There’s no one
Just me onry
Sitting on my rittre throne
I work very hard and make up great prans
But nobody ristens, no one understands
Seems that no one takes me serirousry
I’m still watching CNN, and their expert on North Korea, Han Park, tells them via phone from Seoul that the North Korean missiles posed no threat to the United States and we shouldn’t react at all. He also says that North Korea wanted to show their expertise at weapons production in order to sell their wares abroad — and figures that the results reflect positively on Pyongyang.
In other words, Park wants us to believe that North Korea actually impressed people by staging a demonstration of missiles that can’t fly even for one full minute. Riiiiiiiiiiight.
UPDATE II: CNN now reports that six missiles got fired today, including another Taepodong-2. No word yet on the success or failure of the second TD-2.
Updates
NORAD has been “placed on ‘Bravo-Plus’ status, slightly higher than a medium threat level,”
Discussion on anti-missile technology, at the Belmont Club.
“Maybe the Chicoms put them up to multiple launches so as to get a read on our defenses. And maybe some Nork rocket scientists are against a wall tonight.”
Maybe.
Stephen is correct the flying 747 carrying blue spectrum type lasers is way off in the future; if at all workable. This stuff is still in the fantasy or ‘wunder waffen’ stage of development.
Without getting into a protracted and involved discussion of upper atmosphere physics this ‘Star Wars Lite’ is still the stuff of dreamscapes.
You need like several million watts of power to drive these types of lasers and then you need several of them to effectively cover the ICBM rocket path. With those kinds of power requirements you will need a nuclear power plant in space. The current stuff runs on huge batches of chemical reaction in a 747. Trouble is you need a sustained beam, so you’re back to a nuclear power system; which if it burns up on reentry to the earth, carves a nice hole in the ozone as you ‘liberally’ distribute radioactive material all over the upper atmosphere.
The cure may be worse than the diseased minds who feel the need to threaten the use of nuclear weapons. Paranoia takes over and we can all talk to Jesus directly, no translator will be required.
The main problem with these blue ray laser wunder waffen is the beam dispersal over any significant distance upwards of 100km. To get a really effective laser weapon with rockets travelling intercontinental in about 10 – 15 minutes from lift off to impact the range should be in the 1000 to 3000 km range. After all with a live nuke you can’t afford to miss.
Best bet scramble or flying at combat patrol F14 Tomcats loaded up with about 8 AIM 54 Phoenix missiles, range of about 100Km, and speed of 4800 kmph. You just need a couple of carrier groups to hang around the area of missile launch, which the US has already done.
Maybe a couple of Aegis ship to air missiles if you catch the launch early.
Failing that, pray hard.
Dont tell anyone but I just launched a Poontang 3 against North Korea. I think it got past the end of the block before it had “undisclosed technical difficulties.”
Premature something or other…
Red Dodge is trying to have sex with Kim Jong Il?
This guy is not too attractive, and tends to go radioactive verbally, when he doesn’t have one of his own lackey’s to insult.
Seeing that your payload didn’t make it past the end of the block, may I suggest a phone call to Kim Jong Il, as this has a better chance of getting through whatever grey matter the poor man has left.
If getting rid of gun control is supposed to make the people in Canada safer, therefore by using the same logic, getting rid of nuclear disarmament should make the people of the world safer. No more discrimination…nukes for everyone!!
trajectulation….
Hans… You’re right..the tech doesn’t exist in a functional way…..what does exist is the A stomp.
Never bring a knife to a gun fight.
Syncro
Iberia—Quite correct in a dysalexic sort of way!!
Syncro
Thats what the nice folks down the block said!
A “trajeculation” problem.
But hey,I just build em and light the fuse.What happens after they take off is someone elses problem.
But I gotta tell you that they were pretty good about that 3 foot crater in their front lawn.
They must be democrats.
Syncro
If it is true that these missiles are for sale then let’s have the US buy them then roll them off the side of the ship halfway across the Pacific.
At least the U.S. will have casus belli this time.
WHo knows whether or not the Aegis system works….one day we’ll find out. Perhaps that was the reason for the missle launches, perhaps that was the reason the US said “maybe we’d shoot them down, but then again maybe we won’t try”.
