RTFA: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and…

Edmonds had told this newspaper that members of the Turkish political and diplomatic community in the US had been actively acquiring nuclear secrets. They often acted as a conduit, she said, for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they attracted less suspicion.

She claimed corrupt government officials helped the network, and venues such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington were used as drop-off points.

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official who was allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish “targets” talking to ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and recordings of “operatives” at the ATC.

Edmonds is the subject of a number of state secret gags preventing her from talking further about the investigation she witnessed.

…the “blowback” from outsourcing your intelligence to third-party translators. The number of buzz-words involved in the span of a few paragraphs is absolutely shocking.

RTFA: http://geronimomanifesto.blogspot.com/2007/09/bark…

“A sophisticated computerized tracking system is used for nuclear weapons. Multiple sign-offs are required to remove the weapons from their storage bunkers.”
“Nuclear weapons are transported from the storage bunker to the aircraft in a caravan that routinely includes vehicles with machine guns front and rear and guards with M-16s. All steps in the process are done under the watchful eyes of armed military police.”
“Rules require that at least two people jointly control every step of the process. If one person loses sight of the other, both are forced to the ground face-down and temporarily “placed under arrest” by observant security forces. All progress stops until inspections are made to assure the weapons weren’t tampered with.”
“All nuclear weapons are connected to sophisticated alarm systems to prevent removal or tampering. They could only be removed from the storage bunker by turning the alarm off. And the squad commander clearly would not have authority to turn off the alarm.”

Hmmm… The official explanation of the nuke heist isn’t entirely convincing. If the protocols are like what’s described above, then it would appear to be pretty hard to make a mistake with these nukes.

I just want to make a public request: please don’t nuke any US cities with US nukes. I’d prefer if international cities were not nuked, either.

RTFA: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa025&ref=…

The two reactors at the South Texas nuclear power plant, an hour southwest of Houston, last year churned out 21.37 billion kilowatt-hours. By 2015, its majority owner, New Jersey-based NRG Energy, hopes to at least double that capacity if it gets permission to build two more reactors on the site. The company filed the first application on Monday for a new nuclear power plant - two advanced boiling-water reactors - in more than 30 years.
“It is a new day for energy in America,” David Crane, NRG president and chief executive officer, said after making the application. “Advanced nuclear technology is the only currently viable large-scale alternative to traditional coal-fueled generation to produce none of the traditional air emissions,” including the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.

Texas.

RTFA: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070905/D8RFH6C00.html

A B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for more than three hours across several states last week, prompting an Air Force investigation and the firing of one commander, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
The incident was so serious that President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were quickly informed and Gates has asked for daily briefings on the Air Force probe, said Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell. He said, “At no time was the public in danger.”

Very reassuring. Like my buddy said, “what’s the worst that could happen?”