Some guy likes to smoke a joint on Friday night, for the next month he'll test positive for marijuana, even though he's never never been high at work
Most of the studies I've read suggest that the detection range is usually less than a month for the occasional smoker, though as with anything biological it can vary tremendously depending on your metabolism/diet/routine and other factors. It can be detected for a longer period of time in daily smokers though.
Knowing full well that they've been bullshitted by the government about pot, they figure that Nanny Government has been lying about crack, too. So they switch from pot to crack and wind up fired anyway, because they've become addicted and are smoking the stuff daily.
I don't have much sympathy for anyone who is that stupid. Unbiased information is out there -- there's no excuse in the information age for not finding it. Erowid is a great resource and starting point.
This could go a long way towards treating other drugs like alcohol for driving purposes. One of the major roadblocks in legalization was no field test for driving while impaired.
The sad thing is that the way alcohol is treated makes no sense. Statistics show that the overwhelming majority of accidents caused by drinking are caused by people with BACs of 0.15 or higher. Instead of paroling the roadways looking for these drivers (who are usually swerving all over the road -- how many times have you seen this with no police anywhere to be seen?) the police tend to sit outside bars and pull everybody over, looking for those who blow a hair over 0.08. These people are then arrested regardless of whether or not they show signs of actual impairment.
Then there's the loss of our civil liberties that go along with the war on drunk driving. Random police roadblocks, "implied consent" laws and the 21 drinking age all come to mind. The fact that my 19 year old brother can join the army but can't legally buy a beer is offensive the notion of free choice and liberty. I find the fact that I have to drive through a roadblock on my way home at night just because my house happens to be near a bar to be particularly insulting. We are treated as though we are guilty until proven innocent and that is not how things are supposed to work in the United States.
You also gotta love the interest groups that have sprung up around the issue. MADD has morphed over the years from an organization with a laudable enough goal (reduce drunk driving deaths) into a neo-prohibitionist organization that is waging a war on all drinking. If they had their way, booze would be taxed at a higher rate than tobbaco and every car sold in the US would have an ignition interlock system. The Founder of the organization left it sometime ago in disgust at what it has become.
I didn't say I wanted to risk anything. If you've read my posts in this story you'd see that I'm trying to point out the costs of a war with NK. Costs that the armchair/. generals are pretending don't exist. All I intended to say was that if war breaks in spite of those costs that the DMZ artillery will have a rather short and exciting life. You think that artillery isn't one of the first targets for ROK and US air power? You say they've had 50 years to fortify it -- I say that the ROK and US has had 50 years to plan it's destruction.
And it only takes one canister of chemical to air burst of nerve gas to take out tens of thousands of people.
If that happened then Pyongyang would disappear in a blinding flash. It has long been US policy to regard chemical weapons as a weapon of mass destruction and to respond accordingly. You think we'd let them gas Seoul and not respond?
Of course it's all bluster in the end. The goal of the regime in North Korea is to survive. Going to war with the ROK and/or United States would see the downfall of the regime. The biggest concern with North Korea is that they will sell their weapons of mass destruction to stateless actors that aren't going be nearly as restrained in how they employ them.
You forgot about the Navy in your posts, and only included the Air Force. The Navy has a much better logistical train than the AF does because its designed for that. You park a bunch of carriers off of the coast of NK and bomb away. You rotate carriers in and out continuously as needed to keep up a constant number of flights
I'm afraid you've missed the point. The point was that we wouldn't be able to destroy them with air power alone before the Army had to get involved. Once the Army gets involved our casualty count goes up, hence we can't talk about destroying North Korea as though it's a zero sum game. It comes with costs that most of the armchair generals here are trying to pretend don't exist.
If we have to we can reactivate several older carriers and accelerate construction of new ones. We could even theoretically bring in a battleship out of mothballs (again), for close in support.
Once again you are ignoring the logistical consideration. You think we have trained crews collecting a paycheck while they wait at Norfolk for a phone call to go and man those mothballed ships? You think the ships themselves are ready to go as soon as Obama picks up the phone? No, you need to train the guys who man them and refurbish/repair them before they are ready for deployment. It's a process that would take months to years depending on how many you want to reactivate and what kind of shape they are in.
Barring the intervention of another global power (China and/or Russia) the war would be over long before any mothballed ships joined the fleet or new ones came off the slipways. I'm not saying we wouldn't win the war -- I'm just saying that the cost of destroying North Korea is higher than we want to pay. We'd fight the war if we had no other choice and we'd prevail -- but no sane individual in Washington, Seoul or Tokyo wants to see that happen.
Kim Jong Il could be a cockroach from Outer Space with access to advanced technology and Team America might fail to stop him because of a love triangle?
It's not redirection. You claimed that liberalism = Democrats = spend spend spend. But Bush Jr, Bush Sr and Reagan were big spenders.
See, you just can't help but beat that dead horse, can you? Did I claim that the Republicans were any better? Did I even claim to be a Republican or to sympathize with them on any particular issue? Why are you so bound and determined to change the topic of conversation to the party that isn't in power right now? Does it bother you when someone points out that the Democrats picking right up where GWB left off and driving our financial bus over the cliff?
The most fiscally conservative president of the last few decades was Clinton
That only happened because he had a GOP Congress to contend with. I think I'd like Obama a lot more if the GOP had control of Congress. Divided Government seems to be the only thing that keeps spending in Washington under control.
Arguably, Obama has had little choice but to continue spending to get out of the recession.
Bullshit. The vast majority of Obama's spending is not stimulative in any sense of the word. The "stimulus plan" was a bill loaded up with every bit of pork that the Democrats have been saving up over the years. With few exceptions (cash for clunkers being the one everybody is talking about today) most of his spending has zero to do with the economic recovery that is now under way. Hell most of the money hasn't even been spent yet. And now they are making rumblings about needing a second "stimulus"! Gotta love it.
