Wow, Wait Until You Read This

The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, a nonprofit organization that represents native Aleuts in Alaska has rejected lower cost heating oil from Venezuela because of (T)Hugo Chavez's remarks at the UN. These are among the poorest people in the entire state of Alaska and they pay some of the highest oil prices because of the high cost of transportation.

And they rejected the bribe Chavez wanted to give them.

And yet a few villages are refusing free heating oil from Venezuela, on the patriotic principle that no foreigner has the right to call their president "the devil."

The heating oil is being offered by the petroleum company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush's nemesis. While scores of Alaska's Eskimo and Indian villages say they have no choice but to accept, others would rather suffer.

"As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us," said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. "Even though we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make."

Nelson Lagoon residents pay more than $5 a gallon for oil — or at least $300 a month per household — to heat their homes along the wind-swept coast of the Bering Sea, where temperatures can dip to minus-15. About one-quarter of the 70 villagers are looking for work, in part because Alaska's salmon fishing industry has been hit hard by competition from fish farms.

The donation to Alaska's native villages has focused attention on the rampant poverty and high fuel prices in a state that is otherwise awash in oil — and oil profits. In 2005, 86 percent of the Alaska's general fund, or $2.8 billion, came from oil from the North Slope.

The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, a native nonprofit organization that would have handled the heating oil donation on behalf of 291 households in Nelson Lagoon, Atka, St. Paul and St. George, rejected the offer because of the insults Chavez has hurled at Bush.

Maine has also refused any dealings with Citgo. About 150 Aleut villages have accepted the aid from Citgo (and it is hard to fault them, please do not take it that way). But I have to tell you, the action by the the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association is one that makes me proud.

The Association's website is here. If you can spare a few bucks, I'm sure they can find a good use for it. If you can't afford to send money, a thank you email would probably be appreciated.

In Case You Were Wondering

Where that plutonium that North Korea is using came from, the "Agreed Framework" arranged for the stabilization of 8,000 spent fuel rods the North Koreans had allowed to deteriorate to a point where they were in danger of falling apart. I'm still trying to find the inspector's report that stated how close to an accident those rods were. You know, where they would have been rendered unusable and unrecoverable. (Found it here. That fuel was almost at a stage where the plutonium would have been unrecoverable).

The remaining 7,700 fuel rods were in a window-lit cinder block building with peeling paint, where they sat in a concrete-lined pool of water roughly the size of a rectangular backyard swimming pool. The entire core had been hastily removed from the reactor in the spring of 1994 after a growing confrontation with the IAEA.

Two years earlier, the agency had found evidence that North Korea had reprocessed more than the 80 grams of plutonium 239 it had officially disclosed. When the IAEA then asked to inspect the reprocessing laboratory and radioactive waste tanks and analyze the spent fuel, North Korea refused, declaring instead that it would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But now, tensions were reduced.

Because of the sunlight and seasonal temperatures, there was a layer of algae on the top of the water. We could barely see several rods not so neatly tumbled into the metal baskets, which were stacked two or three upon each other. The water was made murky by a suspension of magnesium oxide–rust from the fuel cladding. It looked something like a diluted form of "Milk of Magnesia" (also a form of magnesium oxide).

Attempts to clean the water and reduce the erosion of the cladding had clogged the filter equipment; it was broken and heavily contaminated. The North Koreans had then added large amounts of sodium hydroxide (lye), a caustic chemical, to try to retard the erosion. Unfortunately, sodium hydroxide can create pinhole leaks in the cladding–exposing the uranium metal to water. Once that happens, the uranium will interact with the moisture and give off flammable and explosive hydrogen. If the uranium fuel is pulled out of the water it may spontaneously ignite.

Our fears about the danger of the North Korean spent fuel were confirmed. The cladding could seriously erode in the not so distant future, allowing highly radioactive materials to escape into the pool, creating a severe radiological hazard. Fires caused by wet uranium added another risk. We left a few days later, sobered by what we had observed.

However, the new, Republican-controlled Congress did not share our urgency, and congressional leaders made no secret of their desire to kill the Agreed Framework. Despite the unprecedented access we were given to the Yongbyon nuclear complex, Congress only grudgingly funded the spent fuel project, which cost about $20 million.

Each individual spent fuel rod was brushed in clean water, rinsed, and placed in a stainless steel tube. To retard the generation of hydrogen, inert gas was injected before the tubes were sealed and tagged for IAEA inspectors. U.S. contractors with special equipment were brought in, and North Korea supplied labor. Because of radiation and fire concerns, the operation involved partitioning the existing pool to allow for an area of clean water where the underwater processing and canning of the rods by remote instruments could be observed. My last visit to North Korea was in January 1995, when we finalized arrangements. Subsequently, I was responsible for hiring contractors and developing the project budget for congressional approval in the fall of 1995.

