As IF Times

link Scientists Push “Doomsday Clock” Back a Minute – ABC News

As if. These guys are scientists or closet politicians? This august body which includes 19 Nobel laureates have calculated that the threat of nuclear war is lessened because of the election of Barack Obama. There appears to be a bit of nepotism involved here because they just made Obama a fellow club member, but that’s a coincidence.

It appears that solely because of Obama’s residency in the White House, this group decides that an aggressive U.S. implementation of nuclear war is less likely. Oddly, after long google searches, there is the sum total of, zero, that is none, nada and zip instance of the U.S. ever threatening to embark upon nuclear annihilation of another country. Compare this to recent events where the statesman at Iran’s helm threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and coincidentally is ramping up their nuclear program for ‘peaceful’ purposes. Taking these two facts into consideration, the Nobel gang thinks nuclear war is less likely.

I suppose if Iran began firing off nukes, it would not lead to nuclear warfare worldwide because in the west, tsk tsking is the preferred defence strategy. Fully armed with strong words of condemnation and columns of legal soldiers ready to fight the rhetorical war, the west has refined their methods of engagement. Any conflict would be much more civilized and instead of needless bloodshed by atomic bombs, the worst that could happen are paper cuts on a large scale by the legal protagonists. In which case, vinegar could be the scariest weapon. Judged by this standard, the U.S. is still the most powerful nation on earth based on lawyer count.

Nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy at news conference held at the National Academy of Sciences overlooking the World Trade Center site, said there had been “a shift in world opinion” recognizing that nuclear weapons are “no longer useful to fight wars and are not effective as deterrence.”

If that’s the case, why does the world care whether or not Iran is enriching uranium? Why threaten sanctions against their economy if nukes aren’t effective? If this is a case of them using bullets, while we have ray guns, let ’em have the bullets. Someone should tell North Korea too because I think they’re still playing with radioactive stuff over there.

BAS board member Lowell Sachnoff added, “Global warming is more of a threat than nuclear war.”

!!!!

Ok, now we’re suspicious. He had us going until he went there.

link Yemen Poverty Breeds Terror as West Targets Security (Update1) – BusinessWeek

Following the last post, we can pretty much view this whole idea that “poverty breeds extremism” is misguided at best, epic and willfully stupid at worst. Without obfuscating the issue with debates about the complexities of the middle east, the historic dynamics yada,yada,yada, let’s just look at this objectively.

The story states that Yemen’s oil reserves that fund 70 percent of the budget will run out in 10 years. Somehow, this will be the ingredients for breeding terrorism.

“…Several hundred al-Qaeda members in remote tribal areas of Yemen may be preparing for attacks similar to the Detroit plane plot in the U.S. and elsewhere, President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, John Brennan, said on Jan. 3…”

Now, logically if you only live on $2 a day as the story claims, it’s pretty hard to access explosives, get plane tickets, passports etc unless you have RICH contacts and buddies willing to fund your hobbies. It’s more likely that people with more dough and savvy than to blow themselves up are recruiting these poor people as fuse mules. It must be noted however, that the undie bomber was from a wealthy family who went to the best schools in the U.K. Perhaps he felt poor next to the bankers he met in London, but who wouldn’t be.

It’s hard to swallow the notion that Yemenis by themselves ascribe their state of poverty to the Great Satan without some prodding by some external influence. Given the choice, I think most people would choose to feed themselves and their families rather than self immolation against the U.S. in the name of Allah.

The article documents the amounts of aid sent to Yemen by the U.S., the U.K. and the world bank amounting to hundreds of millions or billions of dollars over the years with more to come. It is illogical to bomb the guy giving you money. Of course, there are eerie similarities with regard to the unions in our part of the world, but that’s for another piece.

With reference to an upcoming aid meeting, Selva Ramachandran, UN development program director for Yemen said;

“…The London conference should focus on Yemen’s development needs, estimated by the government at $11 billion, as well as anti-terrorism assistance…”

Notice again how this again boils down to money. Sounds entirely reasonable; give us more money or we’ll blow you up. Now if someone can explain why the impoverished in China, Tibet and India aren’t blowing up planes, we’ll put this poverty breeds extremism crap to rest. History has shown that it’s seldom the poor that cause trouble, it’s the wealthy ones that go off the rails we have to worry about.