"Hopefully they'll sell them to us, since the whacko lefties won't let us build our own to eliminate their 'global warming' bogeyman."
I think the 'whacko lefties' on the whole aren't that concerned, as it's not really a political issue when your ecosystem starts to go all hostile on you. I mean, you could try voting another way, but it really makes you sound...Golgafrinchan...about it.
As for building PWRs, you don't actually know why people oppose them, do you? Go on, admit it, this was a troll and you don't have anything other than a cheap political shot to make.
"Nonsense, of course. We know that humans have slightly increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but hard evidence linking that to temperature rises is minimal."
The main problem is that if the tipping point has been reached, then the first time you might get your 'hard evidence' is the entire population of Florida migrating north.
Still, it's fun to see people backpedalling from the 'global warming isn't caused by humans argument'. That was always fun.
"'Global Warming' is a multi-billion dollar a year industry around the world:"
Really? How? Where did you get that figure? Your ass?
"he explained that some of his friends talked to him about their concerns regarding their losses due to piracy."
Excuse me? 'His friends'?
So, you're saying that a US Senator backs the creation of new rules from the banter over a beer and hand of poker?
Explain to me again why America is supposed to be an example of a shining democracy? Or have you simply delivered yourselves into the hands of Plutocrats?
"his aid admitted that they had received 'a few calls' on the topic"
Easily deniable in the face of an unpopular opposition. I suspect that the second question they asked was 'what is your yearly income?'.
"When anti-abortion groups post this information on doctors who perform abortions, it is considered a threat. Why is this any different?"
It's out of the FBI's jurisdictional area by several thousand miles? Anti-abortionists don't appear to get followed around the world, and there have to less 'heavy-handed' ways of doing this. OTOH, it's par for the course and unlikely to win friends overseas. God bless America.
"Actually, I was under the impression that brake fade (assuming modern vehicles) has more to do with expansion of hoses and the like under heat stress than "gaseous buildup" between the brake pads and disc."
I'll admit to having never heard of that, mainly because the brake hoses are of _hydraulic_ quality which have to cope with fairly insane pressures. The gaseous buildup I referred to is the contact layer betwixt a rapidly spinning metal disc and the ablative asbestos and lead mix that vapourises under hard braking conditions.
"Modern brake pads don't outgas, as far as I'm aware."
I'd find it hard to believe that there's nothing on the boundary layer between the pad and disc...
"This is also why you'll see many autocross racers insisting that such things as cross-drlled rotors only serve to increase the likelihood of the rotor cracking"
True enough. Drilling tends to locally change the nature of the metal and provide slight hardening that means that constant expansion and contraction will produce fractures. A similar reasoning is behind the discs that have a hollow space 'in' the disc itself, because it's more liable to warp, especially as it wears.
"The holes or slots were supposed to provide an escape route for the hot gasses coming off the pads"
Form over function; that's the way they were sold. In terms of the physics involved you'd want a nice big disc in a tough, high latency material to dump the heat, but then you have to trade off against the weight.
"it doesn't matter that UK single sales are actually rising"
Falling, but this was on the cards for a long time, mainly due to the mindless rotation of singles in the LEAD UP to their release, the fairly shallow market for singles (ie you can't return unsold singles, resulting in lower bulk purchases from the major shifters) and the fairly silly pricing model that has albums at roughly 3 times the price of a song plus lots of remixes.
This is why it takes so few units to hit number one and results in novelty records hitting number one more often than not. It's also a downward trend that will continue despite the BPI's efforts to lash the customer base into obedience.
"I really don't like Pete Waterman."
You'd be hard pressed to find anyone that does; he's an ignorant prat who found himself in a great position to produce hits that involved heavy vocoding of pretty people; even the record label, "The Hit Factory" was indicative of the idiot's attitude to music and the artists. The partnership broke up acrimoniously and Waterman is the only one to continue prostituting his brief moment at the top of a pile of garbage.
"I can think of so many people who'd want to "hack" into what you see and do weird things (make you see a fire in places where there is not)."
William Gibson - Neuromancer.
