North Korean Missile Raised To Firing Position, Says US Official 636
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from CNN: "North Korea has raised at least one missile into its upright firing position, feeding concerns that a launch is imminent, a U.S. official told CNN Thursday. This comes as the world continued to keep watch for a possible missile launch by the secretive government, and a day before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to arrive in the region. In the latest daily tough talk from the North, a government agency is quoted by the state-run media as saying that 'war can break out any moment.'"
And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
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So, when Obama preempts an attack on NK, you'll know he has been bought by Halliburton. Then what?
I know, you guys on the left think there is an actual difference between (R) and (D), but being a (L), it is really hard to distinguish between More Government and More Government.
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There are minor differences but nothing that will greatly impact the important and powerful business interests that determine policy. Its mostly a difference between Extreme Right Wing and merely Right Wing from my perspective :P
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There is little difference between extreme right wing and extreme left wing, and most of the area in between. Both sides are for greater Government control in people's lives, just in different areas. The real sad thing is, if you give government control over one area, it inevitably bleeds into more areas as its desire to consume rights increases. When people fear their government, there is something wrong. THIS is what most people don't get.
Please notice, Obama has done absolutely nothing in regard to all t
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
The mess of the health care act was because of the TeaParty/GOP/libertarians that are actually in favor of millions of people dying as a legitimate solution. It may sound crazy - because it is. Pretty much all other developed countries manage to provide health care to their citizens, but in the US we're worried about "death panels" killing off grandma and providing health care to women so we can't go there. ObamaCare was a first step - get everyone to have some sort of health care. A single payer would likely be more efficient than running through insurance companies, but that's too scary for some. We very much need more health care reform, but while some are offering solutions in reforms that will cover more people and bring down costs, others think the best solution is to drop tens of millions of people from the system and "scrap it". The system we had was fairly poor for those with money and horrible for those without - and costs were going up, yet people keep believing it's the American way that we should go back to. You can't make this stuff up, and you can't fix stupid.
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Re:And... it's gone (Score:4, Insightful)
"We don't need a fucking Nanny State. ObamaCare was not marketed as a first step, it was marketed as the "fix it all solution". As a first step(towards what??) , it would never have passed. If you want Universal Care, move to France or wherever, you are free to leave. I don't want it here, I've seen what it really means and it is just as ugly(possibly worse), but with a bit a "feel goodism" added in."
Personally I tire of hearing the "nanny state" rhetoric and the oh-so-democratic 'my-way-or-the-high-way' rant. I doubt neither an ultra-libertarian or a completely centralized system will lead society anywhere you'd like to live - but when the outset is overly polarized, you can only ever see the extremes. Balance people.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Informative)
Please study the Affordable Care Act before making such bold declarations. Spending on medicare and medicaid is the largest portion of the federal government and savings need to be accomplished somehow. Some doctors might kick and scream, but their profession has been profiting handsomely from the existing system, and they know how to work it to maximize their income. For an older doctor, with a new system in place, it may not be worth re-learning how to 'game the system' if that's really what they've been doing.
I really think the medicare/medicaid "shared savings model" is helpful in the long term for healthcare expenditures, which are spiraling out of control with no end in sight.
I have never been, nor ever will be associated with either the Democratic or Republican parties if you're wondering.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:4, Interesting)
The Spiraling costs are caused by a few different factors, of which most are not addressed by ObamaCare directly.
1) Entitlement attitude. Everyone deserves the exact same level of care, regardless of ability to pay. Rich people do not deserve care they can pay for, and poor who cannot pay, deserve the care rich people can afford, but they themselves cannot.
2) Insurance masking the cost of care.
3) Disparate pricing models based on who is paying.
4) Insurance middleman costs
5) Malpractice Lawsuits (jury awards)
None of those are fixed in ObamaCare. In Fact, ObamaCare makes it even more of a regulatory nightmare. Hell to apply for insurance at one of the Insurance Exchanges requires 60+ pages of paperwork by the IRS. Tell me, how does that make healthcare more affordable?
And in spite of your protestations that everything is going honky dory, it isn't
http://www.dpmafoundation.org/physician-attitudes-on-medicine.html [dpmafoundation.org]
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/survey-doctors-dropping-out-medicare [heartland.org]
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/03/28/california-health-care-costs-to-rise-under-affordable-care-act/ [cbslocal.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/business/despite-new-health-law-some-see-sharp-rise-in-premiums.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 [nytimes.com]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-10/obama-doubles-estimate-to-4-billion-for-health-exchanges.html [bloomberg.com]
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Well americans have never elected ralph nader so they never really had a chance to see an extreme left wing position. Even he wouldn't be "extreme" to a country like france.