Obama could easily turn out to be a fiscal conservative, by cutting spending and raising taxes when the recession is over.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Thanks for the laugh! Obama has turned his entire domestic agenda over to Nancy Pelosi. The only way Obama is going to become a fiscal conservative is if the GOP somehow manages to retake one or both houses of Congress in 2010. That isn't likely to happen unless the Democrats really screw up between now and then.
In short, your anger at the Democrats for being big spenders is not based on facts, since the GOP is way worse in that respect.
Again, more redirection. Why do you insist on making a comparison with the party that isn't in power right now? Are you implying that I shouldn't be upset at the Democrats because the Republicans suck as well? I'm upset at the party that's currently running the country into the ground -- if the GOP sweeps back into power and starts driving us over the cliff then you'll see me condemning them as well. Condemning them right now doesn't seem to serve much purpose, other than to excuse the Democrats for their stupidity.
Your anger at liberals is even more of a mystery, since your world-view seems to be limited to the US.
Imagine that -- limiting my "world-view" to America during a discussion about American politics. Go figure!
Liberals exist all over the world and some are extremely fiscally conservative, while many conservatives want to spend like crazy.
When those people are running for a seat in the US Congress then I'll care about the political platform they stand for. Until then it's just more redirection by someone who is unwilling to have a candid discussion about the US Democratic Party and American liberalism.
Break out of the stereotypes.
What stereotypes? We've passed a nearly trillion dollar "stimulus" that was anything but, we are going to fund health care "reform" on the backs of the rich instead of the shared sacrifice that Obama talked about during the campaign, we've passed a cap and trade system that gave away the majority of the permits to political/industrial interests and we've twisted the bankruptcy code to reward a political base (the UAW) that should have been behind the boldhold
Each piece (which, BTW NK has had over 50 years to dig in and fortify) only needs to get off a handful of shots to level Seoul (population 10M) and cause appalling civilian casualties when they have 10,000 of them
They don't have 10,000 pieces of long range artillery. According to this they only have about 10k-11k total pieces of artillery.
And that's not counting the nukes, which don't need a fancy delivery system since Seoul is only about 40 km from the border.
They still need some sort of delivery system, unless you think they can slingshot their Fat Man sized bombs 40 kilometers. Besides, nukes are a moot point. If they use one they lose the war and the regime doesn't survive. I'd be more worried about them using one when it became apparent that defeat was inevitable and even at that I'd be worried about them using it in the tactical sense (put one somewhere in the path of an advancing American/ROK formation and wait -- no delivery system needed) than trying to get one into Seoul.
And that strategy protects the civilian population of Seoul how?
Who said they were going to make it all the way to Seoul? Did you pay any attention at all to what I said? They are easier to destroy when they are out in the open conducting offensive operations. They set themselves up to be cut off and make their supply lines vulnerable to American/ROK air power.
NK doctrine [globalsecurity.org] (warning: pdf) is for a quick and decisive victory with overwhelming force concentrated in small areas
Overwhelming force concentrations play right into our advantages. Go take a look at military history ranging from WW2 to the Persian Gulf and tell me how well massed force concentrations manage against American air power.
backed by special ops in the enemy rear
Their special ops units would be a PITA but are not enough in of themselves to be decisive. I would use them against American/ROK airbases if I was the North Koreans but even that is only going to delay the inevitable -- and special ops won't be much use against aircraft carriers or our bases in Japan.
If you are somebody that does have the experience and can do the job, why not get certified (hopefully with your current employer paying for it)? It's a resume builder that will get you in the front door and then you can let your real experience do the rest.
Because the time it would take me to do the certification is better spent networking. Every job that I've ever gotten I got through networking. I either knew the person who was doing the hiring or knew somebody who worked for the company with the open position. That's how I get my foot in the door. Do you really think your certification is going to get you the job when you are competing against someone who has had drinks with the HR manager and whom met the IT director years ago at a community/charity function or trade show?
I tend to think that networking is a more valuable use of my time than studying for the latest certification. Besides, I'd rather give my money to the local bar to buy a round of drinks than give it to Microsoft to pay for a MCSE;)
I agree with most of the above, but massed "human wave" attacks against even moderately developed economies are obsolete. They've never been a great idea in the past century, but now they are downright suicidal.
Where did I say anything about human wave attacks? All I said was that eventually infantry engagements would break out and that in those types of engagements it's impossible to avoid a comparatively large number of American casualties. It just isn't possible to destroy the entire North Korean army with air and armor.
Cluster munitions are designed for exactly this scenario
The problem with air power is that it's not always available and from a logistical standpoint it's hugely expensive. Even the brief (compared to what a Korean War II would be) Iraq War drained our arsenal of bombs and spare parts to such an extent that the Pentagon had to undertake a crash program to replenish them. War fighting is primarily about logistics, not tactics as is commonly believed. It's doubtful that we have the logistical train to keep the Air Force stocked with parts and bombs long enough to destroy the North Korean Army with air power alone.
That means that the Army will have to get involved and that means that we will take heavy (for us) casualties. The NK'ers would get the worst of it of course but I don't think many American politicians want to see another conflict in which thousands of Americans come home in body bags. Granted, we've seen that in Iraq, but that was over the course of years -- not weeks as would be the case with a second Korean War.
But if NK forces decided to storm the DMZ, probably not even 10% would make it through alive
The plan isn't to fight them at the DMZ. The plan is to counter-attack into North Korea proper to cut them off and threaten Pyongyang. Fighting a static engagement at the DMZ would play to their strengths, not ours.
