Thanks to Wikicommons.

Twinkle, twinkle MANY stars? There may be more than THREE times as many stars in the heavens than previously thought.

Enough is enough. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has had it up to here with his nuclear scientists being killed.

SNOW DAY!!!! Northern Europe hampered by blizzards and low temperatures.

With all the important  stuff going on in the world  (Like the finals of Dancing with The Stars) we at USDemocrazy have completely forgotten about NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION.

Yes folks, Armageddon is Back! And two people want to do something about it: Superman (see above) and President Obama (no, they are not the same person).

Let’s focus on Obama…

Russia, our arch enemy for decades is still armed to the teeth with massive amount of Nuclear bombs, missiles and even landmines. Our teeth are similarly armed.

President Obama has his own anti-nuke dental floss that he would like to deploy to both nation’s teeth. It’s the  New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) the president signed with Russia.

Designed to replace the old and expiring START treaty

“New START limits both the United States and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 30% below the upper limit of the 2002 Moscow Treaty.”

The treaties is signed… so the US is beginning to reduces its nuclear arms, right?

Wrong! thanks to that pesky thing called the US Constitution, the Senate needs to ratify all treaties signed by the President.

Unfortunately, many Senators, mostly Republicans have stated their opposition.

All hopes is not lost for the treaty Slate’s Fred Kaplan notes but he does fear that rather than nuclear peace

Republican leadership might think it’s more important to deny Obama any victory, to make him seem ineffective and thus erode his chances of re-election in 2012 (the GOP’s No. 1 priority, according to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell).

Republicans, tired of being cast as the villian, argue that they oppose the treaty in order to protect America rather than out of spite to President Obama.

In this spirit, The Heritage Foundation, a Conservative think tank, poses some questions on the sense of ratifying the treaty:

Question #1. Would you support a treaty that requires the U.S. to cut more weapons and launchers than the Russians…

Question #2. Would you support a treaty that requires the U.S. to share sensitive missile defense information with Russia, information that might be passed to Iran to help them plan how to defeat U.S. missile defenses?…

Question #3. Do you think an independent commission not accountable to the U.S. government should be able to dictate limits to missile defense?…

These points may not fully hold water Spencer Ackerman, of Danger Room, believes based on Republicans shifting arguments against the treaty:

First the argument was that New START would inhibit missile defense, so the military leadership assured senators it won’t. Then the GOP’s point man on New START, Jon Kyl, wanted money to modernize the nuclear stockpile. So Obama pledged $80 billion for upgrading the weapons and nuclear facilities housing them over the next ten years, and then sweetened the pot with another $4.1 billion.

Since our phone calls to the folks on Capital Hill were ignored why don’t you, our readers, provide comments on New START. Is it the road to global peace or does it weaken America’s defenses?

This Friday, August 6, is the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which killed around 140,000 people. For the first time, the US is going to attend the memorial in Japan to show respect to all the innocent people who died in the bombing. The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, is also going to attend the ceremony and join Japan in calling for global nuclear disarmament.

Europe

Spain might have won the 2010 World Cup, but their behavior on the field is going to cost them. FIFA fined Spain and Netherlands for their players’ actions during the final, which was deemed the “worst behaved match” during the World Cup. We’re guessing that’s a title Spain doesn’t want to own.

Middle East

There are a lot of people in embassies in Kuwait and not for the usual reasons. Many immigrant maids are seeking refuge in embassies, as they face harsh work conditions, including physical and sexual abuse. The embassies are expecting even more domestic workers to come in the next few weeks, due to the start of Ramadan, but some Kuwaiti officials dismiss the complaints that the holiday creates an even more taxing work environment for the maids.

North America

Canada’s newest pop sensation, Justin Bieber, is writing a picture book an illustrated memoir. We’re excited… it gives us material for new jokes!

Thanks to Wikicommons.

Deadly storms hit Southeast. More than 27 are dead after thunderstorms and flooding.

A global threat? Potential international leads about attempted NYC car bomb.

She said, he said. US Secretary of State Clinton and Iranian President Ahmadinejad trade words at UN meeting on Nuclear Weapons.

