Nuclear Doomsday Clock Is Only 3 Minutes To Midnight (Revelation 15:2)

Scientists: “Doomsday Clock” reflects grave threat to world

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists member Lynn Eden, right, and editor-in-chief John Mecklin, second from right, unveil the “Doomsday Clock,” which measures the likelihood of a global cataclysm, at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Also pictured are former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, from left, former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, Gov. Jerry Brown, and Jerry Seelig. The bulletin announced that the minute hand on the metaphorical clock remained at three minutes-to-midnight. The clock reflects how vulnerable the world is to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change and new technologies, with midnight symbolizing apocalypse. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Originally published January 25, 2016 at 11:01 pm Updated January 26, 2016 at 1:48 pm

By SUDHIN THANAWALA
The Associated Press

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) — Rising tension between Russia and the U.S., North Korea’s recent nuclear test and a lack of aggressive steps to address climate change are putting the world under grave threat, scientists behind a “Doomsday Clock” that measures the likelihood of a global cataclysm said Tuesday.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that the minute hand on the metaphorical clock remained at three minutes-to-midnight. The clock reflects how vulnerable the world is to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change and new technologies, with midnight symbolizing apocalypse.

“Unless we change the way we think, humanity remains in serious danger,” said Lawrence Krauss, chair of the bulletin’s Board of Sponsors.

Krauss said the Iran nuclear agreement and Paris climate accord were good news. But the good news was offset by nuclear threats, including tension between nuclear-armed states India and Pakistan, and uncertainty that the Paris accord will lead to concrete action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

1953 — The clock comes the closest it ever has to midnight — just two minutes away — after the U.S. and Soviet Union test hydrogen bombs. “The hands of the Clock of Doom have moved again,” the Bulletin announces. “Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization.”

1981 — The clock moves to four minutes-to-midnight after the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan and U.S. President Jimmy Carter pulls the U.S. from the Olympics in Moscow.

1991 — The clock drops to 17 minutes-to-midnight as the Cold War officially ends and the U.S. and Russia begin making deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals. “The illusion that tens of thousands of nuclear weapons are a guarantor of national security has been stripped away,” the Bulletin says.

1998— The clock moves to nine minutes-to-midnight after India and Pakistan stage nuclear weapons tests.

2015 — The clock moves to three minutes-to-midnight. The bulletin cites “unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals” that pose “extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity.”

The scientists behind the bulletin adjusted the clock from five minutes-to-midnight to three minutes-to-midnight last year. They cited climate change, modernization of nuclear weapons and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals as “extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity.” The clock was previously at three minutes-to-midnight in 1984, when the bulletin said talks between the U.S. and Russia virtually stopped.

From a climate change perspective, if midnight on the clock represents the disappearance of humanity, three minutes-to-midnight is overly dire, said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University who is not affiliated with the bulletin.

On the other hand, Oppenheimer said if midnight means humans have emitted so much greenhouse gas that dangerous climate change is inevitable, then three minutes is a “fair analysis.”

“I think the jury is out as to whether the Paris agreement will make a significant difference,” he said. “The key is whether countries over the next couple of years are able to agree on some important details that were left out.”

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine examining social and scientific controversies, said in an email that the Doomsday clock is “an exercise in pessimism and PR with little connection to the reality of moral progress made in the past half century.” Shermer cited reductions in the number of nuclear weapons since the 1980s and the absence of war between Europe’s great powers since World War II.

California Gov. Jerry Brown joined former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry for a discussion at Stanford University after the unveiling of the clock.

Perry raised concerns about rhetoric from Russia about the use of nuclear weapons and said the threat of nuclear disaster was greater today than during the Cold War. Shultz said the U.S. needs to engage Russia and China. Brown warned about “tipping points” in the fight against climate change.

“And around a tipping point, we may not be able to come back to a stable planet or one we’ll find very comfortable to live in,” he said.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons. The clock was created two years later.

The decision to move or leave the clock alone is made by the bulletin’s science and security board, which includes physicists and environmental scientists from around the world, in consultation with the bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which includes more than a dozen Nobel laureates.

The closest the clock has come to midnight was two minutes away in 1953, when the Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb that followed a U.S. hydrogen bomb test.