In terms of neuro-linguistic programming, or the visual reprogramming mentioned in Snowcrash, the first time you'll see them will be in either politics or advertising (which are converging rapidly) and you can see the signs already. Which prompts people like myself to get _really_ cynical about the possible uses of this beyond *ahem* the 'cool' factor, which it actually isn't.
Humans lack the bandwidth to handle a lot of sensory input, and while you can be trained to handle lots of information processing, there is an upper limit. Not only that, but given items like the INDUCE act, it's becoming patently clear that society isn't keeping up with technology in terms of deciding what is and what is not.
There's one hell of schism hoving into view about the entire concept of 'consent'.
"10 years from now, we'll be questioning why we're moving from DVD to whater-next-format succeeds it."
Probably a variant of Blu-Ray, but you might be surprised. DVD is not a long-lasting format and is frighteningly sensitive to scratches, especially in terms of data; video tends to produce glitches, data is less forgiving.
The other thing to consider is the raw cost of producing games that fill DVDs. At the moment they're replacing a few CDs, but the next iteration won't come until the capacities get much higher.
"If you can't steer and/or stop your car with the power off, you need less car."
Did you mean with brakes, or by hand? If the latter, I'm going to be really polite to you.
"Using electric brakes with metallic pads means no brake fade, ever, up to the point where you warp your rotors. There's no brake fluid to take on water and boil, not necessarily in that order."
Fade is gaseous buildup from the pads ablating against the disc, which is why you do graduated braking on a non-fancy car, but personally I wouldn't trust a solenoid to do the force multiplying work of a caliper.
As for the brake fluid taking on water...if you have a non-tight hydraulic system you'll be screwed anyway, let alone getting to the point where you have water in it. Compare the relatively low tech and _reliable_ cylinder and caliper system with the voltages/currents required to produce braking forces and you'll probably notice that there's going to some power applied.
"unreliability of automotive hydraulic systems."
Probably _the_ most reliable portion of the average motor car, if maintained and kept in good repair and not driven with utter faith in the ability to tailgate other drivers at 80mph. Most accidents involving brakes are people locking the wheels at speed.
"Don't know about French cars, but all card sold in the US have Emergency Brakes that are mechanical brakes. You pull the handle and a cable activates the brakes."
They're called 'parking brakes' on the continent, because they tend to lock the back wheels solid if you pull them on in an emergency. Meaning we use them for parking rather than skating around in doughnuts on busy urban streets.
"Specifically, they condemmed mass distribution to complete strangers with minimal effort (i.e. Internet P2P)."
We should ban radios next. Then ears.
"Physically making analog recordings of concerts and physically dubbing/mailing or otherwise physically transporting analog copies (i.e. cassettes) to interested friends/ parties was specifically noted as being okay by the band.(probably still is)"
That's the fallback position AFTER it was pointed out that the vast majority of Metallica fans came to Metallica because of the 'underground railroad' in cassettes. That has never been adequately counted by the record companies who're a damn sight closer to the band's ears than the fans.
"possibility that they fell from grace due to that perception becoming larger than the reality."
I personally didn't care that much after the black album because they'd hit a high point. Later when they started to steam into copying it was widely reported that they were having a go at a young, disaffected fan base that generally doesn't have a lot of ready cash. I've since moved on from Metallica in general, and that generational popularity thing tends to bite established bands when they realise that they can't keep promoting forever, especially in the shifting sands of record promotion.
Of course I would be. A quick google refers to a non-flight tested system that has between a 3000km and 9000km flight radius (reported) according to it's size, but thrutch is one part of the equation...guidance systems are another. If you read down the page, you'll notice that the information is between 4-5 years old with the indicator that they've tested the engines on stands. Guess what was announced this year as well?
Intelligence sources are almost non-existant in North Korea due to a paranoid regime, but the Iranian Shahab vehicles are _the same_ overall design, mainly due to technology transfer and the sale of a TD-2 on the open market. There have been constant rumblings about North Korea becoming a Middle-Eastern supplier of long range ballistic missiles, but the market has shrunk by two nations in the past 12 months. They don't have many places to sell them.
Until you've seen the bird fly, it's about the same threat as the supernova bomb I have in my garage, and the constant repetitions of American targets is some fairly cunning propoganda.