By October 1997, the spent fuel rods were safely encased in steel containers, under IAEA inspection. The reactor remained closed, construction on two other, larger reactors had stopped, and the reprocessing plant sat idle. After the spent fuel project was established, I went on to other work, leaving my memories locked away like a disturbingly vivid dream.

Before they were helpfully stabilized by the Clinton administration. At US taxpayer expense.

UPDATE: Well, that didn't take long. John "Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat" Kerry is, of course, laying all the blame at Bush's feet. Kind of misses the point of where Kim got his plutonium there, Johnny-boy.

Spam Wars

I have no idea why, but today is turning into an absolute nightmare on the comment spam front. I am going to turn on a plug-in that will make you have to enter a verification word to post a comment. The downside of this is that trackbacks will not get through. So if you link the Crabitat, I will not get a trackback.

US Proposes Tough Sanctions Against North Korea

The United States has presented a list of sanctions it proposes the UN Security Council adopt to address North Korea's nuclear test. They include interdiction and inspection of all shipping in and out of North Korea. The US is also asking that the sanctions be authorized under chapter 7 of the UN Charter.

Security council members earlier condemned North Korea for its reported nuclear test, demanding at an emergency meeting that the communist nation return to six-party talks on its weapons program, U.N. ambassadors said.

The U.S. proposals were among several ideas for a Security Council resolution that the United States shared with council diplomats after North Korea announced that it had set off an atomic explosion underground. A copy of the document was obtained by The Associated Press.

The document says that the United States wants the resolution to fall under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which deals explicitly with threats to international peace and security, as well as acts of aggression. Chapter 7 grants the council the authority to impose a range of measures that include breaking diplomatic ties and imposing economic and military sanctions to taking military action.

Military action, however, is far from anyone's minds.

"We believe that highly provocative act requires a very strong resolution explicitly under Chapter 7 that provides for sanctions against the North Korean regime," the document said.

Among the proposals were to:

• Prohibit trade in materials that could be used to make or deliver weapons of mass destruction.

• Require states to make sure that North Korea not use their territory or entities for proliferation or illicit activities. Financial transactions that North Korea could use to support those programs would also be banned.

• Require states to freeze all assets related to North Korea's weapons and missile programs, as well as any other illicit activities it conducts.

• Authorize inspection of all cargo to and from North Korea to limit proliferation.

• Ban trade with North Korea in luxury goods and military items.

The interdiction and inspection will become a problem with North Korea. It is very hard to read what the Chinese are thinking right now. But it has to be a major problem for them to have a loose cannon like Kim right on their border with nukes and apparently limited sanity.

A Look Inside The WaPo Newsroom

Via tippity-top secret Blogtronic™ video cameras. Shhhh. You didn't hear that from me.

City Of The Dead

The Vatican museum has unveiled an ancient Roman necropolis that was accidentally uncovered while constructing a new parking lot. It is a highly unusual find as it gives a picture of not just the higher-class Romans burials but also of low and middle class people. Officials are likening it to a little Pompeii.

Vatican Museums officials and archaeologists on Monday gave a press tour of the necropolis, which was unearthed three years ago during construction of a parking lot. One archaeologist said sculptures, engravings and other objects found entombed with the dead made the find a "little Pompeii" of cemeteries.

The burial places, ranging from simple terra-cotta funerary urns with ashes still inside to ornately sculptured sarcophagi, date from between the era of Augustus (23 B.C. to 14 A.D.) to that of Constantine in the first part of the 4th century.

From specially constructed walkways, visitors can look down on some skeletons, including that of an infant buried by loved ones who left a hen's egg beside the body. The egg, whose smashed shell was reconstructed by archaeologists, might have symbolized hopes for a rebirth, said officials at a Vatican Museums news conference.

The remains of the child, whose gender wasn't determined, were discovered during the construction of the walkways, after the main excavation had finished, said Daniele Battistoni, a Vatican archaeologist.

Buried there were upper class Romans as well as simple artisans, with symbols of their trade, offering what archaeologists called rare insights into middle and lower-middle class life.

"We found a little Pompeii of funeral" life, said Giandomenico Spinola, a head of the Museums' classical antiquities department.

"We have had the mausoleums of Hadrian and Augustus," Spinola said, referring to majestic monuments along the Tiber in Rome, "but we were short on these middle and lower-class" burial places.

The burial sites help "document the middle class, which usually escapes us," said consultant Paolo Liverani, an archaeologist and former Museums official. "You don't construct history with only generals and kings."

