Category Archives: Silly

I Feel Neglected

I am annoyed that WhirledView did not give this blog a “Thinking Blogger award.”:http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2007/05/thinking_blogge.html These awards, Cheryl says, are given to “blogs that make us think.”

I find this omission unconscionable. Here is my response:

That’ll make you think.

Iran Summaries

Jeffrey has a great “post up”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1520/tech-politics-and-perspective-on-iran about the rate at which Iran’s centrifuges are operating.

Among the most interesting items is this bit o’ math:

Between April 15-May 22 (37 days, not counting the 22nd, or 888 hours), Iran fed approximately 260 kg of UF6 into the eight cascades. *Assuming a feed rate of 70 grams an hour, eight cascades should consume approximately 500 kilograms of UF6. If Iran consumes just 260 kilograms, than the centrifuges are operating a little above 50 percent of what one would expect.*

Read the whole thing, though.

In a somewhat different vein, I give you a visual representation of Iran’s response to the UNSC demands. Happy Friday.

Silly Intel

TBogg has a “post”:http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2007/05/dispatches-from-republic-of-dumb.html up titled “Dispatches from the Republic of Dumb” in which he describes a bunch of ideas from a congressman.

This, I think, would be the one of most interest to readers of this blog:

*Wikintel*

Create a website similar to Wikipedia for Americans to sign up and then contribute ideas for a unique intelligence estimate the the DNI can draw from as desired and as need be. *This “Outside the Circle” thinking will help intelligence officials dream of terrorist plots and foreign intelligence estimates at home and abroad without much overhead of hiring analysts.* Though “spies” could unfortunately participate in this, ideally the good information provided by millions of Americans would outweigh the bad.

The punchline:

bq. I think that last one was was submitted by dougf@f*ckingstupidestguyonthefaceoftheearth.com.

Jeffrey on Tenet and Libya

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Jeffrey has a “post”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1498/tenet-libya-and-soccer up about G. Tenet getting a bit sloppy with the facts in his account of Libya’s decision to renounce its nuclear and CW programs, as well as give up its longer-range missiles.

I thought I’d take the opportunity to give props to TMZ.com for “reporting”:http://www.tmz.com/2007/05/01/george-tenets-porno-connection/ that Tenet went to high school with none other than Ron Jeremy (formerly Ronnie Hyatt).

They even got the photos. Awesome.

[via “the Sleuth”:http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2007/05/ron_jeremy_comes_to_dc.html ]

N Korean Humor

“Un-ironic humor”:http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSSEO19597520070508 from Pyongyang.

Reuters reports that North Korean Lieutenant-General Kim Yong-chol got recent bilateral North -South military talks rolling with the following:

Bush…goes out jogging one morning and, preoccupied with international affairs, fails to notice that a car is heading straight at him.

A group of schoolchildren pull the president away just in time, saving his life, and a grateful Bush offers them anything they want in the world as a reward.

“We want a place reserved for us at Arlington Memorial Cemetery,” say the children.

“Why is that?” he asks.

“Because our parents will kill us if they find out what we’ve done.”

Kim said he read it on the internets…

Chicago Blogging

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Well, not really. Light blogging likely over the next few days, as I am in Chicago.

I was invited to give a lecture at the U of C. And my friend Chris took me to see the Nuclear Energy Sculpture on campus.

Have a good weekend.

Port Rescue: Defense in the Firing Line

That’s the name of a new video game produced by “Iranian programmers,” “according to”:http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=479188 the Mehr News Agency.

You know you want this. According to MNA:

The story takes place in Iran during the World War II.

“Port Rescue” consists of seven stages. First, the user gets familiar with the whole idea of the game, and then enters the marine war in the second stage. Confrontation with the enemy takes place in the third stage, and in the fourth, the captain and the enemy’s commander meet.

At the fifth stage, the captain and his crew attack the enemy at midnight. They later have to kill the enemy forces that are on the verge of attacking the city. In the final stage, the enemy’s airforce is destroyed in order to prevent them entering the port (Anzali Port, in northern Iran).

The faster the user plays the game, the more points he will get. At the end of each stage, a medal of bravery is granted to the person with the highest score, and whoever gains four medals will be the winner.

Order it this weekend.

Papal Proliferation

I know at least one other person will be amused by this. A former co-worker of mine at CSIS (no, not Jeffrey) used to warn us about “Papal Prolif” as a potential nuclear threat.

Anyway, according to “this letter”:http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2007/infcirc187m1.pdf, the Holy See has amended its IAEA small quantities protocol.

Read more about the SQP “here”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_11/NOV-IAEALoophole.asp and “here.”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_07-08/IAEASafeguards.asp

Blelvis Sighting

Tonight in Mt Pleasant.

“Lots of other people”:http://www.google.com/search?q=blelvis&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a have seen him too. “This guy”:http://juliansanchez.com/notes/archives/2003/07/secret_origins.php got his story, at least part of it:

bq. The date was August 17, 1977, and Elvis Presley had died the previous afternoon at his home in Memphis. The Boy Who Would Be Blelvis sat in his room listening to the local black station, but they were playing nothing but Elvis Preseley hits. Nonplussed, he flipped to another station. More Elvis. (I remembered the day Jerry Garcia died: I had thought the friend who gave me the bad news was pulling my leg until he flipped on the radio, and we heard the Dead on every station.) He flipped again, and stopped. The radio was playing Treat Me Nice. “Not bad,” the future Blelvis mused. Next came You’re So Square, Baby I Don’t Care. He was hooked. The very next day, he ran out to buy his first Elvis album: A Legendary Performer: Volume 1. The rest is history.

Great Moments in Diplomacy

For your entertainment while I am trapped in O’Hare…

According to “the BBC,”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6441461.stm Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador “after he was found drunk and naked apart from bondage gear.”

Here’s my favorite part:

bq. Apparently the man was “able to identify himself to police only after a rubber ball had been removed from his mouth.”

Foreign Mnistry spokeswoman Zehavit Ben-Hillel described his behavior as “unbecoming of a diplomat.” Haaretz “has more.”:http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/836258.html

Depends on what kind of diplomacy you’re engaged in…

*Update:*

I had to add this tidbit from an “AFP article, via Rawstory.”:http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Israel_envoy_recalled_over_bondage__03122007.html

Acccording to a FM source, the ambassador’s public appearance marked “the first time” that he “had ever distingished himself in any way.”