Mattalyst

pluto’s belly

I’ve got a new column up at Foreign Policy on the Iran deal. Sadly, while we made this nice graphic, we couldn’t use it. So, I am sharing it with you here, dear readers.

I also think you should read Michael Krepon’s series on the deal: 1, 2.

This assessment of the core monitoring provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is necessarily hurried and preliminary. I invite ACW readers to weigh in with their comments. The text of key provisions follows my first-cut assessment.

The agreement’s provisions are extremely complex and detailed. Reading the fine print brings flashbacks of the most detailed nuclear arms reduction provisions negotiated between the Kremlin and the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. All of this is new. At the outset of these negotiations, no one expected constraints this deep or this long.

Detail, complexity and novelty lend themselves to hiccups, even if everyone is acting in good faith. If opponents of this deal decide to legislate their interpretations and preferences of agreed provisions, there will be endless grounds for alleging violations. Even if they do not, there will be repeated charges of Iranian noncompliance, whether warranted or not. Sorting through these issues behind closed doors will not produce prompt rebuttals. If Tehran does not go the extra mile to clarify that concerns over noncompliance are unwarranted, there will be choppy passages ahead. Tehran’s willingness to go the extra mile will depend, in turn, on whether the United States is carrying out the deal’s terms in good faith.

The administration gets high marks for monitoring Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, from uranium mining and milling to its centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities for 25 years. The monitoring provisions relating to uranium enrichment, and even more so for plutonium production and reprocessing, are extremely good at declared sites. The monitoring of R&D for Iranian work on better centrifuge designs at declared facilities is also extremely good, but will not assuage critics that oppose any Iranian work on improved centrifuge designs.

The suspect site provisions reflect hard compromises and could involve difficult sledding if put to the test. The White House Fact Sheet on the deal says, that “It ensures both timely and effective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to any site in Iran necessary in order to verify Iran’s compliance, including military sites such as Parchin.” But implementation won’t be smooth: the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have been separated at birth, and getting to know one another at suspect sites won’t be easy. Negotiating these provisions was a significant achievement. Making them work will be possible, but even more remarkable.

Challenge inspections were exercised in Iraq and succeeded in large measure, even against Saddam Hussein’s obstruction. But the Iraqi case, as with the constraints placed on another defeated state — Germany after World War I — was exceptional. Challenge inspections (the term is not used in the text) in Iran would traverse new and difficult terrain. The Chemical Weapons Convention’s challenge inspection provisions have never been exercised. This Convention has not stopped outliers, like Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but the CWC’s norms have helped keep the number of outliers limited – even without exercising the right of challenge inspections.

The Iran agreement’s provisions would permit access of suspect sites within 24 days, following voting procedures that are weighted in favor of the United States and its allies. Delays at several stages in the process could allow Tehran to clean up some kinds of activities, but not others.

The key question underlying suspect site provisions — and the agreement as a whole – is whether Tehran has gone to such great lengths to accept severe limits on its bomb-making capabilities for extended periods of time in order to disregard these obligations. Critics assume this to be the case, during or after sanctions’ relief, even as they argue that there is no need for Iran to cheat because the terms are insufficient and time-limited.

A subsidiary question is where Tehran would try to cheat, if it chose to do so. Inspections at military facilities have been a significant point of contention. Iran’s Supreme Leader has weighed in, ruling them out. The provisions of the agreement do not rule them out, while placing hurdles before ruling them in. One of many challenges to the United States and Iran is, in effect, to resolve questions of compliance before feeling obliged to exercise the right of challenge inspections.

Key Monitoring provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action:

Iran will permit the IAEA the use of on-line enrichment measurement and electronic seals which communicate their status within nuclear sites to IAEA inspectors, as well as other IAEA approved and certified modern technologies in line with internationally accepted IAEA practice. Iran will facilitate automated collection of IAEA measurement recordings registered by installed measurement devices and sending to IAEA working space in individual nuclear sites.

