Free Republic

In 1979, after a long campaign of political pressure applied by the Carter administration in the United States, the Shah of Iran fell to the Islamic Revolution, ending a tradition of monarchic rule that had persisted in Iran for thousands of years since the rule of Cyrus the Great. The stage was set for the rise of the Ayatollah, and the establishment of a theocracy in Iran that, today, most Iranians do not even want. But what if none of that had ever happened? While a momentous departure from actual history, it is not nearly so far-fetched as it sounds....

America, Japan and China are racing to be the first nation to make nuclear energy completely renewable. The hurdle is making it economic to extract uranium from seawater, because the amount of uranium in seawater is truly inexhaustible. And it seems America is in the lead. New technological breakthroughs from DOE’s Pacific Northwest (PNNL) and Oak Ridge (ORNL) national laboratories have made removing uranium from seawater within economic reach and the only question is – when will the source of uranium for our nuclear power plants change from mined ore to seawater extraction? Nuclear fuel made with uranium extracted from...

Cronyism in Energy Production “Diablo Canyon produces twice as much power as all of California’s solar panels, 24 percent more than all of its wind, and 40 times more than its largest solar farm. Also, Diablo Canyon provides power to 3 million Californians on a patch of land the size of three football fields. Achieving the equivalent from a solar farm would require 145 times more land; from wind, 500 times more.”—Michael Shellenberger, Breakthrough Institute co-founder, and Peter Raven, former Missouri Botanical Gardens head The announcement last week from PG&E that it was closing Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, rudely...

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has alleged that his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton received funds from Indian political leaders and institutions in return for supporting the India-US civil nuclear deal. The Trump campaign has published these allegations in a 35-page booklet, but none of them are new and they have been in the public domain for several years now. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has refuted these allegations several times in the past. In a statement, the Trump's campaign said the information provided in the booklet is an in-depth summary of the top 50 facts about Clinton's record that...

March for Environmental Hope A real thing, Jimmy. If truth is stranger than fiction, it should come as no surprise that Friday marks the start of the first-ever pro-nuclear power march — probably in world history — and it all starts in San Francisco. The March for Environmental Hope, a four-day trek from the City by the Bay to Sacramento, is being pitched as a family-friendly event — and in this case that means more than funnel cakes and bounce houses. Organizers are hoping to tug on the collective heart strings of America by making this about the children, as...

Now that many environmentalists and climate scientists have realized that nuclear energy is essential for addressing global warming, a coalition of environmental groups is sponsoring a multi-day March for Environmental Hope in California in support of nuclear power

Searched in Google for G4S "nuclear power plant" and came back with a list of open slots. What's next? Below is an excerpt from one of the open positions (security officer at a nuclear power plant)... I wonder what they've already filled. The world’s leading private security organization, G4S, has an immediate job opportunity for a Custom Protection Officer. G4S is a security provider for the United States government, fortune 500 companies, nuclear power plants, oil and gas companies, airport, ports, banks, hospitals, factories, warehouses, commercial facilities, residential communities and much more. G4S offers job security, excellent pay and benefits,...

Launch unlikely to boost uranium prices in near term************************************************ The U.S. saw a nuclear reactor come online this month for the first time in 20 years, and more are set to follow—proving that nuclear power is alive and well in a post-Fukushima disaster world.

Rather than enacting tougher laws to make it more difficult for terrorists, like Mateen, to purchase guns through additional background checks, Trump has made it clear he would like less oversight, not more, on gun purchases. He says the current background checks on the books are sufficient and also supports the use and sale of military grade weaponry, the type of weapons that are necessary to carry out such a large-scale mass shooting. Trump sees nuclear weapons the same way he sees guns. For both, he believes more is better.

White House Communications Director Jen Psaki said Wednesday that she had nothing to do with the decision to selectively edit a State Department press briefing video to clip out a discussion about the Iran nuclear agreement. Psaki was a spokeswoman for the State Department in 2013, when a video was quietly edited to remove a portion of a press briefing dealing with the Iran deal. On Wednesday afternoon, current spokesman John Kirby said it’s been determined that an official from State’s Bureau Public Affairs directed the video to be edited. But he said it isn’t clear who did it, or...