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Associated Press writer Kristin J. Bender in San Francisco contributed to this story. This story has been corrected to show the year the clock was last at three minutes-to-midnight.
SUDHIN THANAWALA

Another Example Of Bush Stupidity (Ezekiel 17)

Rumsfeld Blames Iraq’s Instability On Religion, Instead Of The War He Started

by Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani Jan 26, 2016 1:39 pm

CREDIT: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

In an interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show on Monday night, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld blamed the instability in the Middle East on the Shia-Sunni conflict — rather than the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

During the interview, Colbert asked Rumsfeld if the current instability in the region, and the rise of ISIS, was ever predicted as “a worst-case scenario, or a beyond-worse-case scenario” when the George W. Bush administration was planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003. After pausing to think, Rumsfeld said, “I think the disorder in the entire region, and the conflict between the Sunnis and the Shia, is something that, generally, people had not anticipated.”

But experts say the instability in Iraq today, as well as the rise of ISIS, can be traced directly back to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and U.S. policies afterwards — not a Sunni-Shia conflict. The U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority’s decision to disband the Iraqi army and remove all members of the ruling Ba’ath Party from the government shortly after the invasion of Iraq are two key factors that created instability, and fueled sectarianism, in the country. The revelation of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and other U.S. prisons also had a radicalizing effect on many Iraqis, and many senior officials in ISIS were formerly held in U.S. prisons in Iraq, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the militant group.

Of course, Rumsfeld himself was also a key part of many of the U.S. policies that fueled the instability in Iraq. As Colbert pointed out, Rumsfeld knew that it was not clear whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the invasion of Iraq. On September 9, 2002, more than six months before the invasion of the country, Rumsfeld received a report from the Joint Chiefs of Staff making it clear that the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was unreliable. “Our knowledge of the Iraqi (nuclear) weapons program is based largely — perhaps 90 percent — on analysis of imprecise intelligence,” read the report, discrediting the Bush administration’s main argument for invading Iraq.

But Rumsfeld did not share the report, now declassified, with other members of the Bush administration, like then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, or top officials at the CIA, according to multiple sources at the State Department, White House, and CIA who spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity. Instead the report disappeared, and with it, a case for not invading Iraq.

The tendency among U.S. politicians to blame the region’s instability on religion, culture, and identity, without mention of U.S. policies that clearly played a key role,​ is nothing new. Earlier this month, President Obama received criticism for saying that the Middle East is going through changes “rooted in conflicts that date back millennia.”

Rumsfeld appeared on The Late Show to advertise a new mobile app he helped design called “Churchill Solitaire,” a specific version of solitaire played by Winston Churchill, who like Rumsfeld, was responsible for disastrous policies in the Middle East.

Obama’s New “Ally” (Ezekiel 17)

Iran’s Khamenei Brags on Twitter About Subjugating US Sailors

The Supreme Leader of Iran tweeted boasts about the Iranian capture of U.S. sailors, praising “God’s deed” and celebrating American subjugation.

Tue, January 26, 2016

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted his delight at “God’s deed” in bringing an American boat into Iranian territorial waters.

The incident earlier this month resulted in the capture of the U.S. boat and arrest of its sailors by the Iranian navy and their subsequent release.

Now the Supreme Leader is bragged about the incident on Twitter. He used the image of the subjugated U.S. sailors with their hands on their heads to project power and dominance of Iran over America.

New nuclear doomsday clock to be revealed tomorrow

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to announce what time it is on the Doomsday Clock

January 25, 2016 2:47pm
Marnie O’Neillnews.com.au

WE will find out how close we are to Armageddon when the world’s most revered scientists gather in Washington DC to announce what time it is on the Doomsday Clock.

The symbolic timekeeper of our impending destruction is currently set at three minutes to midnight — the closest we have ever been to that dreaded hour since the clock began ticking in 1947.

The clock is a universally recognised indicator of our vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, emerging technologies and more recently, global warming. We ignore it at our peril.

On Wednesday morning (1.30pm Tuesday in America), the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will reveal whether the minute hand will be adjusted, at a live press conference in Washington DC.

“Tensions between the United States and Russia that remain at levels reminiscent of the Cold War, the danger posed by climate change, and nuclear proliferation concerns, including the recent North Korean nuclear test, are the main factors influencing the decision about any adjustment that may be made to the Doomsday Clock,” a statement on the Bulletin’s website said.

“In January 2015, the Doomsday Clock’s minute hand advanced two minutes, moving from five to three minutes before midnight, the closest it has been to catastrophe since the early days of above-ground hydrogen bomb testing.”

Last year’s dramatic shift towards midnight prompted the group — which counts 16 Nobel Laureates among its members — to pen an open letter to the world’s leaders warning immediate action must be taken to prevent a tragedy of global proportions.

“In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernisations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe,” it wrote.

“These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.”

The recent peace deal between Iran and the United States and progress made at the Paris climate change summit will also be taken into account in the calculations but it’s hard to say how much of a mitigating effect these positive developments will have.

Indian Point Will Be America’s Fukushima At The Sixth Seal

Cuomo administration unveils plan to save some nuclear facilities

Indian Point. (Patrick Stahl)

By Scott Waldman 5:26 a.m. | Jan. 25, 2016 2
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ALBANY — The Cuomo administration’s plan to save nuclear power plants will force utilities to pay for emissions credits that cover their losses in the face of cheap natural gas.

On Thursday, the administration began proceeding with the Clean Energy Standard, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered to be completed by July to reach the state’s clean energy goals of powering half of the electrical grid with wind, solar and other sources by 2030. However, at least two of the state’s nuclear reactors are in danger of closing within the next few years and would significantly increase air pollution because they would be replaced by fossil-fuel burning power plants in the near future.

The administration policy will prolong the life of nuclear facilities for a few years, to serve as a bridge to the cleaner-energy options. To meet that goal, the state Department of Public Service is recommending a policy to require utilities to purchase a certain amount of nuclear power. Utilities and other energy companies, such as energy service companies, will purchase power from nuclear facilities.

“These zero emissions credits will represent the emissions-free value of energy produced by the nuclear power plants specifically,” said Scott Weiner, deputy for markets and innovation at DPS, at Thursday’s meeting.

The administration’s treatment of nuclear facilities could serve as a national model for other states, where nuclear plants are also struggling to compete against cheaper power sources.

Nuclear facilities do not produce air pollution like power sources that burn fossil fuels. The state’s nuclear fleet is struggling to compete against an influx of cheap natural gas, largely from neighboring Pennsylvania. The James A. FitzPatrick plant in Oswego County has already announced it will close within the next year. The R.E. Ginna facility on Lake Ontario is also in danger of closing, but is currently being subsidized by ratepayers because it is needed for electrical grid reliability.

States are also under pressure to reduce air pollution from power sources under the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. While New York is on track to meet its federal emissions reduction target, the loss of two or more reactors would make it considerably more difficult.

The owner of the FitzPatrick facility, Entergy, says the administration’s actions come too late to save it. The plant, which will lose an estimated $60 million this year, has to make refueling decisions now and has been unable to reach a deal with the Cuomo administration to stay open.

Of particular interest is how the plan will exclude the Indian Point nuclear center, which is also owned by Entergy but which Cuomo wants to close because of its proximity to New York City. Indian Point, located in Westchester, is profitable and currently undergoing the federal relicensing process. It also produces 2,000 megawatts of power, or about a quarter of the power for New York City and the lower Hudson Valley and would be replaced in the near future by gas-fired plants.

Entergy has two separate lawsuits against the Cuomo administration, one for interfering in the state’s energy markets and another for targetting Indian Point.

State officials referred to licensed plants as the beneficiaries of the Clean Energy Standard, which should not exclude Indian Point, said Entergy vice president Mike Twomey. He said Indian Point is fully licensed and should not be considered as separate under the plan from other nuclear facilities.

“It appears the state is attempting to draw a distinction between Indian Point and the upstate plants based on its license and there is no distinction,” he said.

Officials from Exelon, which owns the Ginna plant as well as the Nine Mile Point facility outside Rochester on Lake Ontario, praised the Cuomo administration plan.

“Progressive energy policies will help ensure that Exelon’s upstate nuclear stations can continue delivering zero-carbon electricity and driving local economies for many years to come,” said Joe Dominguez, Exelon’s executive vice president of governmental and regulatory affairs and public policy, in a statement.

Saving nuclear facilities will likely cost consumers. If utilities are forced to buy more expensive power, that will be passed along to customers.

The Clean Energy Standard requirements would last through 2020 and with additional targets added through 2023, Weiner said at Thursday’s meeting.