Iran will make the necessary arrangements to allow for a long-term IAEA presence, including issuing long-term visas, as well as providing proper working space at nuclear sites and, with best efforts, at locations near nuclear sites in Iran for the designated IAEA inspectors for working and keeping necessary equipment.

Iran will increase the number of designated IAEA inspectors to the range of 130-150 within 9 months from the date of the implementation of the JCPOA and will generally allow the designation of inspectors from nations that have diplomatic relations with Iran, consistent with its laws and regulations.

Iran will permit the IAEA to monitor, through agreed measures that will include containment and surveillance measures, for 25 years, that all uranium ore concentrate produced in Iran or obtained from any other source, is transferred to the uranium conversion facility (UCF) in Esfahan or to any other future uranium conversion facility which Iran might decide to build in Iran within this period.

Iran will permit the IAEA regular access, including daily access as requested by the IAEA, to relevant buildings at Natanz, including all parts of the FEP and PFEP, for 15 years.

Requests for access pursuant to provisions of this JCPOA will be made in good faith, with due observance of the sovereign rights of Iran, and kept to the minimum necessary to effectively implement the verification responsibilities under this JCPOA. In line with normal international safeguards practice, such requests will not be aimed at interfering with Iranian military or other national security activities, but will be exclusively for resolving concerns regarding fulfilment of the JCPOA commitments and Iran’s other non-proliferation and safeguards obligations.

If the IAEA has concerns regarding undeclared nuclear materials or activities, or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA, at locations that have not been declared under the comprehensive safeguards agreement or Additional Protocol, the IAEA will provide Iran the basis for such concerns and request clarification.

If Iran’s explanations do not resolve the IAEA’s concerns, the Agency may request access to such locations for the sole reason to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at such locations. The IAEA will provide Iran the reasons for access in writing and will make available relevant information.

Iran may propose to the IAEA alternative means of resolving the IAEA’s concerns that enable the IAEA to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at the location in question, which should be given due and prompt consideration.

If the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA cannot be verified after the implementation of the alternative arrangements agreed by Iran and the IAEA, or if the two sides are unable to reach satisfactory arrangements to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at the specified locations within 14 days of the IAEA’s original request for access, Iran, in consultation with the members of the Joint Commission, would resolve the IAEA’s concerns through necessary means agreed between Iran and the IAEA. In the absence of an agreement, the members of the Joint Commission, by consensus or by a vote of 5 or more of its 8 members, would advise on the necessary means to resolve the IAEA’s concerns. The process of consultation with, and any action by, the members of the Joint Commission would not exceed 7 days, and Iran would implement the necessary means within 3 additional days.

The Joint Commission is comprised of representatives of Iran and the E3/EU+3 (China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy), together, the JCPOA participants.

The Joint Commission may establish Working Groups in particular areas, as appropriate.

The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (‘High
Representative’), or his/her designated representative will serve as the Coordinator of the Joint Commission.

Review and approve in advance, upon request by Iran, the design, development, fabrication, acquisition, or use for non-nuclear purposes of multi-point explosive detonation systems suitable for a nuclear explosive device and explosive diagnostic systems (streak cameras, framing cameras and flash x-ray cameras) suitable for the development of a nuclear explosive device, Review, with a view to resolving, any issue that a JCPOA participant believes constitutes nonperformance by another JCPOA participant of its commitments under the JCPOA, according to the process outlined in the JCPOA…

This is some really nicely written disaster porn.

"Everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast. The inundation zone will be scoured of structures from California to Canada."

If, on that occasion, only the southern part of the Cascadia subduction zone gives way, the magnitude of the resulting quake will be somewhere between 8.0 and 8.6. That's the big one. If the entire zone gives way at once, an event that seismologists call a full-margin rupture, the magnitude will be somewhere between 8.7 and 9.2. That's the very big one.