With the current geopolitical changes around the Middle East, I completely expect Iran to want to come back to the table without sacrificing face, the capture of the British patrol boat crew being a way to allay fears that Iran still has internal security despite what happened to Iraq, a nation with which they were deadlocked for a good couple of decades. I can't see them investing in a long range BM without having something to put in it, and they have to be a tad jittery about emplaced launch vehicles after what happened to Iraq.
Let's face it, there are a number of nations on the planet that have the ability to sterilise other nations completely, but the will to destroy your nation, people and country to bloody the nose of a 'hated' enemy is absolutely non-existent outside of fiction. MAD will stop North Korea attacking the continental US under all circumstances except invasion, and that is a mirror of the events that led to the Cuban Missile crisis.
"The existence and anomalous nature of these craft has been known to anyone who has dared to think outside the box and recognize valid testimony (albeit unusual) for almost 60 years."
And those that disagree are PART OF THE COVERUP or otherwise ASLEEP to the reality that ALIENS are visiting EARTH RIGHT NOW and hammering off my CAPS LOCK KEY to make a point.
Go back over the valid testimony and wipe out anything that refers to 'aliens'. Then collect up the lists of anamolous objects and place them in context of the time they took place. Notice how reports get less the more used to orbit the human race becomes?
It's a big subject, filled full of the most tragically funny people to take a lecturn, but generally it's agreed that people saw strange stuff without assigning it to pesky aliens.
Stopping politicians calling them an 'axis of evil' might help, as it only seemed to provoke a clampdown in the steps they _were_ making to come into the fold of reasonable nations. Calling someone 'evil' is a purely subjective judgement anyway, as they're trying to do their own thing within an ideological structure that they think is right. You don't score points by being critical.
"Oh, did I mention that this delightful place either has nuclear weapons or could produce them within a year if they so chose?"
So you're told, but from what I've checked out they have have no delivery systems worth a damn; bear in mind that you pointed out that they're using 33% of the GDP akin to LA to even fund research into this, making the scary picture of the next big threat seem a little more contextual. If they did anything with a nuclear weapon we'd be looking at a nice glassy crater within a couple of hours of deployment.
What you fail to have pointed out is that the threat is the loaded gun behind the handouts, aid packages and the like. It's a trading chip and entry into the nuclear power club that they want. That the current regime is utterly corrupt and dumb is an indication that you just need to step back and let them implode. If they don't implode, then you have to watch your original assumptions.
"The current plan seems to boil down to saying "nice doggy" and hoping that something changes."
It's better than the alternatives. In context of the article, we just firewall them and cut their trunks...big deal. We have more than a million partially trained hackers in the Western world who have better infrastructure and equipment and a commerical aspect to keeping the internet running. It's a vast press release bit of FUD by a scared S. Korea. Incidentally, exactly the same message is coming out of a bunch of developing nations.
"Leaving things as they are is not really acceptable, given that they will only increase their capacity to do murder and mayhem in the world at large."
Give over. That's like saying that Iraq was a clear and present danger to Ohio.
"Invasion is pretty much out of the question, given the difficulty of protecting our allies in the region and the difficulty of actually winning."
And China.
"Engineering a collapse is out of the question for similar reasons"
And that the tame insurgent leader has a habit of turning around 20 years later and biting you on the ass.
"not to mention the nuclear weapons factor."
Which would be a massive PR blunder for any nation; use of 'WMD', to use the current buzzword, carries the heaviest penalty available in the world today...intense scrutiny and hi-tech weaponry guide by GPS. Even China would step aside in the face of something happening along those lines because of the idea of them.
"The current worldwide consensus seems to be "pretend that there really isn't a problem, and hope that I'm out of office by the time it reaches the crisis point.""
It's already in progress and has been for the past decade...it was only the vast PR fu**up I mentioned at the start of this that actually made them recoil. You don't go comparing regimes to other regimes without triggering comparisons, and if that regime is 'insane' it will act in an insane manner. THIS WAS OBVIOUS.
Saber-rattling at this point will provide defiance, but it's best to simply ignore N Korea before it does something because it's looking for a stage. South Korea is looking for reassurance from the west that it would be unwise to give because it escalates the problem.
Yes, the current opinion is to wait and see, but it's better to do that than _really_ mess things up.
