From the AP: Black owned businesses grow at four times the rate of others

But because I am all about fair and balanced, The Chicago Tribune points out the the government is falling short on providing contracts to woman owned businesses.

Sorry, but I had to use the punny title.

It’s nice to see that not just Le Monde is reporting that Iran is enriching uranium for use in power stations, but Reuters has (mildly) as well.

The revelations came one week after Iran announced it had enriched uranium for use in power stations for the first time, stoking a diplomatic row over Western suspicions of a covert Iranian atomic bomb project. Iran says it seeks nuclear power.

Le Monde Diplomatique went into much more detail about how signatories to the non proliferation treaty have a right to enrich uranium for nuclear power purposes (which is what Iran is doing)

First, we should note the technical details of the nuclear fuel cycle. Uranium is sold all over the world as yellowcake, which typically contains 70%-90% uranium oxide. It is then purified to obtain uranium hexafluoride. Iran already carries out these transformations under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The final stage is known as enrichment, a process that generates a sufficient amount (3%) of one isotope, uranium 235, to produce nuclear power. To be used in a weapon, the proportion has to reach 90% U-235. Article IV of the Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (better known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT) guarantees the “inalienable right of all the parties to the treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”. Signatory countries have the right to enrich uranium.

After Tehran agreed to implement the NPT’s additional protocol (which allows the IAEA to carry out more intrusive inspections), an IAEA report did find that Iran had failed in the past to report “nuclear material, its processing and use, as well as the declaration of facilities where such material had been processed and stored”. But subsequent IAEA reports stated that Iran had taken “corrective actions” about many of the failures, and that “good progress has been made in Iran’s correction of breaches”. The remaining unresolved issues would be “followed up as a routine safeguard implementation matter”. The Iranians blame US obstructionism for making them resort to secrecy in obtaining technology to which they were entitled under the NPT (6).

In March 2005 the New York Times reported that an intelligence review commission report to President Bush had described US intelligence on Iran as “inadequate to allow firm judgments about Iran’s weapons programs” (8). Despite almost three years of intensive inspections under the additional protocol, the IAEA has yet to find any evidence of a nuclear weapons programme in Iran.

Iran presents a convenient opportunity to set a precedent to be used against other aspirants for nuclear power in the developing world. That is why Ahmadinejad was denounced as an uncompromising hardliner in the coverage of his UN presentation. But he did in fact suggest a compromise deal. While defending Iran’s sovereign right to produce nuclear power using indigenously enriched uranium, and enumerating the reasons why Iran cannot rely on promises of foreign-supplied reactor fuel to power its economy, he proposed to operate Iran’s enrichment programme as joint ventures with private and public sector firms from other countries, to ensure that the programme remained transparent and could not be secretly diverted for military purposes. This was no small offer. It closely resembled a proposal previously put to the IAEA by a committee of experts looking into the risk that nuclear technology developed for peaceful purposes might be diverted to non-peaceful uses (12).

Instead of discussing this proposal, or looking for any workable solution, US, Israeli and EU officials continue to insist that the only acceptable objective guarantee of non-proliferation is to close what they describe as the loophole in Article IV of the treaty. These countries want to see the article re-interpreted to deny developing nations the right to indigenous nuclear enrichment technology.

I know I’m pasting most of the damn article (can’t do the whole thing without permission and the site is for those who are registered only- sorry). Really, it is worth reading to get a whole different perspective on the issue. Besides, it’s nice to read real news instead of scary threat speak from the press-release readers.

So a guy in Ohio, Jeff Goff has been convicted in of impregnating his stepdaughter with a syringe when his wife could no longer get pregnant. In an interesting twist of fate, he was prosecuted under a law he lobbied for after the same stepdaughter was molested by someone else. The original law stated that it wasn’t rape unless there was intercourse. Because he used a syringe (instead of a penis) to knock up his stepdaughter, he is now going to serve a sentence for sexual battery. That’s what you get for turning your 16 year old into a baby factory. Thankfully, the girl’s mother was also sentenced to 3 years for the crime, though she only served 8 months of it.

