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Iran

Started by kaelin, February 19, 2007, 07:25:41 PM

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Omika

Quote from: Melissa on February 26, 2007, 11:55:42 PM
Quote from: LaurieO on February 26, 2007, 10:06:55 PM
Hey Cindi...let's have some fun.  Since the title of this thread is Iran...might as well talk about them, and the Daddy of Blair's children.
Hmm, have some fun?  ok >:D

How about this:
I saw Blair's children and Iran, Iran so far away ay ay.  >:D

Melissa

Har har har.

I'm not joking.  That man has my respect.  If you haven't seen his interview, look it up.  As for wiping Israel off the map, I hope he does.  Those American armed, child-killing, fanatical jerks (one of my best friends is full-blooded Lebanese and had just gotten back from visiting her family there when Israel decided to layer civilian farmland with cluster bombs) can suck a stump for all I care.  I can only hope the idiots around me can get off the "Jew-hater!" stint long enough to acknowledge completely immoral and murderous behavior when they see it.  Then again, expecting any average American to have the ability to identify something beyond what Fox News tells them is a bit of a tall order, I suppose.

It's not just stupidity anymore.  It's a population that has been completely, utterly lobotomized and rendered near-catatonic.  The fact that "The Matrix" was one of the most popular movies of my teenage years is too ironic for me to bear.

Sometimes, when I think about how pathetic this entire social situation is, I literally cackle.

~ Blair
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cindianna_jones

Quote from: Blair on February 27, 2007, 01:48:43 AM

Har har har.

I'm not joking.  That man has my respect.  If you haven't seen his interview, look it up.  As for wiping Israel off the map, I hope he does.  ~ Blair


I can never justify killing for any reason.  Statements like this eventually find their way to a rifle and a trigger.  It may not be you.  But a shared sentiment is all too easily passed on.  How many people will read your statement?  How many will agree?  Words can indeed be a most powerful weapon.

Cindi
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Omika

Quote from: Cindi Jones on February 27, 2007, 02:16:00 AM
Quote from: Blair on February 27, 2007, 01:48:43 AM

Har har har.

I'm not joking.  That man has my respect.  If you haven't seen his interview, look it up.  As for wiping Israel off the map, I hope he does.  ~ Blair


I can never justify killing for any reason.  Statements like this eventually find their way to a rifle and a trigger.  It may not be you.  But a shared sentiment is all too easily passed on.  How many people will read your statement?  How many will agree?  Words can indeed be a most powerful weapon.

Cindi

I've never heard of Israel ever doing anything even remotely productive or positive towards humanity's development.  I understand that total war is certainly not the answer to any dispute, but bloody Hell, I do not like the horrid things Israel and a lot of other countries have been doing.  I'm sick of children dying.  I'm sick of watching my species commit widescale self-mutilation by continuing this idiocy.  Mankind, presently, is just one big emo kid cutting and cutting and cutting.  I suppose if it was possible to simply wipe Israel, the state that has make me nauseus in the past, off the map and not the hundreds of thousands of innocents who live there, then I'd be all for it.

It's extremely tricky how human beings work.  We are very much capable of violence towards ideas, governments, concepts and symbols, but not towards other human beings, per se.  The greater the detachment, the further the distance and the thicker the cloak of idealogical hatred, the easier it is to pull the trigger.

This is why modern warfare terrifies me so much.  It's too distant.  It's too easy to be completely inhuman, because you're not forced to stare into the raw humanity boiling in the eyes of the man you just ran through or clubbed.  Even I'm guilty of falling into this trap, as we just saw in my previous post.  It's easy for me to be enthusiastic about "Israel" as it were, and all the negative things I identify with it, being destroyed.  However, when I actually think, and clutch my hand to my heart and remember what innocence looks like, I pause, and in this case, I back up.

I'm ashamed.

~ Blair
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ChildOfTheLight

Israel has never done anything for the world?  Shall I give you a list?