It could all be a big bluff, we’ll never know till they actually get pushed to use it.
Great Leader looks likes he has a small embaressment that might cut into his arms sales. Small brand problem now.
Finally, the reference in Kate’s post is to Kim Il Jong characterization in Team America….funny movie, skewers everybody, rent it if you havent seen it.
Idiots like stevie-DDude would have a different take on this if they actually had to live in the horror of North Korea.
It sure is easy to downplay the magnitude of an entire country as prison camp when you spew your nonsense spoiled, protected and comfortable in the west.
Its completely immoral for us or anyone else to be giving aid to that regime and prolonging one of the worse governments that has ever existed in the world.
All missiles, likely also including these NK jobs, carry small radio-activated detonation charges to destroy the thing if it has guidance problems. (Wouldn’t want it to head for Pyongyang by mistake) Destruct signals would normally be sent in the boost phase, as after that the missile is ballistic.
I wonder if it was something as simple as the self-destruct signals being sent…from a US Navy AEGIS cruiser?
NK loses face big time, and they wouldn’t even know with certainty why the missile failed.
*chuckle*
America’s answer to NK problem is to send stevie duh over there as he knows what that raving loonie really wants unlike most of the free world.
Hey bright boy, the missles aren’t for SK. Put yourself in tokyo for a sec and think about the crazy neighbour not so far away or is geography not required for lefties?
USA is the only superpower ergo it must be a bully. Brilliant!
“Finally, the reference in Kate’s post is to Kim Il Jong characterization in Team America….funny movie, skewers everybody, rent it if you havent seen it.”
Thankyou, Stephen.
A reminder to our linguists here that it’s probably best to “click” before you speak.
Almost hate to bring this up, but anyone know the source of davidson’s excrable quote?
The missile also could have been destroyed by the NK operators before it reached international airspace. Once it had achieved liftoff and begun stable accurate flight they may have had all the info they needed. Letting it proceed into international airspace and with a trajectory somewhat towards say, Japan the NK’s would not be completely sure what the west’s response would be.
The one thing that these guys seem to know how to do is provoke/agitate the west (and China) right up to the edge but no further. Detonating the missile on purpose is plausible when viewed in this context.
Does Aegis work? According to Reuters, on 2005-02-25:
“A missile fired from a U.S. Navy ship off Kauai, Hawaii, intercepted and destroyed a mock warhead on Thursday, the fifth success in six such test of the fledgling U.S. anti-missile shield’s sea-based leg, the Pentagon announced.
“The target was tracked from the cruiser Lake Erie using the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Weapon System developed by Lockheed Martin Corp. It was launched from the U.S. Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai. The ship fired a Standard Missile (SM)-3 at the target outside the earth’s atmosphere during the descent phase of flight, Lockheed said. Raytheon Co. is developing the SM-3.
“The Defense Department plans to field up to 30 SM-3 missiles on Aegis-equipped ships by 2007 to destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in mid-flight. Other systems are being developed to defend at different stages.
“For the ground-based mid-course leg of ballistic missile defense, managed for the Pentagon by Boeing Co., five of eight shoot down tests have been completed successfully.”
Perhaps that’s, why Space War magazine reported, on 2004-10-02:
“US destroyers equipped with Aegis missile tracking systems have been deployed in the Sea of Japan near North Korea as part of a controversial new US missile defense system, the Navy’s civilian chief said Friday.
“We do have our Aegis destroyers deployed and indeed they do have tracking capability as we committed to do before the end of the year,” Navy Secretary Gordon England told reporters.”
Davidson’s quote is from that foul toilet of a blog belonging to Jew-hating national socialist Robert McClellan. Don’t bother going there, it’s moronic, a hate site.
Craig Harris asked, “Almost hate to bring this up, but anyone know the source of davidson’s excrable quote?”
Naw. davidson is a hit and run troll, but he says he’s leaving the place where he hangs out under this bridge. GRTBR, I always say. Things are smelling better already.
But no surprise that anon at 10:09 a. m. this morning reports that it’s a quote from RM’s swamp, er, blog.
