Riot police stand in front of a burning barricade in Jermyn Street during clashes with a small group of protesters after a march against government spending cuts
Photographer: Felix Clay for The Guardian
Image of the day -March 27 2011
Filed under Blogging
Image of the day – March 26 2011libya
French soldiers are winched down from a helicopter next to an E2C-Hawkeye airborne early warning and control plane on the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle during the international military operations in Libya
Image courtesy Guardian UK
Filed under Blogging
Whoppi Goldberg explodes at Donald Trump about Obama’s birth certificate on the View [Updated with Video]
Video added ….
Whoopi Goldberg got into a furious argument with Donald Trump about President Obama’s birth certificate on Wednesday’s “The View.”
Trump, who has been talking about running for president, has been drawing attention for his comments about Obama’s citizenship. He repeated some of them on “The View.”
“Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?” Trump said. “Why should he have to?” Whoopi cut in.
“Because I have to and everybody else has to, Whoopi,” Trump said. He continued that he believed Obama has a birth certificate, but that he should show it to clear the “pall” hanging over him. Then, he said that it was odd that “nobody from [Obama's] early years remembers him,” and that there was “something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like.” This last comment seemed to be the final straw for Whoopi—and for Barbara Walters.
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” she said, as Whoopi exclaimed, “oh my God…that’s the biggest pile of dog mess I’ve heard in ages.” She continued, “it’s not ’cause he’s black, is it?” Trump said it had “nothing to do with that.”
“Because I’ve never heard any white President asked to be shown the birth certificate,” Whoopi said heatedly, pounding her fist into her hand. “When you become the President of the United States of America, you know that he’s American. I’m sorry. That’s B.S.”
Filed under the view, whoopi goldberg
Image of the day – March 24th
Yuvraj Singh celebrating after hitting the winning shot against Australia in the cricket world cup semi final
Filed under Blogging
The Qaddafi I Know – YOWERI MUSEVENI
The Qaddafi I Know
The Libyan leader was no saint. But the West was wrong to intervene in African affairs.
BY YOWERI MUSEVENI | MARCH 24, 2011
By the time Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi came to power in 1969, I was a third-year university student at Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. We welcomed his rise because he was a leader in the tradition of Col. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt who had a nationalist and pan-Arabist position.
Soon, however, problems cropped up with Qaddafi as far as Uganda and black Africa were concerned:
Backing Idi Amin: Idi Amin came to power in 1971 with the support of Britain and Israel because they thought he was uneducated enough to be used by them. Amin, however, turned against his sponsors when they refused to sell him guns to fight Tanzania. Unfortunately, Qaddafi, without first getting enough information about Uganda, jumped in to support Idi Amin. He did this because Amin was a “Moslem” and Uganda was a “Moslem country,” where Moslems were being “oppressed” by Christians. Amin killed a lot of people extra-judicially, and Qaddafi was identified with these mistakes.
In 1972 and 1979, Qaddafi sent Libyan troops to defend Amin when we [the Uganda National Liberation Front] attacked him. I remember a Libyan Tupolev Tu-22 bomber trying to bomb us in Mbarara in 1979. The bomb ended up in Nyarubanga, Burundi, because the pilots were scared. They could not come close to bombing their intended target properly. We had already shot-down many of Amin’s MIGs using surface-to-air missiles. Our Tanzanian brothers and sisters were doing much of this fighting. Many Libyan militias were captured and repatriated to Libya by Tanzania. This was a big mistake by Qaddafi and a direct aggression against the people of Uganda and East Africa.
Pushing for a United States of Africa: The second big mistake by Qaddafi was his position vis-à-vis the African Union (AU), where he called for a continental government “now.” Since 1999, he has been pushing this position. Black people are always polite. They, normally, do not want to offend other people. This is called obufura in the Runyankore language, or mwolo in Luo — handling, especially strangers, with care and respect. It seems some of the non-African cultures do not have obufura. You can witness a person talking to a mature person as if he or she is talking to a kindergarten child. “You should do this; you should do that; etc.” We tried to politely point out to Qaddafi that continental governance was difficult in the short and medium term. We should, instead, aim at the Economic Community of Africa and, where possible, also aim at Regional Federations.
But Qaddafi would not relent. He would not respect the rules of the AU. Topics or discussions that had been covered by previous meetings would be resurrected by Qaddafi. He would “overrule” a decision taken by all other African heads of state. Some of us were forced to come out and oppose his wrong position and, working with others, we repeatedly defeated his illogical position.
