The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.
And in Israel Benjamin Netanyahu is apparently seeking cabinet approval for a strike.
And testing a nuclear missile.
Israel test-fired a ballistic missile from a military base in central Israel on Wednesday, Israel Radio said.
The report said the launch was carried out from the Palmachim facility. It quoted a Defence Ministry statement as saying the launch was aimed at testing the missile's propulsion system. Israel has Jericho missiles widely believed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Can you imagine what might happen with the world teetering on the edge of a new and brutal recession? Especially since the Iranians would no doubt attack the Saudi oil fields. Which would require further military action, and would almost certainly unleash a new wave of terrorism on countries supporting the attack on its nuclear facilities.
How do you think other nuclear powers like China and Russia that support Iran might react?
And do you think Stephen Harper would keep Canada on the sidelines, when his government is practically a tool of the Netanyahu settler regime?
Oh wait I think I can hear him now....
You know I think it's about time that Occupy Wall Street (OWS) changed it's name to (OSW) or Operation Save the World.
Because forget that little economic crisis, I think I can hear the horsemen of the Apocalypse.
As the desperate battle to put out the hellish fires at the Fukushima nuclear facility continues.
“What you are seeing are desperate efforts — just throwing everything at it in hopes something will work,” said one American official with long nuclear experience who would not speak for attribution. “Right now this is more prayer than plan.”
I can't help thinking about the heroic plant workers who are sacrificing their lives, to try to save their country, and the world, from a nuclear catastrophe.
One, his body being bombarded with soaring doses of radiation but refusing to give up the fight, wrote to his wife: “Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while.”
Or the pain of their families.
One young girl tweeted about her doomed father: “My dad went to the nuclear plant, I’ve never seen my mother cry so hard. People at the plant are struggling, sacrificing themselves to protect you. Please daddy come back alive.”
Heroes is a word that is awarded cheaply these days. But they are the real thing.
Death came to the many firefighters and staff who stayed and the divers who swam in radioactive pools to reach critical valves. Helicopter pilots also fell ill as they ferried in water and cement to smother the whole mess from above. Had they not sacrificed themselves -- or been sacrificed -- the harm would have been a great deal worse to the rest of the public.
To paraphrase that old saying... greater love hath no human, than one who lays down his or her life for others.
The film was inspired by events that were very real and very controversial. In March 1954, a massive thermonuclear weapon tested by the United States near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, codenamed “Bravo,” detonated with about 2.5 times greater force than anticipated. The unexpectedly vast fallout from the bomb enveloped a distant Japanese tuna trawler named the Lucky Dragon No. 5 in a blizzard of radioactive ash. Crewmembers returned to their home port of Yaizu bearing blackened and blistered skin, acute radiation sickness and a cargo of irradiated tuna.
Audiences who flocked to “Gojira” were clearly watching more than just a monster movie. The film’s opening scenes evoked the nuclear explosion in the Pacific and the damaged Japanese bodies so poignant to domestic viewers. Godzilla — relentless, vengeful, sinister — looms as an overt symbol of science run amok.
The tragic irony is that this latest nuclear Godzilla is self inflicted.
Japan now has 54 nuclear reactors, ranking third in terms of energy output behind the United States and France. Japan also has an unusually shoddy record for nuclear safety.
But the destruction so familiar....
When I was a boy I carried a teddy bear under one arm, and a Godzilla doll under the other one. When I was a teenager I used to collect the movies. Now I'll never be able to watch another one without thinking of this terrible tragedy.
The good news? The Japanese are an amazingly resilient people. La Presse's Patrick Lagacé quotes Jean Dorion, a well known Montrealer who is married to a Japanese woman.
I don't believe in the "soul of peoples"; the culture of a nation doesn't come from any genetic code; it's the product of the conditions in which a people must live, and has lived.
Almost all the Japanese archipelago is nothing more than a long mountainous mass sprung from the ocean, covered with thick forest, with steep slopes that cannot be cultivated or inhabited. On its narrow coastal plains are crammed 125 million people, whose life would not be livable without civic discipline, good manners, and a desperate passion for work. Work and ingenuity are key to the prodigious success of a country devoid of resources.
When you put US before ME it's amazing what you can do eh?
I had a hard time getting up enough energy to blog tonight. Every story I wanted to write about is so depressing. Starting with this one.
As if the poor Japanese people hadn't suffered enough, now they must face their worst nightmare.
As must the rebels in Libya. Because now that the eyes of the world are focused on Japan, who will stop the degenerate tyrant from slaughtering them?
Then there's Obama, the human rights champion Pentagon stooge declaring that the treatment of Bradley Manning was "appropriate."
Obama responded that if Manning's treatment is good enough for the Pentagon, it is good enough for him. "I've actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards," Obama said, suggesting some of those procedures were to protect Manning's safety. "They have assured me that they are."
"I became upset. Out of frustration, I clenched my hair with my fingers and yelled: 'Why are you doing this to me? Why am I being punished? I have done nothing wrong.'"
And then of course, there's that other cloud hanging over my head. The possibility that we could be fighting an election in less than ten days.
Stephen Harper might finally win his precious majority. And use it to torture and slaughter the Canada we know and love.
Oh boy. Talk about blogging in a nightmare world. If you don't blog you can try to ignore what's going on out there. If you do you can't.
I think I need a break. I may have to give up blogging, and just make videos. Or go back to writing poems about trees, even though the woods are full of policemen.
Or maybe I'll just do what the guy in this new R.E.M. video does.
And hope I'll feel better tomorrow ...
If I'm not ARRESTED.
And that's it eh? That's all I wanted to say.
Live life to the fullest. Fight for freedom as hard as you can.
I'm not either eh? But for some reason the Obama administration seems to think we should be. And so does the New York Times.
The advice is based on recent scientific analyses showing that a nuclear attack is much more survivable if you immediately shield yourself from the lethal radiation that follows a blast, a simple tactic seen as saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Even staying in a car, the studies show, would reduce casualties by more than 50 percent; hunkering down in a basement would be better by far.
Hmmmmm.... that seems to make sense. And if I'm in a car that shouldn't be too hard to remember.
Just assume the same position my friend Angus does...
When I'm driving.
But what really bothers me is what comes NEXT? How do we survive in a post-apocalyptic world?
Luckily, the Australians have just dug up an old film made in the 80s.
And it's packed with useful tips...
Hmmmmm... you know after reading the NYT's story and watching that video something else bothers me. Do you think the terrorists will give us enough time to park our cars?
And you don't think somebody is trying to scare us eh? Into say supporting the Great War on Terror.
Oh well. Now for something really SCARY.
If you see this dog. Cover your face.
And run for your LIFE !!!!!!!
Gawd. And to think I thought a Harper majority was the worst thing that could happen to us
