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Iran Complies With Nuclear Deal; Sanctions Lifted (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Iran has shipped most of its nuclear fuel out of the country, destroyed the innards of a plutonium-producing reactor and mothballed more than 12,000 centrifuges. This compliance with the nuclear accord struck in July has caused the U.S. and Europe to lift financial sanctions on Iran, releasing ~$100 billion in assets. "Under the new rules put in place, the United States will no longer sanction foreign individuals or firms for buying oil and gas from Iran. The American trade embargo remains in place, but the government will permit certain limited business activities with Iran, such as selling or purchasing Iranian food and carpets and American commercial aircraft and parts. It is an opening to Iran that represents a huge roll of the dice, one that will be debated long after Mr. Obama he has built his presidential library. It is unclear what will happen after the passing of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has protected and often fueled the hardliners — but permitted these talks to go ahead."
What a great achievement for the Obama administration. Hopefully we won't piss it away with the coming wave of rising Islamophobia. I could imagine some politicians *cough*Trump*cough* reinstating the sanctions with the justification that their theocratic regime is inherently evil.
On the other hand, the handling of the Iranian protests after the sketchy election isn't doing them any favors in that regard.
The real question is, did the strikes against nuclear scientists, and sabotage of centrifuge SCADAs help contribute to this deal.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
7000GW of nuclear power is coming to Iran right now. Iran signed a deal with Rosatom, Busehr is going to have three more 1GW units and they are going to build four 1GW units to the coast of Caspian sea. It seems that "someone" noticed this, especially when you look through Google Earth. Busehr 2nd unit renovation started this autumn and suddenly there is a bi-monthly picture update on it.
However I am not saying that solar power is a flawed solution for Iran, on the contrary: Iran is also a good place for solar power, they can build CSPs easily and use solar panels too. Their energy mix is going to be very wide from traditional fossils fuels to renewables and nuclear power. Just too bad USA is not going to receive a cent from that market. Or actually not, you economy is already too good, we europoors need some new business opportunities. :)
The Iranians will just buy what they need from N. Korea. They were already on that path before Israel took out the nuke plant in Syria a few years back. So in 10 years, their missile technology will have been perfected just in time to receive N. Korean warheads. And in the meantime, the Iranians will get back into the international economy to fund their foreign adventures. They are willing to fight for Syria to the last Arab.
The U.S. Administration just kicked the can down the road.
That is certainly NOT a "purely political" story; although I can understand why someone would make that mistake. It's a story about the decline of technology in the United States caused by those who make money favoring secret actions by secret U.S. government organizations.
NSA = No Sales for America.
Boeing Might Lose $4B Brazil Deal For F-18 Jets After NSA Surveillance Scandal; Analysts Say Politics Won't Trump Business (09/12/13)
Three months later: President Dilma Rousseff Announces Brazil Is Buying Sweden's Saab Gripen Jet Fighters (12/18/13)
NSA = Not a Sensible Arrangement.
The NSA does not provide "Security". Instead, the secrecy makes everyone feel insecure. Anyone can claim that a secret organization did something destructive; that's an easy sale when a small group wants violence. Suppose an NSA manager wants a promotion. The manager can arrange something likely to cause violence; there is no outside review; new violence can be used as a reason for new authority.
Consider the Culture of fear. Nazi leader Hermann Goring: "The people don't want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
Quote from that same Wikipedia page: 'Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski argues that the use of the term War on Terror was intended to generate a culture of fear deliberately because it "obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue." '
Another quote: "... journalist Adam Curtis argues that politicians have used our fears to increase their power and control over society."
NSA = No Structural Authority.
There are complicated problems in running ANY organization. Managing secret organizations sensibly is impossible. Each manager of a secret organization has an excuse to hide his or her mistakes. There can be no outside ideas to fix problems because no outsiders are allowed to know what is happening.
Backdoors:
The U.S. government allows secret government agencies to go to any executive in any company, make demands for "security", and threaten the executive with prison if he or she doesn't do what the secret agency wants. Is that the reason that U.S. computer equipment has backdoors? We are not allowed to know. Secret agencies are allowed to lie, so even if an agency says it didn't force a backdoor, no one can know if the statement is true.
A few of the many stories about backdoors in U.S. hardware:
D-Link: Reverse Engineering a D-Link Backdoor (Oct. 12, 2013)
Arris: 600,000 Arris cable modems have 'backdoors in backdoors', researcher claims (Nov. 20, 2015)
Juniper Networks: Juniper drops NSA-developed code following new backdoor revelations (Jan. 10, 2016)
Cisco: Snowden: The NSA planted backdoors in Cisco products (May 15, 2014)
Netgear
It's not really that crazy. The Jews' own holy books explain why everyone hates them. They were a racial minority that invaded a region which had already been hotly contested basically for all recorded history, put the men and mothers to the sword, and took the virgins as wives.
