear that the Communities Department has taken a 27 per cent cut, it sounds anodyne: what is it anyway? It’s the money that goes to local authorities to pay for home help for the elderly and disabled, for monitoring children at risk, and children in care. Osborne has said he doesn’t want councils to make up the difference by increasing council tax. So, very soon, there will be a big increase in the number of confused old people left unwashed and untended, and abused kids we never find in time.
Many of these cuts will end up costing us money in the long term. Over the past few years, children – mainly in poor areas – who have not been able to learn to read have been given special one-on-one tuition to get them up to a decent standard, rather than tumbling through their school years getting more confused and angry. Literate people are far less likely to commit crime and much more likely to pay taxes later in life. Cameron just closed the programme. The same child who loses her reading tutor now also won’t get a small Child Trust Fund of £2,000 when she turns 18 – thanks to a Chancellor of the Exchequer who lives on an £4.2m trust fund of his own.
David Cameron’s claims to care about global warming also just drowned. The subsidy to build wind turbines, the encouragement to buy electric cars – all gone. His massive cuts in the transport budget will make the trains and buses worse, pushing more people into their cars. They have even cut our low spending on flood defences – a bad idea on a stormy island as we go into a century where sea levels will rise… [emphasis added]
It appears that Cameron is following the example of Crawford Caligula and the GOP, implementing No Millionaire Left Behind on the backs of the most needy segment in society. At least in the UK, European conservatives seem quite similar to our own.
Yesterday I opted to take a trip to the grocery store instead of going to Social Security. As a result, I had time time to reply to comments, return visits, an visit a couple more blogs. I should have no trouble keeping up today.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 3:34. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Raw Story: In a statement released Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Michael Berry of KPRC 950 AM "made a call to violence" when he said he hoped someone would blow up the mosque being proposed for a location in lower Manhattan, near the site of the 9/11 attacks.
I wonder how it will be before some faithful Republican follows through on this call to violence.
From McClatchy DC: The House of Representatives agreed Friday to extend expiring jobless benefits for hundreds of thousands of workers nationwide until Nov. 30, but 1.2 million out-of-work Americans still face losing their benefits next month because the Senate left for a 10-day Memorial Day recess without acting.
The Senate isn’t scheduled to return to Washington until June 7, five days after federal funding for the benefits is to expire.
Senators from both parties should be ashamed, but especially Harry Reid, who had the power to keep the Senate in session.
From Raw Story: A neighbor of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin got so angry for what she says was unpaid bills for renovations that she decided she would try to rent her house to someone who wanted to look into Palin’s life as a result — what media reports are calling "revenge by rent."
And she did: a non fiction writer took up her offer. [MvGinniss]
One would think that, with all the $millions she is raking in from fleecing the sheeple, the Faux Noise Floozy could pay her bills.
Fantasy Football:
For an invitation to join our fantasy football league, Lefty Bloggers and Friends, email me at tomcat1948@gmail.com, using the email address you intent to use to sign up for the league. TC’s Teabuggery Trashers can’t wait to take you on! 🙂
It was a good day for gay rights as the bill to repeal DADT moved forward, despite intense opposition from hate-filled Republicans.
The U.S. House and a Senate committee approved amendments to a military bill Thursday that would repeal the "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy barring openly gay and lesbian soldiers from military service, but only after some conditions are met.
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 16-12 to approve compromise language on the repeal in an amendment to the military policy bill. The panel then voted 18-10 to send the bill to the full Senate.
In the House, the chamber voted 234-194 to add the amendment to its version of the defense policy bill. A final vote on the full bill was expected Friday.
President Obama praised the votes.
"I am pleased that both the House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee took important bipartisan steps toward repeal tonight," Obama said in a statement. "This legislation will help make our Armed Forces even stronger and more inclusive by allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve honestly and with integrity."
The Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, called it the first time since the "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy came into effect during the Clinton administration that any congressional body voted to repeal it.
"This is the beginning of the end of a shameful ban on open service by lesbian and gay troops that has weakened our national security," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.
The Senate committee’s vote on the amendment was mostly partisan, with 15 Democrats and one Republican — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — supporting the compromise repeal language. The House vote also was along largely partisan lines, with 229 Democrats and five Republicans supporting the repeal amendment, while 168 Republicans and 26 Democrats opposed it… [emphasis added]
I don’t yet know who the shameful Democrats are who opposed this. When I know, so will you. The GOP opposition was ugly.
