Minor difference

 

There is a very minor difference between Israel and Iran regarding nuclear weapons.

Assuming that Israel has nuclear weapons, ask how many times has the country threatened to erase another country from the world map.

Now ask how many times have the madmen in Iran threatened to erase Israel from the world map.

While the question is being asked, how about how many times the palestinian liberation organization demigods - now primarily sponsored by Iran and its proxy Syria - sworn to turn Israel into an all-Arab state? How many non-nuclear rockets have been fired into Israel by the so-called -palestinians and their equally crazy associates in Hamas and Hezbollah v s. the number fired - in retaliation - from Israel into Aza and parts of Occupied Israel.

Anyone who can read, anyone who can count, can see the difference between Israel and Iran and the states it sponsors to spread terror.

One thing Iran and Israel DO have in common: their ability to bring together strange bed fellows.

Moslem leaders who may hate each other agree to a truce to attack Israel.

At the same time, some Moslem states - Saudia, in this case - allegedly make a pact with Israel to let Israeli war planes overfly their territory to attack Iran. Saudi knows that if the Moslems lack a common threat (Israel, the United States), the crazies in control will send their armies to kill each other.

Next time someone rants that "It's not fair to pick on Iran's nuclear program; Israel already has The Bomb," remind them The Bomb is like sex. Israel is like a mature adult and approaches sexual encounters with caution while Iran is like a teenager whose hormones are raging.

Question: Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the Mel Gibson of Iran or is Mel Gibson the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Hollywood? (We need more Mel Brooks and less Mel Gibson.)

Yohanon Glenn
Yohanon.Glenn at gmail dot com

Instant rejection

 

I applied for a business continuity job with a bank with headquarters in Charlotte NC. I won't identify the bank other than to say it is not a unit of Wells-Fargo.

I applied for the job via the Web on Sunday afternoon.

My TNT (Thanks [but] No Thanks) notice was sent on Monday at 9:34 a.m.

I somehow doubt that the bank's HR folks work on Sunday and I suspect most don't show up for work on Monday - or if they do, then "get to work" - until at least 9 a.m.

I also suspect there were lots of applications to wade through.

So how is it that my application was tossed out so early in the game?

I did qualify for the job - I don't respond to advertisements for which I lack qualification. Heck, I've even got bank-related experience and a competing bank's VP of business continuity as a reference.

I'm left wondering if maybe the advertisement wasn't a "CYA" posting. I suspect the bank has a rule to give preference to in-place personnel (no argument with that) but that it has to advertise the job "to the world" for appearance's sake.

I happen to do business with this bank. I think that will change to "I happened (past tense) to do business with this bank."

I have no problem with giving internal folks first dibs on a job, especially if they are qualified; but in this day of job scarcity, advertising a job that isn't there seems a tad tacky.

Still, as they say, יהיה טוב

Comments are welcome in English and Hebrew; all others will be automatically deleted.

Yohanon Glenn
Yohanon.Glenn at gmail dot com

Nuclear energy or nuclear weaponry?

 

The following from the Global Security Newswire has to give everyone with a preference for peace pause.

It seems to this scrivener that many of the countries now queuing up to "go nuclear" would be better served by going solar. Less expense, less danger, less maintenance, less sophistication, less dependency on foreign governments and organizations.

Arab Nations Advance Quest For Atomic Power
http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20100715_5004.php

Thursday, July 15, 2010

A number of Arab governments have taken steps in recent months to set up and advance civilian nuclear power programs in their countries amid a backdrop of growing regional concerns over Iran's nuclear activities, United Press International reported yesterday (see GSN, June 29).

In the last four years, a total of 13 Middle Eastern countries have declared their intention to initiate or relaunch nuclear power projects (see GSN, June 23).

Saudi Arabia inked an atomic trade agreement with France last week and Jordan is in discussions with French nuclear giant Areva and the Japanese firm Mitsubishi to purchase technology that would enable the energy-hungry country to construct its first atomic power facility.

