Slashdot Mirror
North Korea Conducts Nuclear Test
viyh writes "North Korea conducted a nuclear test on Monday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a ruling party official as saying.
A magnitude 4.7 earthquake was recorded by the USGS in North Korea.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has called an emergency meeting of cabinet ministers over the test, Yonhap said."
Soooo ronery....
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
Yet you forgot one factor. Nutjobs.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Yeah, but it only takes one person with access, opportunity, and a death wish to take everyone with them.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Its a fun clip that should give slashdot readers some smiles, but
the last line is haunting, "keep on throwing I dare you.. "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpF5-mBmI0c
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Brother man, I did not support the invasion of Iraq one iota, but I'd support a multinational invasion force in North Korea, you better believe it.
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2308/the-second-north-korean-nuclear-test provides a sober view of the latest test as well as other Korean and arms control related http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/acw?q=korean&sa=Search topics.
The problem of world peace is one of leadership. It's not only a struggle for resources, but a struggle for supremacy, which guides our national policies. America believes it cannot continue to exist without controlling others. And NK believes that it must dominate its enemies in order to survive.
This can't be fixed so easily, I'm afraid. It's simply human nature. So it's up to each and every one of us to work towards that goal. I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways. And no message could have been any clearer: if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.
Dictators pose for the people. They use religion and the whole "we hate israel" crap (or we hate capitalism of whoever...) to get the support of their religious right... sort of like abortion is a carrot on the stick in the states. They'll never actually do anything. They would lose their leverage (and ensure self annihilation). Dictators look out for themselves first. They're after power, not idealism. Because of this, they're predictable. Insane? Irrelevant. So long as they're predictable they're controllable.
It'll be interesting to see if this latest provocation makes Japan finally go nuclear.
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
This whole North Korea situation sounds like a broken record.
Every U.S. administration since Clinton has been dealing with these sorts of North Korean threats. The Republicans criticized Clinton for his handling of the situation, and they found themselves in the exact same position.
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But communism DIDN'T work. And in a few years we'll realize that democracy doesn't work either.
Whole N Korea thing is something like a troll guy who begs for ''replies'' or getting banned until he gets the ultimate attention.
There were no news about N Korea for a while and bam, they explode a nuke.
Can a country troll? They seem to be able to do it.
But communism DIDN'T work. And in a few years we'll realize that democracy doesn't work either.
Democracy is the worst government system. Except for all the other ones we have tried in the past...
I hate to burst you bubble of ignorance, but, North Korea's first nuke test was on Oct. 9th, 2008. You know, when that other guy was still in office. And it was in development for a long time before that. Barry has been on the job three months. He's barely had time to get into the front door of the White House. You can't pin this on him at all. Kim Jong Il has always been one to do as he pleases.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
While I'm not sure exactly where I stand on the overall issue of nuclear wepons - it's a lot more complex than the soundbites in the news like to make out, after all - I do think it's worth saying that characterising Kim Jong Il as insane is at least somewhat fair.
Were we talking about Iran, for example, I'd agree with you - although their leaders hold a vastly different ideology to many of our own, writing them off with simplistic statements is totally unfair. Their country works in its own way and while legitimate criticism could be levelled at them for failing to represent the wishes of their people, that would not negate the fact that the decisions they do make often work to achieve the desired outcome.
North Korea, on the other hand, is not running as a functional country in any sense of the word. The competence of the leadership is very much in question, and many of their past actions suggest a level of delusion that could potentially lead to very destructive behaviour.
Just remember that, no matter how fast an invasion force moves, the'll get off a couple of missles. North Korea has lots and lots of conventional missles. Japan and South Korea are well within range.
I'm not referring specifically to nuke tests. I'm referring to the threats that North Korea has made to the West, mostly relating to medium-range missile tests. Also, I'm not American and I couldn't care less about partisan politics in that country. As far as I'm concerned, there are very few differences between the two major parties as they're both financed and mostly controlled by major corporations.
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News not yet confirmed by THE OFFICIAL NEWS SOURCE.
See? Absolutely nothing new happened since Kim Jong Il received a gift from UK figure.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Seems to be working fairly well so far. Maybe not to your expectations, but I don't see people falling over dead from starvation outside my house.
Also, keep in mind that we don't use straight-up democracy... It's a mixture of many different disciplines. Taxes, health care, and education are socialist ideals.
How about, when you have a job and get paid the same no matter what you do, you don't try very hard and industry stagnates. I lived in a former communist country for a while. I know how it is. Tire factories producing tires with bolts in them... horrible quality and service everywhere.
That's what I meant to say, we're not really living in a democracy and it's time we stopped pretending we do because I don't think that word means what our collective self thinks it does.
Does this effect levels of radioactivity in air of S. Korea (or Japan, China) ?
