Updates- Armageddon

The economy is still in the tanks and so the Great Recession is still underway.  Domestic and global outlook is not promising. Job loss is still around 7.8% but the actual out-of-work figures are skyrocketing as people simply give up on trying to find jobs.

In terms of domestic tranquility, we are now testing spy drones, domestically (HERE IN THE U.S.) for the purported goals of achieving "public safety."  Specific details have not been outlined but the continued march towards domestic focused foreign policy seems to continue.  Each week it seems we are learning more and more about federal efforts to closely monitor private citizens.  Chipper.

The POTUS is using Sesame Street and Big Bird to make salient, intelligent political commentary about  presidential competitor, Mitt Romney.  As funny as that sentence is, its actually not because it's true. We're using cartoons now.  Might as well roll out the pop-up books next. 

On the actual Wall Street, there is something referred to as "high frequency trading" going on.  That's not abnormal but a new -- or newly discovered -- algorithm gummed up the stock exchange and dominated roughly 10% of the bandwidth for placing orders (and accounted for 4% of all trades).  Essentially, a technological stress test was conducted by some unknown party for some unknown reason.  The algorithm used was designed to allow high frequency traders primary access to move stocks around will barring or limiting competition from other traders.  TCD is unsure who's behind this algorithm so I put this news topic in the domestic-abroad category. 

In abroad, proper, POTUS congratulated Hugo Chavez on his win in the Venezuelan presidential race.  Yes, the same Chavez that likes to kid around about shooting a nuke at us and plays host to Iranian, Chinese and Russian interests every chance he gets.

And in abroad, I TOLD YOU SO news, Iran is sneaking ever closer to a nuclear warhead.  I believe TCD's last guesstimate on a testable warhead was mid-year 2013.  Seems like they're on schedule for that deadline.  The newer Fordo site in Iran is capable of enriching uranium up to 20% (which can be rapidly converted into bomb levels).  Fordo is running at roughly 1/3 capacity; meaning if they fire up all of the centrifuges Iran can pump out enough fissile material to make a bomb each month.  We're also told that Iran has likely been testing a trigger for a warhead.  We know for a fact that they have several ICBMs now, so really, it's only a matter of time.

Obviously, Iran is not seeking peaceful nuclear energy.  I think the fact that they sit on top of a ton of oil should have been a good indicator that they didn't really need the nuclear physicist for addressing domestic energy needs.  Maybe they just need to build really good medical equipment.  That probably explains why they're enriching Uranium up to 20% now.   We know it's not for Iran's "nuclear energy infrastructure."  Iran has only one nuclear reactor.  They don't need 20% uranium to run it.  It can run on 3% and they have plenty of 3%...