AND IN THE REAL WORLD – AT 9:07 A.M. ET:  We may be distracted by our political campaign; others are not.  The Pakistan situation has become dire – an unstable country, yet one determined to develop weapons that can produce a catastrophe if they fall into the wrong hands.  from London's Telegraph:

Pakistan has been secretly accelerating the pace of its nuclear weapons programme, infuriating the US which is trying to cap worldwide stocks of fissile material and improve fraught relations with a fragile ally in the Afghanistan war.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nuclear watchdog, has obtained satellite images showing that a row of cooling towers at Pakistan's secret Khushab-III reactor has been completed. This suggests the plant could begin operation within months, allowing Pakistan substantially to increase its stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.

COMMENT:  The Pakistani population is anti-American and pro-Islamic.  Pakistan is the only Islamic country with a nuclear-weapons capability.  (Iran will be next.)  The greater danger here comes, not from a missile fired at us, but from a nuclear device being given by Pakistan, or stolen from Pakistan, and sailed into an American harbor aboard a freighter manned by a suicide crew. 

Talk of scary.  That is scary, and real world.  The Pakistanis are not intimidated by us.  Neither are the Iranians.  Flash ahead five to ten years. 

October 11, 2010