I respect Cole, despise Hitchens. (Wonder if Hitchens thinks that anybody ever disagrees with him honestly?) But I wonder if Cole is right about light water reactors not being dangerous re bomb production. A quick google inclines me to doubt this. Anybody really know?

Uranium vs Plutonium

Uranium-235, which is needed for weapons and reactor fuel, can be separated from natural uranium, no reactor needed.

You can also make U-233 (which is a perfectly good reactor fuel) from Thorium using a reactor, but I dont remember if U-233 can be used as bomb material.

Plutonium is generated in reactors, sometimes deliberately, sometimes as a simple byproduct. The type of reactor can give you a good hint whether or not it is intended for military or civilian use.

I find it odd that I havnt heard anything about the type of Iranian reactor. I vaguely recall that it is an old Soviet design, which might make it very appropriate for Pu production. Dont bet your life on that recollection, though.

Mad Dog

...here [warning, pdf] which I presume means more to you than it does me.

Short form as I see it is that apparently it's a VVER 1000 reactor. The linked report above assesses total potential annual Pu production at 180 kg. Charming.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

The thing that makes this interesting is Cole's statement that a light water reactor, like the Iraqi job that the Israelis took out in 1986, is not worth bombing. A browse thru the Wikipedia makes me doubt this. It seems like any kind of reactor fuel is mostly U238, which partially turns into PU239 and PU240 under neutron bombardment, and which can be separated fairly easily from the spent fuel and made into a bomb.

I suspect that all our country's talk about bombing Iranian nuke plants is politically, not technically, stupid.

sometimes it's really hard, when you are the target, to not just let it all fly.

Only the enabler keeps quiet about the mistakes caused by a person's drinking problem!
This is counterproductive.
The alcoholic only has a chance to recover when confronted with the results of his drinking!

being that alcoholism still has a stigma attached to it and recovery isn't particularly easy when villified in public. There are more than enough reasons to attack Snitchens with than his alleged alcoholism. It is the duty of his family and his friends to confront and intervene, not the duty of the public.

I would be very happy to allow CH his anonymous obscure private life if he went back to being anonymous, obscure and private.

Particularly because he accused Cole of a lack of moderation and judgment, both qualities called into question by his own behavior.

"You opened the door counselor."

Cole's post was excellent without bringing up CH alcoholism. Why? Because look at how this thread got hijacked by alcoholism and not the real subject which is that Ahmed-i-Nejad didn't say what everyone says he did. Or that maybe he did.

...thread as well - hed for the latest post: Hitchens not Drunk, Only an Asinine Thief.

May I say how impressed I am with the impeccable class displayed by all parties to this conflict. /sarcasm

"In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue -- that is why academic politics are so bitter." Wallace S. Sayre I'd always known that it was true of journalism as well, but I didn't expect it to be such a close run.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

who is trying to reinforce the drumbeat to war by arguing a translation of a phrase in a language he does not in fact himself speak with a professor who actually does.

Personally, I'd be hard pressed to refrain from smacking him harder.

Physically. Several times.

...I got, as you say, a "war pimp" journalist who ignores an important agreed upon convention concerning off the record discourse kind of a central pillar of journalism, a pile-on by another journalist who does the same thing in the name of friendship while citing non-evidence, and an academic who merges the public and private life of his adversary, having previously quite consistently and cogently argued that this type of smear (has anyone else ever looked at how many times Juan uses the word "smear" on his blog? it's instructive) is fundamentally destructive.

As I say, class and reasoned discourse from wall to wall. Yes indeed this blogosphere thing, it's sure changing things for the better. Probably the single most effecient and effective damned misinformation conduit I've ever seen.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

I'd agree - but I would have to say that Cole is probably less interested in "assisting Hitchens' recovery" than in bitchslapping him.

... should not be tolerated. If it takes a complete stranger or public outcry to stop a drunk from trashing the public discourse so be it.

Hitchens is an enabler of a war that claimed and continues to claim thousands of lives. If he can be taken down by exposing his drinking problem than it'll be inexcusable not to do so. Same goes for Bush. This situation is far to grave and out of control to not use any political means to contain and reduce the neocons. The time to play nice is long past.

Give us a clean Democratic House, and watch how some real investigations can lift the rock that these vermin are hiding under.

... if we all have a clear idea yet of how far the Administration and the GOP will go in the next two election cycles to avoid that happening? Think how the temptation to corruption builds up in even a nominally functioning, balanced and bipartisan Congress with regular oversight. Some of what's gone on in the shadows might destroy the GOP for a very long time.

With what's at stake, it would astonish me if 2006 and 2008 weren't the ugliest, nastiest, most vicious elections in American history.

The fox runs for its supper, but the rabbit runs for its life.

to call them errors. I would imagine there's a lot of induced error going about nowadays in Farsi translation.

...at some point at your convenience could you find the NYT link? I've looked and can't find anything - it's important due to the fact that their original translation clearly contained the "wiped off the map" thing -- in fact it's the translation that everyone seems to comment on.

NYT original translation:

"Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime [Israel] has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world. But we must be aware of tricks."

[emphasis added]

I would point out is that for all the pile-on they're subjected to, the MEMRI translation:

"'Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.' This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise.