839*929
Hee Hee! Shamonuh. Chickah chickah.
Things don't simply "work" or not. Human history is a continuum of change. Communism worked for some time in some places, Capitalism is working for some time in some places. There is no definitive solution, because there isn't a definitive problem.
The real nutjobs are the ones that claim to have found the "End of History". And both commies and cappies are guilty of such arrogance.
"They'll never actually do anything." Huh? Hitler and Stalin were just posing? What a curious reading of history.
Seems to be working fairly well so far.
That's because the US is a Republic, not a Democracy.
And no message could have been any clearer: if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.
In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any other force in human history. Show me someone who says, "Something must be done!" and I will show you a head full of vicious intentions that have no other outlet. What we must strive for always! is to find the natural flow and go with it. - The Reverend Mother Taraza, Conversational Record, BG File GSXXMAT9
How about, when you have a job and get paid the same no matter what you do, you don't try very hard and industry stagnates.
Like union dominated US car industry?
When China finally wakes up and realizes that having a somewhat unstable next door neighbor armed with nukes is a bad idea, this sort of thing will stop - North Korea survives only because China keeps giving them tons of aid.
Perhaps the North Koreans are interested in China's continued aid supplies over the long term? As in, after they get a credible, deliverable weapon, 'If you stop the gravy train, we take out Hong Kong, even if we're glass 8 minutes later. That whole "we don't like the west" thing was just so you would let us build nukes.'
I really don't get China's motivations. Once the nuclear genie is out, they won't be able to stuff it back in. It's like the U.S.A. helping Haiti to get nukes because they don't like Cuba. Does it not occur to the Chinese govt. that once North Korea has a real nuclear capability, they could aim it anywhere they so wished?
Sure, and now they can hug them with their nuclear arms.
But the higher up you went in the respective organizations you would find that the leaders often had double standards for their own secret lives. The idealism was a front. Hitler allowed one of his closest people to be gay (Ernst RÃhm). He was, himself, part jewish. The jews and gays were scapegoats. Stalin's upper echelons were notoriously corrupt, and his reasons for putting people in the gulags were more to sustain an industry than from any ideological standpoint (read Solzhenitsyn). I look at dictators like cult leaders. They don't really believe the shit they spew. They just use it to control others. Even when they are "crazy", they're relatively predictable in that they're always and without question out for their own self interest.
It's not good, but all this means is North Korea can't be invaded, and who would want to? Altruism is not a good enough reason to sacrifice troops in a country that would be prepared to use Nukes against an invader. The leadership is weak and in a time of turmoil. I'm fairly certain that Kim Yong-il suffered a stroke recently so he can't lead the country there forever so someone has to replace him. They will inherit a country with weapons, but no bread. How sad for the North Korean people.
So while the leadership of North Korea is at it's weakest, it beats it's chest with it's weapons forcing improving their position of bargaining. This can be summarised with the wisdom of Sun Tzu: "the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him." and the North Korean leadership is doing the opposite of "masking strength with weakness is to be effected by tactical dispositions."
They are masking weakness with strength.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Were we talking about Iran, for example, I'd agree with you - although their leaders hold a vastly different ideology to many of our own, writing them off with simplistic statements is totally unfair. Their country works in its own way and while legitimate criticism could be levelled at them for failing to represent the wishes of their people, that would not negate the fact that the decisions they do make often work to achieve the desired outcome.
I'd say the ideology is a bit different. Here is a video of them chanting "Death to America" at a political rally before a speech by their president promising to continue developing nuclear technologies. You might consider rethinking giving these people nuclear weapons.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
1. North Korea has the second largest standing army in the world, behind only China.
2. They would instantly invade S. Korea.
3. They'd launch anything they could at Japan.
Both S. Korea and Japan are allies, and make nice shiny stuff. We're not interested in provoking a massive retaliation on either country.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
It is not that Communism didn't or doesn't work, but rather it has never existed as Marx envisioned. The reform has never succeeded. Communism, like Democracy, exists only as a fantasy.
As an ideal, it is not half bad. Sadly, the worst kind of humans always manage to find a way to ruin things for everyone, regardless of the government.
How to make a democracy that actually scales out:
1) Every citizen gets to vote on every issue
2) Every citizen gets to introduce bills to be voted upon
3) Every vote is public information, no private ballot. You are your own politician, you cast votes openly like one.
4) Any citizen can vote for any other citizen rather than voting on issues directly. If they choose to do so, the one they voted for casts their vote on the issues.
5) All votes are sent to a central tabulation authority through a secure wired network.
6) Votes are also broadcast across a citizens mesh network and stored in a multitude of widely geographically dispersed sites, making wide scale tampering impractical.