When the next very big earthquake hits, the northwest edge of the continent, from California to Canada and the continental shelf to the Cascades, will drop by as much as six feet and rebound thirty to a hundred feet to the west -- losing, within minutes, all the elevation and compression it has gained over centuries. Some of that shift will take place beneath the ocean, displacing a colossal quantity of seawater. The water will surge upward into a huge hill, then promptly collapse. One side will rush west, toward Japan. The other side will rush east, in a seven-hundred-mile liquid wall that will reach the Northwest coast, on average, fifteen minutes after the earthquake begins. By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA's Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, "Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast." [...]

In fact, the science is robust, and one of the chief scientists behind it is Chris Goldfinger. Thanks to work done by him and his colleagues, we now know that the odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three. The odds of the very big one are roughly one in ten. Even those numbers do not fully reflect the danger -- or, more to the point, how unprepared the Pacific Northwest is to face it. The truly worrisome figures in this story are these: Thirty years ago, no one knew that the Cascadia subduction zone had ever produced a major earthquake. Forty-five years ago, no one even knew it existed. [...]

Four to six minutes after the dogs start barking, the shaking will subside. For another few minutes, the region, upended, will continue to fall apart on its own. Then the wave will arrive, and the real destruction will begin.

Those who cannot get out of the inundation zone under their own power will quickly be overtaken by a greater one. A grown man is knocked over by ankle-deep water moving at 6.7 miles an hour. The tsunami will be moving more than twice that fast when it arrives. Its height will vary with the contours of the coast, from twenty feet to more than a hundred feet. It will not look like a Hokusai-style wave, rising up from the surface of the sea and breaking from above. It will look like the whole ocean, elevated, overtaking land. Nor will it be made only of water -- not once it reaches the shore. It will be a five-story deluge of pickup trucks and doorframes and cinder blocks and fishing boats and utility poles and everything else that once constituted the coastal towns of the Pacific Northwest.

To see the full scale of the devastation when that tsunami recedes, you would need to be in the international space station. The inundation zone will be scoured of structures from California to Canada. The earthquake will have wrought its worst havoc west of the Cascades but caused damage as far away as Sacramento.

Hey, remember that time the National Weather Service put out a bulletin about "HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS"? Yeah, good times.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

The location that will soon be the world’s largest indoor farm. (Image: Kari Paul/Motherboard)

As the PATH train rolls into Newark, New Jersey, the landscape greeting passengers consists largely of a bleak, abandoned warehouses surrounding the station. The city, once a major industry hub, has declined since its peak manufacturing days. But a company breaking ground there on Thursday wants to change that, and inject sustainable food production into the area.

Urban agriculture company AeroFarms began construction this week on what will soon become the world’s largest vertical indoor farm, a version of urban agriculture that grows plants upwards through erect plant beds rather than horizontally. The first development phase will be finished by the end of 2015, converting an old steel factory in Ironbound, one of the more blighted industrial sections of Newark, into a 69,000 square foot unprecedented agriculture center and global headquarters for the company. The project received more than $30 million in funding through private and public partnerships and will create 78 jobs in the area, where unemployment is twice the national average.

David Rosenberg, CEO of AeroFarms, speaks at the groundbreaking of the new center. (Image: Kari Paul/Motherboard)

AeroFarms uses aeroponic technology to grow plants at a rate of efficiency that eclipses that of traditional farming. The process involves placing the seeds in a cloth medium and showering them with a nutrient mist to make them grow, using 95 percent less water than field farming. With LED light installations, the company grows food indoors year-round without sun or soil, stacking the plants on top of each other in vertical columns.

“This is really a new marriage of biology and engineering,” AeroFarms chief marketing officer Marc Oshima said of the process. “We think about the vertical beds for growing, the LED lights—it’s about how you create the whole system, and the whole approach. In terms of per square foot, we have 75 times greater productivity on an annualized basis than a field farmer. So this is a way you can do farming at scale, and a way you can compete with a field farmer today.”