Buy a winnebago. drive coast to coast and breath in the deep unfettered air of the land of the free.
Eventually you could consider getting a job with a large corporation and eventually you might find yourself working on a similar project. Rejoice in your litigation protection, citizen.
Actually the _people_ did, which is why Tony's approval in the toilet. Some people believed him when he said 'trust me', and it turned out to be a pack of lies. In fact, two members of his cabinet resigned over this, even while people were actually reading what came back from the UN, which was pretty unequivocal. As soon as America gets over it's innate distrust of the UN, you might find some more interesting things out. Such as the drop in the ocean the Iraqi infringements of security council mandates compared with the Isreali ones. Next stop Haifa? I don't think so.
"Did the Americans even try to listen? Of course not."
Have you even seen how much international news the average American sees? They're heavily biased towards an insular view of things because the next counties rennaissance fayre has more 'relevance' than something happening in Afghanistan, but this isn't such a terrible thing considering that it's a Democratic Republic that makes 'Democratic' look bad.
Vetoing the administration report that showed that climate change had a human component for a start.
"Kyoto is seriously flawed, China (one of the worlds most industrial nations) and India (very quickly growing) are exempt for emissions requirements, its a joke aimed at the west.."
No, it's based on particular emissions standards. China is currently using different methods of getting energy than burning dinosaurs, and so far nobody has really classified the bicycle and walking population of India, however numerous, as contributing to the greenhouse gasses.
But your right to stick your head up your ass and squeal 'no fair' while having enough food on your table is yours to have and to hold.
Slashdot Mirror
"Hopefully they'll sell them to us, since the whacko lefties won't let us build our own to eliminate their 'global warming' bogeyman."
I think the 'whacko lefties' on the whole aren't that concerned, as it's not really a political issue when your ecosystem starts to go all hostile on you. I mean, you could try voting another way, but it really makes you sound...Golgafrinchan...about it.
As for building PWRs, you don't actually know why people oppose them, do you? Go on, admit it, this was a troll and you don't have anything other than a cheap political shot to make.
"Nonsense, of course. We know that humans have slightly increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but hard evidence linking that to temperature rises is minimal."
The main problem is that if the tipping point has been reached, then the first time you might get your 'hard evidence' is the entire population of Florida migrating north.
Still, it's fun to see people backpedalling from the 'global warming isn't caused by humans argument'. That was always fun.
"'Global Warming' is a multi-billion dollar a year industry around the world:"
Really? How? Where did you get that figure? Your ass?
"he explained that some of his friends talked to him about their concerns regarding their losses due to piracy."
Excuse me? 'His friends'?
So, you're saying that a US Senator backs the creation of new rules from the banter over a beer and hand of poker?
Explain to me again why America is supposed to be an example of a shining democracy? Or have you simply delivered yourselves into the hands of Plutocrats?
"his aid admitted that they had received 'a few calls' on the topic"
Easily deniable in the face of an unpopular opposition. I suspect that the second question they asked was 'what is your yearly income?'.
"When anti-abortion groups post this information on doctors who perform abortions, it is considered a threat. Why is this any different?"
It's out of the FBI's jurisdictional area by several thousand miles? Anti-abortionists don't appear to get followed around the world, and there have to less 'heavy-handed' ways of doing this. OTOH, it's par for the course and unlikely to win friends overseas. God bless America.
"Actually, I was under the impression that brake fade (assuming modern vehicles) has more to do with expansion of hoses and the like under heat stress than "gaseous buildup" between the brake pads and disc."
I'll admit to having never heard of that, mainly because the brake hoses are of _hydraulic_ quality which have to cope with fairly insane pressures. The gaseous buildup I referred to is the contact layer betwixt a rapidly spinning metal disc and the ablative asbestos and lead mix that vapourises under hard braking conditions.
"Modern brake pads don't outgas, as far as I'm aware."
I'd find it hard to believe that there's nothing on the boundary layer between the pad and disc...
"This is also why you'll see many autocross racers insisting that such things as cross-drlled rotors only serve to increase the likelihood of the rotor cracking"
True enough. Drilling tends to locally change the nature of the metal and provide slight hardening that means that constant expansion and contraction will produce fractures. A similar reasoning is behind the discs that have a hollow space 'in' the disc itself, because it's more liable to warp, especially as it wears.