Proclaiming himself king of kings: The third mistake has been the tendency by Qaddafi to interfere in the internal affairs of many African countries, using the little money Libya has compared to those countries. One blatant example was his involvement with cultural leaders of black Africa — kings, chiefs, etc. Since the political leaders of Africa had refused to back his project of an African government, Qaddafi, incredibly, thought that he could bypass them and work with these kings to implement his wishes. I warned Qaddafi in Addis Ababa that action would be taken against any Ugandan king who involved himself in politics, because it was against our Constitution. I moved a motion in Addis Ababa to expunge from the records of the AU all references to kings (cultural leaders) who had made speeches in our forum, because they had been invited there illegally by Col. Qaddafi.
Original article can be found here – http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/24/the_qaddafi_I_know
Filed under Blogging
Demilitarized Zone in the Sky
NATO’s leaders met on Friday to work out the details of a flight ban over Libya after the U.N. Security Council gave the international community a mandate to protect civilians under attack by government forces. Although it is a complex military operation, but the United States and its allies have accomplished similar feats more than once in recent history.
Iraq
In 1991, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Turkey and other states intervened in Kurdish-Iraqi dispute in northern Iraq by establishing a no-fly zone in which Iraqi aircraft were prevented from flying. The intent of the no-fly zone was to prevent possible bombing and chemical attacks against the Kurdish people by the Iraqi regime.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Operation Sky Monitor was a NATO mission to monitor unauthorized flights in the airspace of Bosnia-Herzegovina during theBosnian War.During Operation Sky Monitor, aircraft operated in two “orbits”, one over the Adriatic established on October 16, and a second one over Hungary, established with the permission of the Hungarian government on October 31.[6] Both of these orbits operated 24 hours a day, providing constant surveillance of Bosnian airspace.
Libya
Alliance military planners said they could deploy dozens of fighter-bombers, AWACS, fuel tankers, and unmanned drones to a string of air bases along Europe’s southern perimeter from which to send patrols over Libya.
Huffington post reports
Maintaining the zone will require aerial refueling tankers, as well as radar-monitoring AWACS(Airborne Warning and Control System) command aircraft, to manage the complex choreography of inbound and outbound aircraft, and JSTARS (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System) jets. The latter craft are modified Boeing 707 airliners packed with electronics that enable onboard analysts to find, identify, track and target individual tanks and other armored vehicles. That target data is passed on to the precision-guided weapons that are launched from strike aircraft.
It is likely that the United States will provide AWACS and JSTARS as well as aerial refueling tankers, while the British and French contribute strike fighters, although U.S. Air Force and Navy jets are positioned to fly missions as well.
An initial strike package of jets designed to jam and destroy enemy radar would precede the establishment of a no-fly zone. But the JSTARS can provide surveillance and targeting from outside Libyan missile range — and unmanned drone aircraft could be used as well to avoid the remote possibility of having pilots shot down over Libya.
These operations could cost between $100 million and $300 million per week, depending on the number of aircraft involved, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.
If Gaddafi refuses to obey a cease-fire order, the international coalition could agree on a hard strike against airfields and armored columns, troop barracks, military headquarters and other military facilities that already have been identified and targeted. A full-out strike might cost between $500 million and $1 billion, according to the CSBA analysis.
Some of that tab might be picked up by Arab states in the Persian Gulf, which have promised to help.
‘Supermoon’ Visible This Weekend
Saturday’s full moon will be a supermoon.
A supermoon is a new or full moon that happens to coincide with a close approach of the moon to the earth. Saturday’s full moon will be the closest it has been to Earth in 18 years, according toSpaceweather.com.
The distance between the Earth and the moon during the event will be about 221,567 miles, as compared to the average distance of 238,000 miles, according to Space.com.
That may not seem like much of a difference (and compared to the distance it’s not), but the diameter of the moon is only 2,159 miles. That means the moon will be over 7.5 diameters closer to Earth than average.
While many believe the ‘supermoon’ can be linked to natural disasters (namely the Japan earthquake), Space.com says that’s not the case. Lynn Hayes of beliefnet believes something else
Originally published here
Filed under Blogging
Questions about radiation exposure & potassium iodide pills
In the past couple of days, as many of us started to think seriously about the fallout from the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima, Japan, I’ve gotten lots of questions about potassium iodide pills—”Why do people take them?”, “How do they work?”, “Should my family take them?”
I’ve spoken with several health physicists—researchers at American universities and at the Mayo Clinic—and I think that I can now answer these questions well enough to post something to BoingBoing. This is a scary, nerve-wracking topic for a lot of people, so I’m not going to bury the information down in a narrative. We’ll just get right to the point. In fact, I think that I can clear up most of the confusion by answering four questions.