The USSR did far more than the US in defeating the German war machine but I have never heard a Russian use that argument.
And if it wasn't for lend-lease the USSR would have been defeated and conquered in 1941. We provided them with everything from war-material to keep the Red Army running to civilian goods that enabled them to convert their entire economy to wartime production. You think the USSR would have survived without the Western Allies? Not really likely.
Mind you, without the USSR the US and UK would have lost fair more blood and treasure than we did in order to defeat Germany. We were able to fight the war while suffering a minimal (compared to the other combatants) loss of life. In that respect we owe a debt of honor to the Russians -- just don't pretend that we didn't contribute on the Eastern Front and they didn't contribute on the Western. No lend-lease == starving Soviet population and immobile Red Army. No Red Army == millions of American and British KIAs.
Last war Sweden was involved in was 200 years ago. They were neutral in both world wars.
If by neutral you mean "allowed Nazi troops to use their railway network to invade the Soviet Union", then yeah, they were "neutral". I have more respect for the Finns then I do for the Swedes -- and the Finns fought on the side of the Axis! At least they were doing what they had to do to defend their country from Stalin. The Swedes were spineless cowards that didn't even have the backbone to enforce their own neutrality and went with whatever direction the wind was blowing.
One could equally well argue that if it wasnt for the UK and the Commonwealth fighting Japan you guys would be speaking Japanese.
Pffft, says who? Japan didn't even have the logistical means to occupy Hawaii. You think they had the wherewithal to invade and conquer mainland USA? Give me a fucking break.
what on earth did conquering and then setting up a puppet regime in Iraq have to do with "peace"?
You mean the same "puppet" regime that has asked us to leave and is busy signing oil deals with China? That's an interesting definition of "puppet" you have.
Whose peace? Who was Iraq threatening when it was conquered, how, and with what?
How about the 2/3rds of it's own population that wasn't Sunni Arab? Or shouldn't we care about them because they are brown?
Is it better to live in a violent primitive Islamic tribal proconsulate than a stable advanced secular dictatorship?
I guess that depends on if you are a member of Saddam's tribe or happen to be unlucky enough to be a Shia or Kurd. The women who were kidnapped off the street to be raped probably weren't big fans of the "stable advanced secular dictatorship" either.
In the real world, it can be evil vs evil.
If you think the United States represents evil then you need to crack open a history book and/or buy a plane ticket to Burma/North Korea/etc.
The use of the bomb in World War II was extremely regrettable
You wouldn't think that if you were a GI slated for Operation Downfall or an Allied POW that was getting closer to death from starvation each day that he remained in captivity....
But I don't think Truman or anyone else really knew what those weapons meant for the future of humanity
They knew. Read Oppenheimer's writings sometime. Every single person at the Trinity site realized that the world would never be the same again.
Say what you will about the US, but the US did not fire the first guns of either of the two World Wars.
Be careful, eventually some clueless jackass who only read the parts of history that conform to his world view will come along and say that we made the Japanese do it (Pearl Harbor) when we cut off their oil. Amazing how they tend to forget that we did that in response to their aggressive actions in China.....
Alternatively, for a very small investment, your enemies can make it impossible to detect all their nukes [englishrussia.com].
I guess you've never heard of radar and infrared? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that an inflatable rubber "missile" doesn't have the same IR signature and radar cross section that a real missile does.
You may be hubristic enough to risk a first strike against a nuclear power,
We wouldn't have to contemplate a first strike if they were behaving according to the norms of civilized world. Civilized nations do not threaten to unleash a nuclear holocaust on a weekly basis. Civilized nations do not send raiding parties into neighboring countries that attempt to assassinate the leaders thereof. Civilized nations do not board and capture ships in international waters.
I can think of no good ways that they are a direct threat but the fact they would trash the northern half of South Korea in the first half hour of a hot war is one deterrent. They've been training massive amounts of long range artillery of Seoul for years and that would be the first thing to go
That artillery wouldn't last very long if a shooting war broke out. We know where a lot of it is and the remainder would reveal itself as soon as they fired the first volley. Between counter-battery fire and US/ROK airpower those artillerymen would have a short and exciting life once the shooting started. The destruction of Seoul isn't very likely -- it wouldn't escape undamaged but it wouldn't be a modern day Dresden either.
their likely ability to overrun the DMZ
This will sound counter-intuitive but we actually want them to overrun the DMZ. We pulled the bulk of our forces back from the DMZ many years ago. The current plan calls for a counterattack into North Korea to cut them off/go after Pyongyang rather than meeting them at the DMZ and fighting for every inch of ROK soil. It's easier to destroy their forces if they are out in the open conducting offensive operations. As Patton said during the Battle of the Bulge, "Let's have the guts to let the Krauts go all the way to Paris. Then, we'll cut them off and chew them up."
China seems to use NK the same way a redneck likes to keep a slobbering pitbull on a chain prominently on display in his back yard. Sure you can just shoot the nasty thing dead but it won't be the end of it and it isn't much use talking to it. The redneck is the one you have to reason with.
ICBMs and bombers aren't the only way to deploy nukes. They have merchant ships don't they? They have an intelligence agency don't they?
The U.S. military could destroy North Korea and be back by lunch if they pulled no punches
Thanks for demonstrating just how naive you really are. Unless you purpose using nuclear weapons, please explain to me how we could destroy North Korea and be back "by lunch". They have a 1,200,000 man standing army. I don't care how great our advantages in training/tactics and technology are -- we can't simply destroy them and be back home in time for lunch. We would own the oceans and the skies near/over the battlefield and I'm sure the kill ratio would tilt heavily in our favor -- but it would eventually come down to men with rifles and when that happens there's no way to avoid a large number of American casualties. Unless you think we have some sort of technology that magically negates Mr. Kalashnikov's inventions.
what we are discussing here is whether or not NK has the ability to do REAL damage to the U.S., which I would define as at least knocking the U.S. off of its perch as the dominant superpower
NK has the ability to do real damage to at least one critical ally (South Korea) of the United States and perhaps another (Japan). If the United States can't be relied on to defend our friends then we will be knocked off that perch. We enjoy the position that we have because of our relationships with our allies. The United States without allies/basing rights/trading partners is a Western Hemisphere power.