You know, just some warheads. Courtesy of Wikicommons.

Have you had a drill in school where you curl up under your desk and hope that the Soviets don’t drop a nuke on you?

Believe it or not this was a standard practice in US schools not long ago. Clearly American school desks were once quite robust if they could protect children from nuclear annihilation.

With poorer school desks available today, we were relieved to learn that the Russians and the Americans have agreed to reduce their arsenals of nuclear weapons. (Check the link for our explanation.)

Today, President Obama and Russian President Medvedev are set to sign the “new START” (START = Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) in Prague, signaling a new wave for American nuclear policy. To go along with this big meeting, the Obama administration just released the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

Essentially, one key factor in the nuclear weapons game is the idea of deterrence. You know, if Country A has the power to destroy Country B and vice versa, then they both might be deterred from using them against each other. Right?

What the NPR says is that the U.S. will respect the idea of deterrence while promising not to use nuclear weapons against countries that have promised not to use them either — in other words, countries that are down with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Sounds diplomatic enough, right? But there’s more…

Slate points out that the United States hasn’t given up its potential to use nuclear weapons first against certain nations, and there are a few other important messages within the NPR:

Second, it provides another incentive for countries — even unfriendly countries — not to develop nuclear weapons (if they believe the U.S. declaration, anyway).

Third, it further isolates those countries that are in violation of the NPT — which is to say, Iran and North Korea.

The report additionally indicates that the United States will no longer be producing new nuclear weapons, just rehabilitating the old ones when needed.

The NPR was sure to not please everyone, given the sensitive nature of the subject, and one of the displeased was Walter Shapiro, writing for Politics Daily. Speaking of the document:

This is an inspiring piece of writing filled with bold pronouncements that are immediately contradicted by fine-print caveats. The document unequivocally pledges that America will not initiate a nuclear exchange (except in those cases where we might) and earnestly promises to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the overall national security strategy (while maintaining most of the current nuclear arsenal as a devastating deterrent).

Additionally, Michael Levi for The Daily Beast sees the policy shift happening in the NPR, but notices a loophole:

The United States now appears to be keeping open the option of using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear Iran, but not against other states that might pose identical military threats.

Levi also points out in his piece that essentially, the real ways to deal with current nuclear threats, like nuclear terrorism, aren’t quite explicit in the Review at all… (This could be a problem.) He concludes,

Those efforts, though, receive only passing attention. That’s fine: This strategy is supposed to be focused on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. But it means that the administration still has much work to do.

What these two writers have in common is the complaint that the report doesn’t really do all that much in terms of creating peace. (But the trust-building potential is there.) Though not discounting that there actually is a shift happening, they note that the dramatic shift some might have been hoping for just wasn’t there.

One thing is clear from what we’ve sampled here: there’s no clear-cut path to a nuclear-weapons free world, and that’s why this Review isn’t clear-cut in its ways to get there.

All we can hope for is that the U.S.’s nuclear defense strategists won’t find themselves in a “Dr. Strangelove” kind of setting…

Let us know what you’re thinking! Can we have a world without nuclear weapons, or are we just going to keep living on the edge of our seats (or under our desks)?

So how ticked off do you think these guys were? Image Courtesy of WikiCommons

Newsflash! If you’re going to fly, you have to have a pulse! Two women were arrested at a British airport on suspicion of trying to smuggle a dead relative onto a flight bound for Germany.

New Nuclear News… Obama releases new nuclear policy.

Rescue Efforts Suspended at West Virginia Mine… Worst Mining Accident in 25 Years.

We here at USDemocrazy are not exactly history experts (too short of an attention span), but we were pretty sure that the Cold War was over. But then yesterday there was all of this news circling around about Russia and nuclear weapons and treaties and stuff.

So, we began to wonder — did we get sucked into some kind of “Back to the Future” plot?

Turns out no. (Would have been fun.) Actually, as we know, nuclear weapons are still a huge deal in foreign policy post-Cold War, and so the U.S. and Russia’s nuclear relations are getting more lip service over the past few days.

Basically, the United States and Russia have reached an agreement that would reduce their nuclear arsenals and would replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991 (START), which expired last year. Exciting!

