Real World Issues, Real Talk.
Archive for January 3, 2011
GMA Exclusive: Brett Favre Sued For Sexual Harassment By Former Jets’ Massage Therapists – ABC News
Christina Scavo and Shannon O’Toole, both former massage therapists for the New York Jets, filed suit against Favre, the New York Jets and Lisa Ripi, a woman who hires massage therapists for the team, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York today.
via GMA Exclusive: Brett Favre Sued For Sexual Harassment By Former Jets’ Massage Therapists – ABC News.
BBC News – Official John Wheeler’s body found in Delaware landfill
John Wheeler led efforts to create a Vietnam War memorial in Washington DCPolice are investigating the death of a former US government official after his body was found at a dump in Delaware.
The body of John Wheeler, 66, was discovered on Friday as a rubbish truck emptied its load at the state’s Cherry Island landfill site.
Mr Wheeler, a military veteran, served in the administrations of ex-Presidents George Bush Senior and Ronald Reagan.
He was reportedly last seen on a train from Washington to Delaware on Tuesday. His death has been ruled to be murder.
Mr Wheeler, himself a Vietnam veteran, was involved in fundraising efforts for the Vietnam War memorial on the capital’s National Mall, as chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
“He was just not the sort of person who would wind up in a landfill,” Bayard Marin, a lawyer who was representing Mr Wheeler in a property dispute, told the Associated Press.
via BBC News – Official John Wheeler’s body found in Delaware landfill.
Terrible tragedy. My thoughts are with Mr. Wheeler’s friends and family. I am hopeful and confident our law enforcement officials will hunt down the despicable animals that would perpetrate such a heinous crime.
Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Could Lead to a Saudi and Pakistan Alliance – The Daily Beast
A former Bush defense official says that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan might initiate a dangerous alliance if Iran develops nuclear weapons. Andrew Roberts speaks to Eric Edelman about the unintended consequences for South Asia.
Might the impending nuclearization of Iran rapidly lead to a situation in which India targets nuclear weapons on Saudi Arabia? That is one of the many unnerving repercussions envisaged in an authoritative article, “The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran,” in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, written by, among others, Eric Edelman, President George W. Bush’s undersecretary of defense for policy from 2005 to 2009. When an analyst of Edelman’s seniority and ability, who moreover was working in the Pentagon with full access to all the available intelligence on precisely this issue as recently as two years ago, pronounces on questions of this gravity it behooves us to pay serious attention.
Mehdi Marizad / Getty Images
Writing under the auspices of the high-powered defense think tank the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Edelman and two colleagues examine the ramifications of Saudi Arabia attempting swiftly to acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan the moment that it is clear that Iran has them. He reports “rumors that Riyadh and Islamabad have had discussions involving nuclear weapons, nuclear technology, or security guarantees.” Now, people who have held jobs as sensitive as Edelman’s do not report “rumors” in a respected journal like Foreign Affairs unless they believe them to be very much more than that.
Both in the article and more fully in an interview I have conducted with him today, Edelman sets out his thinking on a subject that should have very profound implications for decision-making in the Obama administration as it considers the long-term ramifications of permitting Iran to go nuclear. For although we can all see the primary and perhaps also the secondary implications for security in the Middle East of the so-called containment strategy, the United States must now ponder the long-term tertiary and even later consequences. One of these must be what Edelman terms “the Islamabad option,” by which the Saudis and Pakistanis would effectively enter into an offensive-defensive “dual-key” nuclear arrangement, rather like the one the U.S. has had with Britain from the late-1960s to the present day.
The Saudis have already indicated privately—and WikiLeaks has done nothing to cast doubt on this—that when what Edelman terms “the nuclear cascade” is unleashed once Iran goes nuclear, they will be in the first wave. “Saudi Arabia is the lynchpin,” says Edelman, “the key country.” The extremely close links between the two Sunni countries Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which go back at least as far as 1979 when Pakistan helped to clear Islamic fundamentalists out of the Grand Mosque, and A.Q. Khan’s time in Saudi Arabia at precisely the time when his nuclear-proliferation ring was at its most active, invite what Edelman guardedly calls “speculation” that a mutually convenient arrangement would be arrived at very soon after Iran went nuclear.
