Disconfirmations Disconfirmed: Saddam Had Nuke Program

By Randall Hoven

The media have been telling us for years that Saddam had no WMD, so “Bush’s War”: was based on a “lie.” And those who believed Saddam did have WMD or WMD programs were delusional or worse.

But today, on July 6, 2008, the Associated Press reports that

* Saddam Hussein had a nuclear program
* At the Tuwaitha nuclear complex just south of Baghdad
* Which included 550 metric tons (over 1.2 million pounds) of “yellowcake”, or concentrated uranium
* And multiple devices that could be used in a nuclear weapon. 

The AP does not say alleged nuclear program.  It does not add “according to military experts.” It simply says “Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program.”

That’s pretty big news, isn’t it?

For about five years now, those of us who thought Saddam Hussein probably had at least WMD programs, if not WMD themselves, have been called not only wrong, but illogical and insane.

One example was an article by Sharon Begley in the Wall Street Journal titled People Believe a ‘Fact’ That Fits Their Views Even if It’s Clearly False .  (Her article series is called, without irony, the “Science Journal”.) Ms. Begley reported that “six months after the invasion, one-third of Americans believed WMDs had been found, even though every such tentative claim was discomfirmed [sic].” She cited psychologists to explain this strange behavior.  They used terms like “world views” and “mental models.”

Jim Lobe at CommonDreams.org (Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community) reported that “Three out of four self-described supporters of President George W. Bush still believe that pre-war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to produce them.” He went on to quote the director of the polling company as saying

“To support the president and to accept that he took the U.S. to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about pre-war Iraq.”

These findings on people’s beliefs were based on a survey that asked people if they believed Saddam had WMD or WMD programs .  Apparently, Sharon Begley, Jim Lobe and a whole lot of other people not only believed Saddam had no WMD programs, but that anyone who did believe such a thing was clearly illogical or insane.  In fact, the only interesting question to them was what is wrong with our minds.

[...]

Fast forward to today.  Now we hear from the Associated Press that “The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program—a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium—reached a Canadian port.” That last “remnant” was 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium.  That is over 1.2 million pounds of yellowcake!  Also, the military had previously withdrawn “four devices for controlled radiation exposure ... that could potentially be used in a weapon.” All this was located at “the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad.”

The AP even reminds us that

“Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger—and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims—led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.”

By the way, is it illogical or insane to think that Saddam could not possibly obtain yellowcake, and did not even try to, because one former ambassador went to one country in Africa and said he couldn’t find it there?  What about after they found over a million pounds of it just south of Baghdad?  Is it now considered reality-based to think Saddam “sought” yellowcake, just as President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address ?

[...]

If you wait long enough, the facts emerge, and the leftie liars are exposed.
Good deal for America.

Two schoolboys in Britain were punished for refusing to kneel and pray to Allah.

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.

[...]

It’s amazing, the amount of trouble that is being perpetrated in the name of “diversity.”

What’s even more amazing is the bravery and clear-headedness of these two schoolboys, who understood that there are some things important enough to require defying authority.

Would your kids do the same if they were asked to pray to someone else’s god?

What would you do, under a greater threat?

A supposedly confidential World Bank report is said to blame biofuels demand for forcing world food prices up 75%. Aditya Chakrabortty of the UK Guardian, hardly a right wing publication, writes:

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

[...]

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Global warming remains an entirely theoretical prediction, based on climate models that do not approach the complexity of the actual world climate system. But human starvation is a very real phenomenon in the here-and-now, with reports of Haitians eating dirt “cookies” as a way of fending off hunger pangs. The world’s poorest cannot compete with mandates for ethanol content in gasoline in many states.

Nice work, Al Gore. And a shout-out to the Nobel Prize committee, for giving the peace prize to a man who has helped starve the world’s poorest people. Now we know how much respect your prize deserves.

Gore’s chickens...are coming home...to roost!

Today’s Chicago Tribune carries a front page story on the late Jesse Helms, “5-time senator ‘great patriot’ who held fast to his beliefs.”