…In an orchestrated manner, almost every single House Republican took to the floor to condemn the proposal, misrepresenting it as an immediate repeal that does not allow the Defense Department to complete its study. In the midst of considering other amendments, Republicans turned the discussion into an opportunity to condemn gays in the military:
REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-TX): “If someone has to be overt about their sexuality, whether it’s in a bunker where they’re confined under fire, then it’s a problem. And that’s what repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell does. It says, ‘I have to be overt, I don’t care. I want this to be a social experiment.”
REP: TODD AKIN (R-MI): “So are we then going to then protect and condone homosexuality in the military?…Is this the sort of thing that George Washington or our founders would be proud of, that we are doing today in this quick flash before Memorial Day?”
REP. TRENT FRANKS (R-AZ): “We’re going to say, ‘No. We don’t care what you say. You can die for us on the battlefield, but you have no input into this process.’ That’s a disgrace to this institution and it’s an insult to the men and women who pour out their blood on foreign battlefields for the country that we all love so much.”
Watch a compilation:
In the Senate, Armed Services Republicans threatened to filibuster the defense authorization bill “if it comes to the floor with Democrat-backed language repealing DADT.” “I’ll do everything in my power,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said. “I’m going to do everything I can to support the men and women of the military and to fight what is clearly a political agenda.” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) agreed, promising to support a filibuster “if the repeal language makes it into the version of the bill that goes to the floor, most likely after the Memorial Day recess.”… [emphasis original]
Yesterday was a big day where the gusher is concerned. This gift from Bush, Cheney and the Republican party, who gutted regulations and set up the corrupt relationship between Big Oil and the MMS, has become the worst environmental catastrophe in human history.
As BP labored for a second day Thursday to choke off the leak at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, dire new government estimates showed the disaster has easily eclipsed the Exxon Valdez as the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
After an 18-hour delay to assess its efforts and bring in more materials, BP resumed pumping heavy drilling mud into the blown-out well 5,000 feet underwater. Officials said it could be late Friday or the weekend before the company knows if the procedure known as a top kill has cut off the oil that has been flowing for five weeks.
As the world waited, President Barack Obama announced major new restrictions on drilling projects, and the head of the federal agency that regulates the industry resigned under pressure, becoming the highest-ranking political casualty of the crisis so far.
BP PLC insisted the top kill was progressing as planned, though the company acknowledged drilling mud was escaping from the broken pipe along with the leaking crude.
"The fact that we had a bunch of mud going up the riser isn’t ideal but it’s not necessarily indicative of a problem," said spokesman Tom Mueller.
Early Thursday, officials said the process was going well, but later in the day they announced pumping had been suspended 16 hours earlier. BP did not characterize the suspension as a setback, and Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane Energy Institute, said the move did not indicate the top kill had failed.
"The good news is that they pumped in up to 65 barrels a minute and the thing didn’t blow apart," Smith said. "It’s taken the most pressure it needs to see and it’s held together."
The top kill is the latest in a string of attempts to stop the oil that has been spewing since the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20. Eleven workers were killed.
If the procedure works, BP will inject cement into the well to seal it permanently. If it doesn’t, the company has a number of backup plans. Either way, crews will continue to drill two relief wells, considered the only surefire way to stop the leak… [emphasis added]
Hope that the well can be plugged tops my list, but more important, long term, are the new regulations.
The extension of a moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will not affect 591 deepwater wells that are already producing oil and gas, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday, nor will it affect the operations of 4,515 producing wells in relatively shallow waters.
However, the moratorium will stop work at 33 offshore drilling rigs that are prospecting for petroleum in water deeper than 500 feet. Operators of those exploratory deepwater rigs will be ordered to stop their operations as soon as they arrive at a safe point to secure their wells, Salazar said.
There is no moratorium on exploration in waters shallower than 500 feet. However, they must meet additional safety requirements and inspections before proceeding.
The moratorium, initially for 30 days, was extended for six months as a result of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horzion offshore drilling rig and the oil spill that has spewed millions of gallons of oil each day into the gulf since.
Salazar said that once the moratorium has passed, offshore drilling will require certification of all blowout preventers, stronger procedures for keeping wells under control, a tougher inspection process, and expanded safety and training requirements for rig workers.
“These actions are all guided by the need to take a cautious approach to offshore oil and gas development as we strengthen safety and oversight of offshore oil and gas operations,” Salazar said. “Some of these measures we can implement immediately, others will take some time.”
As for future leasing in the Gulf of Mexico , Salazar said much depends on what a presidential commission concludes in the coming months.
Salazar acknoweldged that the Obama administration had been operating under "a mistaken assumption" when it called for more offshore drilling in March.