It turns out the Vatican has a great website for their museums (There are a number of different ones). The newly uncovered necropolis is not up there yet, but an awful lot of other stuff sure is. Yahoo has several pictures of the necropolis provided by the Vatican.

Speculation

There is a lot of speculation right now that the nuclear weapon North Korea claims to have detonated may have been a dud. It's a little early to go down that road, I think. There are some presumptions about what Kim was trying to accomplish that could be flawed. He might not have been trying for a city buster but for a smaller, sub-kiloton weapon. We don't know what he intended or any particulars of the design. Analysts are giving different answers all over the place right now.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it had detected a 4.2 magnitude quake in North Korea at 10:35 local time (0135 GMT) on Monday, confirming a similar report from South Korea.

Gary Gibson, senior seismologist at Australia's Seismology Research Center, said a 4.2 magnitude quake would be the result of a one kiloton explosion.

"It depends on how the thing is set off. There is not a perfect correlation between magnitude and the yield and depends to some extent on the rock type they set it off in," he said.

"It is a relatively small nuclear test."

A U.S. intelligence source agreed that a preliminary examination of the data did not indicate a large blast or a series of explosions. But the source stressed that analysts were still working toward a definitive evaluation.

"It's premature because they're still evaluating the data," the source said.

The RIA news agency quoted on Monday Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying that the nuclear device tested by North Korea ranged between five and 15 kilotons.

The nuclear weapon the United States exploded over Hiroshima in 1945 produced a 12.5-kiloton yield.

In 1998, India carried out five underground nuclear tests at Pokharan in the western desert state of Rajasthan and declared itself a nuclear weapons state.

The total yield of the first round of blasts measured near 60 kilotons. Two days later, it exploded sub-kiloton devices that scientists said made it capable of conducting computer tests not covered by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

"Our biggest one was in the vicinity of 45 kilotons. That was thermo-nuclear," said S.K. Malhotra, head of the public awareness division of the Department of Atomic Energy.

Nuclear analyst Andrew Davies, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said if the North Korean test yield was only a kiloton, Pyongyang may be disappointed.

"A kiloton is a very low yield and would tend to suggest, I would have thought, that the device was not all they hoped it would be," Davies told Reuters.

"If a nuclear, plutonium bomb fizzles, you can still get one or two kilotons quite easily. You still get a significant energy release. But an efficient device will give you more like 20 (kilotons)."

There is one highly troubling but unconfirmed report that the test was of a neutron bomb.

A source in Beijing who is close to the North Korean regime said Pyongyang had detonated a neutron bomb, designed to release larger amounts of deadly radiation than other nuclear weapons. There was no immediate confirmation of the claim.

That would be a bad thing. Worse than a lot of other scenarios. It's a bit to early to declare it a failed test, I think.

UPDATE: The Real Ugly American asks a few pertinent questions.

UPDATE: Donald Sensing is thinking along the same lines.

New Technology, Same Old Problem

An 80-year old German motorist obediently followed the directions his new in-car navigation system gave him. To the very letter. No matter what.

"The driver was following the orders from his navigation system and even though there was a sufficient number of warnings and barricades, he continued his journey into the construction site," a police spokeswoman told Reuters.

"His trip finally ended when he wound up crashing into a pile of sand," she added.

The driver and his wife escaped uninjured from the collision, which occurred on a motorway near Hamburg.

This illustrates that new technology can't solve all major problems. In this case, the age-old problem that has plagued wheeled transportation since the beginning of time is still operational. The nut behind the wheel is loose.

Legendary Landmark Closing

CBGB's, the New York City icon of punk rock is closing it's doors after 33 years in the same Bowery location. Many groups got their start playing their, including the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads. Despite an effort to save the venue, in the end, it came down to a landlord tenant dispute with club owner Hilly Kristal on the losing end.

After Sunday, memories are all that will remain when the cramped club with its capacity of barely 300 people goes out of business after 33 years. Although its boom years are long gone, CBGB's remained a Manhattan music scene fixture: part museum, part barroom, home to more than a few rock and roll ghosts.

The club didn't exit without a fight. An assortment of high-profile backers, including E Street Band guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt, battled to keep the legendary club open. But in the end, it was a simple landlord-tenant dispute — and owner Hilly Kristal saw the handwriting on the club's dank walls.

"I knew the closing was inevitable, because my lawyers said, `You can't win this case. The law is that your lease is up, and they don't even need a reason to put you out,'" said Kristal.