How it works:
Citizen A introduces a bill. Citizen B votes yes. Citizen C votes no. Citizen D and citizen E both voted for B, citizen F voted for C, citizen G voted for E. Citizen B casts yes votes for B, D, E and G, while Citizen C casts no votes for C and F. The bill is introduced into law.
Oops. Citizen B was a corrupt bastard, and voted contrary to the wishes of those who supported him on a very important law with wide reaching consequences. Everyone immediately revokes their assignment of votes to him and passes them to someone else. Now Citizen B has no significant voice beyond his own vote. A new bill is introduced to repair the damage the next day.
This is a functional model for democracy that scales. I'm actively working towards designing the infrastructure that will make it possible. Hopefully I will finish before I die. Maybe not.
Can think of ways to make it better?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
The irony in that statement is so astounding, I can't tell if you are being facetious or not. Well played, sir.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Kim Jong Il is definitely not a nutjob. North Korea's internal politics are a pressure cooker like few on the planet. He's extremely smart, politically savvy and extremely ruthless. He learned at the feet of a master - his father - and successfully transitioned to power when it was widely expected he would fail. This is a man that thinks nothing of starving millions (as happened in the late '90's) of his own people if it suits his political needs. North Korea has survived for over half a century by using it's massive military to threaten the South and has played public opinion in South Korea like a violin.
Since China transitioned from a closed economy and withdrew much of it's overt support, North Korea has successfully used seemingly insane threats as negotiating leverage to obtain international aid many times. Because of China's residual support for the regime and their legitimate fear of massive numbers of refugees crossing the border, as well as resistance by (probably North supported) elements in South Korea it has been politically impossible to call North Korea's bluff. This is perhaps the one thing that could successfully break the back of the regime and initiate change in the North.
If it were possible to "pull the plug" on international aid and enlist China to stare down the North's military threats the regime would probably collapse, but it's unlikely China could be induced to do so given the flood of refugees they would inevitably have to handle.
Hence the "insanity" continues with no end in sight.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
I knew the Bene Gesserit had to have something to do with it!!!
Capitalism is the idea that a small group of individuals ought to be able to make unilateral decisions with wide reaching consequences according to their own arbitrary whims. Communism is the idea that we are all in this together.
Totalitarianism is the idea that a small group of individuals ought to be able to make unilateral decisions with wide reaching consequences according to their own arbitrary whims. Democracy is the idea that we are all in this together.
Western capitalism is totalitarianism. Western democracy is broken. There is no more heartless, brutal and exploitative social system on earth. That is why it has been so successful.
In a world where western civilization has roots, any intelligent society will prepare to be attacked, in the same way that intelligent societies living below the water table will build protective dikes.
Western civilization is like a tsunami, spreading across the world and leaving slavery, poison and death in it's wake. You don't elect Mr Nice Guy to run things until the tsunami is passed, which is why all the communist nations have brutal, iron-fisted leaders. They live under constant threat from us, and while that's true, it's wise and good to submit to a strong leader so they can survive.
We are the evil ones. The world should fight tooth and nail against us until we change or die, because it's the right thing to do.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Perhaps statements like this are part of the reason why some South Koreans 'hate' the US?
I agree with your post about the U.S. needing to get out of the world-running business. But - your casual statement regarding the extermination of 70+ million people only in terms of positive impact to U.S. car companies is not helpful to your argument, since people may assume you are a ghoul, which means they won't take your otherwise good idea as seriously as they should.
A few things:
1) The S. Korean army can defend itself from the North. The reason we (I'm American) were there originally was that it was assumed (probably rightly) that any confrontation would actually be with China, through North Korea, which would be a pretty big, horrible war.
2) The reason we're still there is basically the same: As a deterrent against China. If China misbehaves, we're right there. Also, we have a joint security treaty with Japan, and basically share militaries with them (they don't have one, officially, but... they have one). There are many Asian history scholars who basically see the current Korean situation (North/South) as a buffer to keep China away from Japan (remember that the US and Japan are old buddies, having only had that little spat in the 40s). Full disclosure: I live in Japan and my wife is Japanese; I'd like us to continue this deal (there's no reason to stop it--Japan is and always has been the only country in Asia whose values mesh well with the West--chivalry and Calvinism, basically, although they go by different names).
3) Who would benefit from a war in South Korea? Nobody in the short term, China in the long term. In the short term, Korea (both of them) would suffer, Japan might take some hits (they would be really not cool with that), and then China would take the area over, getting all that American infrastructure and brain investment, in addition to some of the shittiest land in East Asia. It wouldn't really be a desirable thing.