At least certification is a more reliable indicator of actual job knowledge than a degree, these days.
Huh??? Most knowledgeable IT directors that I've worked with have sneered at certifications. The only ones who were impressed where the PHB types. A certification doesn't prove anything other than you studied for the certification. Why do you think there are so many lovely acronyms for them? "Minesweeper and Consultant and Solitaire Expert" It's been my experience that most people who enter the IT world with nothing more than a certification are useless. I'd hire someone with experience over someone with a certification any day of the week.
I'd rather have a degree over a certification any day of the week. A degree equates to more money from almost every employer on the planet. Combine it with job experience and it almost doesn't even matter what the degree is in. Buddy of mine makes $20k more a year than I do doing the exact same job -- his degree is in marketing of all things.
I see two problems with claiming criminal negligence:
1) The person buying the article failed to exercise due diligence when he attempted to purchase it from the wrong place. If there's any negligence here it's on him and not the AP.
2) Any negligence here doesn't rise to the level to criminal negligence anyway. Criminal negligence almost always requires an action that places another in physical danger, i.e: excessive speed, driving drunk, etc. Placing another at risk of a civil lawsuit != criminal negligence.
The claim to have a license from AP gets rejected. Where can the parties claim damages?
You could try to sue the AP for your damages but you'd be laughed out of most courtrooms for failing to exercise due diligence when you bought the article in the first place.
Are you serious? You don't see a problem with the AP selling a "license" to use content that it doesn't own in the first place?
I would see a problem with it if they were doing it out of malice or with an intent to defraud. Do you really think that's the case here?
What if you go to some random article, say written by the BBC or CNN, and maybe you're not paying attention and you go to get a license to use that text from the AP, which they happily sell to you and give you a bunch of copyright info etc to use which says that you are legally allowed to post that content.
Then that's your own fault. If I'm in a shopping mall and present an item from "Store A" for purchase at "Store B" and said item comes up with a price when scanned is that really the fault of "Store B"? It's my own fault for walking out of "Store A" without paying or for paying twice. "Store B" had no intent to defraud me or "Store A"
The AP is taking your money and telling you that they are giving you rights which aren't actually theirs to give in the first place. At best that's gross incompetence, at worst it's fraud.
Fraud? It's fraud on their part when you present the item to them for purchase? That's a bit of a stretch. Fraud is a criminal matter and most criminal acts require intent. Mistakes != fraud.
versus the spend spend spend attitude of the Bush administration? I appreciate your sentiment and I don't like it either but the governments been fucking the economic pooch for a lot longer than just since Obama took office. Who was it who signed the bank bailout? Oh right it was Bush.
I'm pretty sure I addressed this, but thanks for the redirection. Apparently the fact that the GOP sucks is all the justification that the Democrats need to suck as well.
I see nothing wrong with what AP did here. This is like complaining that Comcast will let you pay your cable bill even if you don't watch any TV. Yeah, they will. So?
Why the heck is this modded troll? 'troll' != 'i disagree with this person'.
The parent raises a valid point. If you are stupid enough to offer me money for a copy of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, Thomas Jefferson's or William Shakespeare's writings or anything else in the public domain, why shouldn't I accept your money? The AP's software may be brain dead but to say that this represents an industry "smothering itself with a pillow" rather misses the point.
I would also add that of those cheering the downfall of the AP aren't likely to be too happy with the eventual consequences. The blogosphere may do a fair job of covering Washington (although most of it so slanted to one side or another as to make Fox News look fair and balanced) but the coverage of local issues and politics is sadly lacking.
I must say it's amusing that you will find flaw in the government for being beholden to special interests when corporations ARE special interests. Government is bad because it's influenced by groups concerned only with their own interests, so lets replace it with groups that are concerned only with their own interests. Yeah, that makes sense.
It makes sense because all that's required to bring corporations to heel is to stop doing business with them. If people stop giving GM money because they are building crap then eventually they will go out of business (or get a bailout but that's a bitch-fest for another discussion....) By contrast, if you try to stop giving the Government money eventually some armed goons will show up at your door to explain to you the error of your ways.
Government isn't accountable to the people and hasn't been for quite some time. Perhaps it never really was -- but at least in the past it was limited in size and scope. My Congressman can't even be bothered to send a form letter in response to my letters because he knows that barring an underage sex scandal he has his seat until he dies. Our system as a whole has been hijacked by the most partisan element of each political party as a consequence of gerrymandered districts and the low turnout of primary elections. If you aren't a rich donor and/or part of the primary electorate they don't give a damn about you.
For all the faults of both, only Government has the power to take away your freedom. No corporation can do that. I find it amusing that the left doesn't realize this basic fact. They whine about Governmental erosion of liberty (censorship, wiretapping, free-speech zones, etc) while simultaneously seeking to broaden the reach of Government. Seems rather self-defeating to me.
"A Government big enough to give you everything that you want is big enough to take everything that you have."
Slashdot Mirror
Some guy likes to smoke a joint on Friday night, for the next month he'll test positive for marijuana, even though he's never never been high at work
Most of the studies I've read suggest that the detection range is usually less than a month for the occasional smoker, though as with anything biological it can vary tremendously depending on your metabolism/diet/routine and other factors. It can be detected for a longer period of time in daily smokers though.