I have to admit that I am continuously astounded at steved. I keep maintaining that he isn’t a troll, for in my view, a troll simply flings empty ungrounded opinions into the blog, and cycles off on his broken two-wheeler. For example, Neutralsam, Robert McLelland.
steved attempts an argument but he only provides his conclusions and he is so deeply ignorant of history, so ignorant of political theory, so illogical, so indifferent to facts – that I am continuously stunned by his posts. He seems to get his opinions from internet sites, which he doesn’t analyze, leading to such astonishing conclusions of his as, for example, that fascism is aligned with corporate capital.
He writes, always, as if he knows exactly what various individuals think and want: Harper, Bush,Kim. He, of course, doesn’t know but he informs us of their intentions, as if they were FACTS rather than merely his own personal OPINIONS.
We are now told by steved, that all Kim wants is a ‘pact of non-aggression with the US’. How does steved know this? Is he privy to the innermost thoughts of this individual?
And the illogicality of it. Why should N.Korea want such a pact? Is it intending aggression against some country and therefore, wants to ensure that the USA won’t step in to protect that country?
Furthermore, we are informed that N. Korea just ‘wants help’, presumably for its starving citizens. Then, why does it spend so much on its military rather than looking after its citizens?
I don’t know why N. Korea is playing with missiles, but, in my view, it has nothing to do with wanting a ‘non-aggression pact’ – which would be akin to a mouse and an elephant coming to a mutual non-aggression pact. Besides, N. Korea and the US already have an agreement that the US has no intentions of invading (Check out the CIA website).
And, if N. Korea wants to enter the global world of economic trade, then, it has to enable its citizens to produce goods and services. Their economy is in a disastrous state. Famines have only been prevented by massive international aid.
N. Korea is in a dying mode; it can’t support its population, it is fighting to live – and my guess is that these missiles are a way to show itself, that it is alive. No economy, no food, the ever-present threat of famine. That’s its reality.
Davidson is no longer a troll. He’s devolved into a gargoyle.
Hey Kate,
Do you think it possible to get some trolls with a bit more intelligence? This lot is pathetic.
For God’s sakes man! Some of these twits are dumb.
And just cause I can’t resist a snipe at NeuteredSam:
You accuse the right of wanting to start a nuc-a-ler (in W-speak) war causing nuc-a-ler winter. Well, I guess you’re just jealous that the right has a workable plan to solve global warming and you don’t… lol.
ya, you trolls out there, time to present a more viable challenging target!!
********************************
also mr galt: years ago I sadly concluded that all food aid to n korea must stop even though it meant starvation to the most vulnerable.
the food was merely redirected to the n korean military, a subsidy if you will for the, as we now see, increasingly erratic behaviour of #1 nutbar kim jong il.
we have to face the short term suffering in order to push towards conditions that will see the ouster and assassination of kim jong by his own people. gawd I cant imagine the daily horror those people face.
Yup,
It’s the nasty catch-22 of trying to oust a madman without using bombs. It usually ends up killing as many people as war would have.
Not that the left are smart enough to see it.
The left blames evil bushitler conspiracy theories in either case.
It’s like in Iraq. If you whack them, you’re a right-wing warmonger (insert “no war for oil” comment here.) If you sanction them you are still responsible for the actions of the dictator (and the corruption at the UN.) All of the dictator’s deaths are America’s fault. Even if the US has nothing at all to do with them. The oil-for-food was supposed to take care of Iraq’s citizens. The money was stolen by Saddam and the UN and the UN let it happen and the citizens were allowed to die. But America is always to blame. The left blamed America for all the deaths (real and imagined) over the years of sanctions. Then when America ousted Saddam, the left blamed America of stealing oil and getting people killed. The left never said jack sh*t about the UN. They are such bastard hypocrites it makes me sick.
The left is so demented in their logic they can’t be reasoned with. They have a mental disorder. They are a disease. They need a shot of something to cure them. I recommend cyanide…
I look forward to more defences of dictator’s to be published. In this case it will be difficult to define as being a US installed puppet, or someone they sold arms to….
