I’ve had the pleasure and the honor of meeting both Gay Patriot, Bruce, and Gay Patriot West, Dan, of Gay Patriot, one of the best blogs around which I visit daily, so it’s a real honor to have been nominated for 2010 Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.
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In today’s WSJ,
The Tehran-Caracas Nuclear Axis
But perhaps the most interesting Iranian venture is a supposed gold mine not far from Angel Falls, in a remote area known as the Roraima Basin. The basin straddles Venezuela’s border with neighboring Guyana, where a Canadian company, U308, thinks it has found the “geological look-alike” to Canada’s Athabasca Basin. The Athabasca, the company’s Web site adds, “is the world’s largest resource of uranium.”In 2006, Chávez publicly mocked suspicions of nuclear cooperation with Iran, saying it “shows they have no limit in their capacity to invent lies.” In September, however, Rodolfo Sanz, Venezuela’s minister of basic industries, acknowledged that “Iran is helping us with geophysical aerial probes and geochemical analyses” in its search for uranium.
The official basis for this cooperation seems to be a Nov. 14, 2008 memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries’ ministers of science and technology and given to me by a credible foreign intelligence source. “The two parties agreed to cooperate in the field of nuclear technology,” reads the Spanish version of the document, which also makes mention of the “peaceful use of alternative energies.” Days later, the Venezuelan government submitted a paper to the International Atomic Energy Agency on the “Introduction of a Nuclear Power Programme.” (Online readers can see the memorandum for themselves in their Farsi and Spanish versions. One mystery: The Farsi version makes no mention of nuclear cooperation.)
Iran would certainly require large and reliable supplies of uranium if it is going to enrich the nuclear fuel in 10 separate plants—an ambition Ahmadinejad spelled out last month. It would also require an extensive financial and logistical infrastructure network in Venezuela, not to mention unusually good political connections. All this it has in spades.
Consider financing. In January 2008, the Bank of International Development opened its doors for business in Caracas. At the top of its list of its directors, all of whom are Iranian, is one Tahmasb Mazaheri, former governor of the central bank of Iran. As it turns out, the bank is a subsidiary of the Export Development Bank of Iran, which in October 2008 was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for providing “financial services to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.”
Or consider logistics. For nearly three years, Venezuelan airline ConViasa has been flying an Airbus 340 to Damascus and Tehran. Neither city is a typical Venezuelan tourist destination, to say the least. What goes into the cargo hold of that big plane is an interesting question. Also interesting is that in October 2008 the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, also sanctioned by Treasury, announced it had established a direct shipping route to Venezuela.
Finally, there are the political connections. What do Fadi Kabboul, Aref Richany Jimenez, Radwan Sabbagh and Tarek Zaidan El Aissami Maddah have in common? The answer is that they are, respectively, executive director for planning of Venezuelan oil company PdVSA; the president of Venezuela’s military-industrial complex; the president of a major state-owned mining concern; and, finally, the minister of interior. Latin Americans of Middle Eastern descent have long played prominent roles in national politics and business. But these are all fingertip positions in what gives the Iranian-Venezuelan relationship its worrying grip.
By the way, I have been posting on the Venezuelan-Iranian ties since at least 2007. None of this should take regular readers of this blog by surprise.
John McCormack has the details:
>From the halls of the Senate to left-wing blogs and the Washington Post, Democrats have been busy the past day viciously attacking Joe Lieberman for saying that he’ll filibuster a bill with a Medicare buy-in provision.An anonymous senior Senate aide says that Lieberman double-crossed Harry Reid; liberal blogger Jane Hamsher, last seen putting the senator in blackface, is trying to drive Lieberman’s wife from a position on a breast cancer charity; and Washington Post blogger and omniscient child pundit Ezra Klein writes that Lieberman “seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.” (The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait seconds Klein’s sentiment–”[Lieberman] seems to view the prospect of sticking it to the liberals who supported his Democratic opponent in 2006 as a goal potentially worth sacrificing the lives of tens of thousands of Americans to fulfill”–and adds that he thinks Lieberman is stupid.) All of this from the folks who attack the GOP for its “ideological conformity.”
In a followup post, Klein writes that his contention that Lieberman would cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of out of spite is “not a particularly controversial statement. It relies on data from the Institute of Medicine and the Urban Institute, both of which are credible sources.”
Going by what Klein says, you’d think “the science is settled”, on that.
But it is not.
Michael Cannon explains,
Indeed, health insurance does have a connection to mortality. But I’m pretty sure Klein doesn’t know what it is, mostly because people with more expertise and fewer axes to grind don’t know what it is.For example, a careful study by health economists Amy Finkelstein and Robin McKnight found that in its first 10 years, Medicare had no discernible impact on elderly mortality rates. The authors hypothesize that prior to Medicare, seniors who lacked coverage largely got the care that they needed either by paying out of pocket or relying on public or private charity. Whether Medicare had any impact on elderly mortality after its first 10 years remains an open question.
Or consider a study by Richard Kronick, a professor of family and preventive medicine at U.C.-San Diego and a former health policy adviser to the Clinton administration. Kronick performed the largest-ever study on the health effects of being uninsured and concludes that the IOM estimate “is almost certainly incorrect.” Kronick concludes that “the best available evidence” suggests “there would not be much change in the number of deaths in the United States as a result of universal coverage.”
How can that be, when Ezra Klein finds his own argument so “intuitive“? Kronick admits “it is not clear” why the data produce such a counterintuitive result, but posits that existing channels “may provide ‘good enough’ access to care for the uninsured to keep their mortality rate similar to that of the insured.”