Knowing full well that they've been bullshitted by the government about pot, they figure that Nanny Government has been lying about crack, too. So they switch from pot to crack and wind up fired anyway, because they've become addicted and are smoking the stuff daily.
I don't have much sympathy for anyone who is that stupid. Unbiased information is out there -- there's no excuse in the information age for not finding it. Erowid is a great resource and starting point.
Honestly, I don't think there is a clear reasoning at this point why marijuana is illegal. It just is.
Marijuana is bad, Mmkay? How much clearer than that can you get?
This could go a long way towards treating other drugs like alcohol for driving purposes. One of the major roadblocks in legalization was no field test for driving while impaired.
The sad thing is that the way alcohol is treated makes no sense. Statistics show that the overwhelming majority of accidents caused by drinking are caused by people with BACs of 0.15 or higher. Instead of paroling the roadways looking for these drivers (who are usually swerving all over the road -- how many times have you seen this with no police anywhere to be seen?) the police tend to sit outside bars and pull everybody over, looking for those who blow a hair over 0.08. These people are then arrested regardless of whether or not they show signs of actual impairment.
Then there's the loss of our civil liberties that go along with the war on drunk driving. Random police roadblocks, "implied consent" laws and the 21 drinking age all come to mind. The fact that my 19 year old brother can join the army but can't legally buy a beer is offensive the notion of free choice and liberty. I find the fact that I have to drive through a roadblock on my way home at night just because my house happens to be near a bar to be particularly insulting. We are treated as though we are guilty until proven innocent and that is not how things are supposed to work in the United States.
You also gotta love the interest groups that have sprung up around the issue. MADD has morphed over the years from an organization with a laudable enough goal (reduce drunk driving deaths) into a neo-prohibitionist organization that is waging a war on all drinking. If they had their way, booze would be taxed at a higher rate than tobbaco and every car sold in the US would have an ignition interlock system. The Founder of the organization left it sometime ago in disgust at what it has become.
I didn't say I wanted to risk anything. If you've read my posts in this story you'd see that I'm trying to point out the costs of a war with NK. Costs that the armchair /. generals are pretending don't exist. All I intended to say was that if war breaks in spite of those costs that the DMZ artillery will have a rather short and exciting life. You think that artillery isn't one of the first targets for ROK and US air power? You say they've had 50 years to fortify it -- I say that the ROK and US has had 50 years to plan it's destruction.
And it only takes one canister of chemical to air burst of nerve gas to take out tens of thousands of people.
If that happened then Pyongyang would disappear in a blinding flash. It has long been US policy to regard chemical weapons as a weapon of mass destruction and to respond accordingly. You think we'd let them gas Seoul and not respond?
Of course it's all bluster in the end. The goal of the regime in North Korea is to survive. Going to war with the ROK and/or United States would see the downfall of the regime. The biggest concern with North Korea is that they will sell their weapons of mass destruction to stateless actors that aren't going be nearly as restrained in how they employ them.
That's what South Koreans are there for.
So the eighth army is just window dressing?
You forgot about the Navy in your posts, and only included the Air Force. The Navy has a much better logistical train than the AF does because its designed for that. You park a bunch of carriers off of the coast of NK and bomb away. You rotate carriers in and out continuously as needed to keep up a constant number of flights
I'm afraid you've missed the point. The point was that we wouldn't be able to destroy them with air power alone before the Army had to get involved. Once the Army gets involved our casualty count goes up, hence we can't talk about destroying North Korea as though it's a zero sum game. It comes with costs that most of the armchair generals here are trying to pretend don't exist.
If we have to we can reactivate several older carriers and accelerate construction of new ones. We could even theoretically bring in a battleship out of mothballs (again), for close in support.
Once again you are ignoring the logistical consideration. You think we have trained crews collecting a paycheck while they wait at Norfolk for a phone call to go and man those mothballed ships? You think the ships themselves are ready to go as soon as Obama picks up the phone? No, you need to train the guys who man them and refurbish/repair them before they are ready for deployment. It's a process that would take months to years depending on how many you want to reactivate and what kind of shape they are in.
Barring the intervention of another global power (China and/or Russia) the war would be over long before any mothballed ships joined the fleet or new ones came off the slipways. I'm not saying we wouldn't win the war -- I'm just saying that the cost of destroying North Korea is higher than we want to pay. We'd fight the war if we had no other choice and we'd prevail -- but no sane individual in Washington, Seoul or Tokyo wants to see that happen.
Kim Jong Il could be a cockroach from Outer Space with access to advanced technology and Team America might fail to stop him because of a love triangle?
It's not redirection. You claimed that liberalism = Democrats = spend spend spend. But Bush Jr, Bush Sr and Reagan were big spenders.
See, you just can't help but beat that dead horse, can you? Did I claim that the Republicans were any better? Did I even claim to be a Republican or to sympathize with them on any particular issue? Why are you so bound and determined to change the topic of conversation to the party that isn't in power right now? Does it bother you when someone points out that the Democrats picking right up where GWB left off and driving our financial bus over the cliff?
The most fiscally conservative president of the last few decades was Clinton
That only happened because he had a GOP Congress to contend with. I think I'd like Obama a lot more if the GOP had control of Congress. Divided Government seems to be the only thing that keeps spending in Washington under control.
Arguably, Obama has had little choice but to continue spending to get out of the recession.
Bullshit. The vast majority of Obama's spending is not stimulative in any sense of the word. The "stimulus plan" was a bill loaded up with every bit of pork that the Democrats have been saving up over the years. With few exceptions (cash for clunkers being the one everybody is talking about today) most of his spending has zero to do with the economic recovery that is now under way. Hell most of the money hasn't even been spent yet. And now they are making rumblings about needing a second "stimulus"! Gotta love it.