4) Koreans are crazily patriotic. They denounce everybody. They insist on serving kimchi with French food (I love kimchi, but, um... Do we serve ketchup with pulgogi in the US???), just to assert their Korean-ness. It's insane. They bitch and moan about Japan and burn the Japanese flag every time a politician has the audacity to honor Japan's war dead, despite the fact that a large percentage of their business comes from Japan and they have just basically copied the Japanese economic model--even where it makes no sense to their situation. Korea is nuts. Both Koreas. Crazy. A history of playing second-fiddle to whomever else was in power has bred a keen inferiority complex, which they overcompensate for. So saying they hate America is not really the whole picture. They hate everybody.
Finally, I don't really care if North Korea gets the bomb either, and I live in their closest target. 10 years ago when I was a student in Osaka, they fired a rocket over our heads and it landed in Osaka harbor. I think I was supposed to be scared, but my response was, "Oh fuck you." That's all I feel today, too. I'm not afraid of these morons. They're not going to do shit, and if they did, they'd be wiped off the map by mid-afternoon.
Yes India and Pakistan, not to mention the other ones that are suspect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Maybe you'd like to point out a true communist government somewhere? As far as I can tell all of the modern "communist" countries were socialist where the government owned everything. That's not communism.
In communism the people own everything and everyone works for the good of everyone. The obvious problem is that people are lazy and greedy. If I build houses and you just do gardening, I'm going to expect to make more than you. After all if I don't build a house you don't even have a place to garden. Or I'm lazy, while the rest of you losers work to better society I'm just going to reap the benefits of your work without contributing....
Even a lot of the old tribes had differences in status between certain people. Maybe in the whole garden of Eden thing communism would work but not in a real world.
And socialism, concentrating all the power in the government, seems like an even bigger disaster. For some reason all the socialist governments seem to be ultra corrupt. And somehow many of them seem to be ruled by some kind of monarchy type thing. North Korea seems like a brutal Monarchy. Cuba, it seemed like Fidel Castro had all the power there. But even if it was a "democratic" government like the US that had all the power. Does anyone really thing congress is on the side of the people? Does anyone really think the supreme court is on the side of the people? Does anyone think the president is on the side of the people? Well if you do go get your head examined and also never vote again you idiot. Even if the US government became all powerful (which it seems to be on the way to becoming) it would be a disaster.
Communism = great, best form of government if people are perfect and everyone wants to work to better society, it's a fantasy..
Socialism = give all the power to the government have them in control of everything. Then the corrupt people in the government get the power to run everything, even out the wealth while keeping it for themselves, what a disaster....
"Democracy" = Some sort of elected representation. You just have to win the popularity contest and you can do what you want. Quite often the choice is between a handful of political parties that are held sway to whoever pays them with contributions. In the US it is really easy because there are only 2 parties and mostly they agree except for a few token issues.
It isn't necessarily a nuke that could be fitted into a missile
The test is being reported as an 'Hiroshima' size yield: around 20 kilotons.
This doesn't mean they have a fully-funtional nuke in the moden sense of the word. The Hiroshima bomb was basically a large gun that fired a chunk of 90% U-235 into another chunk of Uranium, and was a proof-of-concept that was simple and guaranteed to work. And big: not possible to mount on a Taepodong-2. They have hundreds of kilos of Uranium from their pre-2007 nuclear power industry that can be enriched for this type of bomb.
Until they can show they're testing nukes using shaped Plutonium and timed explosives, this could be just bravado to stir up support for the military as Kim Jong-Il hands power over to one of his sons. Not necessaily technical achievement.
Well, Im not going to even comment on the rest of your post, but in your mind, if Korea destroys itself, the first thing that comes into your mind are Korean car companies?
And you know, this being slashdot and all, maybe you heard of a little company named Samsung, which is just one the biggest semiconductor companies in the entire world and the largest manufacturer of DRAM and Flash memory chips, not to mention hard disks and LCD technology?
As for the rest, suffice to say that I strongly disagree with you.
BTW, sod gender-neutral language. the masculine forms are meant as unspecified gender, as is common practice throughout Europe and elsewhere. If you can't understand me, go and lobotomise yourself.
Now, here's an scenario for you:
Citizen A introduces a bill. Citizen B votes yes. Citizen C votes no. Citizen D and E vote for C.
Now it gets ugly. Citizen F, G, H, I and J are employed by A. Citizen A is very rich and the owner of a big corporation.
Citizen A tells F, G, H, I and J: "If you don't vote for me, you'll lose your jobs and you won't be able to work anywhere in this town".
Citizens F, G, H, I and J vote for A and A can do anything he wants.
Lesson: The secrecy of the vote is not there because it's fun.
GPG 0x1B479C78
Actually LOL it's funny you mention that. My mother in law is from South America and down there a whole bunch of people believe Osama Bin Ladin and George Bush staged the whole 9/11 thing and are friends. I mean I am not a fan of Bush, I think he's a complete idiot who can't even do Arithmetic (aka tax less spend more). But even I don't believe that, I don't think he's smart enough.