“We in the West have gotten fat, dumb, and happy when contemplating a relatively stable nuclear Southern Asia over the past decade. It might not stay like that.”
“Pakistan could sell operational nuclear weapons and delivery systems to Saudi Arabia,” states Edelman, “or it could provide the Saudis with the infrastructure, material, and the technical support they need to produce nuclear weapons themselves within a matter of years, as opposed to a decade or longer.” The Saudis might not even, technically at least, be violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the weapons remained operated by the Pakistanis, albeit on Saudi territory. Nor does Congress consider this all to be mere “speculation” either: The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Staff Report of February 2008 stated that there was “some circumstantial evidence” to suggest that an agreement of some sort might already exist between the two countries.
Where Edelman goes an important stage further than anyone else is in considering the instability that would inevitably result in Southern Asia if Pakistan gained the capability in Saudi Arabia to withstand a first strike from India’s nuclear arsenal. “To have a second-strike capability against India would give Pakistan a huge benefit,” he told me. “It would be very troublesome for the Indians, who would face a far more complex nuclear picture. We in the West have gotten fat, dumb, and happy when contemplating a relatively stable nuclear Southern Asia over the past decade. It might not stay like that.” With Pakistan already ahead of India in nuclear weapons technology, especially in delivery capabilities, Edelman believes that the Islamabad option will make the nuclear situation in South Asia significantly more dangerous.
The New Year is a good time to try to look one, five, even 10 years into the future. While we can see some of the obvious ramifications of a nuclear Iran clearly enough, there are many others that are not so obvious, indeed they may be located many hundreds of miles away from Teheran, but which are no less nerve-wracking to consider.
via Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Could Lead to a Saudi and Pakistan Alliance – The Daily Beast.
Seahawks, Colts, Packers reach NFL playoffs with victories
via Indianapolis Colts, Green Bay Packers reach playoffs – NFL – SI.com.
The last five years Patriots fans have heard again and again, from mostly New Yorkers and ESPN pundits, how the Patriots are “done.” Granted, the ultimate goal is to win a Super Bowl and I have the unfortunate awareness the Pats have not done that in several years. However, I would not call a team that has won the competitive AFC East eight of the last 10 years “done.” Also, that Tom Brady character looks pretty MVP sharp if you ask me.
Also, I like the Saints coming out of the NFC.
That is all.
Proposed wind turbine in N. Kingstown to be debated – Projo 7 to 7 News Blog | Rhode Island news | The Providence Journal
By Journal Business staff
The Planning Commission in North Kingstown will consider a controversial proposal for a 427-foot wind turbine on farmland along Route 2 at a public hearing Tuesday night.
The proposal on the Stamp Farm property by Wind Energy Development is opposed by a group of local residents who have organized as No Residential Wind NK. They argue the proposed turbine will change the rural character of the area and reduce property values. Also, they say the proposed setback from adjacent property lines is insufficient and the turbine will create noise and ice that will be thrown from the blades.
The hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the North Kingstown High School auditorium.
Cannot let the influential few dictate policy for the resounding majority. When will our elected officials step forward and aggressively pursue what is the right thing to do? We must pursue alternative energy resources and this is a major potential boon for Rhode Islanders. If these handful of disenfranchised residents are truly concerned about their property value I am reasonably confident the private wind turbine developers, if not the state, would be happy to pay fair market value for their properties.
BBC News – Australian flooding ‘to last weeks’
Devastating flood waters across the Australian state of Queensland may not recede for weeks, the state’s Premier Anna Bligh has warned.
More than 20 towns in Queensland have been cut off or flooded, with more than 200,000 people affected.
Military aircraft are flying supplies into Rockhampton, which has been isolated by the still-rising waters.
Australian Military Rushes Supplies Into Flood Zone
Australia’s military airlifted food and supplies today to a town cut off by floodwaters that have swamped a huge swath of the Outback the size of France and Germany combined, amid reports of deadly snakes and looting from homes submerged in stinky mud.