The United Arab Emirates, which is further along in its pursuit of atomic energy, authorized the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp. to begin readying the chosen location for the nation's first nuclear reactor. At the end of last year, the Gulf state selected a South Korean-led business group to construct and run four atomic energy facilities (see GSN, June 4).

The surging Middle Eastern drive has caused some worry in the United States even as Washington publicly promotes the benefits of atomic energy to nations that are in good standing with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

While each Arab country has stated that it has no plan to pursue a nuclear weapons capability, there is fear that once a nation has acquired advanced atomic capabilities it would initiate weapons programs in an effort to achieve parity with Iran's suspected nuclear warhead drive. Tehran says its nuclear program has no military application (see GSN, July 14).

"The region looks around and they find all the non-Arabs have a nuclear program or are on their way," Dubai-based researcher Mustafa Alani said to the Financial Times. "They look at India, Pakistan, Israel and now Iran."

"There's a feeling this region made a mistake when they opted for zero nuclear energy for the last 40 years and the Iranian program was a wake-up call," he said. "The intention is civilian but you need the know-how at least."

The perception exists that U.S. President Barack Obama has not been able or is not willing to take steps that would decisively address Tehran's disputed nuclear program, UPI said. In June, Washington helped to lead an effort at the U.N. Security Council to pass a fourth round of sanctions target Iran's nuclear and missile operations (see GSN, June 9).

Saudi Arabian King Abdullah "fears that his country's historically closest ally is naive, and dangerously so, for putting so much faith in diplomacy," Washington Institute for Near East Policy analyst Simon Henderson said.

"On Iran, there is a widening if not unbridgeable gap between the two countries," he wrote in a June report.

Saudi Arabia's interest in atomic power "is a clear sign that Riyadh thinks that the United States cannot or will not stop Iran's program," Henderson said.

Washington has worked to make sure that no Arab nation gains mastery over the full atomic fuel cycle. Under a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States, the United Arab Emirates promised not to pursue uranium enrichment, Jordan, however, has maintained that it would not accept such a concession in its own trade pact with the United States, arguing the NPT accord guarantees signatory nations the right to enrich their own fuel.

Saudi Arabia could also pursue uranium enrichment, according to a British analyst hired by Riyadh to produce a nuclear feasibility study for the country (see GSN, June 18).

"The ability to make low-enriched uranium for power plants is but for a few technical tweaks, the same technology needed to make highly-enriched-uranium for an atomic weapon," Henderson said (United Press International, July 14).

Comments, in English or Hebrew only, are welcome; all others will be immediately DELeted.

Yohanon Glenn
Yohanon.Glenn at gmail dot com

Why distrust Islam's followers?

 

In the event that al-Qaeda is defeated, "hundreds of millions of Muslims" would continue to fight against the United States," al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn said in a video message (China Daily, June 21).

Where are the voices of Islam condemning Gadahn's statement? All I hear from the Moslems in America and elsewhere is . . . silence.

I know there are Moslems who are decent people. Many in the US are here simply to seek a better life, both economically and, perhaps, to be out from under the thumb of Islamic governments. I also know there are those in this country who would like to bring the severe sharia code into force, bringing with it beheadings, stonings, and whippings (see http://tinyurl.com/cg3u4b).

But when you have people who most Westerners would label "crazies," you begin to look at all people who share commonality with suspicion, justifiable suspicion.

I'm tired of being "politically correct." I am tired of my government being "politically correct." (No, this is not something new brought to us by the present administration; it has been supported by both parties' leadership.)

Moslems who complain that non-Moslems are suspicious of them, who say they are being discriminated, need only to look at their leadership around the world to understand why.

In a Moslem-dominated country speaking out can be dangerous to one's life or health. But this is the US - and the same holds true for most democracies, even Israel - where freedom of speech is honored and people elect their leadership.

If Moslems in America want non-Moslems to view them with anything but suspicion then they need to work to erase the cause of the suspicion. To date, the only thing the Moslem community in the US has accomplished is to increase suspicion.

The silence is deafening.

Yohanon Glenn
yohanon.glenn at gmail dot com
Comments, in English or Hebrew only, are welcome; all others will be deleted.