Also I think the guy is delusional and belongs in a mental institution. He seemed to think he was Jesus's second coming or something and with the hand of god he would smite all those violent Islamic people who dare occupy the holy land, they're all terrorists. But I think he needs to believe his delusions. I don't even think with GWB logic he could justify planning 9/11.
But anyway it is amusing how bad the sentiment against the whole US is in the rest of the world. Especially South America. They're still a bit pissed off over the whole keeping dictators in power and training their armies to murder/torture people. Ronald Regan the hero of the Republican party here is a mass murderer down there guilty of crimes against humanity. Personally I was just a kid when Regan was in office, all I remember is the guy took a lot of vacations LOL....
Thanks for the interesting post - you sound like you have a keen appreciation of the politics there. So, let me ask you the question I've asked elsewhere:
How does a nuclear armed North Korea benefit China?
All the explanations I can come up with only make short-term sense. I don't think the Koreas' will remain seperate forever (or even for more than 50 years). A unified, nuclear armed Korea is probably not a good thing to have on your doorstep - why encourage it?
I DO think the North Korean government is pretty crazy, and once they get deliverable nuclear weapons, that gives them a big stick to use against anyone, including China! Allowing North Korea to develop nuclear weapons ultimately reduces China's control over them. Why would they do this?
North Korea and China are allies for strategic, historical reasons which are becoming less important. The basic relationship seems to be, "We give you arms, and food when you botch up your agriculture or have a drought -- you cause trouble/distractions for us when we ask". I wouldn't bet a lot on such a relationship enduring many decades.
The fact that North Korea would be a smoking hole within a half-hour doesn't seem to deter them much, but I think China might object to having Guangzhou or Hong Kong removed as well. That's the problem with nukes - their destinations are not hard-coded into them based on the political winds of the day they are done.
And, risking veering off into serious off-topic land: Why do you think Japan's culture is more compatible with the West than any other Asian country? I know it might be a long response...
Here's another scenario:
Citizens 1 to 10,000,000 introduce new bills on Tuesday, 1,000,000 of which are bills that would affect the country nation-wide. The vote for those bills all falls in the next 3 months.
How can someone learn, understand, and have an opinion on 1,000,000 different bills? Lets lower the number and say almost no one was actually submitting bills (doubtful, corporations would have entire departments submitted hundreds/day), so we'd be getting maybe 10,000/day. Could you read, interpret, and understand 10,000 bills of varying complexity and importance in a day? After all, you're expected to vote on them. If you don't, the country falls apart.
Could anyone build the infrastructure to handle that? Democracy is impractical on a wide scale because it REQUIRES a very well informed populace. Republics just require a very well informed select few. We don't all have the spare time to be politicians.
The odd thing about North Korea is that even without nukes it is offlimits for US military action for three reasons
First most people think the North Korean army would fight if attacked, unlike the Iraqi one. Their equipment is outdated, but they have numbers and determination would most likely kill enough Americans to trigger a Vietnam style withdrawal. I'd guess China would keep them supplied too.
Secondly North Korea has vast amounts of artillery aimed at Seoul, the capital of South Korea. It is theorized that if attacked they would shell Seoul. By the time the artillery had been destroyed by US airpower millions of South Koreans would be dead, and probably thousands of US pilots. The US government would most likely not be able to accept that loss.
Finally it's widely believed that China has told the US that NK is under its protection and that attacking it would move the US and China into an open state of hostility.
Now they do have nukes they could use them on US forces, Japan or South Korea. Actually I think that Japan or the US would probably be able to shoot down NK missiles or destroy them on the ground as they are liquid fueled and thus take time to set up. Also there are questions of whether they would be able to build a warhead that would fit on a missile. So compared to their conventional military and powerful allies, their nukes are not particularly useful.
Of course even a few dummy missile launches at Japan may trigger an extreme overreaction on Japan's part. Their current pacifism could be revoked quite quickly and while pointedly non nuclear it is widely believed that they could build a large nuclear arsenal very quickly if threatened. China would no doubt react by building up its own military. So an attack on NK would most likely leave South East Asia looking like a much more threatening place.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Well, it only seems logical to start there. I mean if the people of North Korea REALLY knew how they were living in comparison to the rest of the world, or even the other half of their little peninsula which many of us even envy because of their crazy fast and cheap broadband, they would be up in arms in no time.
The party members at the top of the ladder know what the "west" is like, and emulate the lifestyle themselves with lavish palaces, cars, food, women, entertainment, all at the expense of their starving, stunted, diseased people. They are so malnourished there that children are getting cataracts and only growing to 4 feet tall and can't walk. It's the Middle Ages all over again. You can send all the food aid and stuff you want, but for all I know it's just intercepted in port and stockpiled in Kim Jong-Il's basement. If they do hand stuff out, I'm sure they rebag it so Kim's face is on there not USAID, UN, or whatever.
