Empire of the Iguanadons

So we all knew this was coming, right? After all, Joe Biden said so himself during the campaign that in the next 6 months Obama would be tested by the world or some such rot. Well that day arrived late Saturday night our time in the USA. The North Koreans have launched a ballistic missile test under the false guise of a satellite deployment. The rocket arced directly over Japanese airspace and crashed in the north Pacific Ocean. The spin machine is already in full swing to assure everyone that there was never any threat. I call bullshit, because the missile IS the threat. So how is our glorious tin god president going to handle this?

If you guessed that he's going to the UN Security Council, you're right:



Does the line sound familiar? It should. It's the same cookie cutter response that just about every foreign leader in Europe, Asia, and indeed the rest of the world seems to be regurgitating. So why are we relying on the United Nations to do anything about this? Doesn't anyone with even an ounce of brain matter know that nothing will ever come of it? Have we not learned from the 14 years of endless defiance by Saddam Hussein that the Security Council will never actually back up their words with anything of substance? John Bolton appears to agree:



The implications of this launch are so transparent as to be obvious. Iran is building the warheads, North Korea is building the ballistic missiles. One day soon we may be faced with a direct missile strike on Alaska or Hawaii and we'll all have Obama the Appeaser to thank for it. When your enemies provoke you militarily, you don't respond by wagging your finger in the air and yelling "NO!". That doesn't even work for the family cat and the liberal media seriously thinks that it will work on Kim Jong Il. The North Koreans are already lying to their own people that the rocket put a bird in orbit. Claiming that it's broadcasting some kind of song about Kim and his son, and "measurement data", whatever that's supposed to be. NORAD and NORTHCOM have both already confirmed that no such payload reached orbit. Satellite photos from immediately before the launch also indicate no such payload ever existed.

The message the world is sending to thugs like Kim Jong Il is simple. "Be nice or you'll get a timeout." Well, the child is throwing a tantrum and needs to be spanked. The Japanese apparently don't believe in spankings because even though they huffed and they puffed about how they'd shoot the thing down if it went over their airspace, they did absolutely nothing about it when the missile did just that. The US obviously doesn't believe in spankings because we didn't shoot the thing down either when the trajectory clearly indicated a test to see if they could reach Alaska. No, instead the child is now in control and he knows it. North Korea called the bluff and the world flinched.

Times like these are why I wish we had Reagan back. He'd have put these asshats in their place.
.........................
"It is pointless to resist, my son." -- Darth Vader
"Resistance is futile." -- The Borg
"Mother's coming for me in the dragon ships. I don't like these itchy clothes, but I have to wear them or it frightens the fish." -- Thurindil

Well. I guess that's that then.

Reagan would've shot it down from space because, if he was still alive and in office today, he'd have gotten his Star Wars initiative fully operational years ago and by now would probably even have a functional continental shield of some sort in place as well. Sadly, none of that is currently the case and we're instead left with President Obama threatening homeland gun control and wagging his fingers at the UN Security Council to go have a serious talking to with Kim Jong II. But, you already knew the US didn't believe in spankings anymore, just look at all our nation has done to condemn parents who'd dare to punish thier own children, no matter the reason, more severly than a time-out of one minute per year old or less.

Indeed. Obama is even still talking about cutting funding for the Alaskan Missile Defense Shield. Something the two senators from Alaska are now quite furious about and are using North Korea as an example of why that's complete lunacy. You'd also think Obama might want to protect Hawaii, since, you know, he's supposed to have been born there and all. Guess his status as an illegal alien is already having some serious national security repercussions. He doesn't give a rat's ass about this country and never has.

Seriously Samson, there's little we can do. Invading North Korea would be a real war, and they'd probably kick our ass. The only option is boycotting them completely and letting them rot, which is more or less what is happening.

I liked how Turkey was one of the first foreign nations Obama visited, and how he demanded that the European Union let Turkey join. That's comparable to Gordon Brown coming here and demanding that we form a union with Mexico that allows all Mexicans to freely move, live and work in the US.

Bush did the same thing, demanding that the EU let Turkey join, though he was more political about it. I'm curious how accelerating the development of muslims taking over in Europe in 40 to 50 years and getting their hands on real military technology - which they'll promptly sell to their rich buddies in the middle east - is in our best interest.

You know, I may very well be sorely disappointed with 46% of the american population right now, and even more unhappy with the leader they've chosen for us despite my vote to the contrary, but my sense of national pride takes a bit of offense at the notion of the North Koreans being able to kick our butts in a real war. Especially if they lack Russia & China as allies/suppliers this time.

What is with the efforts to get Turkey into the EU?

Some agreement/disagreement with Superman mostly:

On the one hand, yes. Not that I'm really pleased with letting North Korea shoot missiles, albeit ones that are more likely intended for South Korea or Japan than us, around, but what are we seriously going to do about it?

We could shoot it down, sure, and maybe NK gets uppity and starts a war, and maybe they don't. Kim Jong-Il's frankly not a guy I expect to behave rationally.

Other than that, what've we really got that we can do to them? Not a whole lot, save for doing exactly what got done and thence possibly going the Iraq route, which is something we ought to do but aren't really in a place to do now.

Which is to sort of touch on the fact that our entire North Korea policy dating back about 20 years has been a huge failure for basically everybody, but not many really good options right now.

As far as the whole "lose the war" thing goes, I figure we could eventually win the thing, albeit in a way that involves us fighting to the last South Korean while we move a bunch of troops that are probably in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, thus possibly losing those conflicts. In any event, any possible war with North Korea must take into account that A) South Korea's got a very good chance of getting beat up hard; B) That whole terrain thing really really sucks; C) Just like last time, China may or may not find the presence of US armies on its border palatable.

Which is to say that now is not the time.

As far as Turkey goes, they're a reasonably moderate state with already strong ties to Europe and the US via NATO, etc, never mind the Turkish diaspora in Europe. So there's some ways in which Turkey in the EU could be a reasonable thing, although I'm not really up enough on the EU to really make that call.

All of that said, you're a bit behind the times on that whole military technology thing - Turkey already has various advanced US and European systems, some of which they build in Turkey (F-16s off top of my head, I may be wrong). That aside, you're aware that the Saudis, who you may remember, already have a fair number of things like M1 tanks, F-15s, etc, etc? So if they really wanted...

Having noted that, let us discuss how much having access to US-built F-14s helped out the radical Shia state in Iran. Quick answer: Not much.

I think the entire EU is nothing but a dismal failure, but I'm sure I'll be promptly told how wrong I am at some point. I'm still waiting to be proven wrong though. That said I doubt it matters much if Turkey joins, and frankly I don't think they really want to do they? If not, why push them into it?

If North Korea's only interest was in ballistic missiles with the range to reach South Korea and Japan, they've had those for 10 years. Ever since Clinton sent that fool Carter in there to "negotiate" with them. More like to sell us out as liberals always do.

If now is not the time to wipe them off the map, or at least decapitate them, then when is? Reagan would not have hesitated to blast that missile out of the sky and call Kim Jong Il's own bluff about starting a war with Japan he knows he'd lose handily. Personally if it were up to me I'd pull our troops out and let the entire peninsula burn. China would be forced to clean up their own back yard for a change.

Maybe what really needs to happen is just to have the CIA do what they do best, go pick a fight between China & North Korea while blaming the two for everything to the other one and then assassinate Kim in the process... er, wait, our country would never do anything like that...

As for the EU being a failure, I can't say, I never understood what they were supposed to be accomplishing to begin with beyond the creation of the Euro which was a joke at the time and has only gotten worse, from my perspective, since.

I'll concede that to beat NK we'd prolly have to sacrifice our current goals in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, but I'm not willing to concede that NK could take us. Yes, the terrain sucks, but we've had experience over there this time...

Or have we not learned that your intelligence agencies have no idea what a weapon of mass destruction is, and that NK, like Iraq have nothing but spit wads and pea shooters. NK is about as much of a threat as the penguins of Antarctica and have the same military capabilities as Polar Bears. THe biggest threat to world security has been voted out of office (W) so i don't see what all the bother is about.

NK is a sovereign nation, they have a right to Nukes, a space program, Nuke power, bombs guns and planes and a right to have the same rights as the USA which has Nukes, et al.

It is very hypocritical to say NK cannot have nukes while the USA has enough to destroy the whole world 3 times over, either everyone can have them or no one can have them, its rather simple to me. Its just as stupid to say they cannot launch comms satalites while the USA has spy sats up there watching our every move.



Or maybe its about time the USA grew up and stopped trying to manipulate the wolrd for its own ends. There has not been 1 instance of this sort of thing ever haveing a payoff. Should be start with all the CIA games in South America and see where that got everyone, becised nowhere, or how about the CIA's good friend and allie Osama Bin Laden, or any number of puppet regimes set up in Africa by the CIA and co.

If the USA wants to play superior diplomat to the world maybe thet should be looking to real problems like Robert Mogabe in Zimbabwe or the problems in Darfur or Samali pirates or even the government of Somalia period.

There are plenty of situations that require URGENT action right now to solve and the US sits on its hands and plays political games with Commies. The cold war is over, the Korean and Vietnamese wars are over, Fidel died of natural causes, the Chinese are going to take over the world with its exports and cheep labour and we want to waste energy playing pissing games with a country where the donkey is the main form of transport, Go Figure HUH.

I'm not even sure where to begin. I can only hazard a guess at one of two things: 1. Your media there filters out everything of substance that doesn't mention Australia. 2. Your school system sucks worse than the one here in California today and they never bothered to tell you that NK isn't a backward jungle tribe.

Our intelligence agencies know damn well what a WMD is. So do the other 15 agencies who also confirmed Saddam had them, and was preparing to use them. You can either believe that or believe the weapon fairies gave you death rays. Perhaps you also missed the fact that North Korea detonated their first nuclear weapon in 2006. I'll even hand you a nice wikipedia link so you can't say that I used a biased American media outlet as a source. That's substantially more than spitwads and pea shooters. And might I remind you that in the 1950s we fought them to a draw using our most advanced conventional forces of the time. So they've had substantially more than pea shooters and spitwads for quite some time now. You can thank China for that.

The biggest threat to world security just conducted a ballistic missile test in direct violation of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions. So it wasn't a US initiative they violated by doing that. the second biggest threat to world security ( through appeasement and inaction ) was voted in to office in November and assumed command of our armed forces on January 20, 2009.

Let's get something straight. The UN has told NK they have no right to have nukes. They've told Iran the same thing, and told Saddam Hussein before both of them the same thing. Along with Syria, Lybia, and numerous other nations with hostile intent. It's not arrogance. It's prudence. You don't hand a psycho a loaded weapon. You provide the sane people the weapons. In this case, that's us, like it or not. You can cry all you want about how we're supposedly the world bully but until you can provide me one shred of evidence to prove where we've indiscriminately attacked someone with no reason you aren't qualified to judge dog shit for smell.

I'll allow Conner the honor of addressing your equally moronic and uninformed rant about CIA black ops. But really it's mostly cause I'm laughing too hard to continue.

I'm sorry, but after speaking with several friends in Australia, The_Fury appears to be in a minority of people there, known as rockchilds. Translation being, people who grew up under rocks, with no real interaction with the outside world. But, do carry on. I haven't laughed this hard in a while.

I missed this little gem.

The cold war is over - True. It is over.
The Korean and Vietnamese wars are over - Debatable. These were never officially wars for the US. They were UN Sanctioned Police Actions. We were there to assist the South Vietnamese, and the South Koreans.
Fidel died of natural causes - Last I checked, He was still very much alive. Sick and dying perhaps, but alive.
Blah blah Chinese takeover blah blah - Yep. They're taking over the world with cheap plastic toys and what not. Brilliant plan. Why didn't I think of doing this? Oh, because it wouldn't work. 180mm Depleted Uranium Shell > $4 plastic toy.
a country where the donkey is the main form of transport - Wow. You really do live under a rock don't you. Unless you can provide a source to back up these claims that North Korea, Who I might remind you, just launched a ballistic missile, still ride around on donkeys; I'm going to have to concede that it's easier and less of a headache for everyone involved to humor you rather than explain things.

Did you hear the latest rumors? The Moon Landing was staged. Elvis, Tupac, Aaliyah, Notorious B.I.G. and Jimmy Hoffa aren't really dead. THey helped stage the Moon landing, and they play the aliens people see in the sky. Btw, I heard you were looking for a couple of addresses, I think I can help you here.

Cupid
4 Love Ave
Mt Olympus, Greece

Tooth Fairy
1600 Toothy Grin Blvd
Fairytopia, Fairyland

Santa Claus
25 Workshop Way
North Pole, The Arctic

The Easter Bunny
The Rabbit Hole

The Mental Institution called, They found out you're missing, Fury, They'd like you to come home.

So where are these fictitious WMD? 16 US agencies with all the best intelligence in the world GOT IT WRONG with Sadam and have GOT IT WRONG again with NK.




Out of all these which of them are currently running a war? NONE. The US is currently running 2 wars, 1 based on the faulty premise that the Talliban were a threat to the world, even tho anyone with half a brain knew they did not care about anything that extended past their boarders and their own people, there is no proof that Osama, a creation of the CIA was actually hiding out there. Anyone find him yet? And the 2nd based on the fanciful idea that Sadam had WMD. Your government and its institutions has fucked up royally when it comes to its so called INTELLIGENCE agencies, so why should we believe them now that the point of this launch was to test a long range missile.



The UN also said that it would not sanction an invasion of Iraq, yet, the US, UK and Australia had no problem breaking those things and doing what it likes anyway. How can anyone have any faith in the actions of the UN when NO ONE ever has to obey what they decide. So if your county and mine can do its own thing, i see no reason why others should abide by a UN ruling.

Cant be hypocritical here, either we all play by the same rules or we can all do what we want, which means that NK, Iran and others can develop their own Nuke programs for peaceful or military ends.



Where are the WMD in Iraq. This was the basis and the rational behind invading this country. Hans Blix knew there were no WMD, all the other inspectors knew there were no WMD, the only the US thought there were WMD, but less face it, a bomb and a barrel of oil look very simular dont they. $$ Chi Ching.

SEE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_North_Korea

There is next to 0 private car ownership, road transport is minimal, the trains still run on steam power, domestic air transport consists of 34 outdated Russian planes. NK is a country that developmentally is still in the late 1800's, a time when the horse and cart ruled the road, hence the donkey comment. I wonder if our sanctions which stops them from having access to such top secret military secrets like modern farming practices, medical supplies and access to trade in food stuffs and the like has kept them there?

From paper from the Australian Chamber of Comerce SEE: http://www.acci.asn.au/text_files/issues_papers/Trade/TDE20.pdf

I think The_Fury has backed up his claims quite well. The only WMDs Iraq had were the ones we gave them, and they used them on the Kurds.

North Korea isn't much different from Iraq, with the exception that the population in North Korea has an IQ around 105 while the IQ in Iraq is around 90, and Vietnam around 95. This might be meaningless to some people, but in the real world intelligence matters, and if we are to invade North Korea there are gonna be massive casualties on our side. The biggest problem 2nd world nations have is that while they sometimes can purchase advanced equipment, they don't have the people with the intelligence and training to operate it correctly.

On the bright side we wouldn't be dealing with Islam, so unlike the situation in Iraq, once the war is over it would be over for real. One argument that has been ignored is that we simply don't have the money to go after North Korea, it would be a disaster for our economy (long term) to borrow two trillion to go after North Korea. Not to mention it might give China the idea to go after Taiwan.

They were in Syria. Two generals in Saddam's former army have both confirmed it on radio broadcasts on separate occasions. The Jordanian government confirmed a 3rd intercept of a large portion of Saddam's former chemical weapons capacity that was also on its way to Syria. Perhaps you recall a little incident where the Israelis destroyed a Syrian nuclear facility under construction? Yep. That's where Saddam's WMD's ended up. They're vapors in the wind now. Also, do some simple research. It wasn't 16 US agencies. It was 16 different agencies throughout Europe and the Middle East that all said Saddam had the weapons and was willing to use them. Saddam's own government claimed they had them. If Saddam was actually lying, it cost him his life in the end. Not terribly bright.



I believe that's exactly the point. The UN sanctions are meant to keep them from starting one, not stop one they're actively engaged in. But since you insist, North and South Korea are still in a state of war. The truce declared in the 1950s and enforced by the US since then is the only thing holding them back. So technically North Korea is still running a war.



Wrong. Based on the accurate premise that they are a threat to the world. Even the Pakistanis admit this, as we are currently allied with them to prevent them from taking over Pakistan now that we kicked their asses into oblivion in Afghanistan.



No proof other than the Pakistanis and Afghans both saying he was there, no proof other than a nice little battle at Tora Bora, no proof other than the Pakistanis who now say he's hiding in the hills in the Kashmir region. If all of this is a lie, surely it's not in their best interests to keep up the appearance unless they want to be attacked. You'd think they might have learned a lesson from Saddam's mistakes if Saddam was actually lying too. Besides, conventional wisdom holds that Osama is dead and buried in a cave somewhere since nobody can prove they've seen him alive since then.



The UN never said any such thing. They were still planning to endlessly debate the issue when we got tired of waiting for them. It's what the UN does. Talk talk talk. Well talk never solved any of the world's problems with aggressive terrorist states. You'd think people would remember the disaster that was Carter and talk talk talk.



As I said before, in Syria, now up in smoke after the Israelis did what we lacked the balls to do ourselves. They'll end up having to blast the Iranian's nukes into dust as well. They're not foolish enough to go after NK though, and who can blame them? Unless of course one believes your fish story that all NK has are pea shooters and spitwads. I mean, seriously, come on.



Then you're as deluded as he is if you think he's actually got anything of value to say after totally discrediting himself by claiming NK is a backward donkey riding nation with no military or weapons to speak of.

I think Furey backed up that NK is a backward donkey riding nation. Doesn't mean they don't have a powerful and well trained military, or a population that like South Korea and Japan has proved to be very capable of achieving 1st world status under capitalism.

I take the whole WMD thing with a grain of salt, even if true it doesn't change the fact that going into Iraq and Afghanistan was a total waste of lives and resources. It's a lot easier to hand Israel 10 billion a year to keep its military strong and occasionally bomb a nuclear installation.

You might also take notice I wasn't the one disputing his donkey riding claim. Mexicans still ride them too, but anyone with any common sense also knows that's not all there is to the place and that there are other modes of transportation. There would have to be for a nation advanced enough to wield a ballistic missile program.

Israel had no reason to go to war with Afghanistan. Unsurprisingly, because the Afghans weren't interested in attacking them either. I'm actually rather surprised that you figure it was a waste of our time since even the most liberal of liberals I've debated the two wars with sees Afghanistan as perfectly justified since they actually attacked us. Even our tin god president thinks the war in Afghanistan is justified.

Iraq is less clear to them because they don't understand preemptive defense. Bush did, and there's every reason to believe he picked that up from the Israelis who clearly understand it. I understand it, which is why I continue to stand behind the Iraq War. All 18 years of it.

I suppose Fury thinks they're a democracy too since they're called "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" and he can even provide wikipedia links to back up his claims

Bullshit. It was Alquada that attacked you, an organization that has no country and no boarders, who was based inside the USA. It was just expedient for the US to use this an an excuse to attack Afghanistan, we are all so dumb that we cannot read the history books to see that a war in Afghanistan can never be won, just like we could not win in Vietnam. The Russians tried this and failed, we will try this and fail, so there there has to be a better way.

So lets see if you can bring yourselves to more personal insults, it does make you look all clever.

The personal insults appear to be most effective though in exposing your complete ignorance. Al Qaeda is not based in the US, and anyone who thinks that has been drinking the conspiracy theory kool-aid for far too long to be taken seriously in anything. Prior to 9/11 we had no interest in bothering with Afghanistan other than to make life rough for the Russians in 1980. It's called a war by proxy. We are in fact the reason the Russians failed. Had we stayed out of it they'd have squashed the place like a bug. We will never know if that would have been a good thing or not.

Al Qaeda made their home in Afghanistan. The country was run by the Taliban, an organization who freely admitted they wished to see America burn. They got their wish, and we made them pay for it. Now they're nothing more than a rogue band of thugs who wander the mountains picking random fights with our soldiers - and losing 99% of the time. Attrition will see to it they don't bother anyone in another year or two. Your own government supports this action, so clearly we are not alone in wanting to see it brought to an end. It's only those pansy appeasers in Europe who refuse to fight.

And for your information, we had Vietnam in the bag, despite what the liberal media told you. It was the appeaser Democrats who "lost" us that war by convincing our own people that we'd lost and then crippling our forces by cutting off funding to them. Yeah, great way to support your troops overseas. Sound familiar at all? It should unless you live under a rock, which I'm becoming increasingly convinced you do with every passing moment. Come back when you have real and actual evidence of our "defeat" because I can assure you that none of it will be backed up with facts and firsthand accounts from the people who actually served there. Hint: ABC News is not the keeper of facts. They are a tool of propagandists.

And a general FYI, all wars can be won. It's just a matter of how many of them you're willing to kill doing it. The Ocean of Glass method would pretty clearly put an end to Afghanistan if we chose to do so. Since we're such imperialist monsters, perhaps you can explain why we haven't?

Oh, and: Fidel Castro is not dead.

I never said the whole organization was, but the ones who flew the planes into buildings were based in the usa and had been for many years

Yes you did:

That statement is factual, the al queda who attacked the USA were based in the USA, it in no way implies that the whole organization was based in the USA.

Remembering that you stated that it was Afghanistan who lead the attacks, How many Afghans where among the bombers? 0 So what nationality were the bombers, Mostly Saudi Arabians. OH wait, why did we not bomb the fuck out of Saudi Arabia? Because they already give us their oil.

Backpeddling attempt: FAIL.

You never said anything about the particular attackers being based here. You made a blanket statement about the entire organization being based here.

The nationalities of the attackers is irrelevant. They were not here at the behest of the Saudi monarch. They were here at the behest of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and as such were working more or less for them. Your logic is about as solid as my saying Australia is to blame for our illegal alien problems with Mexico because some of the illegals who cross the border happen to be Australian. Or that Peru is responsible for the holocaust in Germany because some Peruvians moved to Germany and took part in the killings. Where someone is born has very little to do with what they're doing now and who they're doing it for.

There was also a United Arab Eremites and and Egyptian, and a few unknowns, but the vast majority were from Saudi, Do you remember that Osama Bin Ladin was Saudi also, there seems to be a strong theme here and its all Saudi. And guess what, there is not a single Afghan among them, i have a lot of Afghan friends, who grew up during the Russian war and with the Taliban, maybe you should ask them what they think on the matter.

Not at all, i am explaining to you what i meant by what was written, sorry that you have misunderstood me, but playing games of semanitcs and choosing to take a meaning that i did not intentionally mean just shows how narrow minded and mean spirited you actually are. How about you try debating the facts rather than twisting my words to suit your own ends.

Saudi Arabia.... Hmmm but they have iol so lets over loog what they do, even their NUKE ambitions.

I don't care what they think unless they were involved in the Al Qaeda plot. It doesn't matter if there were Egyptians, Israelis, Afghans, Russians, Eremitians, or Hawaiins involved. Unless those countries directed them to form a group and come attack us, they can't be held responsible for it. You seem to be under the delusional assumption that one's birthplace forever ties their actions to that country regardless of where they end up later in life. That's simply not how the real world works.

The 9/11 attackers were all members of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban government. It was at their behest that all of this went down. Osama bin Laden was simply acting to carry out their wishes. It helped that he agreed with the goals. If the Saudis wanted us dead, I have little doubt that they're more than capable of cutting out the middle men and killing plenty of Americans all on their own.

If this was all supposed to be about oil, invading Afghanistan seems like a pretty bad way to go about getting it. Invading Iraq also seems to be a pretty bad way to go about getting it since they supply less than 1% of the world's total supply. If we wanted oil this badly, invading Russia is the answer to all our problems as they have more oil than all of the Middle East combined, and more modern infrastructure with which to transport it once we've stolen it from them. Maybe that's why Putin is (or rather was) scared shitless of us. He believed the same lies you do and thought we were coming for his oil.

Seen that bullshit report of yours before too. Al Qaeda is not the Saudi government. Being attacked by dissident groups who have nothing to do with their government means we have a beef with the dissidents. Not with the Saudis.

Considering how ridiculous the sniping is at this point, I should probably just GTFO, but...eh, what the hell.

A couple of points Re: North Korea:

1. The North Korean missile program (and its nuclear one) ought to be viewed through the prism of a desire by North Korea to be seen as a big dog in the world - sort of a keeping up with the Joneses thing.

That said, it's a lot harder to get worked up by the North Korean missile threat when you know that all of their big multi-stage stuff has pretty much been a huge failure going back a decade. Their shorter range stuff appears to work, however, and you can feel justifiably nervous if you're South Korea or Japan. That aside, what North Korea makes are basically upgraded Scuds, and we pretty much know how that plays out.

We'll see how the nuclear thing plays out, but my guess is that it'll be a while before we see warheads on missiles in any kind of credible fashion.

Which is, let me hasten to add, not really an endorsement of US and world policy, which appears to be along the lines of waiting the North Koreans out and hoping really hard that we get some guys that are willing to not be assholes to us. To which I say good luck with that, 'cause I don't see it working.

Shorter version: I don't think we'll resolve North Korea without a war, but now is not that time.

2. With regards to the whole Reagan thing, it should be kept in mind that North Korea has a pretty long history of violating the ceasefire, the DMZ, and whatever else it wants pretty much at a whim. Commando raids, tunnels under the DMZ, and what have you. Couple that with Kim's really serious national Napoleon complex, and it's not outside the realm of possibility that he launches an invasion or what have you if we shoot down missiles with no follow-up. Stuff like that got us into lots of trouble earlier this century with the Islamists and Iraq.

3. With regards to potential warfighting on the Korean penninsula, it ought to be kept in mind that North Korea's army is only slightly smaller than our entire army, with a populace that's heavily armed. They may or may not also be fanatic in their resistance. I don't think we really have any idea, and the whole thing could wind up like Iraq in 2003, or it could end up like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Again, I'm not sure we really know.

In either case, South Korea gets fucked, which is bad.

This also kind of ties in with the CIA issues, which is that it's interesting to me how much their capabilities get overestimated. You look at Iraq in any serious fashion, as I have done, and it's pretty amazing how off base they were a whole lot of the time. You look at their efforts at regime change in particular (in reply to Conner), and it comes off really badly. We did it right a couple times, wrong a whole bunch of times, and even places where we did it right, like the Shah of Iran, eventually came back to bite us in the ass later.

Open question as to if eliminating Kim Jong-Il would solve anything in any case, which I'm not really at ease with.

So, all that aside, let us turn to The_Fury, who's saying some pretty unreasonable, illogical, and contradictory stuff, but who I'll go ahead and respond to anyway.



Pretty much everybody is letting them have most of that stuff, too. Even the nuclear power. Nuclear weapons, well, they signed that away with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, at least for a while.

That aside, it's not particularly hypocritical for the US, South Korea, Japan, etc to want to be safe, and a nuclear-armed North Korea with ballistic missiles pointed every which way isn't particularly conducive to that safety.

Especially since, as you may or may not have noticed, as regimes go, North Korea isn't particularly nice. Invasions, armed raids, mass kidnappings, shooting missiles at people, self-induced famines, repression of their population, the list goes on. I want these people to have nuclear weapons why?

By comparison, the US is a pretty respectable world leader. NATO, helping the economic development of developing countries, and what have you. Sure, we've done some shitty things, but we do plenty of good ones, too.

Which is to say that if you can find me some way in which North Korea is somehow morally comparable to the United States, then we can talk about hypocricy. Until then, not so much.



See, I kind of followed you on the CIA thing (we'll get to bin Laden), but here's where you stop making any damn sense. If you want to start talking about urgent issues in the world, well, let's see:

1. Compare and contrast the regimes of Robert Mugabe and Saddam Hussein, taking into account who's invaded how many countries, who's systematically repressed and killed more of their own people for longer, and who has presented more of a threat to their region and the world for longer. For extra bonus practicality points, describe to me some sort of US plan of action for Zimbabwe and Africa, a region of the world where we have little involvement by the desire of Africans. For more extra bonus points, compare and contrast to Iraq and the Gulf region, wherein we have a great deal of presence and allies.

2. Ditto for Darfur, really, although it was my impression that we'd been trying to do something diplomatically for a while. Explain to me how we're supposed to magically fix Sudan.

3. You come talk to me about Somalia and US history there when you have a grasp on UNITAF, UNISOM II, CTF-150, and CTF-151. For less successful proxy efforts, see also the probably US-backed Ethiopian invasion.

All of that having been said, you want hypocricy, let's talk about the hypocricy inherent in crying foul and "Oh, you can't go and do that arrogant Americans!" when we go smack down some nest of bad guys, but always wanting us to step up and deal with some other nest of bad guys elsewhere. So what's it gonna be?

You've already gotten smacked down on the donkey thing and the Castro thing, so let us not beat any more dead equines.



Now, here we agree, at least on the Saddam had WMD thing, although considering the entire Iraqi history of WMDs and their dealings with UNSCOM, it's at least partly forgivable, even though best evidence now is that Saddam's actual goal was to destroy his WMD stocks (which he mostly did to my knowledge), with the goal of reconstituting his WMD programs when the pesky UN was off his back. Which doesn't actually make him look any better.

As to North Korea, well, not so much. They demonstrably have both nukes and ballistic missiles. They are also, let us note once again, demonstrably not particularly huggable and lovable.



Let us follow the logic. The Taliban only repress their own folks, so we shouldn't have a war with them, right? (We leave aside for a moment the Al Quaeda thing) Well, ok. But wait! Robert Mugabe only represses his own people, and he's an URGENT THREAT, in your words. Sudan's only repressing their own people, and they're an URGENT THREAT. And the US needs to go start wars with them!

Remind me how this works again?



I'm not actually interested in debating the intricacies of the Soviet war in Afghanistan here, but this makes him any less of a bad dude...why, exactly? He deserves not to get his ass shot down...why, exactly? People keep bringing that up as some sort of reason why we shouldn't be fighting Al Quaeda, and I keep waiting for somebody to tell me why that makes any damn sense whatsoever.



As opposed to what, exactly?



So, ok. On the one hand, let us not argue the donkey thing, but let's point out that the North Korean military has about a million people, and if you believe Wikipedia, various large numbers of advanced tanks, aircraft, and the like. Which, let us be clear, are obtained by directing most available resources towards the military at the expense of the civilian populace. Despite, let us be clear, sanctions. And if we look at previous times this has happened, it's pretty typical, although Kim Jong-Il seems to be taking it even further than Saddam did.



Not that I'm a huge defender of the UN here, but let's be clear, here. In the case of Iraq, the coalition went to war after many, many breaches of the relevant UN resolutions and the 1991 cease-fire agreement. We were well within our rights even if we didn't follow the last resolution, which we actually did.

The UN aside, both North Korea and Iran are (or were) signers of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which among other things forbids them from developing military nuclear programs, and subjects them to monitoring from the IAEA. Complain as you may about the possible unfairness of that treaty, they are, in fact, breaking the rules.

But let's pause for a moment and ask the question: Why in the hell would you want any damnfool tin pot dictator with an agenda to have nuclear weapons? Why would we want there to be any more than there already are in the world?



Yeah, ok. So let's work this out.

- US Cost of Iraq War: $500 billion in August 2008.

- US oil imports from Iraq? Barely within the top 5, competing with the likes of Angola and Nigeria. Iraq sends us about half of what Venezuela (of all people) sends us, half of what Mexico sends us, about a third of what the Saudis do, and a quarter of what Canada does.

May I suggest that if it was really about the oil, there are quite a few easier ways to have gone about it, rather than invading a country and having to rebuild its entire infrastructure.

But since this is actually just about having a pointless mad at the US, by all means, do carry on.



For a supposedly US-based organization, Al Quaeda has been remarkably ineffective in doing anything to us since 9/11. I guess I'd think they'd have been a little better at it. I guess it also makes slightly more sense to me for Al Quaeda, being a radical Islamist group, to be based somewhere with a bunch of radical Islamic folks to recruit. Such as, for instance, Afghanistan and the northwest provinces of Pakistan. But I guess we're blaming all that on bin Laden being a CIA tool? Which I guess makes this whole thing a CIA plot? Because the CIA is really scary, except how they're stupid and ineffective at gathering intelligence?

...wait, I'm really confused now.

Also, would somebody please remind me why exactly we were slavering so hard to attack Afghanistan, we needed excuses to go do it?

I guess I could go on with the whole bit about which nationalities made up the 9/11 bombers, throw in some points about the nature of multi-national, non-state terrorist groups, make a note about AQ basing in Sudan (among other places - bin Laden's been around a few places), bring things back to bin Laden's role as a mujahedeen in the 1980s, talk about the Taliban for a bit, and then follow up with the difference between the actions of the Saudi government versus, say, the Pakistani ISI, and then follow up what exactly the Taliban were saying in the runup to the 2001 invasion, and conclude with a smackdown of your ridiculous backpedeling attempt, but I think I'm done now.

Samson wrote:

We should have just bombed Afghanistan, forced the Taliban leadership into hiding, given weapons to the resistance, divided the place up, and gotten the hell out. With a boycott on top to make them think twice of fucking with us again.

This whole policing crap isn't working for these nations and has only cost us 4000+ additional lives. I don't see why it's our responsibility to rebuild their bridges and turn their governments into decent democracies, any sane person knows it's not going to last.

Sheesh, 26 new posts in less than that many hours.. I'll say this about my CIA comment: first off, the comment itself was totally tongue in cheek for those who missed it. I was not seriously proposing that this should really happen, afterall, we have seen the CIA's attempts at that sort of manipulation go south way more often than not. (On the other hand, if they managed to pull it off this time, I can't say that I'd see it as a bad move either.) But, Fury, that's not to say that it always has either, trying to point out the well known failures hardly discounts the successes.

As for the rest.. I think what Samson & Kayle missed, Dwip more than adequately appears to have covered. (Can't you just picture those poor donkeys that had the uneviable task of hauling the ballistic missile to the launch site... *ROFL* ...not to mention the poor bastard who had to sit there rubbing sticks together to get the fuse on the missile lit once in was in place... *sigh* Sorry, Fury, you've just painted me too funny a picture.)

Funnily enough Conner, that's the exact picture i see too, too bad the others cant see the funny side of it.

It might have been funny if you weren't trying to present it as an actual legitimate argument. Backward donkey riders with nukes? It doesn't add up. We know firsthand from our own history with North Korea that they're on par with China and Russia, at least militarily. They would lose a war with us in a prolonged fight unless China interfered, which is the reason we likely haven't wiped them out yet. China likely would interfere and I doubt even Regan would have been willing to go to war with 50 million screaming Chinese soldiers pouring down into South Korea.

I see Fujimori, ex president of Peru whose coup was legitimized by the Buss administration has been sentenced to 25 years jail for setting up a death squad to kill his opposition. This seems to be another example of where the US intelligence system has no idea who the good guys are, if they cannot work out who is good, how can we ever trust them to know who the REAL bad guys are.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gyYAKP7-g6qXDaCoQmI2-xBl2J2Q

Fujimori only served from 1990 to 2000 after which he fled to Japan to escape prosecution. I'm afraid the Bush administration had nothing to do with that. That time period was Clinton's domain. There is also no mention in the article about it being propped up by the US government. So if it was, Clinton endorsed it, and now they're trying to make sure nobody notices.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,513183,00.html

So would we be justified in killing some pirates for that or should we go running and cry to the UN about it and wait 15 years for them to act?

So, since you're so gung-ho on pointing out how terrible the CIA is, regardless of whether you've verified your facts first or not, why don't you demonstrate to us how it should be done through the exemplary example your own government's international intelligence agency has set?

Wrong, Try Bush Senior.1989 to 1993, I cannot find any info on what roll Clinton played, he most certainly either sat on his hands and did nothing or like Bush before him encouraged the whole situation.

So, since you're so gung-ho on pointing out how terrible the CIA is, regardless of whether you've verified your facts first or not, why don't you demonstrate to us how it should be done through the exemplary example your own government's international intelligence agency has set?

Whats there to say about ASIO Conner, they are worse then the US systems because ASIO cannot think for itself, it takes its lead from the US.

So you'd condemn us because our international intelligence agency makes mistakes rather publicly every now and then and your own international intelligence agency is even worse because they just follow the lead ours sets. I think I understand the problem now, and I'm deeply sympathetic to your jealousies but hardly moved to self-sacrifice nor anti-americanism because of them.

Whats there to say about ASIO Conner, they are worse then the US systems because ASIO cannot think for itself, it takes its lead from the US.

If you're going to tell me I'm wrong, don't do so when I've provided you the link which says you're a fucking total moron who can't read. It clearly says 1990-2000 and Clinton was president from 1992-2000. Not Bush Sr.

The reason you can't find any indication of what role Clinton played is because of one of two things:

1. The liberal media buried the details.
2. The AFP found no such evidence of his involvement.

I'll leave it to you to decide which.

Are you a total dickhead or what (seeing you want to play personal insults, i will trade them as well), let me spell it out for you real simple and you can do the math.

Fujimori's was elected in 1990 and ran a coup against his own government in 1992

Bush Senior.1989 to 1993 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush

That's a whole fucking year where Bush has a huge fucking influence on things, now i know your school system is not the best, but im sure you can do the maths on that, 1993 - 1992= 1 YEAR That's not Clinton but Bush Senior.

And i know how it is hard for you to see that your republican demigod did anything wrong, but they did, and this is just one of 100's of example of it.

As for Clinton, a little research shows that he did not care much about foreign policy in Latin America, but in 2000 he questioned relations with Peru over the election scandal.

I've been told as much, yes. So maybe it's really true? I could be a total dickhead. I know for sure I'm an asshole. The difference here is I am freely admitting it rather than trying to hide behind whatever facade you seem to be putting up that you've got a brain somewhere in that head of yours.

However, you apparently failed to read even the snippet you just provided as "proof" of evil intent. It quite clearly says that the OAS ( who btw, hates our guts, thought you should know that ) in addition to the USA decided that Fujimori's self-coup was better for Peru in the long run than letting Sendero take over instead. There are times when letting a tin pot dictator take over and bring stability is better than allowing another holocaust to occur. Lesser of two evils. And even the biased editor who appears to have attempted to slant the article against Bush Sr. admits the long term affects weren't that bad.

Point is, the Google News article specifically stated Fujimori was in power from 1990-2000. The coup took place in 1992, less than a year before the US elections. Clinton took office in 1993. If he thought Fujimori was so bad and that something should have been done, he had 8 years to do something about it and chose not to. Which was typical of Clinton. Spent 8 years not doing anything about our enemies overseas and cost us 2,996 lives on September 11, 2001.

I can't wait to see what sort of twisted examples you can concoct to justify your obviously flawed position. We have all the time in the world since Obama has destroyed the economy to the point I can't find work. Have at it. It'll give me something to laugh at, and I need that right now.

Okay, now I'm at a total loss as to what purpose it could've been intended to serve to respond to my last post with a verbatim of the previous post which I'd quoted (and cleaned up attributes for) in entirety.

On the other hand, I'm also still not real clear on what Fujimori has to do with North Korea having launched a ballistic missile over Japan either...

Obama destroyed it, LOL that's the most fucking laughable thing i have ever heard, it was well and truly fucked before he even set foot in the White House, brought about by years of greedy and stupid brain dead fucks who have ruled the US and the financial systems for the last 20 years.

Obama has had what 4 months in office, now i know your not a dummy but this shit was happening well before the elections, with both Clinton and Bush2 having no idea.

If your meaning that Obama is going to continue with the same Wall St mindset of dickheads giving shit advice i will agree with you 100%, you cant change the system when your getting advice from the same cunts that put us here in the first place.

Don't get me started on this shit, in the last 2 months we have lost over 2mil worth of work from our books from companies we worked for closing or postponing work, had just over 350K worth of payments go into more than 90 days in arrears with those companies likely to go under and have fired half our staff just to stay afloat, so yes, i have a rather large bug up my ass when it comes to greedy fuck yanks fucking up the world and taking honest people to the fucking wall.

Clearly, it's an incompetent CIA plot to assassinate Fujimori while he's in Japan!

...only he's not in Japan and hasn't been for years, hence the incompetence. You can insert your own Iraq paralells, I'm sure.

Nothing, it was an interesting aside that shows how effective the US as been with its foreign policy manipulation agenda, where who they backed turned out to be just another tyrant. You would think by now, with all the fuck ups they have made, they would give up on trying to Americanize the world and just leave the donkey riding backward fucks to annihilate themselves.

Yes. Obama destroyed it. I say this with complete confidence because I live here, you don't, and therefore you can't know what's going on here on a level we as Americans are intimately familiar with. The stock market tanked 50% of its value in the last 77 days. Obama's spending plans have tripled the federal deficit in less than 77 days. Unemployment has reached 9% nationally and 12% here in California in the last 77 days.My 401K went from having just short of $17,000 US to $6,500 US in the last 77 days.

The Republicans raised the alarm about the housing crisis several times since 1977. John McCain himself raised the alarm about it all during the primaries and during his election campaign. The willing liberal media sided with Obama as they ignored the problem until it was convenient for him to exploit it. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd repeatedly lied and said there were no problems with Fannie and Freddie all these years, yet they clearly lied about that. There were a number of attempts made to impose additional regulations which were rejected outright by Democrats throughout the years. So to say this was entirely Bush's fault is a sign of utter ignorance on your part. Clinton knew exactly what was going on and actively chose to do nothing about it.

Regardless, this really has nothing to do with North Korea's ballistic missile test and the response the world should be giving toward it.

So what did they do with the 20+ years of controlling the white house, Ragen, Bush 1 and 2. NOTHING, they bent over and took wall st up the ass big time. Don't fucking whine about liberal this and that when your own side of politics did fuck all about a problem you say they noticed over 30 years ago.

If as you say they noticed that this was a problem and did nothing about it other than have a whine, then they are even far worse than the side who thought these policies were in the national interest. 30 fucking years your side sat on its fat ass doing absolutely nothing, so don't give me the your god is so much better bullshit. Dubelya was to moronic to even know what an economy is, and his father, according to PJ O'Rorke was a bumbling idiot as well.

You seem to be laboring under the false delusion that we had control of the House, Senate, and Presidency for 20+ years. I can assure you that this is not true by any stretch. You discredit yourself with each passing wave of bullshit by not even knowing what's gone on in our government for the last 50 years.

W was in no way too moronic to know what an economy is. It was his economic policies that allowed us to continue to have one after Clinton's recession from 2000 got started and then 9/11 happened and we nearly went into the toilet then. He recognized that tax cuts would encourage investment, hiring, and consequently spending. He was proven 100% correct as our economy grew and job creation went through the roof. It's only been since 2006 and the Democrats taking over Congress again that things deteriorated. Which is what they wanted.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume "PJ O'Rorke" is the political cartoon writer. If you're getting your political opinions from those cartoons, much is explained in great detail about why you know so little about how our country works.

Lovely rant. So it's entirely the U.S.'s Fault that the world economy is tanking now. Damn, we must be pretty powerful.. I can't account for your country nor others, but in our country the current problems have all been democratic babies. The "housing crises" was started by a direct act of Jimmy Carter. The stock market's "crash" and emminent failure was Clinton's doing, though I don't think it was as directly so as Carter's Fair Housing Act. All the present unemployment and bank failures are results of Obama's double crossing with full senate backing.


Ah, and here I was beginning to think it was just Fury's red herring for this thread...


Hmm, logic would say that, despite the occassional picking of the wrong horse, if our foreign policy manipulation agenda is that effective, then we're getting what we want accomplished so why stop. As for giving up on trying to Americanize the world, well. once again, that's primarily a democratic agenda in this country and they're just trying to raise your standards of living to the levels ours are at so they can follow the advice of our 60's & 70's songwriters and "teach the world to sing in perfect harmony"...


I agree with Samson on this one, Fury. though I can't say much for his 401k as a national indicator.. but ultimately, AMEN, we're way off topic here. This thread was clearly supposed to be about North Korea having launched a ballistic missile and what we all think about it and what we all think should be done about it.


And therein lies the real problem. It's not that our republican presidents haven't tried to do something other than "have a whine" about it, it's that in this country our president is constrained by Congress.

Yup, that's what Google seems to think too.

So, now that we've had our subject badly sidetracked which served to:
[list]thoroughly prove that The_Fury really doesn't understand American politics[/list]
[list]re-opened the floor for yet further discussion about the power and influence which our CIA weilds and[/list]
[list]the fact that the democrats have screwed up our economy badly enough that the rest of the world felt the need to follow suit and try to tank with us[/list]
Can we now get back to what's going on in North Korea?

The_Fury will no longer be joining us here as he chose to stuff the comment system full of profanity laced nonsense that Akismet flagged appropriately as drivel.

I for one would like to see the evidence for all you are accusing Fury off including the emails, personally i think your just full of shit samon and you will filter this post out because it questions your position.

You really did a number on Fury, Samson, i hope you have a nasty accident, kama really should come back and bit you on the ass for this. How sad must your life be to have to lie about Fury just so he could get banned from everywhere, he was doing a good job of that without you.

Really sorry to hear it, he was becoming a regular poster, even if his posts leaned toward anti-americanism and flawed logic/basis, at least it gave us someone to argue points against. How long does Akismet routinely block posters who do that sort of thing? Can it be over-ridden without causing the flagged material to spam the thread? (It's been awhile since I played with Akismet now.)


Perhaps if you provided an email address Samson could show you those emails/logs, but I've not seen Samson filter out posts here ever before because they were contrary, in any fashion, to his position.


I believe that the word you're looking for is Karma (the buddhist law of moral causation) rather than kama (a martial arts weapon or one of various gods or the first word in Kama Sutra, the art of love as philosophised by Vatsyayana...) and it's bite rather than bit, otherwise you're just mixing tense which doesn't sound very good at all. Either way, wishing harm to someone, for any reason but especially one so petty, as in "I hope you have a nasty accident" doesn't bode well for one's karma at all, perhaps you should look into the Wiccan Rule of Three and consider adopting it.


As for banning him everywhere, Samson's well respected by many within the communities that he is a part of and an administrator of several sites, including this one, but he hardly has the power to get anyone banned everywhere which leads me to believe that perhaps, if that's the case, Fury's simply done a "good job" entirely on his own. On the other hand, I personally know of at least a few web sites that he's not banned at presently (if nothing else, my own sites, which should be back up around this coming Wednesday or so, do not have him banned or even restricted in any way beyond that of someone who hasn't ever come visit and registered yet and that's only because he hasn't. *shrug*) So, once again, we're dealing with exaggeration or flawed basis... You're not Fury coming back to post anonymously are you? That would prove in itself that Samson didn't do anything significant to ban you from even this site, wouldn't it?

You know as well as I do that you sent them, Fury, so why bother hiding it? Or, rather, one email in which you told me Kayle is a fascist and you wanted me to overturn your IMC ban. Sent via the email form from your registered account on MudBytes. So I know you sent it. And you are also no doubt aware that posting it would prove nothing because the headers on those kinds of emails would show it as originating from localhost. Much like your lovely threat of bodily injury you sent via the contact form here. How sad your life must be to have to resort to such silliness over an email of your own origins.

I certainly didn't have to lie about it. You got yourself banned from TMC based entirely on your own actions. I've seen the threads. So unless you're suggesting I have the power to convince Icculus of the necessity to ban you when he rarely if ever bans anyone, you're crazy. Which I think gets to the heart of the matter. You're just crazy.

Oh, and I guess I didn't filter the post either. Akismet tends to do a wonderful job of that on its own when you lace things with profanities and web links. That's its job. I rarely break a message free from that unless I can tell it has something useful to do, which none of your comments did.

@Conner: Akismet clearly will not lock someone out of the system unless they demonstrate nothing but spamming intent. Fury got those last two comments through just fine. Though the more spam he sends, the more likely he will be to get flagged as a spammer and the more likely he'll be to get dropped at any Akismet using blogs or sites. In the long run, he damaged only himself.

Ah, I understand Samson, it's just been awhile since I last used and then you hadn't added the means to do anything about it's actions yet either.

On a separate note, he threatened bodily injury via the contact form? That's more silly than one might even initially think. Assuming he even knew your address (not that it'd be that hard to find, I imagine, though I've never had a need to try to find it myself), he'd have to get here from Australia, which can't be cheap no matter how he does it.. and over what?? *shaking his head* I have to admit, were someone to post a personal threat on my site against me or my family like that I would probably ban them before I even thought about my next reaction, which would probably be to either print a copy to turn in to the police (would that fall under CIA jurisdiction since it involves an international threat?) or just laugh it off as being utterly rediculous to begin with, but either way they'd already be banned.

On the other hand, I can't really picture Kayle getting [too] offended by being called a fascist...

Hmm, could've sworn I'd typed "Akismet," between "last used" and "and then", but I am on a laptop with a hyper sensitive touchpad. *sigh* I really can't wait to finish this move so I can go back to using a real keyboard again. Sadly, it's looking like my new home is just a little too far from any city limits to be reached by cable or DSL so I'm having to drop to satelitte based internet, so I'm not sure the new broadband is going to feel even as broad to me as some of the hotels I've stayed at over the last few months compared to what I'd grown accustomed to at home before this.

So, in an attempt to get this thread back on topic finally: It appears that after that missle test the people of North Korea have rallied behind their beloved leader and re-elected him for another term. I didn't even know his previous term was close to an end. Go figure.

Heh. Kayle didn't care what he thought really. Fury was the second person Kayle has banned from the network, and the 3rd one I know of being banned in all the time I've participated. Cratylus isn't banned anymore, and Rogel is no longer around. So it's pretty much just Fury being banned there.

His anger being directed at me is not entirely unexpected since he doesn't much care for people who point out his behavior to him as asinine. Drawing down a ban from TMC should give you some idea of just how far he fell. He had kept his composure on MudBytes until Kayle raised the issue of him coming to me to get his IMC ban lifted. Then he simply flew off the rails when I verified what Kayle said. Profanity laced posts, etc. Asylumius took care of it in short order, but of course Fury decided to try and circumvent the ban, first with a bogus account then with proxies after his IP was blocked. Given the restrictive nature of Australian ISPs you'd think it unwise of him to engage in abusive behavior like that since one call to his ISP could get his connection severed. Still, despite all that, he's not banned from everywhere. TMC, MudBytes, IMC, and here are hardly everywhere. He's not even banned on SmaugMuds.org - and won't be provided he doesn't fly off the rails there. However he did make me waste some time adding IP tracking to the email comment form and checking to see that user registrations got routed through Akismet. So even in his own twisted way he's aided the development of Sandbox a bit more, even if only incidentally.

As far as North Korea, yeah. Pretty laughable that they had an "election". As if anyone would dare oppose Kim Jong Il. As if there were even any other candidates on the ballot. No, we're likely going to have to wait for the guy to die and then hope whoever takes over for him isn't an insane totalitarian.

Re: Fury
You'd think that, if Australian ISPs are that restrictive, Australians would be amongst the very nicest people on the internet. I really don't understand why he's going off so badly as it is, but either way, at least something good came of it. One of these days I'm going to have to check out Sandbox again, at the rate you've been adding features to it I may eventually be able to go back to it instead of continuing to use QSFP for my family blog.

Re: North Korea
You mean he hasn't forced anyone to bear him an heir he can groom as his replacement yet? Maybe my CIA comment had more merit than I'd realized then.

Supposedly his son is being groomed for the spot, but that wasn't supposed to be done for several more years. Nobody counted on Kim Jong Il having a stroke and being a walking dead at this point.

The missile launch was deliberately timed to attract the most attention while Obama was over in Europe selling out our country to the liberal appeasers who want us to give up our nukes and join their fantasy utopia where everyone is peace loving and non-violent. As far as I'm concerned, Obama failed the test before NK pushed the button.

Oh, I was thinking that I'd heard he had a son he was molding into a mini-me, but when you implied that no one knew yet who'd be his replacement I questioned what I'd remembered.

You figure Jong actually post-poned his big missile test just for Obama's sake?
Well, of course Obama failed the test before this event, he told us up front that he wanted the standard Democratic party line for the most part and demonstrated before "we" even elected him that he was basically all talk.

He was molding his son into a mini-me, but the process is nowhere near complete yet. Or so I gathered from the various talking heads who were discussing it the other night. They're all paranoid that there's no proper succession in place and that NK is going to "collapse" because of it. It's sort of hard to collapse when you've never been up on your feet to begin with except for the military.

Now I suppose that could be what they meant. That NK's military may collapse. Such a thing would probably be very bad for a lot of people in the area since elements of their military would love to steamroll our 40,000 troops along the 38th parallel. Having an army of around 2 million men rushing the border because some rogue general says he's in charge would turn ugly fast. Tac-nukes would almost surely be needed to stop them.

And when I said he setup the missile launch to coincide with Obama's trip to Europe, I didn't mean he did it for his benefit. I meant he did it to cause embarrassment for the US. It appears to be working rather well since Obama ran like a crying child to the UN for help.

Yeah, I honestly couldn't care less about being called a fascist, or a communist, or a nazi, or whatever anyone else wants to call me. It's actually rather humorous that they're calling me a fascist for documenting the things we've abided by on the network for so long anyway. The best part is, Cratylus is far more aggressive in upholding his rules on i3 than I am on IMC2. Yet, I'm the fascist because I made rules... Mhmm.

Oh, and uh.. blame it on France. or whatever Samson's line normally is when dealing with international issues.

Samson:
Makes you wonder what, if any, parts of the process are completed, maybe he's already got the meglomania in place, or maybe just the lust for power, or perhaps just the general lack of value for people, or maybe some sort of partial combination of traits. Either way, they really think he's "at death's door" already? Hadn't they thought that about Fidel Castro too for years?

A collapse of North Korea.. well, they could've meant the general government, but given that it's mostly a police state anyway over there.. you know, even if some elements would love to steamroll our boys holding the 38th, what's to say that a different rogue general who couldn't care less about South Korea wouldn't seize power first? Either way, at this point I suppose it's fair to say that North Korea could actually be much worse off than having Kim Jong II in charge.

Oh, that makes sense. But didn't Obama tell us all before the elections that he'd do that too? Anyone remember "we are the world", isn't that basically Obama's theme song? Perhaps "I'd like to teach the world to sing"?

Kayle:
For documenting or enforcing? Far as I'm concerned forums & chat networks both need established and enforced rules, not necessarily a lot of them, but some.

Actually, I hadn't seen David over here in awhile now. *shrug*