"The holes or slots were supposed to provide an escape route for the hot gasses coming off the pads"
Form over function; that's the way they were sold. In terms of the physics involved you'd want a nice big disc in a tough, high latency material to dump the heat, but then you have to trade off against the weight.
" Europe also. There known as "Dancing Stage." Exact same game, just different name."
And whenever you see them, they're forlornly alone and unloved. That's the thing that I was getting at.
"it doesn't matter that UK single sales are actually rising"
Falling, but this was on the cards for a long time, mainly due to the mindless rotation of singles in the LEAD UP to their release, the fairly shallow market for singles (ie you can't return unsold singles, resulting in lower bulk purchases from the major shifters) and the fairly silly pricing model that has albums at roughly 3 times the price of a song plus lots of remixes.
This is why it takes so few units to hit number one and results in novelty records hitting number one more often than not. It's also a downward trend that will continue despite the BPI's efforts to lash the customer base into obedience.
"I really don't like Pete Waterman."
You'd be hard pressed to find anyone that does; he's an ignorant prat who found himself in a great position to produce hits that involved heavy vocoding of pretty people; even the record label, "The Hit Factory" was indicative of the idiot's attitude to music and the artists. The partnership broke up acrimoniously and Waterman is the only one to continue prostituting his brief moment at the top of a pile of garbage.
"For the nitpickers who will inevitably respond to that generalization"
Not so much a nitpick as a question; how does quantum entanglement fit into this? Can information be carried in this fashion?
"I can think of so many people who'd want to "hack" into what you see and do weird things (make you see a fire in places where there is not)."
William Gibson - Neuromancer.
In terms of neuro-linguistic programming, or the visual reprogramming mentioned in Snowcrash, the first time you'll see them will be in either politics or advertising (which are converging rapidly) and you can see the signs already. Which prompts people like myself to get _really_ cynical about the possible uses of this beyond *ahem* the 'cool' factor, which it actually isn't.
Humans lack the bandwidth to handle a lot of sensory input, and while you can be trained to handle lots of information processing, there is an upper limit. Not only that, but given items like the INDUCE act, it's becoming patently clear that society isn't keeping up with technology in terms of deciding what is and what is not.
There's one hell of schism hoving into view about the entire concept of 'consent'.
"Dance Dance Revolution."
Only in America and Japan.
"The notebook I bought a fortnight ago already stepped down Euro 199 heading rapidly towards the crap heap."
And the crap heap thanks you for your quick turnover of modern technology. I haven't paid for any of my laptops.
"10 years from now, we'll be questioning why we're moving from DVD to whater-next-format succeeds it."
Probably a variant of Blu-Ray, but you might be surprised. DVD is not a long-lasting format and is frighteningly sensitive to scratches, especially in terms of data; video tends to produce glitches, data is less forgiving.
The other thing to consider is the raw cost of producing games that fill DVDs. At the moment they're replacing a few CDs, but the next iteration won't come until the capacities get much higher.
"Does it cost too much more to put them on DVD instead of CD?"
No, but the track density will mean that you have to replace the medium more quickly, and the market isn't judged to have matured completely yet.
"If you can't steer and/or stop your car with the power off, you need less car."
Did you mean with brakes, or by hand? If the latter, I'm going to be really polite to you.
"Using electric brakes with metallic pads means no brake fade, ever, up to the point where you warp your rotors. There's no brake fluid to take on water and boil, not necessarily in that order."
Fade is gaseous buildup from the pads ablating against the disc, which is why you do graduated braking on a non-fancy car, but personally I wouldn't trust a solenoid to do the force multiplying work of a caliper.
As for the brake fluid taking on water...if you have a non-tight hydraulic system you'll be screwed anyway, let alone getting to the point where you have water in it. Compare the relatively low tech and _reliable_ cylinder and caliper system with the voltages/currents required to produce braking forces and you'll probably notice that there's going to some power applied.
"unreliability of automotive hydraulic systems."
Probably _the_ most reliable portion of the average motor car, if maintained and kept in good repair and not driven with utter faith in the ability to tailgate other drivers at 80mph. Most accidents involving brakes are people locking the wheels at speed.
