Rats
"the Iranian space programme is entirely peaceful in nature."
Unless you're a rat.
The Iranian government says it has launched its third spacecraft, this time carrying "a rat, two turtles," and an unspecified number of "worms" on a one-way trip into space. The rat, according to reports, is named "Helmz 1". Press TV, the state-controlled Iranian English-language channel, reports that the "Kavoshgar 3" ( …
isn't that one obvious? question is when are the elephants going?
The Giant Star Turtle (species: Chelys galactica)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_(world)#Great_A.27Tuin.2C_the_star_turtle
Pratchett will be so happy, wonder if any respectable news agency contacted him for comment?
Fortunately for us... Bush and Blair aren't in power anymore otherwise we would have seen another invasion based on the shameful excuse of preventing them to use Weapons of Mass Distraction...
Now those poor weapons of mass turtles, rat and worms can strike any country within 45 minutes with their droppings.
I now wonder if we shouldn't be concerned of looking up...
"The reality is [the Iranian missile threat] did not come as fast as we thought it’d come"
Neither did the WMDs in Iraq. Intelligence is controlled by Governments and information is portrayed to suit their purposes.
North Korea and Israel have nukes (though Israel hasn't signed the NPT). North Korea's leader is as much as a crackpot as Iran's. Appease the lobbyists, keep voters and avoid being open and honest is the US and UK approach.
Who else has a lot of oil but no US Airbases ?
For goodness sake, in Iran there are numerous Churches (Armenian), Synagogues and other religious buildings where people can worship - some religions are protected by law and have mandatory seats in parliament. Women work in Iran - even as MPs, Lawyers. OK, if you aren't Muslim then there is significant prejudice and getting government jobs is very difficult; also the clerics are in control of 99% of the other parliamentary candidates and have brutal control BUT compare this to Saudi Arabia. Oh yes, Saudi has US Airbases and buys UK weapons.
I'm sure that all the executed homosexuals and political protestors find it reassuring that you can be Christian or Jewish in Iran. You may want to ask some of the people who've converted from Islam to another religion what their opinion is, oh, you can't, they get executed too.
Oh also, if you're a female lawyer in Iran, there has to be two of you to sign a document that one man can sign, because women aren't as good as men, apparently.
It's far from perfect in Iran... but how come Saudi Arabia gets away with such prejudice (including against homosexuals) - that's the point. Oil, buying UK and US arms and US milirary facilities on their soil is why Saudi is exempt from a biased press and government.
The US and UK will hype up the fear and increasingly raise concerns (Iran's premier is a muppet with a big mouth which also helps) - then Israel will attack and the US will back them at the UN.
Regime change in Iran would be good but the last time the UK and US tried it look what happened...
Some of the brown people who currently apparently don't exist in certain Western legal jurisdictions would be glad of even half a male lawyer.
Aafia Siddiqui sent down for trying to kill her kidnappers? Wtf? At least it got her "re-appeared".
Listen, we've all heard the same broken record time and again from people who do know better, but couldn't care less. Amnesty have been complaining about Iran for decades, as they were about Hussein all the time he was on the CIA payroll - If you think Iranians were any better off, or had more legal rights under Pahlavi then you are a total fuckwitt.
Everyone knows these regimes are odious and encouraging them to change from within can only be A Good Thing. However bulldozing your way around the World at the behest of the Stern Gang and at the cost of millions of lives puts you right up there in the odiousness stakes.
Ok, for a start I wasn't suggesting regime change, war for regime change is illigal, as is constantly repeated by the Anti war in Iraq people and we seem to be going to great lengths not to end up at war, the kidnapped British sailors etc. The point that I was sort of trying to make is that these days a lot of people equate "America thinks this is a bad regime" with "I don't like America, therefore they must be bang up chaps." I have even heard people who should know a lot better defending the holochoust denial of the Iranian president because they are so blinded by blaming all of the world's woes on America.
It is also worth noting that the war in Cosovo was for regime change but no-one really objected in anything like the same way. Even Claire Short who has been rather shouty, to say the least, about the Iraq war.
So, is war for regime change always bad? Think of it like this: How long do you stand around while a neighbour beats up his wife or kids without steping in? Do you call the Police, do you go round yourself and sort it out. What if the Police can't or won't sort it out? I'm not pretending to have any answers, but a fairly aggressive regime that kill their own for religeous or political reasons should probably be treated with a large degree of caution.
And yes, letting other countries get away with the same thing because they are "our friends" is not acceptable but it doesn't make it right for everyone to behave in the same way.
"A nation capable of putting payloads into orbit has most of the tech required to deliver similar packages over intercontinental distances."
I have the tech to deliver similar packages over intercontinental distances. It's called a phone. I pick it up, I call Fedex.
In any case, what do we have to fear from an ICBM carrying a payload of rodents?
"...In any case, what do we have to fear from an ICBM carrying a payload of rodents?..."
alot to fear indeed!... Just imagine a ICBM carrying a full load of highly infected rats (not to mention radioactive worms)... and happens that it lands right in the middle of London – just after 45 minutes flight!
I can see n10 running towards the bunker already...
Given that we keep being told how ants are super smart, how long until Iran launches an ant farm into space and the little critters 'accidentally' create a nuclear warhead.
And of course I do mean 'create' and would never for a second suggest that someone else left it in the capsule by mistake. Oh nosireebob, not never.
[Caution: 82% of words in this post contain more than four letters.]
“The reality is [the Iranian missile threat] did not come as fast as we thought it’d come,” said General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, last summer. ®
cheeze General, tony blair and his 45 seconds all over again.
I'm waiting for the article that says "Iran has bought coca-cola on the international black market. Sources say coca-cola is an essential requisite for the production of nuclear weapons as truck driver essential to the transport of food to the nuclear facilities cannot operate without it.
"As for the tech required - I would have thought if you have got a payload in to orbit, you have ALL the (difficult) tech needed to delivery a payload to anywhere."
Not quite (although you're right about the it being a better prgramme than the British one).
The Iranians still have 3 major hurdles to overcome before they can be a full on make_uncle_Sam_cack_their_pants country.
1) Develop re-entry technolgoy to enable a package to protect its contents well enough until it gets to the ground. This flight was a non-return package.
2) Make the payload size big enough to carry something really scary. Yes some staggeringly lethal gas/bacteria/virus *could* be effective at the current payload size, but this is reality, not a Tom Clancy novel.
3) Bring it down on a target. Since they haven't even tried to get this package to re-enter *anywhere* they are a pretty long way from this goal. OTOH quite a lot can be firmed up with computer simulations but this is still an area where the *only* true test is a live firing. The classic one being the laminar to turbulent flow transisition. This can increase heating 10x. Predicting its location on the vehicle, height and speed of occurence are still fairly open questions without a live launch.
Mind you they could become the worlds cheapest launch provider.