Kristal sits beneath a platinum record from Joan Jett, a CBGB's clock and a few of the endless band stickers that blanket the interior. Kristal, who is battling lung cancer, wears a black and white CBGB's T-shirt with a matching baseball cap.

He once managed the Village Vanguard, the renowned jazz club where he booked acts like Miles Davis. Things were a bit different at his new club: "In rock, the bands were creative — but at first, they didn't play so well."

The first punk-scene band at Kristal's nightspot was Television, soon followed by Patti Smith. Punk poet Smith will play the closing night as well, a booking that Kristal described as effortless.

Smith isn't the only veteran playing one last gig. The '80s hardcore band Bad Brains and the '70s punks the Dictators are both scheduled for the final week. Blondie's Debbie Harry and Chris Stein are also stopping by.

When Kristal opened his doors in December 1973, CBGB's stood for country, bluegrass and blues — three musical styles that wound up in short supply. Tommy Ramone, drummer for the Ramones, recalled how a new breed of bands gravitated to the space.

But have no fear, music fans! In the spirit of everything old is new again, Hilly Kristal is stripping everything he can out of the club, down to the bare walls, and moving to Las Vegas! Hey, it worked for Elvis! And the Playboy club. Why not CBGB's, too.

It’s The Nukes, Stupid

Says Stanley Kurtz at NRO. He's right, of course. Just as he is spot on as to why we are paralyzed internally by the foolish sideshows, carnival barkers and irrational partisanship.

The failure to find WMDs in Iraq, the shrieking of America’s doves, and the constraints of international diplomacy have all prevented the Bush administration from speaking honestly and openly to the American people about the true nature of the threat we face. And pretty much everyone else has taken their eyes off the ball. Iraqi WMDs? Not nearly as important as what Saddam could and would have bought and built with the help of North Korea and A. Q. Kahn. Troubles in Iraq? Not nearly as important as the deterrent effect of an America willing to brave 3,000 casualties for the sake of proving our willingness to take down rouge states. Democratization? Important in the long term, but a sideshow compared to the nuclear knife at our throat. A free-spending Republican Congress? Not nearly as important as the danger of an administration paralyzed by a dovish Democratic congress at this moment of grievous danger. Capital Hill sex scandals? Not nearly as important as keeping the Capital and all its pages from being blown sky-high by Osama’s lackeys.

Oh, right. It’s all just a Rovian plot. What will it take to wake this sleeping nation up? It’s the nukes, stupid. It’s the nukes, smarty. It’s the nukes, Mr. President. It’s the nukes, Democrats. It’s the nukes, Republicans. It’s the nukes, Pat Buchanan. It’s the nukes, Michael Moore…. It’s the nukes.

Read the whole thing. It is as short as it is chilling. While the US is in complete internal disarray due to partisan bickering, the threat is growing. While the left's insistence on negotiating endlessly with regimes which have proven repeatedly that they will not negotiate in good faith, we draw ever closer to the brink. While the West fiddles, the flames are being fanned to life by rogue states.

It's the nukes, stupid. We're running out of time to stop this.

We Hate To Say We Told You So

Aw, heck, no we don't. Told ya:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Oct. 7 — As word of Representative Mark Foley’s sexually explicit e-mail messages to former pages spread last week, Republican strategists worried — and Democrats hoped — that the sordid nature of the scandal would discourage conservative Christians from going to the polls.

But in dozens of interviews here in southeastern Virginia, a conservative Christian stronghold that is a battleground in races for the House and Senate, many said the episode only reinforced their reasons to vote for their two Republican incumbents in neck-and-neck re-election fights, Representative Thelma Drake and Senator George Allen.

“This is Foley’s lifestyle,” said Ron Gwaltney, a home builder, as he waited with his family outside a Christian rock concert last Thursday in Norfolk. “He tried to keep it quiet from his family and his voters. He is responsible for what he did. He is paying a price for what he did. I am not sure how much farther it needs to go.”

The Democratic Party is “the party that is tolerant of, maybe more so than Republicans, that lifestyle,” Mr. Gwaltney said, referring to homosexuality.

Most of the evangelical Christians interviewed said that so far they saw Mr. Foley’s behavior as a matter of personal morality, not institutional dysfunction.

All said the question of broader responsibility had quickly devolved into a storm of partisan charges and countercharges. And all insisted the episode would have little impact on their intentions to vote.

It is too soon to tell if the scandal will affect the turnout of evangelical Christians, who make up about a quarter of the electorate and more than a third of Republican voters. Some of President Bush’s political advisers have said that pre-election reports in 2000 that Mr. Bush was once arrested for drunken driving depressed turnout among conservative Christians, nearly costing him the White House.