An addendum to Larry’s item this morning, which correctly diagnosed Obama’s appearance in Hiroshima as a bit more apologetic than the White House wants observers to believe. If you come to the site of an act that ended four years of horrendous war and insist that a “moral revolution” is needed to ensure that such acts aren’t repeated, you’re obviously making a statement about the morality of that original act. If you want to protest guns, you don’t do it at a place where someone once used one to defend himself successfully from a threat. You do it at a...

After laying a wreath in memory of Hiroshima’s war dead on Friday, President Obama called for an end to war; the elimination of nuclear weapons; a recognition that “every life is precious”; and a “moral awakening” among all nations and peoples. “We must reimagine our connection to one another as members of one human race,” he said. Obama said the souls of 100,000 Japanese men, women and children killed in Hiroshima “speak to us.” […] “We can think of those things and know that those same precious moments happened here 71 years ago. Those who died — they are like...

Barack Obama on Friday paid tribute to the "silent cry" of the 140,000 people killed by the world's first atomic bomb attack and sought to renew attention in his unfulfilled vision of a world without nuclear weapons, as he became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. "Death fell from the sky and the world was changed," Obama said, after laying a wreath, closing his eyes and briefly bowing his head before an arched monument in Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park that honors those killed on Aug. 6, 1945, when U.S. forces dropped the bomb that ushered in the nuclear...

Maybe they use the '80s flick "War Games" as a training film, too. The U.S. Defense Department is still using — after several decades — 8-inch floppy disks in a computer system that coordinates the operational functions of the nation's nuclear forces, a jaw-dropping new report reveals. The Defense Department's 1970s-era IBM Series/1 Computer and long-outdated floppy disks handle functions related to intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers and tanker support aircraft, according to the new Government Accountability Office report.

A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group's annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.

ITS CUPOLA dully glinting in the sun, across kilometres of an exclusion zone in the Negev Desert, the nuclear reactor near the Israeli town of Dimona has for decades been the subject of intense speculation. Its bland official name, the Centre for Nuclear Research, belies a martial purpose. Foreign intelligence services, atomic scientists and a former Israeli employee claim that it is the source of fissile material used to make Israel’s nuclear weapons. The country’s atomic secrets have always been closely guarded, so little is known about the plant at Dimona. However, officials at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC)...

A senior Iranian military commander claimed that U.S. officials are quietly encouraging the Islamic Republic to keep its illicit ballistic missile tests a secret so as not to raise concerns in the region, according to Persian language comments. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace and Missile Force, said in recent remarks that the Obama administration does not want Iran to publicize its ongoing missile tests, which have raised questions about the Islamic Republic’s commitment to last summer’s comprehensive nuclear agreement. “At this time, the Americans are telling [us]: ‘Don’t talk about missile affairs, and if...

Russia’s will deploy its new RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles to units in Siberia and the southern Urals when the enormous new weapon becomes operational in 2018. The massive liquid-fueled missiles will replace the existing Cold War-era R-36M2 Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan) ICBM—which is the largest such weapon ever built. “The development of the Sarmat silo-based missile system with a heavy missile is nearing completion,” Col. Gen. Sergei Karakayev, commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces told the Moscow-based TASS News agency. “It will replace the Voyevoda missile system in the Uzhur missile division and the Dombarovsky position area.”

Nuclear Nightmare DC - Duration: 5:41. Youtube video What would happen if terrorists exploded a crude nuclear bomb in Washington DC? Watch Bill Perry's nuclear nightmare. This is Clinton's Secretary of Defense William J. Perry

Ash Carter is the same person who accuses Russia of trying to destroy our fiber optic cables. Defense Secretary Ash Carter used a U.S. military changing-of-the-guard ceremony Tuesday to blast Russian aggression in Europe, saying Moscow is "going backward in time" with warlike actions that compel a U.S. military buildup on NATO's eastern flank. "We do not seek a cold — let alone a hot — war with Russia," Carter said. "We do not seek to make Russia an enemy. But make no mistake, we will defend our allies, the rules-based international order, and the positive future it affords us."...