Full story here

Today, in my anthropology class, I lost some of my feminist cred. We have to pick from 3 books to have a group discussion on: Fast Food Nation (which I already own and don’t want to discuss ad nauseum again), Under the Banner of Heaven(about the history of violence in the Mormon religion) and Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class.

I picked Under the Banner of Heaven and finished reading it before it was actually assigned. It was a terrifying breakdown of how fundamentalists think God’s laws justify murder and violence towards those that are not on their side. It applies to all fundies, not just Mormons. But my little book report will have to come later because this is not the point of this post.

In class we had to do a show of hands about what books people wanted to read. Half went for Fast Food Nation, half to Under the Banner of Heaven, and exactly one person (girl) raised their hand for Without a Net. One person in the most liberal of disciplines in a very liberal community college full of working class kids. One. And it wasn’t me.

To be honest, the topic didn’t appeal to me cause I live it everyday. Like I need someone to point out to me about the feminization of poverty. But my lack of interest is not singular and at least half the class is made up of boys to whom this would be a new topic.

So how can I yell at you boys for not taking an interest in something I can’t even take an interest in? I can’t (sort of- I’ll yell anyways just cause I like to).

The real question then is what will it take for you boys to get into the topic? This is a real question and I would love if you would post in comments why you feel ambivalent about topics that are usually seen as the domain of girls.

Come on boys- you know you wanna write.

Subject: Help stop war with Iran
Hi,

You may have seen reports in the news that the Bush administration may be planning a nuclear attack against Iran. This is alarming. A strong statement of opposition from the American public before that idea becomes credible is important. Please sign MoveOn.org’s petition against nuclear attack and then alert your friends, family and colleagues by asking them to sign the petition.http://political.moveon.org/dontnukeiran/

Thanks,
Robert
—

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! If you meet the patriarchs or the arhats on your way, kill them too… Bodhidharma was an old bearded barbarian… Nirvana and Bodhi are dead stumps to tie your donkey to. The sacred teachings are only lists of ghosts, sheets of paper fit for wiping the pus from your boils.-Lin-chi

Cat and Girl on Magritte.

What’s there not to love about Greg Palast? He’s old school investigative reporter with a background in economics. He broke the news about purging the black voters in Florida during the 2000 election. He makes me remeber that journalists can actually still be investigators instead of overpaid press-release readers.

George Monbiot is just hot and brilliant. I loved Manifesto for a New World Order.

Joe Conason

As for third wave feminism, I love Jill from Feministe. She’s as girly girl as I am (with a love of Bumble and Bumble) but still kicks misogyny in the ass on a regular basis.

I first discovered Samantha Power while watching her talk about Sudan on the Charlie Rose show. She was talking about how all the agancies were saying they were having trouble getting access to the country to prove that there was a genocide going on. While all these people were hemming and hawing- she simply walked over the border from Chad and took some of the first photographs documenting the tradgedy to get published in the western press.

Just to move the discussion out of comments and into the main page. Regarding the argument that “The risk of overestimating climate change can hurt lots of people, who may be made waste resources on installing yet inefficient solar panels, give up cars, or live in crumpled apartments.”
Wasting resources is bad- but cars and crumpled (did you mean cramped) apartments are inconveniences, not life threatening conditions. Besides, technology never advances without some original waste of resources- that’s why the price of electronics comes down so fast after initial introduction to the market.
Mephistopheles mentioned an article he read about how to make hybrid cars super efficient (to the point where only a tank of gas would be needed per month) by using super-efficient batteries that actually store electricity for the power companies during off peak hours. (I’ll see if I can get him to post the link- since I’m just spouting his regurgitation of the article)
If we couple that kind of battery efficiency with a switch from petroleum gas to biodiesel made from switch grass (and stopped subsidizing ethanol and the corn farmers) we end up with a system that is better for the environment and massively decreases our dependence on foreign oil. Sounds like a win all around though there is an initial cost in investment to make switch grass refining more efficient.

I totally cribed this from Shakespeare’s Sister– but Happy Easter anyways!