The New York Times outlines the parameters for us, saying that this agreement…

would require both sides to reduce their warheads and launchers by more than one-quarter. The agreement is the most significant accomplishment so far for Mr. Obama’s policy of trying to “reset” relations with Russia. It is intended to pave the way for another more far-reaching round of reductions later in his term.

And according to the Washington Post, the numbers of nuclear weapons that will magically disappear into thin air will be reduced by a few hundred. They also cite a statistic that explains that the U.S. and Russia possess about 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. That’s a lotta bombs, folks.

It’s been a big week for Obama and Congress, and this is just one more thing to pile on to their plates. You’ll remember that Congress has to ratify all treaties that the President negotiates. Gotta love the synergy!

But that’s not all in terms of what’s up for nuclear policy in the U.S…. Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic explains what’s next on the agenda…

If March was health care care month, then April … will be nuclear month — the administration plans to release its Nuclear Posture Review, hold a nuclear security summit in Washington, the Senate plans to begin debate on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and preparations begin for a major review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Obama campaigned on getting rid of nuclear weapons production and proposing BIG reductions in capabilities (as you can see in the video below), so why is he falling short of that goal within this particular treaty? Well, the same NYT article from before says it’s a trust-building tactic.

Think about it: if you were Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, would you just say, “Sure, Barack! I trust that you’ll get rid of all of your nukes! So we will too! No problem!”

We didn’t think so.

For all the work Obama is doing to build trust through negotiations and talks with his Russian counterpart, some people (like Fly and Schmitt at Foreign Policy) believe that Obama might not be taking the right approach to relations with Russia by basing them off his personal relationship with Medvedev.

The authors claim that this is what G.W. Bush did with then-president and now-prime minister Vladimir Putin, and that didn’t turn out so pretty.

Why don’t they want such ties to Medvedev to run U.S.-Russia policy? Well…

In fact, [Medvedev's] seemingly well-meaning comments about arms control or Iran have often been overshadowed by more bellicose moves from Putin, as happened last week. The obvious point is that Putin is still calling the shots and will likely continue doing so as he plots a return to the Russian presidency in 2012.

So, maybe the foreign policy advisers to Obama know more about who to trust, because clearly we don’t! Either way, this is an important step in nuclear arms control for the world, and that shouldn’t be diminished.

What are you thinking about nuclear weapons in the modern age? Got questions about U.S.-Russia relations? Engage us in the comments section!

Image Courtesy of Daniella Zalcman at WikiCommons.

Does not play well with others… Iranian nuclear move upsets U.S., France, and Russia.

Wounded but deadly… U.S. counterterrorism experts offer both caution and optimism on the Al-Qaeda threat.

So this guy isn’t exactly Danny Ocean…

Riverton police say the 26-year-old ran out of the store after grabbing the bottle of booze and a package of cough drops Wednesday and hid in a nearby building, which happened to be the police station.

By the standard of contemporary films like Avatar, some old fashioned Hollywood flicks can look completely laughable.

The only thing weirder and goofier than old Hollywood movies are old US GOVERNMENT movies.

Some of these movies may have been well-intentioned at the time but now some smack of awkward propaganda.

The film above is one of the most famous government-issued pieces of all time. “Duck and Cover” teaches children how to stay safe, even with the looming threat of a nuclear bomb. The concept seems a bit silly to us now, but was taken seriously to the point of duck-and-cover methods being practiced in schools.

Cartoons are supposed to be fun and lighthearted, but this animation depicts a disheveled Donald Duck learning the importance of his income taxes.

The Cold War Era of American history included a lot of anti-Communist sentiment. Lucky for us, the US government created this video so that we could learn how to easily identify a communist and get rid of the internal threat.

Veering a bit from the wartime track, the video above is an educational video by the US government on the effects of LSD, a popular drug in the 1960s. Wow, drug education has surely changed in the past fifty years!

These old government films and propaganda pieces may seem corny, but don’t think that similar tactics aren’t being tried today!

Have you seen anything on television or on the news that you think is propaganda? Do you find it to be an effective tool for the government to use to change attitudes? Leave us a comment and get the discussion started!