I forget where I heard this, but in the school books, the world maps have been redrawn and NK's friendly countries are represented much larger than in real life, and their enemies, like the USA, are redrawn much smaller. I think they also greatly increased the size of NK as well to make the kids think that their country is the biggest on earth.
Sure sounds like they're keeping the outside influences to a minimum to me. Rewriting history and reshaping the earth's geography to suit their own twisted ends is just part of the process.
This is a very low standard to judge by. Maybe it comes as a surprise to you but in most undemocratic non-free market countries people don't drop dead from starvation either.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Kim Jong Il is definitely not a nutjob ... [he] thinks nothing of starving millions
What were you saying?
successfully used seemingly insane threats as negotiating leverage to obtain international aid many times
Name one that has succeeded.
The aid has been given despite the insane threats as we know the situation of the people there.
Sure the insanity continues as the other possibility is death. Or can you imagine a peaceful change in the country (like in USSR)?
DDR actually had the highest standard of living in the East Block and it's economy was deeply integrated with Western countries. But I agree that the parent's assertion that everyone earn the same salary is not true. Here in the USSR a street sweeper would make something like 40 rubles, a university educated engineer made closer to 170 rubles, gaining a Ph.D would propel you to 300 rubles. Individual workers whether blue-collar or not would get bonuses for exceeding their planned output and for superior craftsmanship. Money was also routinely used to attract people to harsh jobs, so if someone wanted to quickly earn a large sum they would travel up north to work on an oil well and like for a season.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
I'm not sure I get your point - I said that Iran's ideology is vastly different to our own, but that they run a functional government nonetheless.
An Iranian guy once told me a joke.
Mossad, the CIA and the Iranian Intelligence service decide to hold a contest. Each team must go out, wrestle bears and bring them back alive. The first team to come back is Mossad. They have one bear each, beaten unconscious and carried on their backs. All of the bears but one die over their injuries soon after they return. A bit later the CIA team come back. They have one bear tied up and hooded in a high tech cage they have presumably assembled from the contents of their packs.
There is a long wait. Mossad and the CIA decide the Iranians aren't coming back and start to pack up. Suddenly the Iranians return. They have a dear on a leash, looking very scared and clearly badly beaten. The dear says "I'm a bear! I'm a bear!"
I think that joke tells you a lot.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Your premise that the USA has historically been "buddies" with Japan is entirely wrong. The USA sailed in Japan with a fleet of modern warships in the 1850s and forced Japan to essentially surrender without so much as half a fight.
"The black ships" was one of the most humiliating episodes in Japanese history and there are plenty of Japanese that haven't forgotten it.
The deal is, historically, if anything, the USA has had a much better relationship with China. We accepted numerous Chinese immigrants and we went to war with Japan because of Japanese atrocities against China.
The thing is, I really don't see, long term, why the USA should set itself up against China. Keep them out of the pacific, yes, but if China wants to play hard with Korea or Japan, then, is it really our problem?
This is my sig.
You're full of shit, capitalism is the idea that a LARGE group of individuals ought to be able to make unilateral and INDIVIDUAL decisions with wide reaching consequences according to their own arbitrary whims.
That is indeed true at least to some extent. One may think that open (that is usually synonymous to democratic but it is not the same) societies have always advantage over authoritarian ones but that is not the case - Chile under Pinochet is one such example - they were able to raise from misery into some sort of stability (if there is such a thing) under heavy handed government. Economical progress was much worse in biggest democracy of them all - India. The same could be seen in eastern Europe after the IIWW - there too regimes succeeded originally only to stagnate and fail at the end.
I think the difference here is that only a few nutjobs are dumb enough to claim Bush orchestrated 9/11.
Just like only a few nutjobs are stupid enough to claim Obama is somehow responsible for North Korea nuclear testing.
Or that Obama is responsible for the current economic situation, or responsible for "government spending" (including bailouts) that started before he ever entered office.
The more sane conspiracies re: Bush+9/11 are regarding how his administration used it to take political control over the country and stir up a nationalistic fervor and point it at whatever HE wanted to do (ie: attack Iraq). And of course, use it to paint anyone who disagreed with their policies as terrorists or "soft on terrorism". Which you'll notice, Cheney is continuing to do even after leaving the white house.
You wanna know the best part about you believing competitiveness is a weakness? Your position doesn't even have to be considered because you've taken yourself out of the game. You lose by forfeit.
Pretty decent as a object lesson in the folly of idealism.
them chanting "Death to America" at a political rally
In Iran the phrase "Death to...." is a commonly used slang term. It is used much in the same manner as you would hear Americans say "Fuck that" or "Dammit" or "Damn it to Hell".
