Unfortunately, it takes only one…

The New York Times

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.

The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.

Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.

“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard L. Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”

Iran insists that it wants only to fuel reactors for nuclear power. But many Western nations, led by the United States, suspect that its real goal is to gain the ability to make nuclear weapons.

…..

American intelligence agencies have said Iran could make a bomb between 2009 and 2015. A national intelligence estimate made public late last year concluded that around the end of 2003, after long effort, Iran had halted work on an actual weapon. But enriching uranium, and obtaining enough material to build a weapon, is considered the most difficult part of the process.

…..

That uranium has been enriched to the low levels needed to fuel a nuclear reactor. To further purify it to the highly enriched state needed to fuel a nuclear warhead, Iran would have to reconfigure its centrifuges and do a couple months of additional processing, nuclear experts said.

“They have a weapon’s worth,” Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that tracks atomic arsenals, said in an interview.

He said the amount was suitable for a relatively advanced implosion-type weapon like the one dropped on Nagasaki. Its core, he added, would be about the size of a grapefruit. He said a cruder design would require about twice as much weapon-grade fuel.

“It’s a virtual milestone,” Dr. Cochran said of Iran’s stockpile. It is not an imminent threat, he added, because the further technical work to make fuel for a bomb would tip off inspectors, the United States and other powers about “where they’re going.”

Attack and take out Iran, President Bush.

Please.

Hat Tip: Hot Air Headlines

UPDATE 1: It looks like Drudge Report has copied my headline.

The Jerusalem Post wonders if it is too late to stop Iran.

NewsBusters.org

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: The battle for same sex marriage continues. And one of the movement’s motto’s is “gay is the new black.” At least that’s what some people are saying. That’s what’s on the cover of “The Advocate” this week. And some people don’t agree with comparing this to black suffrage. I don’t even know if I understand what that word is, suffrage, but I’ll leave it alone, black suffrage.

SHERRI SHEPHERD: I guess it’s when black people had to, you know, they didn’t want to die for being black. They didn’t want to be lynched. They wanted to be able to walk through the front door. They wanted to, you know, you had Jim Crow laws that said you could only, you can not do certain things if you were black.

Suffrage means “the right to vote”, not “feel pain or distress”, Sherri and Whoopi. The latter is the definition of suffer.

I love when liberals think they have a monopoly on intellectual superiority. They often prove themselves as idiots.

UPDATE 1: Not to be outdone, Michelle Malkin writes that Joy Behar dissed students who partake in home schooling.

The American Spectator

It looks like the voter selected Norm Coleman.

What is the problem? Does penmanship really count?

Also, I doubt Al Franken knows anything about farming and labor.

Hat Tip: Hot Air Headlines

Det News

U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said it is insane to stop building automobiles and trucks. But it’s also insane for the Big Three CEOs (General Motors, Chrysler, Ford) and Gettelfinger (United Autoworkers Union) to fly to Washington on private jets.

He asked all four to raise their hands if they flew to Washington on a commercial plane.

“Let the record show no hands went up,” he said.

He then asked the foursome to raise their hands if they would vow to sell their jets and fly home on a commercial plane.

“Let the record show no hands went up,” he said.

Finally! For the first time in America’s history, a Democrat actually made some sense.

Representative Sherman said this with slyness, too.

If General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford need money, they should take some direction from my girl, Sarah Palin, and put their corporate jet planes on EBAY.

breitbart.com

A major Al-Qaeda operative of Arab origin was among six militants killed overnight in a suspected US missile strike in northwest Pakistan, a senior security official told AFP Wednesday.

Security sources identified the militant as Abdullah Azam al-Saudi, a senior member in Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.

“He was a senior commander of Al-Qaeda and was involved in recruiting and training of fighters,” the senior official said.

According to US intelligence shared with Pakistan, al-Saudi was the main link between Al-Qaeda’s senior command and Taliban networks in the Pakistani border region, an Islamabad-based senior security official said.

“He was the man coordinating between Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders on this side of the border, and also involved in recruiting and training fighters,” the official told AFP.

He is the second high-profile Al-Qaeda operative killed in recent US missile strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative Abu Jihad al-Masri, described by the US as Al-Qaeda’s propaganda chief, was killed in a missile strike in Pakistan in the early hours of November 1.

He was among several rebels killed when two missiles fired by a suspected US spy drone hit a truck in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, security officials said.

I love Predator drones.

Also, according to Breitbart.com, Al Qaeda called Barack Obama a “house negro” and said that Obama “is not an honorable African-American”.

I guess Al Qaeda does not believe in Hope and Change.

UPDATE 1: Ed Morrissey on Hot Air says that Ayman al-Zawahiri received his cue to call Barack Obama a “house slave” and “house negro” from Harry Belafonte.

Funny stuff.

UPDATE 2: Michelle Malkin writes that Barack Obama’s call for “empathy” did not work.