Obama is at best, centre right. But I am sure you already know that as you rightly complain that obamacare is far inferior to 100% publicly funded healthcare for 100% of citizens, which is really the only real alternative. The american system for sure needs to b
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Wow how does somebody get modded troll for suggesting that there probably isn't a conspiracy?
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Funny)
Raised position .... ....
Preemptive strike
MUST NOT!
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And... it's gone (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at exactly what NK has said (not was what reported, what their actual statements correctly translated into English are) they have not threatened any more than the US has. They said they reserve the right to make a pre-emptive nuclear strike, just as the US does. They have not stated that they will actually attack the US, and have always maintained that their nuclear capability is for defence.
Although NK wants to reunite Korea they don't want to level the South or kill all its civilians. That would be counter-productive, effectively destroying what they consider to be part of their own country and their fellow countrymen. What they do want to drive out is the US and the South Korean government which is regarded as a puppet of the former.
The US has considerably military forces in that part of the world and every year runs war games just off the coast of the DPRK. Can you imagine for a moment if NK decided to play some war games in international waters off the US coast? Unlike NK the US has nuclear weapons in range of the mainland. I'm not saying that NK isn't aggressive or posturing, but you must try to see past the propaganda and consider what the enemies are doing too.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Informative)
"our arms are ready to fire and the exact coordinates are input to the warheads. Once we push the button, it will be fired, and the strongholds of our enemies will be turned to a sea of flames.'' [voanews.com]
The official statement from Mr Kim's regime kept up the barrage of inflammatory rhetoric, telling "all foreign institutions and enterprises and foreigners including tourists" in South Korea to "take measures for shelter and evacuation". It added: "The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war due to the evermore undisguised hostile actions of the United States and the South Korean puppet warmongers." [telegraph.co.uk]
I have no idea if these are accurately translated.
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Are you saying that the US does not have the coordinates of all major cities of its enemies programmed in to its nuclear war-heads?
This detargeting happened in 1994 [wikipedia.org]. Sure, the US can nuke anyone at the push of the button, but it doesn't have coordinates already entered.
I somehow doubt that translation is accurate
Are you kidding? If Mr. Kim thought it'd sound sexier to claim he had an arsenal of unicorns and sentient black holes, he'd say that instead.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Informative)
Although NK wants to reunite Korea they don't want to level the South or kill all its civilians. That would be counter-productive, effectively destroying what they consider to be part of their own country and their fellow countrymen.
This would be more convincing if the North wasn't currently killing its own civilians for imagined insults.
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Although you still have a point, it becomes less persuasive when you swap countries...
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Jong Un, is that you?
Re: And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
What, you mean by forcing other countries to adopt your absurd copyright laws? Tying your foreign aid to making sure people don't get birth control? Sending Monsanto crop as food aid and telling people they can't keep see to plant another crop? Installing a new dictator because he claims to be friendly to the US but still treats the citizens like shit? Refusal to abide by WTO rulings that goes against you and claiming it's not legitimate, but using it to suit your own purposes? The whole Iraq war which has been proven to have been started for fabricated reasons? Spying on other countries? Extraordinary rendition whereby people are kidnapped out of countries without any oversight? Bombing civilians and calling it cost of doing business? Generally acting like assholes like Americans are want to do?
Sorry pal, the US may not be quite as beligerant as NK, but you're hardly keeping your fingers out of pies.
Sorry, but American foreign policy has been on the edge of 'psycho nut job' for decades now. The tendency to treat everyone else on the planet as subservient to yourselves, and lots of other things.
Individually, America has some really nice people. Collectively, America is full of assholes. It ends up causing an awful lot of people to decide "fuck you guys".
Somehow you have an expectation that the rest of the world is here to support US interests when you refuse to acknowledge the interests of other countries.
You're the moron.
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Individually, America has some really nice people. Collectively, America is full of assholes. It ends up causing an awful lot of people to decide "fuck you guys".
Now while I can't argue directly with this I can say that the majority of the problem is that America is run by a bunch of assholes not so much full of assholes. While I do strongly consider myself an asshole of sorts I take slight offense to having the majority of my country placed in the same category as me.
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What, you mean by forcing other countries to adopt your absurd copyright laws?
So copyright laws are equivalent to nuclear warfare? Hyperbole much?