If the New York Times is reporting this, it is an indication of the magnitude of the backfire the Democrats have brought on themselves. You can bet it's actually even worse for the Dems than the NYT is reporting. The carnival barkers made a major error.

Holy Cow

No, literally. One of the ongoing problems India has is the religious custom of letting cows - and bulls - roam free in increasingly crowded cities. Incidents between the animals, considered sacred, and people are on the rise. The latest incident had a bull pretty much running out of control through the city center of New Delhi for seven hours. A number of people were injured during the rampage.

Cows are revered as sacred in predominantly Hindu India, and thousands roam freely through the streets of cities, often seen walking busy roads, sleeping on dividers, grazing on trash and leaving trails of dung.

But letting an estimated 28,000 beasts compete for space with New Delhi's 14 million residents creates problems, and several people have been killed in recent years by rampaging bovines.

Sunday's ordeal started when overeager security personnel tried to shoo the bull from a route to be used for VIP traffic, angering the animal, the Press Trust of India news agency reported Monday.

The bull ran down roads charging groups of people and scattering crowds in a frenzy that took it through some of the city's busiest streets, markets and the entrance area to the Regal Cinema.

It calmed down after several hours, but attempts by police to lasso it from the back of a truck set it of again, The Indian Express newspaper reported.

The second run took the bull through the grounds of a YWCA hostel and a prominent temple.

I have no idea if there is a way to reconcile the religious beliefs with the facts of modern life or not. If not, this problem will simply continue to grow.

New Border Defense Tested

In an effort to increase border security on the Rio Grande River, the animal uprising has stepped in where the US government has failed. They have deployed a new border security force to the area.

Crocodiles.

Illegal migrants from Mexico frequently swim or ride inner tubes across the Rio Grande to reach the United States. Crocodiles do not normally inhabit the river, and authorities suspect it may have been brought to the area as a pet and then released into the river by its owner.

The reptile was caught on a fisherman's line on Saturday in a sparsely populated stretch of the river on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. It was turned over to a local animal shelter.

The crocodile weighed about 130 pounds and appeared to be young and in good condition, said Jose Moreno Araiza, a commander of the Nuevo Laredo fire department, where the fishermen first brought the reptile in the back of a pickup truck.

Ok, we made up the part about it being the animal uprising's new border defense. The truth is, the animals don't really care about securing the border. (On the other hand, neither does the government, apparently). But the Crocodiles aren't fools, either. They know where they eating is good.

China Denounces North Korean Nuke Test

In unusually harsh language, China has condemned North Korea's test of a nuclear weapon. The official statement tells North Korea it must halt any activities that would worsen the situation.

On 9 October, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea flagrantly conducted a nuclear test in disregard of the common opposition of the international community. The Chinese Government is firmly opposed to this act.

To bring about denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and oppose nuclear proliferation is the firm and consistent stand of the Chinese Government. China strongly urges the DPRK to honor its commitment to denuclearization, stop all moves that may further worsen the situation and return to the Six-Party Talks.

To safeguard peace and stability in Northeast Asia serves the interests of all parties involved. The Chinese Government calls on all parties concerned to be cool-headed in response and persist in seeking a peaceful solution through consultation and dialogue. China will continue to make every effort towards this goal.

This is a departure from the normal Chinese verbiage in these situations, but still doesn't appear to be very supportive of really putting pressure on Kim to back off, either. We'll have to see how they react in the emergency meeting of the Security Council.

US Confirms North Korean Nuke Test

Fox News has a report that says an unnamed US official has confirmed that North Korea did, in fact, detonate a nuclear bomb. They are also saying the seismic data indicates that the bomb yield may have been smaller than it was thought it would be. That one may be a reach, however since we simply do not know what they were testing. No do we know what configuration the device was. In other words, we have no idea if it was in a deliverable package. There is an enormous amount of conflicting information right now.

The official said, however, that initial readings from South Korea reported only a 3.58-magnitude seismic reaction, which is smaller than what would be expected from the 4-kiloton explosion the communist nation sought. To put the bomb's capabilities in context, a 20-kiloton explosion could conceivably kill 200,000 people.

"North Korea may not have got what they wanted," the official said.

• Raw Data: North Korean Statement on Alleged Nuke Test

The U.S. Geological Survey, however, said it detected a 4.2-magnitude tremor at 10:35 p.m. EDT, which could mean the device was potentially deadlier than initially believed. Australia also said there was seismic confirmation that North Korea conducted a nuclear test.

"It was a success from their perspective in that they achieved a nuclear yield, though that is not very difficult," the official said. "It's within their technical capabilities."

This will take a while to sort out. The US is going to push for hard sanctions.