Modern Israeli Inventions
http://www.inreview.com/archive/topic/15785.html ^

Posted on 03/21/2006 7:33:57 AM PST by fishtank

Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population, can lay claim to the following:

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.

Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people - as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.

In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the US (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).

Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the US.

Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.

Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.

With an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16s, Israel has the largest fleet of the aircraft outside of the US.

Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.

On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech start-ups.

Twenty-four percent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees - ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland - and 12 percent hold advanced degrees.

Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews at risk in Ethiopia to safety in Israel.

When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.

When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day - and saved three victims from the rubble.

Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship - and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.

Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity.

Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."

According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security. U. S. officials now look to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.

In 1991, during the Gulf War, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra played a concert wearing gas masks as scud missiles fired by Saddam Hussein fell on Tel Aviv.

Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.

Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.

Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.

Medicine... Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized,no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.

An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper

administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U. S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.

Israel's Givun imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used to view the small intestine from the inside, the camera helps doctors diagnose cancer and digestive disorders.

Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the heart's mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.

Technology... With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and start-ups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world (apart from the Silicon Valley).

In response to serious water shortages, Israeli engineers and agriculturalists developed a revolutionary drip irrigation system to minimize the amount of water used to grow crops.

Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.

Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.

Most of the Windows NT operating system was developed by Microsoft-Israel.

The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.

The AOL Instant Messenger was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.

A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the ClearLight device,produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct - all without damaging surroundings skin or tissue.

An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California's Mojave desert."

All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other country on earth. This from a country just 55 years young having started off life on a very frontiers-like basis, whose population had mostly just emerged from the devastating World War II years.
  •  

rhonda13000

Quote from: Cindi Jones on February 19, 2007, 07:30:05 PM
To not have a plan would be unwise methinks.  However.... they're going to have a really hard time convincing us there is a believeable need to send troops in.

Cindi

Don't get me started on this.

We should never have gone into Iraq in the first place and now these geniuses in the Whitehouse want to launch nukes into Iran??

"RNEP"s, that is: "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator"s (nuclear 'bunker busters').

They abysmally miscalculated what would ensue when Saddam was ejected and now they want to do this?

I have a feeling that a goodly number of military people are actually in opposition to such idiocy.

I might wind up going to the Middle East after all. I'm just grateful that I'm not working C-130's anymore.

How many more people will be uselessly sent to die?
  •  

kaelin

Laurie, with respect to conservation and environmental research, the US is really not doing a whole in that regard.  EU countries have been much more aggressive about reducing emissions, which in part involves relying less on oil, in order to comply with the Kyoto treaty, which the US has disregarded.

With respect to economic sanctions, they are admittedly only going to work to the extent the rest of the UN cooperates.  However, the catch here is that in order to be able to earn that influence over Russia and China, we have to stop acting on our own.

With regard to military action being an option, it should always be an option.  However, it should done in the spirit Cindi describes.  It must be saved for a last resort, and when we do choose to use it, we pull all the stops to do it right, calling on the draft if there is any remote possibility our enlistment numbers will not be enough.  Iraq is a half-spirited effort (and the administration is largely to blame for selling the conflict as an easy slam-dunk objective -- it only sets up everyone for disappointment), and war is never a place for it.

That said, there is admittedly the matter of to what extent we should be interfering with other countries developing nuclear capabilities.  If US, France, Britain, Russia, China, India, and Pakistan can create nukes (and it's tacitly assumed Israel has bought nukes from the United States), why can't other countries join the party?  It is possible for us to stop a few countries, but we can't police the entire world on this matter, and countries are entitled to a level of autonomy.  Perhaps a more realistic goal is have oversight of nuclear programs, so that we keep the nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of splinter groups.  Of course, it wouldn't be in Iran's best interest to distribute their nukes to a terrorist group, because the entire world would reduce Iran to rubble if they allowed any of their nukes to be used against an enemy.  The big question is whether Iran would sacrifice its existence in order to *try* to wipe out Israel, but it is probably just a matter of time before we have to face this problem.