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Are there American /.ers actually worried about this? I'm starting to realize that the generation that grew up after the cold war was over is post-college now. (Get off my lawn!)
The only scenario I find troubling is that North Korea launches some sort of missile, which then has some boost failure that drops it onto Seoul, or some nearby highly populated region where it might hurt someone. The level of corruption in tin-pot dictatorships is so high that successfully operating a high-tech weapon (without an
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
Tired of war? Yes
Tired of hearing the rhetoric? Yes
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
There is basically no scenario in which North Korea can start a war and "win". The regime can kill a bunch of people at the cost of their own lives, but that is something only religious fanatics do. They are bluffing to get sanctions lifted, and clearly trying to bluff the US into a pre-emptive strike, in order to paint themselves as a victim. It won't work, but they don't realize it because their analysts work for a totalitarian regime and can't provide the unvarnished truth to the leadership.
It's a sad situation all around. I mostly just pity the north korean people for their inept leaders.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:4, Insightful)
The regime can kill a bunch of people at the cost of their own lives, but that is something only religious fanatics do.
Keep telling yourself that.
North Korea would be far more successful in getting their way by opening up and being friendly, even if it were a facade, than the current tactic. They shut down a facility that was pumping tens of millions of dollars directly into their coffers. So it's hard to see any logic behind what North Korea is doing.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:4, Funny)
Because they're both in a concentration camp.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
All politics is local. As I see it, the son is making these ever-more-silly threats as moves on an internal-politics chessboard, trying to retain the power his dad accumulated.
If you think his rants are being ignored, I'd say that's missing his actual objective. People around him are judging him by his rants, and the outside world isn't really the audience for them.
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I agree that the actions are more to impress people in his country than actually convince anyone outside. That makes everything fairly safe, as he can say what he wants without a real threat of pre-emptive action from the US.
LAPD (Score:3)
If Kim had a shotgun and behaved like this in L.A., LAPD would have plugged him about 40 times by now.
Re:LAPD (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! So Kim would be in rehab with Lindsay Lohan . . . !?!?!
Now that is one reality show I would watch!
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
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I doubt it. If they fire first they become the bad guy, if we fire first then we are the bad guy.
China is the key. If North Korea fires first China will be much less supportive then if we fired first.
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Who from? Nobody- not the US, not South Korea, not nobody- wants a war. There's nothing to gain from a war. It would cause devastating loss of life, and there are no strategic resources or whatnot to be had. Although the Southerners would like reunification, they don't want to level half the peninsula over it (and nor do the Northerners). Everyone's much happier playing the waiting game and hoping North Korea sorts itself out somehow (in the exact same way as the USSR and China did, only smaller scale).
The
North Korea... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, detonating nukes nextdoor to China - what could possibly go wrong?
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Funny)
iPhone 5RAE*
* radio-active edition
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And... it's gone (Score:4, Insightful)
i predict that will never happen even if North Korea launches their missiles.
neither China, Japan, nor South Korea will be happy about the radioactive wasteland next to them, or the radioactive fallout from the attack.
then there would be outcry from everywhere that we needlessly killed civilians
and a long list of other reasons.
we will never launch a single nuke at North Korea.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Interesting)
No need for nukes with North Korea, anyway. They will easily be flattened by conventional missles. They are effectively defenceless and have a tiny infrastructure. Any war with them with missiles would be concluded before you heard about it on Slashdot.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Funny)
Any war with them with missiles would be concluded before you heard about it on Slashdot.
Maybe, but I bet someone would point out they saw it on reddit the day before.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, NK could be flattened with conventional missiles. But they have enough artillery pieces lined up on the border (14,000, IIRC), with ammunition, to send up to half a million shells an hour into Seoul for a day or so. Before they were incapacitated, they could kill maybe ten million people is South Korea. Yes, it would be pointless slaughter, pure vindictiveness. But I am not prepared to say they wouldn't do it.
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Any war with them with missiles would be concluded before you heard about it on Slashdot.
Just to be clear, is that the original Slashdot posting or the dupe?
Re:And... it's gone (Score:4, Funny)
No need for nukes with North Korea, anyway. They will easily be flattened by conventional missles. They are effectively defenceless and have a tiny infrastructure.
Speaking of their infrastructure, most countries would be returned to the stone age by nukes. North Korea might actually be brought forward into the stone age by nukes.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
At least not until North Korea is defeated and South Korea is left with the unhappy task of trying to integrate their economies and cultures.
Germany faced a similar problem when the Communist Bloc collapsed and East and West Germany were re-united, but at least that unification didn't start with open warfare and didn't require them to undo three generations of increasingly strident anti-Seoul propoganda. Plus, they still had Poland as a buffer between them and Russia (which was facing its own set of problems at the time, too). But it's economy was weakened and pushed into a deep recession before it finally recovered
A unified Korea, though, will have all sorts of problems in the beginning. It might end up - in twenty years - as an amazing economic superpower but the interim is likely to be quite painful. At least the Germany's economies were similar (both were highly industrialized). What does North Korea have to offer South Korea except for problems? Millions of untrained, starving peasants bred to hate their cousins? A decaying infrastructure that will soon be a century out of date? A border with the century's next superpower? Such a task might not just ruin the south's economy; it might push it over into an abyss causing enough chaos from which alternatives like the Kim's long regime seem sane in comparison.
I don't envy South Korea, I really don't. Their options seem equally shitty at the moment: either live with an increasingly unpredictable madman to the north, or junk their economy for half a generation. And sadly, no matter which they way they chose, it still seems as if they may face a massive loss of life. I imagine at this point their sole hope is that Kim family gets thrown out and replaced by a more sensible group who are willing to gradually integrate the two countries into a unified natio Alas, the likelihood of that happening - especially without the massive loss of life - seems increasingly slim.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Informative)
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Are you saying they have trouble erecting their dongs?
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
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I'm sure a lot of 60 yr old ordinance, not kept in humidity controlled rooms, is effective.
They may as well use slingshots & rocks. It'll have about the same effect.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
Al Qaeda: actually attacked us.
Iraq: no comment. I think this one was stupid as well.
North Korea: China's autistic little brother.
Surely you might see why blowing up NK might not be a wise choice...
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North Korea: China's autistic little brother.
I'd call that an insult to autistic brothers. Seriously.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
In International Relations, we call this "audience cost". American population is pretty much war-weary at this point, and no sane politician would ever start a war or risk aggression and conflict.
North Korea is counting on this. The chances of them attacking are pretty slim, and they are just posturing in an attempt to force us to give them better terms (be nice, or else...) -- except that we are calling their bluff.
And the more we call their bluff, the more aggressive their posturing becomes. Eventually, one of our allies will either step in or ask for help, and that's when we will head to the negotiating tables.
Either way, this is nothing new. The US goes through cycles of war and war-weariness. In about a decade, we'll be back, carpet bombing some random country for imagined slights.
Re:And... it's gone (Score:5, Insightful)
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Plus its worth noting that Napoleon actually took Moscow but couldn't hold it in the end - something the German army failed to do in WWII.
He was sick at Waterloo and thus not at his best and he faced a brilliant British commander AND a truly tough Prussian commander. It was really the Prussians who won Waterloo. The British held which was pretty amazing but if the Prussians hadn't made it to the French flank, the British would have been broken pretty soon.
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Someone already thought about that quite a while ago. We used to have the Distant Early Warning System (DEW line) up north, but that was dismantled and replaced with this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Missile_Early_Warning_System [wikipedia.org]
As a side note, I almost ended up working in a DEW line station, I almost wish I had just for the experience.
boner (Score:5, Funny)
'nuff said.
Re:boner (Score:5, Funny)
Came expecting juvenile penis references. Left satisfied.
Re:boner (Score:5, Funny)
You may not want to publicly advertise that juvenile penises make you come... or even that they satisfy you at all.
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yawn (Score:3, Funny)
Re:yawn (Score:5, Funny)
If the missile stays raised in the firing position for more than four hours, Kim should call a doctor.
Re:yawn (Score:5, Funny)
Warning: the following text includes crude racial stereotypes, which we normally wouldn't stoop to, but Kim is such a douchebag, we'll make an exception. Oh, and apologies to Team America too.
"Ooo, rook at my rarge erect missre, eveybody. Rook and be afraid. Trembre at the though of it penetrating your airspace and viorating your fertire plains, over and over. Now give us food and money."
90s song cover (Score:3)
should've quoted down more (Score:5, Insightful)
it's been a week thus far? (Score:4, Insightful)
Five days ago North Korea was moving their missiles [foxnews.com] and they're only now getting them in firing position? How long does it take to ready a missile? Seems like the US had patriot missiles halfway across the world in South Korea in less time than it's taken the North thus far.
Re:it's been a week thus far? (Score:5, Interesting)
You forget that North Korea is not a real threat to the US or anyone else. they might cause some damage to South Korea or Japan if they start a war, but they will not last long, as their weapons are outdated, their troops are not in great shape. And they are so energy dependent on China that they would run out of fuel after a few days (if not hours).
The real thing this is all about: Kim wants to show to his military that the atomic are suffice to keep the South and all the capitalists from the US out of the North, because they have these nuclear weapons. If that works, they have a weaker position in requesting special treatment for the military releasing resources to supply the population and turn the economic system. So he needs some sort of international acceptance of their nuclear weapons.
This is not a preparation of war against anyone outside of North Korea, it is an attack on the power of the military in North Korea.
Re:it's been a week thus far? (Score:4, Funny)
(Or, maybe he's waiting for a phone call with the go-ahead)
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Where's China? (Score:5, Insightful)
China has been growing in economic and military influence, and seems to want to be taken seriously. If that is the case, this is their moment. They could put an end to this nonsense in a minute. They need to understand that it would be in their own national interest to smack this puppy on the snout, fast and sharp. If they just let it fester, and it leads to armed conflict, they will lose face.
There are just so many ways that this can go wrong...
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Not really. Right now, the US is spending money dealing with this issue while China quietly goes about its own objectives. Like a good game of 'Go', often the proper response to activity on one side of the board is to ignore it and continue to build on the opposite side. North Korea provides a good distraction and they know enough to realize that lil Kim is just putting on a show for his people.
No sources quoted - none. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it awesome that we have entire news stories telling us we're on the precipice of war - without one single person quoted? CNN doesn't even bother to include a tag like "quoted on condition of anonymity" anymore - they just take their directions from the White House press office and fill in "official" wherever it would have made sense to have a real person substantiating a dubious claim.
A pre-emptive strike of MREs and candy bars (Score:4, Interesting)
should distract the entire populace of NK thoroughly and destabilize the regime. Particularly, if we included enough Dove chocolates. Man, I love those things.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Overthinking this (Score:3)
There's always the possibility that the missile crew, being under orders to be ready to launch, was just doing a routine systems checkout.
During the Cuban missile crisis, US experts thought that the USSR was "sending a message". The missile sites in Cuba were easy to spot because they were laid out exactly the same way as in the USSR. Decades later, on the 40th anniversary of the crisis, there was a get-together of some of the major players from all sides. Someone asked about the layout of the sites. The Russian officer who'd been responsible for the layout said "No, we just did it that way because that was what it said to do in the field manual." Everyone in the room with military experience nodded in agreement.
Erection (Score:3)
Kim Jong Un: No, you idiots, I said we need to have a missile ERECTION! ERECTION! We should vote on what to do with them!
Re:Wasnt /. supposed to be news site about compute (Score:5, Informative)
News for Nerds. Missiles and "Wargames"-like situations fit the bill for me.
Re:Wasnt /. supposed to be news site about compute (Score:5, Funny)
Gentlemen! Please...!
You cant fight in here! This is the War Room!
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Re:Wasnt /. supposed to be news site about compute (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's "stuff that matters".
Slashdot is news for nerds. Nerds care about just about anything remotely tech or science related as well as any major news story like this even if not tech related.
Its actually not much different than a normal news site except for most of the "celebrity" gossip and reality TV crap is filtered out - unless it has some technology tie-in.
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Or am I mistaken?
A North Korean missile launch would alter the world's political, economic, and military landscape beyond recognition. But I would expect it to be a very intense, very dangerous, environment for the nerd and the geek.
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And where do you think many computer components are made?
*cough*
That's where they're designed. They're made just over the border where the labour is really cheap. At least they were intil NK closed the business park to the south last week.
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Huh? A few days ago? The Korean War was never resolved; they've just been in a temporary ceasefire since the fifties.
Re: Misfire? (Score:5, Informative)
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I highly doubt that they want to shoot at the Russians.
I'm sure Putin would love to show a nice big fat show of strenght to prove Russia is still a super power. That would probably be pretty much the most suicidal move possible.
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Even Russia's old gear is more modern than the vast majority of North Korea's gear. North Korea's best fighter is the MiG-29, of which they have 40, it's a downgraded export model at that. The Russians by comparison have more than 200 MiG-29 fighters, many of which have been or are being upgraded with modern hardware. In total the Russians have almost 700 fighters and interceptors, all of which are superior to anything the North Koreans have. On top of this they have close to 150 bombers (mostly Tu-22M bomb
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"Nation building"??? "Nation building"???????
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
If by that you mean "giving shittons of money to Haliburton and Blackwater and the like", then yah. Otherwise, no, not so much.