So when you hear people chanting Death to America, its meaning is more along the lines of "Fuck those assholes" than "We want to kill all Americans". You can also commonly hear people say Death to traffic, Death to children, Death to politics, and Death to whatever happens to be pissing someone off at the time.
Think about what you yourself say if it's taken literally. Have you ever said "I'm going to kill somebody"? Did you really mean you were going to murder them? Didn't think so. Ever said "Damn it" or "Damn them"? That phrase literally means to send someone/something into the Hellish afterlife, but is that what you were actually advocating?
Getting worked up over slang words that you saw on TV is a stupid method of making an opinion about an entire culture.
Where and when did communism work? Apart from the obvious issue of human rights which are undermined by the very nature of communism, not any particular implementation of it, the fundamental difference is the economic freedom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_freedom) which historically is VERY strongly correlated with living standards. There is almost no exception to the rule that, assuming the basic rule of law exists in a country, the more free its economy is (i.e. more capitalist) the more prosperous it is.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Hiroshima sized yield doesn't mean Hiroshima sized device or Hiroshima technology device. (Note that the Little Boy bomb is reported to be about 13-18 Kiloton while the Nagasaki bomb - a plutonium pinch device - only 21.)
The Hiroshima bomb was dropped without testing because it was such a near-sure-thing. The Nagasaki bomb had a prototype tested at Trinity because it was it was more iffy: Any screwup in the explosive focus, the calculations, the isotope mix, the timing of the neutron strobelamp, or more stray neutrons than expected would cause it to perform badly or just spray its material around in a conventional explosion. (They even constructed a bottle to hold the debris in case it failed, to catch the material for another try, though they changed their minds and left the bottle lying near ground zero.)
North Korea's first test apparently didn't work anywhere near as well as intended. They have a parallel missile program for a delivery system - developed on a very limted budget compared to that of WW II USA. And in sixty years a lot of stuff about what works has leaked out, while the Manhattan project had to roll their own from scratch.
So I'd bet that the bomb they tested is a prototype of one that would work as a payload on the missiles they're testing, not a new "Little Boy" - or even "Fat Man".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You ever buy a Trabant or a Dacia? You'll never complain about an American car again.
The thing to keep in mind with Iran is that it's a Persian state, surrounded by Arab states. Shouting 'death to Israel' is their way of saying to their neighbours 'look, there's someone we both hate! Don't invade us again please!'
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That's why the social democratic system is so popular in Europe... You get most of the benefits of capitalism, with the safety net of communism.
The golden path lies in the middle.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Number 1 is not technically true, they have a very large reserve army which can give that appearance..but South Korea has a similarly sized armed force which is much more heavily armed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_size_of_armed_forces
The Wood Engineer
Maybe? The US gives nearly $10M a day in aid to Israel in direct cash, and billions a year in military equipment/assistance/discounting. It gives more aid to the average Israeli citizen than it does the average US citizen. I think the "neither confirm or deny" stance of Israel on nuclear weaponry is stretching even the most avid Michael Bay movie fan's sense of plausible and credible deniability at this point.
Secondly North Korea has vast amounts of artillery aimed at Seoul, the capital of South Korea. It is theorized that if attacked they would shell Seoul.
This point can't be emphasized enough: not only are there literally thousands of (somewhat crude) artillery pieces along the North/South Korean border, but it's widely believed that they are equipped with chemical warfare shells. In practice, North Korea doesn't really need nukes to bring massive devastation and megadeaths to South Korea: their artillery can do much more damage than a dozen 50 Kiloton nukes. Before taken out, the Korean artillery can bring pandemonium to the South, and the NK leadership wouldn't hesitate a second to do this - after all, they didn't much mind about millions of their own people who starved to death, or hundreds of thousands being killed in their concentration camps.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
While there are a few holes in ShieldW0lf's idea (the public ballot idea is a huge question mark), I think your issue could be sorted out if there was a website for searching and categorizing the bills. You could subscribe to categories you're interested in, block ones you're not interested in, filter bills by category or creator, etc...the bills could be kept relatively short and concise instead of being a bigass slab of paper with politicians tacking on everything they happen to want done at the time.
After a little while the corporations cranking out cash grab / anti-competitive bills would be roundly ignored. People making good concise bills would become popular (there should be a minimum vote as a percent of the population required to prevent small interest groups from passing bills with few votes - say it needs the equivalent of 30% of the population to vote Yes with no more than 30% voting No to pass - just a quick idea that could be fine-tuned).
Any such massively popular bills could be brought to your attention, by, say, subscribing to Massively Popular Bills.
To keep the number of duplicate bills down, when you submit a bill it compares it to any similar bills currently up for voting and asks if you still wish to submit. If it's too similar maybe it shouldn't let you submit - a person could "dilute" a cause they don't like by spamming their bills with similar ones.