"Don't know about French cars, but all card sold in the US have Emergency Brakes that are mechanical brakes. You pull the handle and a cable activates the brakes."
They're called 'parking brakes' on the continent, because they tend to lock the back wheels solid if you pull them on in an emergency. Meaning we use them for parking rather than skating around in doughnuts on busy urban streets.
"Specifically, they condemmed mass distribution to complete strangers with minimal effort (i.e. Internet P2P)."
/mailing or otherwise physically transporting analog copies (i.e. cassettes) to interested friends/ parties was specifically noted as being okay by the band.(probably still is)"
We should ban radios next. Then ears.
"Physically making analog recordings of concerts and physically dubbing
That's the fallback position AFTER it was pointed out that the vast majority of Metallica fans came to Metallica because of the 'underground railroad' in cassettes. That has never been adequately counted by the record companies who're a damn sight closer to the band's ears than the fans.
"possibility that they fell from grace due to that perception becoming larger than the reality."
I personally didn't care that much after the black album because they'd hit a high point. Later when they started to steam into copying it was widely reported that they were having a go at a young, disaffected fan base that generally doesn't have a lot of ready cash. I've since moved on from Metallica in general, and that generational popularity thing tends to bite established bands when they realise that they can't keep promoting forever, especially in the shifting sands of record promotion.
"You're mistaken about the delivery systems."
Of course I would be. A quick google refers to a non-flight tested system that has between a 3000km and 9000km flight radius (reported) according to it's size, but thrutch is one part of the equation...guidance systems are another. If you read down the page, you'll notice that the information is between 4-5 years old with the indicator that they've tested the engines on stands. Guess what was announced this year as well?
Intelligence sources are almost non-existant in North Korea due to a paranoid regime, but the Iranian Shahab vehicles are _the same_ overall design, mainly due to technology transfer and the sale of a TD-2 on the open market. There have been constant rumblings about North Korea becoming a Middle-Eastern supplier of long range ballistic missiles, but the market has shrunk by two nations in the past 12 months. They don't have many places to sell them.
Until you've seen the bird fly, it's about the same threat as the supernova bomb I have in my garage, and the constant repetitions of American targets is some fairly cunning propoganda.
With the current geopolitical changes around the Middle East, I completely expect Iran to want to come back to the table without sacrificing face, the capture of the British patrol boat crew being a way to allay fears that Iran still has internal security despite what happened to Iraq, a nation with which they were deadlocked for a good couple of decades. I can't see them investing in a long range BM without having something to put in it, and they have to be a tad jittery about emplaced launch vehicles after what happened to Iraq.
Let's face it, there are a number of nations on the planet that have the ability to sterilise other nations completely, but the will to destroy your nation, people and country to bloody the nose of a 'hated' enemy is absolutely non-existent outside of fiction. MAD will stop North Korea attacking the continental US under all circumstances except invasion, and that is a mirror of the events that led to the Cuban Missile crisis.
"They simply aren't reported in the mainstream media anymore."
Who said they ever were, or that I was referring to the mainstream media?
"The existence and anomalous nature of these craft has been known to anyone who has dared to think outside the box and recognize valid testimony (albeit unusual) for almost 60 years."
And those that disagree are PART OF THE COVERUP or otherwise ASLEEP to the reality that ALIENS are visiting EARTH RIGHT NOW and hammering off my CAPS LOCK KEY to make a point.
Go back over the valid testimony and wipe out anything that refers to 'aliens'. Then collect up the lists of anamolous objects and place them in context of the time they took place. Notice how reports get less the more used to orbit the human race becomes?
It's a big subject, filled full of the most tragically funny people to take a lecturn, but generally it's agreed that people saw strange stuff without assigning it to pesky aliens.
"Do you have any suggestions?"
Stopping politicians calling them an 'axis of evil' might help, as it only seemed to provoke a clampdown in the steps they _were_ making to come into the fold of reasonable nations. Calling someone 'evil' is a purely subjective judgement anyway, as they're trying to do their own thing within an ideological structure that they think is right. You don't score points by being critical.
"Oh, did I mention that this delightful place either has nuclear weapons or could produce them within a year if they so chose?"