Obama could easily turn out to be a fiscal conservative, by cutting spending and raising taxes when the recession is over.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Thanks for the laugh! Obama has turned his entire domestic agenda over to Nancy Pelosi. The only way Obama is going to become a fiscal conservative is if the GOP somehow manages to retake one or both houses of Congress in 2010. That isn't likely to happen unless the Democrats really screw up between now and then.
In short, your anger at the Democrats for being big spenders is not based on facts, since the GOP is way worse in that respect.
Again, more redirection. Why do you insist on making a comparison with the party that isn't in power right now? Are you implying that I shouldn't be upset at the Democrats because the Republicans suck as well? I'm upset at the party that's currently running the country into the ground -- if the GOP sweeps back into power and starts driving us over the cliff then you'll see me condemning them as well. Condemning them right now doesn't seem to serve much purpose, other than to excuse the Democrats for their stupidity.
Your anger at liberals is even more of a mystery, since your world-view seems to be limited to the US.
Imagine that -- limiting my "world-view" to America during a discussion about American politics. Go figure!
Liberals exist all over the world and some are extremely fiscally conservative, while many conservatives want to spend like crazy.
When those people are running for a seat in the US Congress then I'll care about the political platform they stand for. Until then it's just more redirection by someone who is unwilling to have a candid discussion about the US Democratic Party and American liberalism.
Break out of the stereotypes.
What stereotypes? We've passed a nearly trillion dollar "stimulus" that was anything but, we are going to fund health care "reform" on the backs of the rich instead of the shared sacrifice that Obama talked about during the campaign, we've passed a cap and trade system that gave away the majority of the permits to political/industrial interests and we've twisted the bankruptcy code to reward a political base (the UAW) that should have been behind the boldhold
The only reason we are on the ground fighting against guys with AK-47s is because we want to control the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan
And we don't want to control the ground in South Korea?
well, we could just bomb the hell out of them.
It's not that simple. See my other post and pay attention to the part about logistics.
Each piece (which, BTW NK has had over 50 years to dig in and fortify) only needs to get off a handful of shots to level Seoul (population 10M) and cause appalling civilian casualties when they have 10,000 of them
They don't have 10,000 pieces of long range artillery. According to this they only have about 10k-11k total pieces of artillery.
And that's not counting the nukes, which don't need a fancy delivery system since Seoul is only about 40 km from the border.
They still need some sort of delivery system, unless you think they can slingshot their Fat Man sized bombs 40 kilometers. Besides, nukes are a moot point. If they use one they lose the war and the regime doesn't survive. I'd be more worried about them using one when it became apparent that defeat was inevitable and even at that I'd be worried about them using it in the tactical sense (put one somewhere in the path of an advancing American/ROK formation and wait -- no delivery system needed) than trying to get one into Seoul.
And that strategy protects the civilian population of Seoul how?
Who said they were going to make it all the way to Seoul? Did you pay any attention at all to what I said? They are easier to destroy when they are out in the open conducting offensive operations. They set themselves up to be cut off and make their supply lines vulnerable to American/ROK air power.
NK doctrine [globalsecurity.org] (warning: pdf) is for a quick and decisive victory with overwhelming force concentrated in small areas
Overwhelming force concentrations play right into our advantages. Go take a look at military history ranging from WW2 to the Persian Gulf and tell me how well massed force concentrations manage against American air power.
backed by special ops in the enemy rear
Their special ops units would be a PITA but are not enough in of themselves to be decisive. I would use them against American/ROK airbases if I was the North Koreans but even that is only going to delay the inevitable -- and special ops won't be much use against aircraft carriers or our bases in Japan.
If you are somebody that does have the experience and can do the job, why not get certified (hopefully with your current employer paying for it)? It's a resume builder that will get you in the front door and then you can let your real experience do the rest.
Because the time it would take me to do the certification is better spent networking. Every job that I've ever gotten I got through networking. I either knew the person who was doing the hiring or knew somebody who worked for the company with the open position. That's how I get my foot in the door. Do you really think your certification is going to get you the job when you are competing against someone who has had drinks with the HR manager and whom met the IT director years ago at a community/charity function or trade show?
I tend to think that networking is a more valuable use of my time than studying for the latest certification. Besides, I'd rather give my money to the local bar to buy a round of drinks than give it to Microsoft to pay for a MCSE ;)
I agree with most of the above, but massed "human wave" attacks against even moderately developed economies are obsolete. They've never been a great idea in the past century, but now they are downright suicidal.
Where did I say anything about human wave attacks? All I said was that eventually infantry engagements would break out and that in those types of engagements it's impossible to avoid a comparatively large number of American casualties. It just isn't possible to destroy the entire North Korean army with air and armor.
Cluster munitions are designed for exactly this scenario
The problem with air power is that it's not always available and from a logistical standpoint it's hugely expensive. Even the brief (compared to what a Korean War II would be) Iraq War drained our arsenal of bombs and spare parts to such an extent that the Pentagon had to undertake a crash program to replenish them. War fighting is primarily about logistics, not tactics as is commonly believed. It's doubtful that we have the logistical train to keep the Air Force stocked with parts and bombs long enough to destroy the North Korean Army with air power alone.
That means that the Army will have to get involved and that means that we will take heavy (for us) casualties. The NK'ers would get the worst of it of course but I don't think many American politicians want to see another conflict in which thousands of Americans come home in body bags. Granted, we've seen that in Iraq, but that was over the course of years -- not weeks as would be the case with a second Korean War.
But if NK forces decided to storm the DMZ, probably not even 10% would make it through alive
The plan isn't to fight them at the DMZ. The plan is to counter-attack into North Korea proper to cut them off and threaten Pyongyang. Fighting a static engagement at the DMZ would play to their strengths, not ours.