All this still allows for good representatives to rise to prominence via "referral votes."
Maybe have a feature showing the top recipients of referral votes - The best thing is that if they really screw up, their "career" will be dead in an instant.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Educate thyself.
Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.
You're making a HUGE assumption when you say that F, G, H, I, and J are all going to break with A on this issue. They have a prisoner's dilemma type choice where individually, it's a safer choice to stick with A, because if the bill loses then they don't get punished, and if the bill wins then no harm was done. Therefore, perfectly rational self-interest will lead to continued oppression, even though a collective decision to break with A leads to the optimal outcome.
And if you were to argue that F won't vote A because when G, H, I, and J win the vote then they'll also kick F to the curb (thus breaking the dilemma by providing the same negative consequences either way but divergent positive consequences), then you've really traded one tyranny for another.
I think the most likely scenario would be something like this:
USA: Bad NK! We are gonna invade! Booya!
China: If you do, we will demand you pay your debt to us.
USA: That would totally fsck our economy man!
China: So don't do it then.
USA: Lets get Iran! Booya!
Thinking back on history and all of the human interactions I've observed, it seems that true violence stems from a perceived imbalance of power. When one individual or group seems to hold an advantage and the motivation to employ violence...violence ensues. If my theory is correct world peace is not likely to come to fruition until every nation has effective nuclear strike capability.
Where and when did communism work?
Never met a Hudderite? There's plenty of small-scale communes that've worked just fine.
Of course, the GP is wrong in that no large scale deployment of communism has ever existed.
Japan occupied Korea for the first half of the 20th century and ran the entire country like a concentration camp. Koreans weren't allowed to speak their own language or acknowledge their own heritage. They didn't even keep their own names.
The occupation didn't end until the end of World War 2 and underscored the more well-known rape of Eastern China, commonly known as "the Rape of Nanjing."
There is a lot to be said about this, so here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule
Japan was once a violent empire. This ended roughly around the same time it had two nuclear bombs dropped on it. Strangely enough, this made Japan one of the most peaceful countries in the world.
Japan hides it's brutal history from it's children, unfortunately.
Sadly, Korea has very little left from the time before the occupation. Most historic places in Korea were built ten-to-twenty years ago.
I think your figures are wrong. When I made my military service in the artillery our guns could shoot about 21 km and they where of an older model. The newer model could shot further and this was standard 15 cm artillery.
As far as I know, battleships of WWII could fire to the horizon and could possible fire beyond it today with better aiming - according to Wikipedia an Iowa class battleship could fire it's 40cm guns at targets 39km away.
I wouldn't be suprised if NK has artillery that can reach at least 40 km which is close enough to hit Seoul if you add chemical or biological weapons.
Yep, the stuff is still front-loaded. Several years ago on Nightline, when Ted Koppel was still host, he asked the retired American general who had been in charge what would happen if worse came to worse and the balloon went up. The old warrior thought for a moment, and responded "We would see a period of high-intensity warfare not see since WWII, if then." I still think that that's the scariest thing I've ever heard on television... and it's a scenario which might yet play out. The DPRK couldn't sustain high-intesnity warfare for as long nowdays, but punching big holes in Seoul would be the least of it...
The USA place itself on first the conventional defense and now nuclear defense obligations so that our so-called allies can dump their products on the USA.
You'd have a point if there were any decent cars manufactured by U.S. companies; but for many car categories, this just isn't true. I shopped around for a car not very recently - a low-end but roomy subcompact - and not a single car from American manufacturers was appealing, or scored well on reviews. Not one. But plenty of options from Japanese car makers, and some nice stuff from Koreans as well.
I'm looking at another car purchase in a year - something along the lines of Mazda5 - and, again, I don't see any decent analogs offered by U.S. manufacturers. Meanwhile, Kia has that very nice Rondo...
In short, the problem is not with "dumping" - the problem is with American cars. Fix that, and you'll be able to compete on your merits, as it should be. That said, it seems that Obama is trying to do something there, and I hope it works out, and we'll see good and fuel-efficient cars from, say, GM, in a few years (I don't have any warm feelings for them, but more competition is always good for the consumer).
Damn right so. Nuclear weapons seem to be great way for countries to make sure other countries arent going to attack them and that is probably why other countries are so afraid of North Korea having nukes. I really doubt they will use them for anything other than having them around for defence, because if they do there will be many countries attacking them and nuking the whole place to shit right away.
Its also a nice note that only US has so far used nukes against other countries and then they attack other countries making their own ones. quite a hypocrisy, would I say.
We need BOTH Socialism and Capitalism (either implicitly or indirectly) to build and sustain a great nation.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga