I don't know what this means other than something the Bush administration will grab it with both hands to further their aggression towards Iran.

NYTimes:

The International Atomic Energy Agency, in an unusually blunt and detailed report, said Monday that Iran's suspected research into the development of nuclear weapons remained "a matter of serious concern" and that Iran continued to owe the agency "substantial explanations."

The nine-page report accused the Iranians of a willful lack of cooperation, particularly in answering allegations that its nuclear program may be intended more for military use than for energy generation.

Part of the agency's case hinges on 18 documents listed in the report and presented to Iran that, according to Western intelligence agencies, indicate the Iranians have ventured into explosives, uranium processing and a missile warhead design - activities that could be associated with constructing nuclear weapons.

"There are certain parts of their nuclear program where the military seems to have played a role," said one senior official close to the agency, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic constraints. He added, "We want to understand why."

The atomic energy agency's report highlights the amount of work still to be done before definitive conclusions about the nature of the program can be made, a task that the official associated with the agency said would require months.

If the IAEA is getting their information from a corrupted US intelligence agency (much like the UN was given "intelligence" on Iraq that came primarily from Curveball), I would hope that they double and triple check sources before issuing their final report.

Download | play Download | play (h/t BillW.)

Leave it to Tucker Carlson to find yet another way to be annoying and obtuse. In discussing the Nevada Democratic Debate, Tucker Carlson had a little issue with the three candidates saying that they were against nuclear power.

I was struck—this is a small thing but I thought it was really telling last night. All three candidates were asked about nuclear power and all three of them basically said, ‘you know I’m against nuclear power.’ And it seems to me that we’ve reached this place where we can be more honest about certain things like nuclear power. If you’re against nuclear power just reflexively in 2008, you’re not a forward-thinking person, it seems to me.

Yeah, how unprogressive to be worried about nuclear waste, especially in the state where Yucca Mountain is located. Tucker actually says that nuclear power is cleaner, except for the waste part, like it's a little thing. Just for those less reflexive types that think Tucker might have a point:

• Nuclear waste is produced in many different ways. There are wastes produced in the reactor core, wastes created as a result of radioactive contamination, and wastes produced as a byproduct of uranium mining, refining, and enrichment. The vast majority of radiation in nuclear waste is given off from spent fuel rods.
• A typical reactor will generate 20 to 30 tons of high-level nuclear waste annually. There is no known way to safely dispose of this waste, which remains dangerously radioactive until it naturally decays.
• The rate of decay of a radioactive isotope is called its half-life, the time in which half the initial amount of atoms present takes to decay. The half-life of Plutonium-239, one particularly lethal component of nuclear waste, is 24,000 years.
• The hazardous life of a radioactive element (the length of time that must elapse before the material is considered safe) is at least 10 half-lives. Therefore, Plutonium-239 will remain hazardous for at least 240,000 years.

Hey Tucker, I'll just give you two words: wind power

Good morning. I'm Lance Mannion and I can get it for you wholesale. Just show up at the back of the warehouse Saturday afternoon. Bring cash. And remember, we don't know each other. I'm Mr Clements and if the guy at the desk asks, you're a friend of Pete's.

Sorry. I shouldn't goof around like that. I'm just the guest host for this week's blog round up, after all. I don't goof around like that on my own blog. At my place we're very serious, my commenters and I. It's all high-minded discussions about Art, and Film, and the Meaning of Life.

The gang at Crooked Timber comes to my blog to have their questions answered and they go home, bewildered and ashamed of their own ignorance, to tear up their diplomas and return their Ph.D.'s.

Speaking of Crooked Timber, John Quiggin is saying over there that it's time to dive back down the memory hole and remember that the looting of Iraq was a part of the original plan.

The New York Times scoops the world on this one: A lot of Republicans don't plan to vote for Hillary Clinton! That comes via Oliver Willis. Also Oliver admits that when forced to choose between a real science guy and a well-known conservative idiot, he reflexively sides with the real science guy. Go figure.

Avedon Carol says that Venezuela is looking a lot more like a democracy than some other countries she could name.

The Armchair Generalist follows up on a story that I missed the first go-round, about a couple of characters who got caught trying to smuggle a pound of uranium through Hungary. Story had the makings of a great thriller, says the Generalist, except for one thing. The uranium turns out not to have been weapons grade material.

Ben Cohen of the Daily Banter reports that Karl Rove is offering campaign advice to Barack Obama and it turns out, says Ben, that advice is not half-bad.