A rendering of the vertical farm set-up (Image courtesy of AeroFarms)

Oshima said the company monitors more than 10,000 data points for each harvest, allowing it to maximize the growing process and create more efficient output than traditional agriculture.

“It’s controlled, we aren't leaving it to the vagaries of mother nature,” he said. “It’s hard to control weather, and other factors. Here it’s about precision agriculture. So when you think about it, we are monitoring in real time the nutrient uptake, we are understanding what light plants need for more effective photosynthesis. Those are hard things to replicate outside.”

At the groundbreaking ceremony, officials including Newark mayor Ras J. Baraka, New Jersey acting governor Kim Guadagno spoke while the company passed around smoothies and salad made with its own aeroponic kale and other leafy greens.

Food grown at the urban farm will be first be distributed to local schools, farmer’s markets and other businesses but Oshima said it will generate enough produce—up to 2 million pounds a year—to distribute throughout the area surrounding New York City.

Vegetables grown by AeroFarms that were served at the groundbreaking ceremony. (Image: Kari Paul/Motherboard)

Representatives from AeroFarms and government officials who spoke on Thursday said the highly-efficient method is a way to combat the global food crisis while creating little waste.

“This will feed the people of the world,” acting governor Kim Guadagno said at the ceremony. “By 2050, I won’t be here, but by 2050 there will be 9 billion people who need to eat, and the solution is right here on the property you are standing on.”

Drew Curtis, the director of community development and environmental justice at the Ironbound Community Corporation, which has partnered with AeroFarms to recruit local employees, said the community is wary of highly-polluting industries in the area and welcomed the more sustainable alternative.

“Ironbound’s industrial legacy has left behind a lot of toxic sites, and current industry which causes lots of air pollution,” he said. “So we are overburdened by these kinds of negative environmental impacts. Residents want to see jobs and get back to work, but they want jobs that don’t add to the pollution in the neighborhood. So a project like this is perfect.”

Achior Oliver, a new AeroFarms employee who said he recently worked to install LED lights on some of the farming set ups, said the new job makes him feel like he can support his family while helping the community.

“It’s definitely good for the area; eating healthy is kind of hard around here, especially with all the unhealthy things in the environment,” he said. “Fortunately, things are looking prettier every year, there are new things growing and building around here. If you don’t grow, you fade away. So this is good for the community.”

The building that broke ground Thursday is the company’s largest farming project yet, but it has nine other farms completed and even larger one in the works.

“We are interested in how we address this on the global basis, so this is an awesome opportunity for us to continue our mission,” Oshima said. “There’s been so much demand and excitement about what we are doing. It’s just fundamentally changing how we can bring the farm to the consumers, and how we can do it commercially and do it at scale.”

Ack! After a more than 25-year hiatus, Berkeley Breathed's beloved comic comes back

catkingcoletrickle:

420 smoke neural network every day

malformalady:

The cat tongue is made up of several groups of muscles, which move in various directions. The tongue of a cat is a unique in that it contains backward facing spines (called papillae) which form an barbed surface and act as a hairbrush when the cat is grooming itself. The tongue has multiple purposes such as to assist with grooming and removing food debris from the mouth and face, lapping up water, tasting food, sensing the temperature and texture of food and the tongue also assists with the swallowing of food.

Photo credit(all): Pouncey Pants Ph.D @professor_pouncey

source: http://tinyurl.com/ndsz2eq


source: www.visualphotos.com


© Alex Kantorovich


© J. Ross & A. J. Hearn


© J. Ross & A. J. Hearn


source: www.borneanwildcat.blogspot.com




source: http://tinyurl.com/lkhygqn

usbdongle:

spacexcamp:

deermary:

The Banded Linsang (Prionodon linsang), or “tiger-civet”, is a carnivorous aboreal mammal and is a member of the Viverridae family and the rarest of all civets. It inhabits Thailand, western Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo, and western Java. Its diet consists of squirrels, rats, birds, and lizards. It’s 74cm long (including tail) and 700g (25 oz).