What are potassium iodide pills?
Basically, potassium iodide is just a specific kind of salt. Nothing fancy. The same stuff is often put into table salt as a way to get iodine into the diets of people who don’t eat much naturally iodine-containing food. Iodine, itself, is an element that’s important to the human body. Without it, the thyroid gland can’t make certain hormones. If you don’t eat enough iodine, especially as a kid, you’ll end up with goiters, fatigue, depression—and worse. Thanks to iodized salt (and diverse diets), those of us who live in industrialized nations don’t have to think about whether we’re getting enough iodine. And, thus, we don’t think too much about potassium iodide. Until there’s a risk of radioactive fallout.
How do potassium iodide pills protect against radiation?
Elements come in two forms: Stable and radioactive, the latter of which are prone to breaking apart, shooting out particles that can damage cells and DNA. There’s good ol’ stable iodine—the stuff that keeps our bodies functioning properly. And there’s radioactive iodine—which is dangerous.
Radioactive iodine is dangerous precisely because, within the human body, it does the same thing that stable iodine does. It goes straight to the thyroid gland.
Once there, radioactive iodine can damage cells and DNA and increases the risk of thyroid cancer. But, there’s a catch. The thyroid can only hold so much iodine at a time. Once the shelves are full, any new iodine that shows up is simply excreted back out of the body until the supply needs to be restocked again.
That’s where potassium iodide pills come in. If radioactive iodine is present, you can prevent it from getting into your thyroid gland by having the gland already full of stable, safe iodine—the kind found in potassium iodide pills. Because radioactive iodine has a short half-life—by this Saturday, March 19, half of all the radioactive iodine released by the reactors at Fukushima will be gone—affected people don’t have to take potassium iodide pills forever. Just long enough for the radioactive iodine to break apart and vanish.
Key takeaway from this part: Potassium iodide pills will only protect against the effects of radioactive iodine in the thyroid. There’s other radioisotopes being released by the Fukushima reactors, and potassium iodide can’t do anything about them.
What are the risks of taking potassium iodide pills?
There are risks. The big one: You might be allergic to potassium iodide pills. This is particularly likely if you are already allergic to shellfish. The allergic reactions could be life threatening, and there’s not really a good way to know whether you’ll be allergic to the pills until you try one.
But there’s another risk, too. There’s not an unlimited supply of potassium iodide pills. If people living in places unaffected by radioactive iodine buy up lots of potassium iodide pills, it means there are fewer of those pills available for the people who really need them. That’s why the Union of Concerned Scientists recently put out a press release asking Americans to refrain from buying—or, worse, stockpiling—supplies of potassium iodide pills. People in Japan need them. Which brings us to the final question:
Will radioactive fallout from Fukushima reach the West Coast of the United States?
The answer depends on what you mean. If you mean, “Will radioactive fallout from Japan reach the West Coast in quantities that could increase the risk of cancer for me and my family?” Then the answer is, “No.”
The risks of exposure to radiation are dependent on the dose. As it travels across the Pacific Ocean, the concentrated radioactive fallout that leaves Fukushima will become diluted—some will fall out into the ocean, some will drift away on the breeze, some of the isotopes—including radioactive iodine—will even break apart, becoming something else, something not dangerous.
By the time any of the radioactive isotopes reach American shores, the fallout will be so dilute that radiation will have dropped well below the levels that cause detectable increases in the risk of cancer. There will not be a reason for Americans to worry about their health. This is according to Kelly Classic, radiation physicist at the Mayo Clinic; Kimberlee Kearfott, health physicist at the University of Michigan; Ralf Sudowe, health physicist at the University of Nevada Las Vegas; Kathryn A. Higley, health physicist at Oregon State University; Jason T. Harris, health physicist at Idaho State University and, if you read the link above, The Union of Concerned Scientists.
It will be possible to detect radiation from Fukushima in the United States. But that’s because the tools we have for detecting radiation are incredibly sensitive. We can spot radiation at levels far lower than those that can actually increase our risk of cancer. Frankly, that’s a good thing. It means we can see problems before they build into something serious. It means we can accurately measure dangerous levels of radiation without having to get scientists too close to the radiation source. And, it will mean that we will be able to see very low levels of radiation from Fukushima in the United States, even though the risk from that radiation will be something we can shrug off.
I know this doesn’t answer all of your questions, but I hope it helps. I’ll be back tomorrow with more information on issues like what happens to radioisotopes that get inside your body, how Fukushima will affect the food chain, why it’s mostly OK for radioisotopes to fall into the Pacific Ocean.
Original article posted here by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Filed under Fukushima, Iodine Pills, Japan