Blair, regarding the President of Iran, he recently ran a conference that questioned whether the holocaust ever happened -- that's BS on the highest level.  He does have some fair points to offer (Iran is entitled to self-govern), but even the Bush administration will say some true things from time to time.  I think we are better off elevating the discourse above what either "side" is currently offering, rather than choosing between the two corrupt options.

Of course, I suppose the main point to overcome is that you would like Israel destroyed.  Why single them out?  Why should jewish people be destroyed and not muslims and christians?  Heck, why not destroy any country substantially shaped by religious fanboys (and you better believe it's the boys)?
  •  

Omika

Quote from: ChildOfTheLight on February 27, 2007, 03:07:48 AM
Israel has never done anything for the world?  Shall I give you a list?

Modern Israeli Inventions
http://www.inreview.com/archive/topic/15785.html ^

Posted on 03/21/2006 7:33:57 AM PST by fishtank

Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population, can lay claim to the following:

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.

Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people - as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.

In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the US (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).

Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the US.

Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.

Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.

With an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16s, Israel has the largest fleet of the aircraft outside of the US.

Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.

On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech start-ups.

Twenty-four percent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees - ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland - and 12 percent hold advanced degrees.

Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews at risk in Ethiopia to safety in Israel.

When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.

When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day - and saved three victims from the rubble.

Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship - and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.

Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity.

Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."

According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security. U. S. officials now look to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.

In 1991, during the Gulf War, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra played a concert wearing gas masks as scud missiles fired by Saddam Hussein fell on Tel Aviv.

Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.

Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.

Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.

Medicine... Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized,no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.

An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper

administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U. S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.

Israel's Givun imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used to view the small intestine from the inside, the camera helps doctors diagnose cancer and digestive disorders.

Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the heart's mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.

Technology... With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and start-ups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world (apart from the Silicon Valley).

In response to serious water shortages, Israeli engineers and agriculturalists developed a revolutionary drip irrigation system to minimize the amount of water used to grow crops.

Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.

Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.

Most of the Windows NT operating system was developed by Microsoft-Israel.

The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.

The AOL Instant Messenger was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.

A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the ClearLight device,produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct - all without damaging surroundings skin or tissue.

An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California's Mojave desert."

All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other country on earth. This from a country just 55 years young having started off life on a very frontiers-like basis, whose population had mostly just emerged from the devastating World War II years.

So I have the Israelis to thank for pill cameras, AIM, acne treatments, their being particularily educated and wealthy, Windows NT (Windows NT!  Oh my!), they have...  wait...

They have the highest average of home computers per capita!?  Stop the presses!  My God!  They truly are helping humanity!

Why, who needs things like progression towards social justice, figureheads like Ghandi and MLK, a government that doesn't do heinous things to people and other countries, and a sense of artistic, human decency?  Honestly, I mean, really.  AIM.  They helped make AIM.  Awesome.

What a contribution to humanity.

And in response to the last part of your post, there was also a country that emerged as a superpower after suffering a devastating (and humiliating) World War.  They called it Germany, and they kicked asses.  They did very, very bad things, but they became one of the greatest industrial powers of the time, and are still producing some of the greatest scientific minds in the world.

So, uh, I don't know about you, but I don't measure contributions to humanity in gadgets and software.  I measure it in wisdom, art, justice and not scattering cluster bombs in Lebanese farmland.  Or killing Jews, in Germany's case.

But wait, what am I saying.  Microsoft and Cisco built their R&D facilities in Israel.

Good golly.  They must be good.  All this amazing proof you've given me, really.  I...  I'm just astounded.

But in all seriousness, I said contributions to humanity, and you gave me a list of some of the most trivial, unimportant things I think I've ever heard.  Get a clue.  This world needs common sense, community and sanity, not bragging rights to diamond cutting standards and venture capital funds.  If this is how you measure human success, then you are one of the most backwards, screwed up, hopeless people I've ever heard of.

"We're torturing prisoners and layering civilian farmland with bombs!  Wooo!  But it's okay!  It's okay! We built a solar plant in California!"