Definitely accurate, but worth noting that this sort of behavior was pretty par for the course in ancient times. The only difference here is that this a group in question that ended up surviving in some form to the modern age with their own personal history intact.
They got kicked out of that region eventually by force, and then the UK came up with a snazzy plan to keep the muzzies down by reinstalling the jews in a place they'd already been driven out of.
This is a vast oversimplification. First, there was no intent to "keep the muzzies down" but rather to deal with an ongoing situation. In particular, there had been a small Jewish population in various parts of the land since the Roman times (such as around Safed) and there had been systematic return to the land since the 1800s with a large Jewish population by the 1920s and a very large population post World War II. The plan in question was then to partition the land between two states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine which the Jews accepted and the Palestinian Arabs by and large rejected.
The government is a secular representative democracy,
Until their elected representatives step over the line as defined by their bat-shit crazy right wing. Then, they revert to violence. And elect a series of militant troublemakers just to pacify that right wing.
It's not really a democracy if they say, "Go ahead and vote. But vote for something we don't like and we will kill you."
This is a vast oversimplification. First, there was no intent to "keep the muzzies down" but rather to deal with an ongoing situation.
What's the difference?
The plan in question was then to partition the land between two states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... which the Jews accepted and the Palestinian Arabs by and large rejected.
Yeah, everyone including T.E. Lawrence noted that it would plunge the region right back into war, and guess what? Since everyone knew that's what the result would be, it's difficult to suggest that the creation of Israel was anything other than a deliberate effort to create essentially the political situation that we see today.
I'll readily admit I don't have any easy answers to questions like how could the Jews have been protected from further persecution without handing them a piece of land that their holy books say belongs to them, or what to do about the situation now besides to stop applying our tax dollars to its maintenance. That's not a complete solution, it's just cutting off the supply of fuel to a fire.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's insane that a tiny client state, that's not even in the G20, can have this sort of influence.
No, it's insane that some people still don't understand that it's the entire middle east, as a region, that is influential because of its geography (which includes key shipping routes) and its oil deposits. The fact that Israel is the closest thing to a rational actor in the entire region is what makes supporting its existence appropriate. Would we support Denmark in a similar fashion if every country around it was wallowing in medieval theocracy, swearing to destroy it, lobbing missiles at it every day for sport, and some of them taking turns chanting "Death To America!" to open their phony parliamentary sessions? Yes, we would. For the same reasons. Just like we put so much into supporting that little group of islands off the coast of France and Scandinavia when lunatic regimes were stomping all around Europe.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Israel is an ethnocracy, not a theocracy. It's been created by eastern european Jews, and ethnocracies weren't considered that special then.
Israel has citizens and nationals. The Israeli nationals are Jews. The state is for the nationals, not for the citizens. If there are too many nonjewish citizens this is a threat to the jewish state and the jewish state may take draconian measures to handle this threat if needed.
The US is a state of its citizens, it's a completely different concept. There is no distinction between citizen and national.
They got kicked out of that region eventually by force, and then the UK came up with a snazzy plan to keep the muzzies down by reinstalling the jews in a place they'd already been driven out of.
This is a vast oversimplification. First, there was no intent to "keep the muzzies down" but rather to deal with an ongoing situation. In particular, there had been a small Jewish population in various parts of the land since the Roman times (such as around Safed) and there had been systematic return to the land since the 1800s with a large Jewish population by the 1920s and a very large population post World War II.
A small continuous population, that doesn't give them the right to a self-governing state in that territory any more than it does small minorities in other states.
Land claims from well over 1000+ years ago notwithstanding.
And the Jewish immigration was part of a specific plan to create a Jewish homeland. The massive Jewish immigration between 1920 and 1949 was during the Mandate when the British were in change and the local Arab population was unable to manage immigration.
The plan in question was then to partition the land between two states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine which the Jews accepted and the Palestinian Arabs by and large rejected.
Of course the Palestinian Arabs disagreed. A different ethnic group declares they're going to start colonizing your territory to create their own state, they then proceed to do so while you're under foreign occupation by states who generally side with the other ethnic group.
The foreign occupiers then propose to give the other group a state with most of the land even though you still have a bigger population. Is this a proposal you're going to agree to?
I stole this Sig
The Chevy Malibu is a good example: the 2010 model was as good as any in its class and better for North American driving conditions than most of its European- and Japan-optimized competitors. I haven't seen the 2016 yet but early reviews are that is it substantially improved over the 2009-2011 type. There are many very good Big 2.5 designed and built models on the market that are competitive with anything (particularly in North America). Also some not-so-great models - which is also true of Mazda, Toyota, Nissan, etc (not even getting into the VW cult/mess). Toyota automatic transmissions? Woah, there's a great design ;-(
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