The USSR did far more than the US in defeating the German war machine but I have never heard a Russian use that argument.
And if it wasn't for lend-lease the USSR would have been defeated and conquered in 1941. We provided them with everything from war-material to keep the Red Army running to civilian goods that enabled them to convert their entire economy to wartime production. You think the USSR would have survived without the Western Allies? Not really likely.
Mind you, without the USSR the US and UK would have lost fair more blood and treasure than we did in order to defeat Germany. We were able to fight the war while suffering a minimal (compared to the other combatants) loss of life. In that respect we owe a debt of honor to the Russians -- just don't pretend that we didn't contribute on the Eastern Front and they didn't contribute on the Western. No lend-lease == starving Soviet population and immobile Red Army. No Red Army == millions of American and British KIAs.
Last war Sweden was involved in was 200 years ago. They were neutral in both world wars.
If by neutral you mean "allowed Nazi troops to use their railway network to invade the Soviet Union", then yeah, they were "neutral". I have more respect for the Finns then I do for the Swedes -- and the Finns fought on the side of the Axis! At least they were doing what they had to do to defend their country from Stalin. The Swedes were spineless cowards that didn't even have the backbone to enforce their own neutrality and went with whatever direction the wind was blowing.
One could equally well argue that if it wasnt for the UK and the Commonwealth fighting Japan you guys would be speaking Japanese.
Pffft, says who? Japan didn't even have the logistical means to occupy Hawaii. You think they had the wherewithal to invade and conquer mainland USA? Give me a fucking break.
what on earth did conquering and then setting up a puppet regime in Iraq have to do with "peace"?
You mean the same "puppet" regime that has asked us to leave and is busy signing oil deals with China? That's an interesting definition of "puppet" you have.
Whose peace? Who was Iraq threatening when it was conquered, how, and with what?
How about the 2/3rds of it's own population that wasn't Sunni Arab? Or shouldn't we care about them because they are brown?
Is it better to live in a violent primitive Islamic tribal proconsulate than a stable advanced secular dictatorship?
I guess that depends on if you are a member of Saddam's tribe or happen to be unlucky enough to be a Shia or Kurd. The women who were kidnapped off the street to be raped probably weren't big fans of the "stable advanced secular dictatorship" either.
In the real world, it can be evil vs evil.
If you think the United States represents evil then you need to crack open a history book and/or buy a plane ticket to Burma/North Korea/etc.
The use of the bomb in World War II was extremely regrettable
You wouldn't think that if you were a GI slated for Operation Downfall or an Allied POW that was getting closer to death from starvation each day that he remained in captivity....
But I don't think Truman or anyone else really knew what those weapons meant for the future of humanity
They knew. Read Oppenheimer's writings sometime. Every single person at the Trinity site realized that the world would never be the same again.
Say what you will about the US, but the US did not fire the first guns of either of the two World Wars.
Be careful, eventually some clueless jackass who only read the parts of history that conform to his world view will come along and say that we made the Japanese do it (Pearl Harbor) when we cut off their oil. Amazing how they tend to forget that we did that in response to their aggressive actions in China.....
Alternatively, for a very small investment, your enemies can make it impossible to detect all their nukes [englishrussia.com].
I guess you've never heard of radar and infrared? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that an inflatable rubber "missile" doesn't have the same IR signature and radar cross section that a real missile does.
You may be hubristic enough to risk a first strike against a nuclear power,
We wouldn't have to contemplate a first strike if they were behaving according to the norms of civilized world. Civilized nations do not threaten to unleash a nuclear holocaust on a weekly basis. Civilized nations do not send raiding parties into neighboring countries that attempt to assassinate the leaders thereof. Civilized nations do not board and capture ships in international waters.
five second kinetic penetrator
Hey, that was my nickname in high school!
Fixed that for you ;)
I can think of no good ways that they are a direct threat but the fact they would trash the northern half of South Korea in the first half hour of a hot war is one deterrent. They've been training massive amounts of long range artillery of Seoul for years and that would be the first thing to go
That artillery wouldn't last very long if a shooting war broke out. We know where a lot of it is and the remainder would reveal itself as soon as they fired the first volley. Between counter-battery fire and US/ROK airpower those artillerymen would have a short and exciting life once the shooting started. The destruction of Seoul isn't very likely -- it wouldn't escape undamaged but it wouldn't be a modern day Dresden either.
their likely ability to overrun the DMZ
This will sound counter-intuitive but we actually want them to overrun the DMZ. We pulled the bulk of our forces back from the DMZ many years ago. The current plan calls for a counterattack into North Korea to cut them off/go after Pyongyang rather than meeting them at the DMZ and fighting for every inch of ROK soil. It's easier to destroy their forces if they are out in the open conducting offensive operations. As Patton said during the Battle of the Bulge, "Let's have the guts to let the Krauts go all the way to Paris. Then, we'll cut them off and chew them up."
China seems to use NK the same way a redneck likes to keep a slobbering pitbull on a chain prominently on display in his back yard. Sure you can just shoot the nasty thing dead but it won't be the end of it and it isn't much use talking to it. The redneck is the one you have to reason with.
ROFL! That's the best analogy ever :)
They have nukes, but no way to deploy them
ICBMs and bombers aren't the only way to deploy nukes. They have merchant ships don't they? They have an intelligence agency don't they?
