Slashdot Mirror
North Korean Missile Raised To Firing Position, Says US Official
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from CNN: "North Korea has raised at least one missile into its upright firing position, feeding concerns that a launch is imminent, a U.S. official told CNN Thursday. This comes as the world continued to keep watch for a possible missile launch by the secretive government, and a day before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to arrive in the region. In the latest daily tough talk from the North, a government agency is quoted by the state-run media as saying that 'war can break out any moment.'"
Sounds like a perfect excuse for a preemptive strike
'nuff said.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
News for Nerds. Missiles and "Wargames"-like situations fit the bill for me.
UID nearly 3 million... you're probably mistaken. "News for nerds, stuff that matters". Take a look at the history of the site. It's been around for a long time and covered a lot of ground.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
I believe this would fall under the "stuff that matters" part of the slogan.
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally wo
shit or get off the pot.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It's "stuff that matters".
Slashdot is news for nerds. Nerds care about just about anything remotely tech or science related as well as any major news story like this even if not tech related.
Its actually not much different than a normal news site except for most of the "celebrity" gossip and reality TV crap is filtered out - unless it has some technology tie-in.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
"Bombs over Pyongyang" does have kind of a nice ring to it...
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Here's the paragraphs further down the page - "After the raising of the missile Wednesday, it was not clear to U.S. officials why the North Korean government did not proceed with the firing. The U.S. official cautioned that the raising of the missile could have been just a trial run to ensure the equipment works or an effort to "mess" with the United States and the allies that are watching for a launch at any time." This happened yesterday. If it was important there would have been at least 1 big explosion by now.
Huh? A few days ago? The Korean War was never resolved; they've just been in a temporary ceasefire since the fifties.
Five days ago North Korea was moving their missiles and they're only now getting them in firing position? How long does it take to ready a missile? Seems like the US had patriot missiles halfway across the world in South Korea in less time than it's taken the North thus far.
Gentlemen! Please...!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
China has been growing in economic and military influence, and seems to want to be taken seriously. If that is the case, this is their moment. They could put an end to this nonsense in a minute. They need to understand that it would be in their own national interest to smack this puppy on the snout, fast and sharp. If they just let it fester, and it leads to armed conflict, they will lose face.
There are just so many ways that this can go wrong...
Have the missile successfully shot down over NK territory before it even enters S. Korea.
Sure. First, you have to invent a boost-phase interception capability.
Come back to us in 30 years.
Isn't it awesome that we have entire news stories telling us we're on the precipice of war - without one single person quoted? CNN doesn't even bother to include a tag like "quoted on condition of anonymity" anymore - they just take their directions from the White House press office and fill in "official" wherever it would have made sense to have a real person substantiating a dubious claim.
Gentlemen! Please...!
You cant fight in here! This is the War Room!
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
What a bunch of seoulless, warmongering scum.
Just knowing that someone is watching my missile move into an upright position would be enough to piss me off.
I highly doubt that they want to shoot at the Russians.
I'm sure Putin would love to show a nice big fat show of strenght to prove Russia is still a super power. That would probably be pretty much the most suicidal move possible.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Or am I mistaken?
A North Korean missile launch would alter the world's political, economic, and military landscape beyond recognition. But I would expect it to be a very intense, very dangerous, environment for the nerd and the geek.
More likely Windows CE.
sig: sauer
And where do you think many computer components are made?
*cough*
That's where they're designed. They're made just over the border where the labour is really cheap. At least they were intil NK closed the business park to the south last week.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If Kim had a shotgun and behaved like this in L.A., LAPD would have plugged him about 40 times by now.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Actually they have, or had, an armistice since 1953. An armistice is actually a cessation of hostilities for the purpose of agreeing to a lasting peace. Cease fires, often confused with armistices, are usually the first steps in bringing around an armistice. The main difference between the two is that a cease fire does not have to include the intention of peace talks where as an armistice does. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
James Bond, nothin'. It's time for Psy to kick some ass. :)
sig: sauer
should distract the entire populace of NK thoroughly and destabilize the regime. Particularly, if we included enough Dove chocolates. Man, I love those things.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
So if this missile strikes, or is believed to strike the US or one of our allies before being intercepted, does this constitute an act of war? If North Korea indicates the original trajectory was not intended to strike the US or one of our allies, but an unfortunate flaw diverted the course, do we still retaliate?
Yes nuke the bastards. The south is in dire need of more parking space.
Oh sorry this is slashdot not the comments section on CNN...I get confused sometimes.
(same AC you responded to).
"Nation building"??? "Nation building"???????
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
If by that you mean "giving shittons of money to Haliburton and Blackwater and the like", then yah. Otherwise, no, not so much.
I must say that I much preferred Kim Jong-un when he was doing Gangnam Style.
In what experts are calling "the ultimate cry for attention", North Korea leader Kim Jung-Un blew himself up with his own nucleur weapons today. In an ironic twist, the missiles homed in on the largest Korean target available. Upon hearing this news Mrs. Un, who had been ordered to love Kim Jung with all of her heart, celebrated by feeding her people.
And probably release a shitload of Higgs Bosons in the process. Or something.
Even Russia's old gear is more modern than the vast majority of North Korea's gear. North Korea's best fighter is the MiG-29, of which they have 40, it's a downgraded export model at that. The Russians by comparison have more than 200 MiG-29 fighters, many of which have been or are being upgraded with modern hardware. In total the Russians have almost 700 fighters and interceptors, all of which are superior to anything the North Koreans have. On top of this they have close to 150 bombers (mostly Tu-22M bombers but a healthy complement of strategic bombers as well (Tu-95 and Tu-160)).
If North Korea did strike Russia I suspect the Russians would quickly establish air superiority and use their bomber fleet to flatten any North Korean attempts at advancing or defending. Not to mention that while Russia has no problem finding fuel for its aircraft, tanks and other vehicles the North Koreans have a lot of their much-feared artillery placed in the southern parts of the country, with Russian air superiority and barely any fuel I doubt they'd be able to execute any major troop movements.
On top of this are geographical considerations, the land border between North Korea and Russia is something like 20 km long and in order to move troops trough it you pretty much have to have air superiority, in my opinion it would be nearly impossible for North Korea to mount any kind of advance through the narrow corridor north to Vladivostok. In fact, I think it is likely that the Russians would be able to push the North Koreans back beyond the border pretty quickly once they establish air superiority, they can effectively hinder nearly all troop movements by the North Koreans and just use air power to minimize resistance since the North Koreans have nothing worth mentioning to counter the Russians with (unless we're counting their aging MiG-21, F-5, F-6 and F-7 fighters which make up 400+ of their 500 or so fighters, not to mention that a very large portion of their air force is grounded due to poor maintenance (for some plane types I believe it's more than 50% of the planes which are estimated to be completely useless, not that an F-5 with nothing but a cannon is very useful anyway these days)).
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
There's always the possibility that the missile crew, being under orders to be ready to launch, was just doing a routine systems checkout.
During the Cuban missile crisis, US experts thought that the USSR was "sending a message". The missile sites in Cuba were easy to spot because they were laid out exactly the same way as in the USSR. Decades later, on the 40th anniversary of the crisis, there was a get-together of some of the major players from all sides. Someone asked about the layout of the sites. The Russian officer who'd been responsible for the layout said "No, we just did it that way because that was what it said to do in the field manual." Everyone in the room with military experience nodded in agreement.
Kim Jong Un: No, you idiots, I said we need to have a missile ERECTION! ERECTION! We should vote on what to do with them!