The piece’s author, Los Angeles Times staff writer Johanna Neuman, states:

Often he was the lone voice of dissent in the Senate. He was the only senator to vote against confirming Henry Kissinger as secretary of state during the Nixon administration. And he was the only senator to vote against making Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a holiday.

Both assertions are wrong.  MSNBC reported in a 2005 article on secretary of state Condoleezza Rice that Henry Kissinger was approved by the Senate in a 78-7 vote. And the King Center notes on its Web site that the King holiday bill, sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy, passed in the Senate by a vote of 78-22.

In its eagerness to portray the late Senator as an isolated, extreme extremist, the mainstream media are making up their own “facts.”

[...]

Shame on them!

Fighting leftie racism and hatred.

The deranged lawsuit of the day has been brought by Aaron Ferguson, a former accountant for Rachael Ray’s TV cooking show, who as an anorexic is demanding $1 million because Ms. Ray is allegedly hostile to his kind.

According to court papers, Ray committed such unconscionable acts as stating that anorexics, who suffer from a potentially life-threatening personality disorder, “are sick in the head.”

[...]

But with a little creativity, anyone can climb aboard moonbattery’s gravy train by claiming to belong to an oppressed minority.

The ultimate outcome of the lefties’ “rights” bullshit.  Victim politics.

White man convicted of racial abuse after making ‘honky’ jibe at WHITE security guards

By Emily Andrews

Jonathan Wicks was charged with racially abusing three white security guards

A white man has been prosecuted for racially abusing three white security guards.

Jonathan Wicks was taken to court for calling the men ‘honky wannabe cops’.

Wicks, 20, has had to attend court at least five times, at an estimated cost to the taxpayer of more than £5,000.

He was on a night out with friends in Reading last September when the incident happened.

He said: ‘I was outside the Oracle Shopping Centre and as a joke started pushing and rattling one of the bicycles that was locked up outside, as I’d had a few drinks.

‘The security guards told me to move on and that’s when I made the comment - I didn’t think about it, I just said it as a joke.

‘It was in jest, but they took it very seriously. They restrained me and called the police.’

Wicks, of Wokingham, Berkshire, admitted one count of using threatening, abusive or insulting words of behaviour which was racially aggravated, and one count of attempted theft of a bicycle.

[...]

‘Honky is a word that a lot of my black friends use to describe a white person, so I suppose that’s why I was charged with racial abuse. But it’s ridiculous that I was taken to court over it.

Mr Wicks called white security guards at The Oracle shopping centre in Reading, above, ‘honky wannabe cops’

‘I apologised profusely to the security guards and explained that I was having a laugh. I am white and they are white, so I don’t understand how that can make me racist.

‘It does seem a complete waste of time and money. Surely there are better things for the police and Crown Prosecution Service to be spending their time on?’

Wicks, who cares for his father Brian - who cannot work after breaking his back falling from a roof - brother Ben, 16, and sister Billie, 14, said he had pleaded guilty on the advice of his solicitor.

Martin Bryan, defending, told Reading magistrates that that he was being cheeky rather than abusive.

‘He is white British,’ he added. ‘The victims were white British as well. That might make his abuse slightly less offensive on this basis.

‘He was not intending to be malicious. He was being more obnoxious.’

In a statement the CPS said: ‘It’s not a waste of time taking this case to court if he has pleaded guilty.

‘There were some serious crimes on the indictment, so we were right to take action.’ Wicks was bailed and will be sentenced on July 17.’

This illustrates, by ridiculous example, just what is wrong with the concept that words or language can be “racist”.

Rush Limbaugh’s new deal with Clear Channel, as flashed by Drudge (also covered or addressed here and here at NewsBusters; here at the New York Times; and here in a very long New York Times magazine article), is north of $400 million for the next eight years.

Good tax planning too: Maharushie will get his reported nine-figure signing bonus this year before a possible President Obama does his hundreds of billions in damage. Limbaugh’s tax savings, if the bonus is $100 million and Obama gets everything he wants, would be a hair under $17 mil (12.4% Social Security on all but $148,000, plus the 4.6% planned increase in the top rate).

One conclusion you can reach, based on what newspaper industry watcher Newsosaur told us earlier this week, is that Old Media covering the Limbaugh story is like zombies covering the living (link in excerpt was in original):

Newspaper shares slid $23B in 6 months

The value of 11 newspaper companies traded on the public market since 2005 dove a combined $23.7 billion in the first half of this year, falling almost as much in six months as they had in the three prior years put together.

Wall Street’s intensifying repudiation of the industry means that the companies in the group have lost a cumulative $49.7 billion in market capitalization in 3½ years, vaporizing 51% of shareholder value since Dec. 31. 2004.

To date, the decline in newspaper shares has not had a commensurate impact on the compensation (details here) enjoyed by the chief executives of several of the affected companies.

[...]

Limbaugh got to where he is by being entertaining, informative, and 98%-plus accurate. He also famously didn’t jump on to the Internet until it could be proven that he would at least break even.

How many publishers can say that? Therein lie the reasons why Limbaugh and the newspaper business are heading in opposite directions.

In our economic system, things are worth what people are willing to pay for them.

Since most of us agree that the Congressional elections are as important as the Presidential election, the importance of the “coattails” of both candidates is definitely part of the mix.
It McCain going to help Republicans increase their representation in the next Congress?

Inquiring minds want to know.

As one of the supposed anti-science conservatives liberals are always yammering on about, I was glad when President Bush vetoed the increase in federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I wrote about adult stem cell success stories, and since June of last year, there have been even more exciting treatments:

* A middle aged man in Colorado had his bone marrow cells harvested, multiplied in the lab and then injected into his back.

“I think this is the beginning of a new era of surgery,” [Dr. Christopher Centeno] said. “We usually take out the offending piece but do nothing to repair the small damage we just created. This allows you to do both.”

* A study published in Canada shows how adult stem cells can help slow the progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease:

“We were able to measure a prominent effect on stem cell mobilization and found no adverse effects in the patients,” said [Dr. Neil] Cashman. “There have been many misgivings in using stem cell stimulators in ALS patients but now we know we can safely do this. This is an important first step in providing a new treatment for ALS.”

[...]

* Researchers in Australia have found that patients with Parkinson’s disease respond positively to the injection of adult stem cells:

The Griffith University study published in the journal Stem Cells found that adult stem cells harvested from the noses of Parkinson’s patients gave rise to dopamine-producing brain cells when transplanted into the brain of a rat.

The debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s such as loss of muscle control are caused by degeneration of cells that produce the essential chemical dopamine in the brain.

It’s also important to note that they have tried the same experiment with embryonic stem cells, only it resulted in the “formation of tumours or teratomas in the host rats...”
* Two Canadians suffering from a rare form of lung disease were treated with their own “gene-modified stem cells” in an experimental procedure:

[...]

But what of the embryonic stem cell? What about the issue that helped catapult Claire McCaskill into Jim Talent’s Senate Seat? You remember Michael J. Fox, don’t you? He helped Missouri liberals amend the state constitution with his commercial for Senator McCaskill.

According to “the head of the UK National Stem Cell Network,” embryonic stem cell research is a flop:

Despite his own reservations that stem cell work may not live up to its hype, Lord Patel said he was hopeful of finding treatments for serious diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease and even disorders such as Alzheimer’s.

“Are there any signs that this could happen? Yes there are, particularly in animal experiments that suggest this might be possible,” Lord Patel said.

“In terms of embryonic stem cell therapy, there is currently no such therapy that is available in a large number of patients.

A recent Journal of the American Medical Association study done by “Richard K. Burt, M.D., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and colleagues” found, according to LifeNews.com, that adult stem cells are currently working with over 70 diseases.

Things are going so well on the adult stem cell side, that scientists are now able to manipulate stem cells still in the brain and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced recently that they would invest in adult stem cell research to help with “diabetes-induced retinal damage, a leading cause of blindness.”

When you look at the landslide of success found in adult stem cell research and compare it to the lack of success on the embryonic side, you really have to ask who is the anti-science party. The science is on our side.

Nothing speaks so loudly as success.