Economists Helen Levy of the University of Michigan and David Meltzer of the University of Chicago surveyed the entire economics literature on the connection between health insurance and health. They conclude, “The central question of how health insurance affects health, for whom it matters, and how much, remains largely unanswered at the level of detail needed to inform policy decisions.”
However, the personal attacks go on. Sister Toldjah asks,
How can Ezra Klein call Joe Lieberman pro-”death of hundreds of thousands of people”
… when Klein himself, a longtime proponent of socialized healthcare, is in favor of the public option, which in effect will give the existing Medicare panel more power to decide who gets what healthcare – as a form of “cost control”?
Don’t expect the left to leave Lieberman alone – he’s become their version of a global warming “denialist”.
What must really get the left irked, however, is that they know that the Dems need him to pass the bill.
People who look young for their age ‘live longer’
People blessed with youthful faces are more likely to live to a ripe old age than those who look more than their years, work shows.Danish scientists say appearance alone can predict survival, after they studied 387 pairs of twins.
The researchers asked nurses, trainee teachers and peers to guess the age of the twins from mug shots.
Those rated younger-looking tended to outlive their older-looking sibling, the British Medical Journal reports.
Apparently it’s not just a function of people looking younger because they are not burning the candle at both ends, so to speak,
Key pieces of DNA called telomeres, which indicate the ability of cells to replicate, are also linked to how young a person looks.A telomere of shorter length is thought to signify faster ageing and has been linked with a number of diseases.
In the study, the people who looked younger had longer telomeres.
And now for a non-sequitur,
Couldn’t find a YouTube of the scene where Harpo pulls out of his coat the candle burning at both ends, but here’s the mirror scene instead,
because, er… he says so:
“Today, everybody agrees that the recession is over, and the question is what the pace of the expansion is going to be,” Summers said on ABC.
You would think Larry’s trying to sell you something, and you would not be wrong,
The White House’s optimism comes after a week of activity by the president and Democrats to improve the economy.
“A week of activity by the president and Democrats to improve the economy”? You mean, by the same folks who have tripled the national debt and crippling small businesses?
Last Tuesday, the Obama administration announced it was extending the Troubled Asset Relief Program until October 2010 in an attempt to free up credit for small businesses to expand and for homeowners to secure their mortgages through the administration’s housing program.On Friday, the White House’s pay czar, Ken Feinberg, released new rulings on the pay packages for some of the highest-paid employees at companies receiving what the administration deems “exceptional assistance” from the government.
Also on Friday, House Democrats passed financial reform legislation to tighten federal regulation of Wall Street, and create an agency to protect consumers from abusive lending practices, a fund to help failing banks and new rules for the trading of some of the financial instruments that helped cause the crisis.
Summers tied the president’s health-care overhaul to efforts to reduce the federal deficit.
Yup,
That’s why Larry thinks the recession is over.
Tim Cavanaugh is skeptical, to put it mildly,
The transportation services index is still tanking. (Zzzz!) Unemployment continues to exceed expectations. (Better luck next time, suckers!) Is the recession really over? Can something this magical just up and runnoft?
Go ask the unemployed.
I’m betting on inflation.
In today’s podcast, why is Chavez taking over the banks now?
Related reading:
The Venezuelan banking crisis made simple
Venezuela: Bank Nationalizations
Banking in Venezuela
Fall of the Boligarchs: Hugo Chávez cracks down on allies
As Jack Nicholson said, “Not many shopping days before Christmas,” and the Dems aren’t getting Obamacare through – not because the Republicans can actually block it but because of Dems themselves.
So Harry Reid is canvassing Independent Joe Lieberman and Blue Dogs:
Lieberman Rules Out Voting for Health Bill
In a surprise setback for Democratic leaders, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said on Sunday that he would vote against the health care legislation in its current form.The bill’s supporters had said earlier that they thought they had secured Mr. Lieberman’s agreement to go along with a compromise they worked out to overcome an impasse within the Democratic Party.
But on Sunday, Mr. Lieberman told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and abandon any new government insurance plan or lose his vote.
On a separate issue, Mr. Reid tried over the weekend to concoct a compromise on abortion that would induce Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, to vote for the bill. Mr. Nelson opposes abortion. Any provision that satisfies him risks alienating supporters of abortion rights.
In interviews on the CBS News program “Face the Nation,” Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Nelson said the bill did not have the 60 votes it would need in the Senate.
John Hawkins posts that Obamacare Going To January. Less Than 50% Chance Of Passage. It’s still going to be a fight: John concludes,
Long story short, folks, the fight isn’t over by a longshot. Reid is still working to get something passed that Pelosi can slam through the House. Moreover, if that doesn’t work, Reid may still try reconciliation. But, the odds are slowly but surely turning in our favor. Keep up the good work and we may be able to stop the Democrats from slashing Medicare, raising premiums, raising taxes, funding abortion with our tax dollars, rationing care, and ruining the quality of our health care system.
Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi taken to hospital after being attacked at rally in Milan
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been struck in the face after leaving a meeting in Milan.He was left ‘profusely bleeding’ from the mouth.
It was reported that a protester in a crowd hit Berlusconi with either his fist or a blunt object as the Prime Minister signed autographs outside the Piazza del Duomo.
Where are his security people?
Noticias 24 has the video:
He’s got two broken teeth from the punch.
(h/t The Baron)
… another moment in the Annals of Courageous Parenting
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk:
Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe plan to address negotiators at international climate talks in Copenhagen next week.The three leaders are listed in a line-up of more than 180 government officials published in a United Nations schedule of speakers. Each head of state will have up to three minutes to address roughly 700 delegates, reporter, observers and civil society groups.
They will all be demanding US financial assistance, no doubt.