FT.com

Pirates operating off the coast of east Africa have hijacked a Saudi supertanker fully laden with an estimated 2m barrels of oil in an attack that marks a significant escalation in the scope of banditry in the region.

The pirates, believed to be from lawless Somalia, seized control of the Sirius Star, which is owned by Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, on Saturday, 450 nautical miles south-east of the Kenyan Indian Ocean port of Mombasa.

It is estimated that the tanker was holding more than a quarter of the daily exports from Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter. The oil would have been worth about $100m (€79m, £66.5m) at Monday’s market price but is probably of little interest to the pirates.

The Daily Mail reports that the Indian Navy has destroyed the pirate’s “mothership”. The pirates want $10 million in return for the Saudi oil tanker.

Drudge Report is stating that this is the Dawn Of The Pirate.

FT.com reports that pirates have seized two more ships – a Greek bulk carrier, in the Gulf of Aden with about 25 crew on board, and a Hong Kong-flagged ship carrying grain and bound for Iran.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Newsweek

On Nov. 5, Todd Strandberg was at his desk, fielding E-mails from around the world. As the editor and founder of RaptureReady.com, his job is to track current events and link them to biblical prophecy in hopes of maintaining his status as “the eBay of prophecy,” the best source online for predictions and calculations concerning the end of the world. Already Barack Obama had drawn the attention of apocalypse watchers after an anonymous e-mail circulated among conservative Christians in October implying that he was the Antichrist. Former “Saturday Night Live” ingénue Victoria Jackson fueled the fire when, according to news reports, she wrote on her Web site that Obama “bears traits that resemble the anti-Christ.” Now Strandberg was receiving up-to-the-minute news from his constituents in Illinois. One of the winning lottery numbers in the president-elect’s home state was 666— which, as everyone knows, is the sign of the Beast (also known as the Antichrist). “It is very eerie, and I take it for a sign as to who he really is,” wrote one of Strandberg’s correspondents…

Well, at least a major, liberal publication has asked the question.

Honestly, saying that Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ is giving Obama too much credit. Obama is nothing more than a political shyster.

Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit

No surprise there.

Hot Air

Let’s start with Zogby’s numbers. The poll surveyed over 500 self-professed Obama voters and has an MOE of 4.4%, with 55% having a college degree and over 90% having a high-school diploma. It asked 12 multiple-choice questions; only 2.4% got at least 11 correct. Only .5% got all them correct.

* 57.4 could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
* 81.8 could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
* 82.6 could NOT correctly say that Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
* 88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
* 56.1 % could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet…..

* Only 13.7% failed to identify Palin as the person their party spent $150,000 in clothes on
* Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
* And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Honestly, I found this video yesterday but I have not seen it yet.

I am sure the video confirms one of my original reasons for re-launching Scoop This: Liberals are stupid.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

The Guardian

Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.

Obama’s advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton’s foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.

Michelle Malkin.com reader, Mark M., writes: “I would rather see Hillary as Sec of State for 4 yrs than on the Supreme Court for life.”

True.

However, I would not put it past Barack Obama to nominate Hillary Clinton as a Supreme Court justice even if she is the Secretary of State.

It is going to be easier for Bill Clinton to cheat and party work for his charity with Hillary Clinton out of the country when she visits Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran on behalf of the Obama Administration.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

Fox News.com

LEWISTON, Maine — Army and Navy recruiters took one look at 330-pound Ulysses Milana and told him to forget about joining. “You’ve got to lose weight,” Milana remembers them saying.

But Marine recruiters were willing to work with him as he began his weight-loss journey in December 2007.

Now, 11 months later, Milana is 140 pounds lighter as he leaves Monday for Parris Island, S.C., to begin boot camp.

It wasn’t easy, Milana said, but he managed to slim down through exercise, healthier eating habits and forgoing an occasional beer after work. The 23-year-old said he even refused a beer at his going-away party Saturday night.

Milana said he always wanted to follow in his family’s footsteps by serving his country. His wife, Latoya, also comes from a military family.

Much of his weight-loss motivation came from Latoya, a nurse, who helped him reduce his calorie intake when he began his effort in earnest last December.

“It was really difficult for him at first. He always said, ‘I’m gonna lose weight.’ But I never took him seriously,” Latoya told the Sun Journal newspaper. “Then, when he started to do it, I told him he needed to cut his portion sizes way down.”

Marine recruiters also worked with him, helping to develop a workout regimen.

“You can sit there and preach and preach, but if you’re not willing to help, then it doesn’t lead you to success,” Staff Sgt. George Monteith said. “If I say, ‘Go lose weight and I’ll see you in a year,’ then what kind of help have I offered to make that happen?”

A former culinary student, Milana said it was a challenge to give up favorites like pizza and hot wings, but cracking open a cold beer after work was perhaps the toughest guilty pleasure to abandon.

“It was really hard. You see all your friends drinking beer, and you’re like, ‘Oh, man, I want one,”‘ he said. But his determination kept him on track, and he would head for the gym or don a head lamp and go out for a run.

Semper Fi.