I love this overripe banana cat

I thought the first photo was a failed panorama of an ocelot

fridaynightfreakyfrightdelight:

recovery-equals-happiness:

Well thats me sorted then.

reblog if you agree

Never quit

"A GIFT FOR CHILDREN":

woodsaddle:

tumblrinos don’t say i never did anything for ye. this is. this is the technical specifications for an orbital weapons platform proposed by one of the announced republican candidates, michael bickelmeyer. it operates off of solar power. in his words: “This invention is designed to erase from the world, the spirits of dread and nightmare. The using of this invention is the magnification of sunrays from a point external to earth, to erase from the world the spirits of dread nightmare, and utilize pest-control.”

i strongly recommend you read the entire document

EDM drops are played out. They've become so ubiquitous and overblown in recent cuts that the line between parody and actual music has become difficult to distinguish. Yet a handful of DJs may have found the perfect replacement. At a recent set in Brisbane, Australia, DJ duo Mashd N Kutcher hit their audience with what may be the most unexpected and jaw-dropping drop ever heard. The track builds and builds, reaching for face-melting glory, coming closer and closer, when suddenly...

Source: YouTubeSmooth. For the unhip and uninitiated, that is a sample of Spandau Ballet's 1983 new wave classic "True." Watching hundreds of amped-out ravers suddenly moan in disappointment has proved to be a true delight. The clip has gone viral, getting picked up by Stereogum, Mashable and the Independent. But the funniest part is this seems to be the beginning of a much larger trend. Read More

towritecomicsonherarms:

ohmygrodd:

carsthatnevermadeit:

Captain Nemo’s Nautilus Car from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is to be sold by auctioneers Coys at their Blenheim Palace auction on 11 July. The vehicle started life as a Land Rover fire tender, adapted via a steel frame with the addition of a Rover V8 engine

It’s so beautiful…

underrated film tbh

17mul:

mybeautifulmultitudes:

owlbait:

redplebeian:

CNN US vs CNN International 

Notice any differences

holy shit even the bullet points stress entirely different things

Oh okay

lmsig

Mike Mitchell at SDCC.

A selection of several prints that artist Mike Mitchell will be releasing at San Diego Comic Con 2015, which starts Thursday July 9th and goes through Sunday, July 12th.  Mike will be set up in the Nucleus Booth #2643.  There will be a very limited amount of “Boycott” bags/shirts available for those lucky enough to grab one.  You can find updates on Mike’s Instagram.

via http://alisabloh.livejournal.com/?skip=20

Apparently, the people of Russia are so dedicated to selfies and/or eager to welcome death that their “high-risk” selfie poses have caused injuries to hundreds and killed dozens more. Naturally, the Russian government was forced to appeal to the nations’s youth in the only way that made sense: dry, informational pamphlets.

Read more...

Earlier this year Robert Doggart, a Christian minster, told an FBI informant of his plans to attack a Pennsylvania community of black Muslims. He told the informant about the explosives he was going to make and showed him his weapons, including an M-4 military assault rifle. According to Daily Beast, Doggart "had engaged in a great deal of planning, including making a detailed weapons list that included armor piercing bullets, reaching out to militia groups, and allegedly enlisting the support of nine men." Doggart even signed a plea agreement in which he "stipulated expressly that it amounted to a 'true threat.'"

Doggart was being held without bail but now a federal judge has released him because and stated that he "may not accept the guilty plea because he’s unsure if Doggart’s actions constitute a 'true threat' as required by the federal statute."

So how rare is it for a judge to reject a proposed plea deal agreed to by both the prosecutor and defendant? Seema Iyer, a former prosecutor and current criminal defense attorney, explained that she has only witnessed a judge do this two or three times ever in her nearly her 20 years of criminal law work.

mirkokosmos:

by Cal Redback

What you want