Well, I live in California, and we still have an energy crisis.  Thanks Israel! 

~ Blair

P.S.  And Cell phones too?!  Like, ohmygod, wow! 
  •  

Melissa

Blair, many of these communication tools have helped people become closer to each other.  Take cell phones for instance.  I sure by allowing easier access to communication, there have been some great things that have come of humanity.

Melissa

P.S. There's at least one person on these forums that I know of that visits Israel regularly.
  •  

Omika

Quote from: Kaelin on February 27, 2007, 08:19:26 AM
Blair, regarding the President of Iran, he recently ran a conference that questioned whether the holocaust ever happened -- that's BS on the highest level.  He does have some fair points to offer (Iran is entitled to self-govern), but even the Bush administration will say some true things from time to time.  I think we are better off elevating the discourse above what either "side" is currently offering, rather than choosing between the two corrupt options.

Of course, I suppose the main point to overcome is that you would like Israel destroyed.  Why single them out?  Why should jewish people be destroyed and not muslims and christians?  Heck, why not destroy any country substantially shaped by religious fanboys (and you better believe it's the boys)?

Sure, he's got his quirks, but I like him a lot better than Dubya.  At least he questions things instead of picking his nose and staring off into space.

And the dislike for Israel has nothing to do with race or religion.  Why the Hell do people seem to be so quick to think such paltry things?  The reason I would like to see Israel disarmed, neutralized or outright slapped is because they've been doing horrid things.  Just like the US.  I'm not calling for the US to be wiped out or disarmed, because I know it's going to implode eventually anyways (there's such a huge division between the working poor and the rich in this country, I might as well be living in a 13th century monarchy.)

I am immediately suspicious and watchful of any country the United States enjoys arming and backing politically.  Anyone familiar with history would be.

~ Blair
Quote from: Melissa on February 27, 2007, 11:45:37 AM
Blair, many of these communication tools have helped people become closer to each other.  Take cell phones for instance.  I sure by allowing easier access to communication, there have been some great things that have come of humanity.

Melissa

P.S. There's at least one person on these forums that I know of that visits Israel regularly.

Melissa, I like you, and I'd like to think you're just avoiding my point to be polite.

The fact is, we have scientists sitting around going, "Oh man!  We should totally get guys on Mars!  Shouldn't we?  Shouldn't we do that?  Wouldn't it be awesome, it'd be like that movie, you know the one, when the guys are on Mars?  Man!  That'd be sweet!"

While in the space of that sentence, several children have died of starvation.

My point, and what I mean when I say contributions to humanity, is that mankind, today, has its priorities so completely twisted that it makes me want to vomit.

That's all.

~ Blair

P.S.  I actually would love to see space exploration continue, it's great.  But as a responsible human being, I can't stand for resources to be poured into something so frivolous when we're just exiting what has been the bloodiest century in human history (and it may get bloodier.)
  •  

Melissa

If your point is saying the the US is messed up, that kind of goes without saying.  The problem is a bunch of greedy republicans (republicans are very pro-business and tend to be well off enough to have some investments in business) voted for GWB just so they could pay less taxes and have their businesses grow.  It could have been an honest mistake the first time he was voted in.  I was totally against him at that time.  He proved to be a failure as a president and then people STILL voted for him to be president again.  In his second term, he has caused far more damage to this country.  In fact, overall he has caused far more damage to this country than any president (perhaps than any person) has ever done in history.  And it was all so republicans could grow some business investments.  That's what pisses me off about the whole thing.

Melissa

P.S.  Not ALL republicans are greedy, but I find the very nature of what republicans stand for to be greedy.
  •  

cindianna_jones

It is hatred for another people, disgust for another country, and a lack of disrespect for other peoples that create these problems in the first place.  I can't comprehend a desire to attack any country without cause.

As far as nuclear capability is concerned.....

There is this nuclear technology... it's called a fast neutron reactor.  It will burn any nuclear fuel.  It will not breed plutonium.  In fact, we could use the nuclear waste that we currently have in stockpiles in the good ole US to power such reactors to supply ALL of our energy needs for the next couple hundred years.  It will take nuclear products that have a half life of tens of thousands of years, burn 99 percent of it and the remaining waste has a half life of a few hundred years.  See an article about it in December 2005 issue of Scientific American.

If these countries (like Iran) want nuclear energy for electricity, as they say, then why in the world can we not be selling them the technology?  Why would we not develop this technology for ourselves?

There are several answers in the answer.  First of all, "we" still need the material to make weapons.  That's from the military side.  From the  environmentalist side, the technology has "nuclear" in the name and is automatically dismissed for that reason.  The fact is, this fast neutron technology is better for the environment and prevents weapons grade material from being produced.

You want to keep nations from developing weapons?  Give them a cheap source of clean energy... yes even those that have oil.

Yet, no one knows about it.  No one wants to know.

Cindi

  •  

Melissa

How are we going to ever achieve world harmony (more likely than world peace) if we keep killing?

Melissa
  •  

Omika

Quote from: Melissa on February 27, 2007, 12:05:21 PM
If your point is saying the the US is messed up, that kind of goes without saying.  The problem is a bunch of greedy republicans (republicans are very pro-business and tend to be well off enough to have some investments in business) voted for GWB just so they could pay less taxes and have their businesses grow.  It could have been an honest mistake the first time he was voted in.  I was totally against him at that time.  He proved to be a failure as a president and then people STILL voted for him to be president again.  In his second term, he has caused far more damage to this country.  In fact, overall he has caused far more damage to this country than any president (perhaps than any person) has ever done in history.  And it was all so republicans could grow some business investments.  That's what pisses me off about the whole thing.

Melissa

P.S.  Not ALL republicans are greedy, but I find the very nature of what republicans stand for to be greedy.

You're right.  But it's not even just republicans anymore.  They seem to have succeeded in mesmerizing the majority of the citizenry into an army of obedient, paranoid, groaning sleepwalkers.  Seriously.  Paranoid. (See the link in my sig.)

Republicans and democrats are the same to me.  Profit has been the motivation for this country since its inception.  We wrote slavery into the constitution (although modern businessmen and economists will tell you that the current system of working poor and sweatshops is far more reliable and effective than slavery ever was), and that very document was forged by 55 of the country's elite and wealthy.  It certainly was NOT written by "ordinary citizens" as most would have you believe.

By the dollar, for the dollar.  Since birth.

~ Blair
Quote from: Cindi Jones on February 27, 2007, 12:10:17 PM
It is hatred for another people, disgust for another country, and a lack of disrespect for other peoples that create these problems in the first place.  I can't comprehend a desire to attack any country without cause.

As far as nuclear capability is concerned.....

There is this nuclear technology... it's called a fast neutron reactor.  It will burn any nuclear fuel.  It will not breed plutonium.  In fact, we could use the nuclear waste that we currently have in stockpiles in the good ole US to power such reactors to supply ALL of our energy needs for the next couple hundred years.  It will take nuclear products that have a half life of tens of thousands of years, burn 99 percent of it and the remaining waste has a half life of a few hundred years.  See an article about it in December 2005 issue of Scientific American.

If these countries (like Iran) want nuclear energy for electricity, as they say, then why in the world can we not be selling them the technology?  Why would we not develop this technology for ourselves?

There are several answers in the answer.  First of all, "we" still need the material to make weapons.  That's from the military side.  From the  environmentalist side, the technology has "nuclear" in the name and is automatically dismissed for that reason.  The fact is, this fast neutron technology is better for the environment and prevents weapons grade material from being produced.

You want to keep nations from developing weapons?  Give them a cheap source of clean energy... yes even those that have oil.

Yet, no one knows about it.  No one wants to know.

Cindi



You mean we'd be burning something we could be using to make weapons of an utterly idiotic scale!?  Cindi!  How dare you!

And you say it's a clean, reliable energy source?!  And cheap?!  Cindi!  Where's your good old American price gouging spirit?  Where's your sense of business?!  Where's your motivation for profit?

Well, profit.  Profit.  In California, we're paving over some of the richest farmland in the world for real estate.  I asked my wealthy uncle, "Why are we doing this?  Don't we need food?" and his response was, "Real estate is more profitable than farmland."

Huh.  So, uh, I guess we need to redefine profit.  Profit is inflated food costs and starvation for lower classes?  Profit is...  profit is human suffering!  Of course!  Businesses have made money creating shoddy working conditions and paying bare bones wages for centuries.  I think it should be clear to anyone with a scrap of decency that the definition of the word profit, in the modern era, is nothing short of human suffering.

Hoo-rah.

~ Blair
  •  

LostInTime

We offered to Iran to help them get setup with a reactor that would not allow them to make weapons grade plutonium.  they declined the offer.

Right now it appears that they want nukes.  Sure, they say energy but then...
The president of Iran keeps threatening to wipe another nation off the face of the earth using nukes.

Right now Iran should not have nukes in any way, shape, or form but that is what they want.  We should do everything possible to make sure that they do not obtain this technology.  Diplomacy can work if the other countries kick in, but they will not.  However, it should be used until no other option is left.

If push comes to shove then strategic bombing of both the known sites and the leadership will have to be done.  I would rather see that then to have the possibility of a nuclear blast going off in an attempt of genocide.
  •  

cindianna_jones

Blair, I think that we should attack Honduras.  After all, what have they ever done for humanity's sake?

.... the argument doesn't wash for me.

When we attack, it better be for a damned good reason.  And we should do it with overwhelming force.  The opposition should be completely wiped out.  And unfortunately, in this day and age, countless innocents must suffer the same fate.  We must absolutely and resolutely crush their will to fight back.  Think of Germany and Japan.  Those worked.  Until we are ready to do that, we need to explore every single possibility with every resource we have to prevent it.  Even then, with the religious backing of today's form of opposition, I'm extremely doubtfull that any permanent victory is possible. Those ideas are hard to kill.

Cindi


Blair... we certainly agree on the profit thing.  But we can't discuss that.... ;)  For....

We Are Right

Cindi
LIT,

I'm pretty sure that those reactors will not come on line.  We'll either bomb them or let Israel do it.  It's going to be a tough one since they've spread their technology all over the map and concealed it well.

Cindi
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LostInTime

#55
Quote
It would also be nice to have a leader who will actually listen to those whose business is to carry out a war and not to others.  Imagine how much better Iraq might be right now if we went in with more people (like the Pentagon wanted) and secured most of the borders (like the Pentagon wanted) from the get go.

Politics in the US are more geared towards the "keep me in office" mindset more than "duty to the people" for the last two administrations (and many other congress critters).  here's hoping that will come to an end.

Yup.  It boggles my mind to think that they don't know their own history. They can not comprehend what it takes to wage and complete war.  They are very stupid people.  If they had made that commitment, we would not have supported it.  And we wouldn't have been in this mess.

Cindi

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Melissa

Quote from: LostInTime on February 27, 2007, 12:37:32 PM
Politics in the US are more geared towards the "keep me in office" mindset more than "duty to the people" for the last two administrations (and many other congress critters).  here's hoping that will come to an end.
I bet if politicians weren't paid so much this might be different. ;)

Melissa
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LostInTime

I have thought that myself more than a few times.   ;D
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cindianna_jones

I wonder if a bigger paycheck might help keep them from bowing to outside influences.  I don't know. I think that money isn't the key thing here.  I think that it is power.  Power is the best drug.

Cindi
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Melissa

My point was, there wouldn't be such a financial motivation to be a politician and the ones who truly wanted to make a difference would be the ones going into politics.  In essence, it would get rid of a lot of greedy people.  I personally don't think paying them more money would have *any* positive influence.

Melissa
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