Years

2007

344 posts

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ASATs and Crisis Instability

This is a slide from an August 2005 presentation by Colonel Rick Patenaude, chief of the deterrence and strike division within Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), entitled, Prompt Global Strike Update. I’ve posted the slide, becuase Patenaude reveals something very…

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Science, Sex, Superflies

So reads the apparently unironic headline on the IAEA website detailing regional efforts to combat the Mediterranean fruit fly. Apparently, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have a cooperative program using nuclear science to breed sterile male fruit flies, air-dropping…

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Paul Doubts 3,000 Centrifuge Report

Paul over at TotalWonkerr further doubts that the Iranians have installed 3,000 centrifuges, citing comments by ElBaradei and Aqazadeh: IAEA DG ElBaradei told Reuters that Iran “is still going ahead … with the goal of having 54,000 centrifuges. Now it…

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Are We Prepared for Nuclear Attack?

In a well-timed follow-up to yesterday’s post, Greg Gordon with McClatchy pens an expose on the lack of preparedness in the United States in the event of a terrorist detonation of a nuclear device: “The United States is unprepared to…

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Dick & Matt on the P(Terror Farm)

Speaking of that ranch in Montana … Dick Garwin tells Congress that, in his formidable opinion, the chance of a successful terrorist use of a nuclear weapon in the United States or Europe is twenty percent per year: GARWIN: What…

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How Many Centrifuges?

Paul at Total Wonkerr adds some value to my post, including reminding readers of a late March story from AFP’s Michael Adler stating that a … … diplomat said Iran had installed six cascades of 164 centrifuges each at Natanz…

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Iran Enriching "On Industrial Scale"

Whatever. So, in case you missed it … some members of the news media are freaking out reporting Ahmadinejad’s claim that Iran is enriching uranium “on an industrial scale,” Larijani’s claim that Iran is running UF6 though 3,000 centrifuges,” and…

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Anybody Got a Conventional Trident PE?

Ok, I am annoyed. I am writing a paper about the Conventional Trident Modification (CTM) program—an effort to replace the nuclear warheads on two Trident D5 missiles on each of the nation’s 12 SSBNs with a conventional payload. I think…

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Iran's Centrifuge Operations

Brian Ross at ABC News reports that “Iran has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium in the last three months, adding some 1,000 centrifuges …” and adds that “Iran could have enough material for a nuclear bomb…

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TotalWonkerr v. Golfarb

Paul continues his quixotic battle to introduce Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard to methodological rigor. Shorter Paul: Absence of evidence is absence of evidence.