And mystery writer Laura Lippman has been at work copy editing her latest novel and reports on the quotidian details of the process, except that she can't use the word, quotidian, because one of the things she found out while reading her own work is that she overuses it and it has to go, along with via and literally and the extra e that does not belong in acknowledgment.

Done for today. Send tips and suggestions to lance AT lancemannion DOT com. And remember. The loading dock. Saturday. Act casual. And wear a necktie so I'll know you.

Informed Comment: Are we winning yet? Submarines, Iran & Gulf, Somalia, Afghanistan, Palestine...

TPMCafe: Forget Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person In The World" contest — it's now been completely upstaged by a new Sunday contest on Fox: Sean Hannity's "Enemy of the State" award.

Nuestra Voice: Exclusive...Majority Leader Reid speaks out on immigration reform

The Left Coaster: Analyzing the motives behind the creation and dissemination of (a) the Niger uranium forgeries and (b) the information extracted from, or linked to, the forgeries.

The BRAD BLOG: One of the nation's top critics of unverifiable electronic voting systems has been named by the new California Sec. of State Debra Bowen as Deputy SoS for Voting Systems Technology and Policy.

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Republican Press...Norwegianity...Left I on the News...The Fear of All Sums

HuffPo:

European diplomats are considering a meeting with Iran on the sidelines of next week's U.N. General Assembly in hopes of de-escalating the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program - but the United States won't be getting an invitation.

The Bush administration, which is pushing for U.N. sanctions against Iran, has said it will join European-led negotiations with Iran only if it stops its uranium enrichment work first. Read on

Actually, given Bush's table manners and peculiar notions of decorum among world leaders, it may actually be a good thing for all involved if he was not there. However, as one of the five Permanent Members of the U.N.and a stated desire to prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons program, it's hard to believe that Bush's "lone cowboy" status is helping us in the global arena.

Our Libyan Success No Capital

This is amazing. Libya is the "victory" that Bush has touted so often, asserting that that nation dismantled its nuclear programs in accordance with US demands.

Well, maybe not so much:

Authorities hunting traffickers in nuclear weapons technology recently uncovered an audacious plan to deliver a complete uranium enrichment plant to Libya.

The discovery provides fresh evidence of the reach and sophistication of the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's global black market in nuclear know-how and equipment. It also exposes a previously undetected South African branch of the Khan network.

Details of the plot began to emerge in September, when police found the elements of a two-storey steel processing system for the enrichment plant in a factory outside Johannesburg. They were packed in 11 freight containers for shipment to Libya.

South African officials will say only that they discovered nuclear components. It appears, however, that the massive system was designed to operate 1000 centrifuges for enriching uranium.

Once assembled in Libya, the plant could have produced enough weapons-grade uranium to manufacture several nuclear bombs a year. Delivery of the plant would have greatly accelerated Libya's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

Zbigniew Brzezinski:

"Iran's announcement that it has enriched a minute amount of uranium has unleashed urgent calls for a preventive U.S. air strike by the same sources that earlier urged war on Iraq. If there is another terrorist attack in the United States, you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be also immediate charges that Iran was responsible in order to generate public hysteria in favor of military action. But there are four compelling reasons against a preventive air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities:...

1. In the absence of an imminent threat (with the Iranians at least several years away from having a nuclear arsenal), the attack would be a unilateral act of war.

If undertaken without formal Congressional declaration, it would be unconstitutional and merit the impeachment of the President. Similarly, if undertaken without the sanction of the UN Security Council either alone by the United States or in complicity with Israel, it would stamp the perpetrator(s) as an international outlaw(s).read on"

Murray Waas:

"Vice President Cheney and his then-Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were personally informed in June 2003 that the CIA no longer considered credible the allegations that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger, according to government records and interviews with current and former officials. The new CIA assessment came just as Libby and other senior administration officials were embarking on an effort to discredit an administration critic who had also been saying that the allegations were untrue....read on"

Larisa: "Several U.S. and foreign intelligence sources, along with investigators, say an Iranian exile with ties to Iran-Contra peddled a bizarre tale of stolen uranium to governments on both sides of the Atlantic in the spring and summer of 2003. The story that being peddled -- which detailed how an Iranian intelligence team infiltrated Iraq prior to the start of the war in March of 2003, and stole enriched uranium to use in their own nuclear weapons program -- was part of an attempt to implicate both countries in a WMD plot...read on