The BBC carries the latest report on this issue: Israel PM ‘differed’ with Mossad on Iran, says report.

This report is based on leaked cables from the South African intel agency, but it tracks with what the actual intelligence services have been saying for years – Iran has a nuclear program and can in theory create nuclear weapons, but there is no indication that they are actually working on weapons.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been claiming since 1992 that Iran was working on nuclear weapons and would have a bomb in 5 years.

As Badtux has pointed out in the past, anyone with their own source of uranium can build a bomb from scratch in 5 years. The US did it and no one even knew if a bomb was possible when we started.

If Iran was really interested in building a bomb in 1992, they could have bought a DIY nuclear bomb kit from AQ Khan, like North Korea did and done it in less than 5 years.

Iran started enriching their own uranium because the West refused to sell it to them. They started enriching to 20% when their supplier for that fuel, cut them off. All of the steps towards the so-called ‘nuclear weapons capability’ are the result of Western sanctions. The sanctions have back-fired if they were supposed to stop Iran from developing their own capabilities.

Bibi is basing his claims about Iran on his beliefs, not evidence, and it is time to stop listening to him.

This is a fable attributed to Æsop about a scorpion who wants to cross a stream.

Since he can’t swim, the scorpion asks a frog to carry him across the stream. The frog responds ‘no way, you’ll sting me!’ The scorpion persists saying that since they would both die if he did it, there is no chance he would sting the frog.

The frog finally agrees and allows the scorpion to climb on his back. Halfway to the other side, the scorpion stings the frog. As he dies the frog asks why he did it. As he is sinking to his own death, the scorpion replies ‘it is what scorpions do.’

In the Australian version, Tony Abbott makes a series of promises to his parliamentary caucus so they won’t remove him as leader. Before the ink dries on the vote count not to remove him, he starts breaking his promises because ‘it is what scorpions do.’

This is the temperature map for Alaska today. There are no temperatures below zero in the entire state with a month to go until spring. These are the 6AM AKST temperatures, not midday.