"'Is it possible that an [Islamic] front allows another front [i.e. country] to arise in its [own] heart? This means defeat, and he who accepts the existence of this regime [i.e. Israel] in fact signs the defeat of the Islamic world.

"'In his battle against the World of Arrogance, our dear Imam [Khomeini] set the regime occupying Qods [Jerusalem] as the target of his fight.

"'I do not doubt that the new wave which has begun in our dear Palestine and which today we are also witnessing in the Islamic world is a wave of morality which has spread all over the Islamic world. Very soon, this stain of disgrace [i.e. Israel] will be purged from the center of the Islamic world – and this is attainable.

"'But we must be wary of Fitna. For more than 50 years, the World of Arrogance has tried to give recognition to the existence of this falsified regime [Israel]. With its first steps, and then with further steps, it has tried hard in this direction to stabilize it.

[emphasis added]

...sure came up with something close (identical?) to Cole's translation.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

embedded links at source

Ahmadinejad: Lost in translation
peacepalestine

May 2, 2006

From Today's Little Red Email

It was October last year when we came home, flicked on the radio and listened aghast to the news that the Iranian president denied the Holocaust had happened and said the state of Israel should be wiped off the map. 'Christ,’ we thought, 'this nut job’s playing into their hands with this kind of rhetoric.’ Since then "the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion" as one US academic has described the Iran/US imbroglio has ratcheted up to high alert with Seymour Hersch of the New Yorker reporting that the White House is all prepared for nuclear strikes. It would take just 12 hours to deploy nuclear weapons for a bunker busting strike that would kill a million Iranians according to conservative estimates commissioned by the Pentagon. Nuclear armed planes are now on constant alert and public opinion has been framed around those mad, mad statements on Israel by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But what if the pronouncements by Ahmadinejad that cast him as this season’s baddie incarnate had been a) mistranslated and b) taken out of context?

When properly translated the Iranian president actually calls for the removal of the regimes that are in power in Israel and in the USA as a goal for the future. Nowhere does he demand the elimination or annihilation of Israel. He called for greater governance for Palestine. The word map does not even feature. And the president makes plain that the Holocaust happened, but, he argues western powers have exploited the memory of the Holocaust for their own imperialistic purposes. What the mainstream ran with is complete deception.

The deception has been aided by the fact that much of the media use an 'independent’ company called Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri) for translating Middle Eastern languages. Memri just happens to be owned by two right-wing neo-con Israelis: Meyrav Wurmser, the wife of one of Dick Cheney’s aides (and ex-special assistant to 'Strap-on’ John Bolton),David Wurmser and former(?) Israeli Military Intelligence officer, Colonel Yigal Carmon. Indeed a look at Wikipedia’ s incomplete staff list seems to suggest a heavy Israeli bias in staffing and at least two more ex-Israeli Military Intelligence people. Still the little red email is sure that’s just a coincidence, as is the fact that the Israeli army (presumably military intelligence) has also used this mistranslation tactic in the past.

And once Ahmadinejad had been brushed with the wacko Jew destroyer tag, it was a short hop, skip and ein Sprung before he was alongside Adolf Hitler in the pantheon of baddies. Like Milosevic and Hussein before him, Ahmadinejad’s Hitler comparison is as sure a sign war is imminent.

Unlike Hitler though Ahmadinejad doesn’t rule Iran, nor does he control its foreign or military policy. The man in charge of all that is Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran is a theocracy, and Khamenei is the theocrat-in-chief. To give you an idea of where Ahmadinejad lies in Iran’s political hierarchy, note that no one can even run for the presidency in the first place without the approval of Khamenei and the Guardian Council, a group of six clerics and six conservative jurists that are selected by Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad serves the purpose of being a believable bogeyman. He’ll find his Ph.D. in civil engineering and being a founding member of the Iran Tunnel Society useful if Seymour Hersch’s bunker-busting nuke allegations come true.

:: Article nr. 23029 sent on 03-may-2006 22:03 ECT

:: The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=23029

:: The incoming address of this article is :
peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2006/05/ahmadinejad-lost-in-translation.html

:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Uruknet .

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m23029&l=i&size=1&hd=0

...text strings, I get completely different results. Contrary to the author's statement, I get results like this for the New York Times "wipe off the map" language, and results like this for MEMRI's "page of time" language.

The New York Times language is being reproduced by al Jazeera, MSNBC, The Guardian, CNN, The International Herald Tribune, and the Financial Times.

The MEMRI language is being reproduced by what look to me to be more "ideological" sources far less in the journalistic mainstream, including Front Page Mag and Jewish World Review.

Far from being some MEMRI conspiracy this looks to me to be a case of folks from various backgrounds running to the translation sources that they're most familiar with, and in this specific instance, if Cole is to be believed (and I think he's right) it's MEMRI that got it the most right. I've seen a lot of folks assert that the MEMRI translations are bad without making a compelling evidence-based case - I've also seen folks make a compelling case that what MEMRI chooses to translate is quite selective.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

that I found that article, I found it even more interesting to find it on uruknet. I read similiar comments about the translation a while back(I think on Asia Times) and that Ahmadinejad wasn't correcting the mistake because it was convienent for others to believe the wrong translation.

protests. It's bad enough to print from a private email group but to lemon pick on top of it is just bad form.