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N. Korea Launches Ballistic Missile
The BBC reports that North Korea's military today launched a ballistic missile from that country's east coast; the missile fell into the water after a flight of about 500 miles.
Reuters adds some more details, and names a different launching point. From their report: South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the missile was likely a medium-range Rodong-missile. ... The missile was launched from an area near the west coast north of the capital, Pyongyang, flying across the [peninsula] and into the sea off the east coast early Friday morning, the South's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. CNN adds a sobering graphic indicating the projected range of North Korea's missile arsenal.
The missile was launched from an area near the west coast north of the capital, Pyongyang, flying across the peninsular and into the sea off the east coast early Friday morning.
It would be funny if we later found out that wasn't the intended flight plan.
#DeleteChrome
800km is a pretty far cry from the 9000km range on the graphic. And scaling up isn't all that easy to do, much less include a payload of significant mass.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Still, better to shoot down the missile in flight. How did it become an Accepted Truth of the left that missile defense was a bad thing? Because Reagan first proposed it? I'll take a system with a 50% chance of working (as does any cop wearing a bullet-"proof" vest). Hell, I'll take a system with a 20% chance of working over nothing, if it can be improved over time.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/...
Hell, I'll take a system with a 20% chance of working over nothing, if it can be improved over time.
From the article:
Despite years of tinkering and vows to fix technical shortcomings, the system's performance has gotten worse, not better, since testing began in 1999. Of the eight tests held since GMD became operational in 2004, five have been failures.
So the difference is... people on the right want to piss away large amounts of money on useless things to help them from being scared of their own shadow, while people on the left want something that actually works. Must be hell going through life as a coward.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Theater Missile Defense
http://www.britannica.com/topi...
Your thing of the day.
Remember THAAD is your friend
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/...
If you would like bonus points, remember all the people who were taking a crap on president Reagan because they said this was pointless.
> Given that this is a missile capable of hitting nearly anywhere in about 50% of the world,
It says 500 miles for this launch, and it's believed they can go a bit further, maybe 800 miles.
Last I checked, the earth is roughly about 24,000 miles around. Ballistic missiles, unlike cruise missiles, also can't hit just anywhere within their max range. If max range is 800 miles, minimum might be 400 miles.
Straight defense spending is about the same as social security being the program WITH A DEDICATED TAX THAT FUNDS IT PAID FOR BY WORKERS. Medicare also has THAT DEDICATED TAX SYSTEM. That defense spending is just what's in the defense budget, and doesn't include veterans, the nuclear arsenal, and interest on the debt made up of past military/war expenditures. All told, our "defense" spending purely on military oriented items is ~1 trillion a year.
BUT, here's the difference. social security are DEDICATED taxes. They are paid for by a tax that is collected ONLY because SS and Medicare exist. And i'll be honest, i think providing 40 million elderly a fixed income WHICH THEY PAID FOR WITH A DEDICATED TAX, and 65 million elderly and disabled medical services WHICH THEY PAID FOR WITH A DEDICATED TAX, to be a hell of a lot better use of money than giving billions to companies that produce weapons systems THAT DO NOT WORK.
I do think "idiot" is a good term for anyone who would rather piss away money on something THAT DOES NOT WORK rather than helping tens of millions of people with something that does, especially when THEY PAID FOR IT WITH A DEDICATED TAX.
So we're again back to, it takes a special kind of coward to waste money on FAILED military programs just to keep them from being scared of their shadow.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I've seen claims between 30% and 95% effectiveness for the US missile defense network. Even given a cost of 39 billion dollars and a 30% effectiveness ratio, it is still cheaper to have the defense network than to not have it.
Patriot, Arrow. Probably some others whose names are classified.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
They should add a sobering graphic of North Korea's half-life should they ever launch an armed missile at anyone.
i think providing 40 million elderly a fixed income WHICH THEY PAID FOR WITH A DEDICATED TAX
You might want to consider learning about transfer entitlement taxes and spending before you go on another of your phony, pedantic, condescending lectures aimed at other people whose priorities are different than yours.
Nobody paid for the Social Security money they later collects. Other people do. When you're working and being taxed for SS, that money is being transferred that year to recipients of that program's entitlements. As defined by congress for that year. It's not going "into your account" or anything even vaguely like that. When you retire, and start filing to collect that program's entitlements for yourself, it's going to be money that's being taxed against the income of other people who will then be working and paying to give you that money. That's why the language on those Social Security statements you see explicitly say that benefits described are only estimates, and that there is no guarantee that you will receive any benefits. Because whether you get it, and how much, is a recurring matter for the legislature, not a function of you having set money aside through that program.
Of course you probably know this, but are using the misleading language you use in order to distract from the real situation while hoping to score rhetorical points for the occasional viewer here who doesn't know how entitlement programs work.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Pal, i was agreeing with you. Ok too think we should put our heads in the sand and sit on our hands while ignoring potential threats in the world. Chamberlain secured peace for parts of Europe doing the same along with a little talking to threats of the time so why can't we? I don't know why you are calling me a coward. I am in agreement. If we ignore them, they will ignore us. Those exceptions in history are just outliers.
The West wont touch NK because of China, China doesn't want to deal with NK because it doesn't want to deal with millions of desperate migrants out of NK, nor does it want a likely Western oriented nation (United Korea) directly on it's doorstep.
The calculus will change if and when North Korea becomes a bigger problem to have on your doorstep than a Western friendly nation would and the cost of refugees ends up being lower than the cost of a madman. China doesn't want to have to occupy North Korea because it's already got enough restive regions on it's plate to deal with such as Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang province etc. without having to add yet another one. Contrary to China's big strong image it's a fragile divided nation only one arab-spring type event away from seeing a pandemic of breakaway states. It doesn't need another one of those on it's plate if it can help it.
Kim exists as he does because he's convenient to the Chinese now - having a buffer nation to retain extremely poor North Koreans so that you don't have to deal with them yourself, and to separate you physically from a Western facing nation like South Korea is extremely convenient for China. As soon as he becomes much more inconvenient he and his state will cease to exist as they do now - if Kim keeps people poor the number of people trying to escape to China will only increase and so China will suffer the refugee influx regardless. If he keeps acting in a manner that forces a greater Western military buildup in the seas around the area then the relevance of that buffer zone between them and the West will start to erode also.
Kim can push, but only so far, and if he crosses a line he'll no longer be useful.
Only if they are destroyed pre-emptively. Massive battery shelling with explosive charges against high-density targets would reduce the city to rubble within half hour. Even if a counter strike took them out within 10 minutes, the mount Seoul which would be destroyed would make it unlivable. High-density city are very interdependent. Think about how much damage destruction of two sky scrapers did in NYC. It caused massive outages of civilian services in the surrounding areas (electric, internet, etc.) for months after. Now think about a city of the same size which sees 1/3 of its buildings destroyed and most roads damaged. Artillery is easily suppressed in a battlefield because its rate of hitting sparsely-spaced targets is low. But if it's hitting high-density targets like a city, each shot would do massive damage without even aiming. It's an equivalent of carpet-bombing with the only exception that there is no need to fly back to reload. The shells are sitting next to the artillery itself. The proximity of Seoul to the border is a huuuge problem. Don't underestimate it.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.