Friends,

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says ”It is Now 5 Minutes to Midnight.”

It should come as no surprise that this respected organization has moved the clock (on January 10th) an inch closer to the witching hour.  It is black magic, indeed, that causes the clock to inch closer to midnight.  As described on their Website:

The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction–the figurative midnight–and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.

Friends,

The front page of today’s Seattle Times is embazoned with the headline:

Friends,

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are inextricably linked in many ways. They both produce ionizing radiation that, when released into the environment, exposes people to a wide variety of radioactive isotopes. Some are extremely short-lived, while others exist for countless lifetimes. One thing they all share? When they enter the body they act at the cellular level, causing damage, potentially to the cell’s genetic material, and even at low exposure levels present some risk of a wide variety of effects.

Over a period of more than 66 years – through releases of radioisotopes to the environment from both nuclear power generation (routine operations and accidents) and nuclear weapons production and testing – vast quantities of radioisotopes have accumulated around the globe, creating a captive population of human guinea pigs.

On this day last year, I was glued to CSPAN’s live feed of the Senate floor. Late in the evening, they finally started to vote on ratification of the New START Treaty, and I realized that years of hard work had finally paid off. By a vote of 71 yeas to 26 nays, with 13 Republicans voting in favor, the New START Treaty had been ratified! We jumped up and down a bit, sent off our victory email to thank all of you, and I was able to head out and enjoy my early holiday present.

Rose Gottemoeller, the chief negotiator of the treaty with Russia, has a post on The Hill today celebrating the anniversary and the major victory for arms control the Senate vote represents:

Friends,
If people took the headlines in the corporate press seriously - and far too many do - we would all be building bomb shelters and hoarding supplies in advance of the coming Armageddon.  Two major factors are involved in pushing (what appears to be) the U.S. government’s (and Israel’s) agenda of a violent conflict – can you say “WAR” – with Iran.

First – The U.S. has never conducted serious, open discussions and negotiations with Iran.  The political baggage from a long history of U.S. meddling (installing and supporting the Shah) followed by the 1979 overthrow of the Shah and the hostage crisis of the same year are too deeply embedded in our exceptionalist conscience to allow us to act objectively.  Instead, the U.S. continues to pursue an endless succession of sanctions, which only serve to strengthen Iran’s resolve.