The U.S. military could destroy North Korea and be back by lunch if they pulled no punches
Thanks for demonstrating just how naive you really are. Unless you purpose using nuclear weapons, please explain to me how we could destroy North Korea and be back "by lunch". They have a 1,200,000 man standing army. I don't care how great our advantages in training/tactics and technology are -- we can't simply destroy them and be back home in time for lunch. We would own the oceans and the skies near/over the battlefield and I'm sure the kill ratio would tilt heavily in our favor -- but it would eventually come down to men with rifles and when that happens there's no way to avoid a large number of American casualties. Unless you think we have some sort of technology that magically negates Mr. Kalashnikov's inventions.
what we are discussing here is whether or not NK has the ability to do REAL damage to the U.S., which I would define as at least knocking the U.S. off of its perch as the dominant superpower
NK has the ability to do real damage to at least one critical ally (South Korea) of the United States and perhaps another (Japan). If the United States can't be relied on to defend our friends then we will be knocked off that perch. We enjoy the position that we have because of our relationships with our allies. The United States without allies/basing rights/trading partners is a Western Hemisphere power.
At least certification is a more reliable indicator of actual job knowledge than a degree, these days.
Huh??? Most knowledgeable IT directors that I've worked with have sneered at certifications. The only ones who were impressed where the PHB types. A certification doesn't prove anything other than you studied for the certification. Why do you think there are so many lovely acronyms for them? "Minesweeper and Consultant and Solitaire Expert" It's been my experience that most people who enter the IT world with nothing more than a certification are useless. I'd hire someone with experience over someone with a certification any day of the week.
I'd rather have a degree over a certification any day of the week. A degree equates to more money from almost every employer on the planet. Combine it with job experience and it almost doesn't even matter what the degree is in. Buddy of mine makes $20k more a year than I do doing the exact same job -- his degree is in marketing of all things.
I see two problems with claiming criminal negligence:
1) The person buying the article failed to exercise due diligence when he attempted to purchase it from the wrong place. If there's any negligence here it's on him and not the AP.
2) Any negligence here doesn't rise to the level to criminal negligence anyway. Criminal negligence almost always requires an action that places another in physical danger, i.e: excessive speed, driving drunk, etc. Placing another at risk of a civil lawsuit != criminal negligence.
The claim to have a license from AP gets rejected. Where can the parties claim damages?
You could try to sue the AP for your damages but you'd be laughed out of most courtrooms for failing to exercise due diligence when you bought the article in the first place.
Are you serious? You don't see a problem with the AP selling a "license" to use content that it doesn't own in the first place?
I would see a problem with it if they were doing it out of malice or with an intent to defraud. Do you really think that's the case here?
What if you go to some random article, say written by the BBC or CNN, and maybe you're not paying attention and you go to get a license to use that text from the AP, which they happily sell to you and give you a bunch of copyright info etc to use which says that you are legally allowed to post that content.
Then that's your own fault. If I'm in a shopping mall and present an item from "Store A" for purchase at "Store B" and said item comes up with a price when scanned is that really the fault of "Store B"? It's my own fault for walking out of "Store A" without paying or for paying twice. "Store B" had no intent to defraud me or "Store A"
The AP is taking your money and telling you that they are giving you rights which aren't actually theirs to give in the first place. At best that's gross incompetence, at worst it's fraud.
Fraud? It's fraud on their part when you present the item to them for purchase? That's a bit of a stretch. Fraud is a criminal matter and most criminal acts require intent. Mistakes != fraud.
versus the spend spend spend attitude of the Bush administration? I appreciate your sentiment and I don't like it either but the governments been fucking the economic pooch for a lot longer than just since Obama took office. Who was it who signed the bank bailout? Oh right it was Bush.
I'm pretty sure I addressed this, but thanks for the redirection. Apparently the fact that the GOP sucks is all the justification that the Democrats need to suck as well.
I see nothing wrong with what AP did here. This is like complaining that Comcast will let you pay your cable bill even if you don't watch any TV. Yeah, they will. So?
Why the heck is this modded troll? 'troll' != 'i disagree with this person'.
The parent raises a valid point. If you are stupid enough to offer me money for a copy of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, Thomas Jefferson's or William Shakespeare's writings or anything else in the public domain, why shouldn't I accept your money? The AP's software may be brain dead but to say that this represents an industry "smothering itself with a pillow" rather misses the point.
I would also add that of those cheering the downfall of the AP aren't likely to be too happy with the eventual consequences. The blogosphere may do a fair job of covering Washington (although most of it so slanted to one side or another as to make Fox News look fair and balanced) but the coverage of local issues and politics is sadly lacking.
I must say it's amusing that you will find flaw in the government for being beholden to special interests when corporations ARE special interests. Government is bad because it's influenced by groups concerned only with their own interests, so lets replace it with groups that are concerned only with their own interests. Yeah, that makes sense.
It makes sense because all that's required to bring corporations to heel is to stop doing business with them. If people stop giving GM money because they are building crap then eventually they will go out of business (or get a bailout but that's a bitch-fest for another discussion....) By contrast, if you try to stop giving the Government money eventually some armed goons will show up at your door to explain to you the error of your ways.
Government isn't accountable to the people and hasn't been for quite some time. Perhaps it never really was -- but at least in the past it was limited in size and scope. My Congressman can't even be bothered to send a form letter in response to my letters because he knows that barring an underage sex scandal he has his seat until he dies. Our system as a whole has been hijacked by the most partisan element of each political party as a consequence of gerrymandered districts and the low turnout of primary elections. If you aren't a rich donor and/or part of the primary electorate they don't give a damn about you.
For all the faults of both, only Government has the power to take away your freedom. No corporation can do that. I find it amusing that the left doesn't realize this basic fact. They whine about Governmental erosion of liberty (censorship, wiretapping, free-speech zones, etc) while simultaneously seeking to broaden the reach of Government. Seems rather self-defeating to me.
"A Government big enough to give you everything that you want is big enough to take everything that you have."