“The assumption I had made in putting together that plan was that these activities could move forward in a safe way,” he said. “That assumption is obviously an assumption that was mistaken, given the evidence we have seen from the Deepwater Horizon, and that is why the decision to put the pause button on deepwater exploration until these safety evaluations can be made is absolutely the right decision.”… [emphasis added]
In my opinion, this does not go far enough. If we are to allow any deep water drilling at all, a proposition about which I am most dubious, we must require that relief wells be drilled simultaneously, paced so that future blowouts can be sealed in hours, not months.
Overall the best coverage I saw yesterday came from Keith Olbermann.
Personally, Obama satisfied me that he is taking responsibility and acting in our best interests. To a large extent, his initial response was mandated by oil-spill legislation passed under GHW Bush.
As for BP, this will increase your anger.
After reports that a BP "company man" overruled workers for the oil rig company Transocean on a key safety procedure prior to an explosion which set the rig aflame and sinking into the Gulf of Mexico, a senior BP official that was on the rig when it exploded has told investigators he will invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify in the case.
"One of BP’s company men on the Deepwater Horizon when it exploded, Robert Kaluza, has declined to testify before the investigative panel in Kenner, citing his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, the Coast Guard said," according to the New Orleans Times Picayune. "Kaluza was scheduled to testify Thursday in the joint U.S. Coast Guard and Minerals Management Services hearings in Kenner."
The Louisiana paper also said a second BP official, Donald Vidrine, told the Coast Guard he couldn’t testify Thursday because of "illness."… [emphasis added]
Yesterday I overslept. Then I decided to watch Obama’s news conference. Then I decided to put off my trip to Social Security until today, if not Tuesday. Then I replied to all outstanding comments and returned visits. It took over five hours, but I am glad to be caught up again. Today well depend on whether or not I go to Social Security.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:42. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From NY Times: The Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be a busy one that may spawn as many as 23 named tropical storms, including up to seven major hurricanes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday. It predicted that 8 to 14 storms would strengthen into hurricanes, with winds of 74 m.p.h. or higher. Three to seven of those could reach Category 3 status or higher — meaning they bring sustained winds of at least 111 m.p.h.
If a big one hits the Gulf it will make sure the oil from the GOP Gulf Gusher will never be cleaned up.
From Think Progress: Census Director Robert Groves said the bureau’s temporary workers knocking on doors to collect information have faced 29 threats involving a gun, four robberies and three instances of being held against their will or carjacked.
The incident of GOP inspired violence I reported yesterday was not an isolated case.
Over and over again I have said that people will die because of the hate filled rhetoric of the GOP, their Teabagger storm troopers, and the GOP Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise.
In early April, CNN’s Erik Erickson said he refused to fill out a U.S. Census form and that he would pull out his wife’s shotgun if there was an attempt to arrest him for it.
Well, it appears that a woman in Yuba City, California decided she didn’t want a census worker at her house either so she pulled out a gun when one showed up at her house — and she paid for her stupidity with her life.
A routine visit by a U.S. Census Worker on Thursday evening turned deadly when Yuba City police officers shot and killed a woman they said had first threatened the worker with a gun, then later confronted officers with a shotgun.
Sutter County authorities have identified the woman as Victoria Roger-Vasselin, 67, and arrested Lionel Craig Patterson, 51, who was with Roger-Vasselin at the house on Mariner Loop when the shooting happened.
Sonny Le, a census regional spokesman, said the worker, a Yuba City resident, showed her badge and introduced herself to a man who answered the door. From inside the house, the worker said she heard a woman saying that they do not want to participate in the census survey.
When the census worker tried to further explain the process, she said she saw a gun pointed at her.
Officers arrived at the Mariner Loop house about 10 p.m. Pavey said a man answered the door with a handgun. Officers successfully persuaded him to give up his gun, but a brief struggle ensued at the entryway when the man resisted arrest, Pavey said.
As an officer was trying to handcuff the man on the ground, the woman came outside with a shotgun. Officers ordered her to put down the gun, but "she ignored the order and continued to advance with the shotgun pointing at the officers," Pavey said. Two officers fired. Roger-Vasselin died at the scene, authorities said.
You can rest assured that, as this story spreads, the “not our fault” tango among GOP pundits will outdo the dancing by BP executives.
I don’t blame the poor brainwashed sheep who was killed or her poor brainwashed husband now in jail, because they believed GOP hate speech. I blame the people who took advantage of their ignorance and felled them with hate through their lies.
Every Republican in office is one Republican too many.
The 189 member nations of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) last night struck a deal on a series of small steps towards disarmament, including a 2012 conference to discuss a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