So you're told, but from what I've checked out they have have no delivery systems worth a damn; bear in mind that you pointed out that they're using 33% of the GDP akin to LA to even fund research into this, making the scary picture of the next big threat seem a little more contextual. If they did anything with a nuclear weapon we'd be looking at a nice glassy crater within a couple of hours of deployment.
What you fail to have pointed out is that the threat is the loaded gun behind the handouts, aid packages and the like. It's a trading chip and entry into the nuclear power club that they want. That the current regime is utterly corrupt and dumb is an indication that you just need to step back and let them implode. If they don't implode, then you have to watch your original assumptions.
"The current plan seems to boil down to saying "nice doggy" and hoping that something changes."
It's better than the alternatives. In context of the article, we just firewall them and cut their trunks...big deal. We have more than a million partially trained hackers in the Western world who have better infrastructure and equipment and a commerical aspect to keeping the internet running. It's a vast press release bit of FUD by a scared S. Korea. Incidentally, exactly the same message is coming out of a bunch of developing nations.
"Leaving things as they are is not really acceptable, given that they will only increase their capacity to do murder and mayhem in the world at large."
Give over. That's like saying that Iraq was a clear and present danger to Ohio.
"Invasion is pretty much out of the question, given the difficulty of protecting our allies in the region and the difficulty of actually winning."
And China.
"Engineering a collapse is out of the question for similar reasons"
And that the tame insurgent leader has a habit of turning around 20 years later and biting you on the ass.
"not to mention the nuclear weapons factor."
Which would be a massive PR blunder for any nation; use of 'WMD', to use the current buzzword, carries the heaviest penalty available in the world today...intense scrutiny and hi-tech weaponry guide by GPS. Even China would step aside in the face of something happening along those lines because of the idea of them.
"The current worldwide consensus seems to be "pretend that there really isn't a problem, and hope that I'm out of office by the time it reaches the crisis point.""
It's already in progress and has been for the past decade...it was only the vast PR fu**up I mentioned at the start of this that actually made them recoil. You don't go comparing regimes to other regimes without triggering comparisons, and if that regime is 'insane' it will act in an insane manner. THIS WAS OBVIOUS.
Saber-rattling at this point will provide defiance, but it's best to simply ignore N Korea before it does something because it's looking for a stage. South Korea is looking for reassurance from the west that it would be unwise to give because it escalates the problem.
Yes, the current opinion is to wait and see, but it's better to do that than _really_ mess things up.
"Do they?"
Yes.
"Hell, how did Metallica ever get their fanbase but through fans passing around tapes?"
And lost it as quickly for condemning the same.
"What should I do?"
Buy a winnebago. drive coast to coast and breath in the deep unfettered air of the land of the free.
Eventually you could consider getting a job with a large corporation and eventually you might find yourself working on a similar project. Rejoice in your litigation protection, citizen.
"The UN, and everybody else (save Britain)"
Actually the _people_ did, which is why Tony's approval in the toilet. Some people believed him when he said 'trust me', and it turned out to be a pack of lies. In fact, two members of his cabinet resigned over this, even while people were actually reading what came back from the UN, which was pretty unequivocal. As soon as America gets over it's innate distrust of the UN, you might find some more interesting things out. Such as the drop in the ocean the Iraqi infringements of security council mandates compared with the Isreali ones. Next stop Haifa? I don't think so.
"Did the Americans even try to listen? Of course not."
Have you even seen how much international news the average American sees? They're heavily biased towards an insular view of things because the next counties rennaissance fayre has more 'relevance' than something happening in Afghanistan, but this isn't such a terrible thing considering that it's a Democratic Republic that makes 'Democratic' look bad.
"Voted for Kyoto, so how is this bushes fault?"
Vetoing the administration report that showed that climate change had a human component for a start.
"Kyoto is seriously flawed, China (one of the worlds most industrial nations) and India (very quickly growing) are exempt for emissions requirements, its a joke aimed at the west.."
No, it's based on particular emissions standards. China is currently using different methods of getting energy than burning dinosaurs, and so far nobody has really classified the bicycle and walking population of India, however numerous, as contributing to the greenhouse gasses.
But your right to stick your head up your ass and squeal 'no fair' while having enough food on your table is yours to have and to hold.
Dumbass.