CNN has scheduled a debate tonight between Hillary and Barack at 8pm ET. Lets hope that things will get a little more exciting then the last one. Hillary is probably beginning to feel like a cornered, wounded animal and we all know what will happen next. This feeling will hopefully lead to the demise of the facade of friendship seen between the candidates in the California debate.
UPDATE:
Things are literally heating up between Serbia and Kosovo with the former being blamed for setting several border checkpoints ablaze.
NATO-led peacekeeping forces in Kosovo on Wednesday blamed Serb leaders for arson attacks on two border checkpoints by gangs of Serbs angry about Kosovo’s independence.
The border crossings at Banja and Jarinje remained sealed after at least 1,000 Serbs from Kosovo and Serbia on Tuesday ransacked and torched both sites, two days after Kosovo unilaterally declared independence. “Some local leaders took a huge responsibility yesterday (Tuesday),” said General Xavier Bout de Marnhac, the commander of NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) peacekeepers.
“The leaders should think deeply of their responsibility when they trigger this type of demonstration,” said the French general.
While not naming names, De Marnhac said the ringleaders could be discerned by watching video images of the incident on Serbian television. “You will know what I am talking about.” In statements Tuesday, KFOR and the UN mission that has administered Kosovo since 1999 said the two border crossings would remain closed for 24 hours. Others, including those into Albania and Macedonia, stayed open. “Kosovo is not closed. Other gates are not closed,” said Joachim Ruecker, the German head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which still oversees Kosovo’s borders.
Lets hope that these skirmishes don’t lead to a full blown crisis.
Hmmm… interesting thought… if this isn’t resolved by the time our next president is elected and Hillary (God forbid) is elected, things could get interesting. I only say this because many people accuse Bush as finishing his father’s work in Iraq and if Hillary would have to deal with Kosovo with military intervention, well that would just be ironic. I pray that this won’t come about though because no one deserves what might happen if Hillary tries to intervene.
Looks like Microsoft has already determined what my winter break plans for this year will be. Oh, how I can’t wait.
When Michelle Obama said that she was proud of her country for first time a couple days ago, I chalked it up to being a political misspeak that everyone is prone to do. However, it would seem that Michelle actually gave that same speech twice. Even though Michelle seems to be a very nice lady and I have had the chance to meet her, this is pretty outrageous. I might have to cut her some slack though because her “adult life” does include 8 years of Bill and I would have a hard time coming up with anything that would make me proud of my country during that time. Other than that, she really has no excuse for saying what she said.
If you want to see these clips, Gateway Pundit has a video of both times she said it posted here.
A couple months ago, The Economist published a series of articles analyzing the future of nuclear energy. I had actually written this post the week these articles came out but have been holding off publishing because I didn’t feel that there was enough talk about nuclear energy. However, I now feel that the presidential primary has shed enough light on the issue that this topic of nuclear energy is now relevant. Another thing that made this article relevant is that Progress Energy has just announced that it has chosen to build a second nuclear reactor in Wake Country, NC. This is sure to bring the question about nuclear energy to the forefront even more.
Just to warn you, the single theme that connects these several articles seems to be the fact that they view the future of nuclear power in a positive light and I, for one, hold the same view. Therefore, don’t expect this article to denounce nuclear energy. Now that we have that disclaimer out of the way, let us begin.
The nuclear energy industry in the United States has been stagnant for the past thirty years with no new applications to build submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This, however, is supposed to change over the next few months. According to The Economist, the NRC is expected to receive 12 new applications (new estimates hint that the number will be closer to 19 by the end of the year) to build nuclear power plants over this time period. The reason that there haven’t been any new applications is the fact that the price of building a plant is extremely high and can take years to wade through all the regulations. The Economist’s article “Atomic renaissance” gives an example at just how expensive and time consuming a nuclear power plant can be.
America’s most recent nuclear plant, at Watts Bar in Tennessee, started operations in 1996. But it took 23 years to complete at a cost of $6.9 billion; a second reactor at the site has been under construction, on and off, since 1973. Another plant, at Shoreham in New York, was completed and tested, but never allowed to start commercial operations because of local opposition. By the time it was decommissioned, in 1994—21 years after construction had begun—the costs had exploded from $70m to $6 billion. The local utility was able to pass most of this bill on to its customers. Not all energy firms have been so lucky: in 1988 Public Service Company of New Hampshire became the first American utility to go bust since the Depression, thanks largely to the fallout from a much-delayed nuclear project.
Many people cite that the potential deaths from possible nuclear complications as reasons against creating new nuclear power plants. However, in the article “Nuclear power’s new age,” the author gives you a cost comparison between nuclear power and our largest source of energy.
It may be that fears of nuclear power are overblown: after all, the UN figure of around 4,000 eventual deaths as a result of the Chernobyl accident is lower than the official annual death-rate in Chinese coal mines.
This example may be in China where safety concerns aren’t as important as they are in the United States, but coal mining deaths still occur in the US. Now they go on to state that there are other reasons to fear, such as nuclear material proliferation, but with other countries producing the same materials, we can really only worry about what we produce. This last quote could also be used by environmentalist as a support for using solar, wind, and bio power instead of coal, but those “renewable” sources come with their own problems that I am not going to discuss here.
In the article “Nuclear Dawn,” new nuclear power plants are described that utilize a different type of reactor that makes it virtually impossible to melt down.
A demonstration plant of a completely different type, a “pebble bed” reactor, is scheduled to be built in South Africa starting in 2009. Based on technology that originated in Germany, its design is unique in several ways. For one thing, its small size (165 megawatts) should make it comparatively fast and cheap to build; depending on power needs, several units sharing a single control room could be constructed on one site. And the uranium fuel is encapsulated in rugged “pebbles”, the size of tennis balls, which are designed to withstand a loss of coolant without disintegrating, making the reactor extremely safe. Andrew Kadak, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who has been developing a smaller, alternative pebble-bed design with his students, is convinced that “these reactors cannot melt down.”
This article also addresses the issue of what to do with all the nuclear waste. The answer to that is to burn it.
As part of a new multinational initiative called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), however, America’s Department of Energy is supporting a type of spent fuel reprocessing which does not separate the plutonium from other highly radioactive materials in the waste, thus making it more resistant to proliferation than traditional reprocessing. This mixture of plutonium and other radioactive elements could then be turned into fuel suitable for use in “fast” reactors. Most reactors in operation today are called “thermal” reactors, because they use a moderator to slow down the neutrons and promote fission. Fast reactors, in contrast, do not employ moderators and use much faster neutrons to produce fissions. So they can consume many of the long-lived radioactive materials that thermal reactors cannot.
Nuclear energy is a very promising source of power for the coming years. It has evolved over the past couple decades as it has had to pass rigors of the environmental movement’s tests. With the next generation of nuclear plants being much more advanced, accidents such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island are made almost impossible. Therefore, for an cleaner source of energy that can produce fairly inexpensive energy after startup, nuclear energy is what we should be investing in.
With his party conceding the defeat in the election today, Musharraf’s future isn’t to certain. With his party coming in third in the number of parliamentary seats won so far, impeachment or the invalidation of his October election could become a reality.
With the support of smaller groups and independent candidates, the opposition could gain the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to impeach Musharraf, who has angered many Pakistanis by allying the country with Washington in 2001 to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States…
Musharraf has promised to work with whatever government emerges from the election. But the former general is hugely unpopular among the public and opposition parties that have been catapulted into power are likely to find little reason to work with him — particularly since he no longer controls the powerful army.
Sharif has been especially outspoken in demanding that Musharraf be removed and that the Supreme Court justices whom the president sacked late last year be returned to their posts. Those judges were fired as they prepared to rule on whether Musharraf’s re-election last October was constitutional.
If the opposition falls short of enough votes to remove Musharraf, the new government could reinstate the Supreme Court justices and ask them to declare the October election invalid.
The spokesman for Sharif’s party, Sadiq ul-Farooq, told reporters Tuesday that Musharraf “should go.” But he added that if the restored justices validate Musharraf’s October election to a new term, the opposition would accept the decision.
Gateway Pundit has a good post concerning several US legislators’ involvement in this election. It’s worth a read.
Well, if you have any dirty corporate laundry to air, I would do it now because it seems that a court has ordered the site to be taken offline in the US.
Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.
The case was brought by a Swiss bank after “several hundred” documents were posted about its offshore activities.
Other versions of the pages, hosted in countries such as Belgium and India, can still be accessed.
However, the main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site’s domain name, should remove all traces of wikileaks from its servers.
You can still see the site here, but as hinted at in the article, I don’t know if all the information can still be accessed.
Hmmm…censoring the internet…I seem to remember some other country doing that also.
Well it seems that the Russians aren’t the only ones that are angry about Kosovo; several Asians nations are also voicing their fears that Kosovo’s secession might lead to similar moves in their regions. China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka all have pesky secessionist sects and they fear that this move by the western world to so readily recognize Kosovo will lead to their own run-ins with independence fever.
China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka on Monday criticized Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia while Taiwan and Australia welcomed it, as Kosovo’s move appeared a litmus test of attitudes in Asia toward secession.
The Beijing government, which has threatened military action if Taiwan declares formal independence, voiced “grave concern” at Sunday’s action by the Kosovo Parliament in Pristina…
Taiwan quickly congratulated Kosovo on Monday in terms that echoed the desire of some Taiwanese for a complete political break with mainland China. “Despite a multitude of barriers, the people of Kosovo have insisted on an ideal that they believe in, which is to peacefully pursue independence, without being threatened or scared away,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday…
Sri Lanka, which is not a current member of the Security Council, has its own longstanding struggle with Tamil secessionists, particularly in the north of the island nation. It also condemned the declaration of independence. “We note that the declaration of independence was made without the consent of the majority of the people of Serbia and is a violation of the Charter of the United Nations, which enshrines the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states,” the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said, according to the state-run Daily News newspaper.
Yea, I wasn’t so interested in the nuclear talks part but more in the way this Indian paper referred to the United States presidency as a “regime.” I mean this is first class liberal jargon we are talking about here. The worst part is, the paper doesn’t even get this phrase from the interview. Here, take a look (emphasis added):
Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar has said efforts to ensure success of the Indo-US nuclear deal would go on regardless of regime change in the US.
Speaking to reporters after delivering a lecture on Monday at the National Institute of Advanced Studies on India’s nuclear energy status, he said: “It is a step-by-step process and takes time. I am not willing to conjecture on what will happen to the nuclear deal in connection with the US presidency… I don’t want to say whether the deal will be seen through before or after the Bush presidency… We will continue to talk with the US.”
Kakodkar said he was neither positive nor negative about the deal. “I am a realist, I am realistic about it. If the deal goes through, it is very good. I don’t think about whether it won’t… But if it doesn’t, our indigenous programme will go on. I can say our indigenous programme is sustainable on its own…”
Unless the reporter left out the part where Mr. Kakodkar referred to the Bush presidency as a “regime,” I really don’t know why the author would even refer to it as that. I mean, this isn’t an opinion piece so words like “regime” are normally limited to referring to those really bad nations (aka Iran and North Korea).
Well, I guess if it ain’t liberals at home you got to worry about it’s also the ones abroad. Go ahead Mr. Anonymous Liberal, keep putting words in other people’s mouths. Just remember that there are people like me watching and catching your (intentional) mistakes.
It seems that Denmark isn’t the only country that is having to deal with rioting youths. With Kosovo’s declaration of independence yesterday, several hundred Serbian youths have taken to the streets in Belgrade to protest and ultimately cause a riot.
Riot police using tear gas and batons dispersed hundreds of Serbian youths who ran riot through central Belgrade Sunday, targeting the embassies of Western backers of Kosovo’s independence.
The youths, who numbered about 800 at the height of the violence, smashed the windows of two McDonald’s restaurants, and those of the US and Slovenian embassies. Most of them appeared to be hardcore football fans.
The rioting lasted several hours and at least 50 people — among them 20 policemen — were injured during the rioting, radio B92 reported, quoting hospital officials.
Their injuries were not life-threatening, emergency service doctor Aleksandar Marinkovic told Beta news agency.
However, unlike those youths in Denmark, I doubt these youths are Muslim and I have a good feeling that they have a much more valid reason for protesting. I personally don’t know enough about the whole Kosovo/Serbia situation to say whether Kosovo declaring its independence was the right thing (feel free to chime in on what you think), but I feel that protesting in this case might be justified. However, when protesting turns into rioting then things have obviously gone too far and people should be punished.
In Denmark’s case, cartoons are never a good reason to protest, much less start a riot. If Christians threw a fit every time Jesus was disrespected, well I doubt that there would be much of a world left.