But of course it will be the fault of the US somehow that he is there, and that he is a victim and that if we only just spoke to him his people would be better off.
My advise would be to bomb North Korea with millions of cell phones, with text messaging.
Small portable computers as well, if not fax machines.
Send up a satellite dedicated to allow these prisoners in there own Nation access to the outside.
Once they see & learn about the real world. Than drop guns on the suffering populace, & see how long the Great Leader survives. These people are NOT Jihadists with a mission from the devil. It a Nation in the clutches of the Stockholm syndrome.
This would all be way cheaper than a war, by a long shot (O:}
From Strategy Page, 2005-01-18:
“North Korea is facing growing unrest propelled by uncontrolled movement of news via new cell phone networks. North Korea has always tightly controlled information. Radios must be manufactured so that they only receive government stations. Anyone found with a radio that can receive foreign stations is tossed into a labor camp, or worse. Few North Koreans have telephones, and fewer still have computers or Internet access. But several years ago, Chinese telephone companies began bringing cell phone service to areas along the North Korean border.
“At first, coverage was spotty. But a year ago, new transmission equipment was installed along the border, making it possible to use the Chinese cell phones all along the North Korean border. There has been government owned cell phone service inside North Korea since 2003, but it is expensive for foreigners ($1200 to get the phone, plus about a dollar to make a one minute call, and 25 cents to receive a call.) The government tightly controls who can have a North Korean cell phone, and it’s assumed that the phones are tapped. The North Korean system is limited in its coverage. The system covers the highways running between Pyeongyang and Hyangsan, Pyeongyang and Gaeseong and Wonsan and Hamheung, as well as those cities themselves. The North Korean system was soon linked to the Chinese system. This was bowing to economic demands. China is North Korea’s largest trading partner, and the source of oil and food assistance. It was North Korean officials working along the Chinese border who forced the issue on connecting the two nations cell phone networks.
“But now more powerful transmitters allow Chinese cell phones to pick up signals throughout North Korea. This means that the countryside, long completely cut off from anything outside North Korea, was getting news within minutes. Before the cell phones, rural areas often didn’t get news about events in North Korea for weeks. That has all changed, and it [is] making North Koreans aware of what a mess their communist rulers have made. The government quickly picked up on this and made cell phones illegal (except in the hands of authorized officials) throughout much of the country. Hundreds of cell phones have been seized, but people have simply gotten much better at hiding them. Chinese cell phones are much cheaper to own and operate, and [are] preferred over the government issue ones. The growing number of refugees from North Korea, and unrest inside the country, is due in part to the increased use of cell phones.
“Many government officials are in a panic over this, because they have always tightly controlled the flow of information. The current generation of North Korean officials have no experience in a society that has free flow of information. They can’t force the Chinese to turn off their cell phone service along the border, and many officials have become addicted to the convenience of cell phone use. It would appear that the North Korean dictatorship will end, not with a bang, but with a ring tone.”
very nice, vitruvius. Strategy is exactly right. Once you open up communications, people will see what’s going on for themselves. But imagine what life is like there – with all information tightly controlled. You really have no knowledge about the real world – outside or within N. Korea.
And, you don’t realize that your Great Leader is an insane dictator, who is focusing the entire economy into a creating a huge wall around the country (the military acts as a wall). Meanwhile, the people are saved from famine only by the external world (of course they don’t know that); their industrial infrastructure is in ruins (so they steal the trains!!) – and the West and S. Korea can only wait and wait, for them to fall.
The important phase, is the death of Kim. Will China or S. Korea move in?
I swear on a stack of bibles: way back in the early 80s my then business partner predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union for exactly that reason: communications technology. Best call I’ve ever personally witnessed. I could take you to the street, the block, the sidewalk square where his oracular proclamation was voiced. Hit me like a lighthing bolt. But of course!
Another good argument for free markets and unhampered global free trade.
Stephen has a problem with Kate’s “Arone with my rittre skuds”.
My dear fellow, get thee to a video store and rent “Team America: World Police”, the satire from the creators of “South Park”. She lifted the entire stanza from the movie.
Indeed, Kevin. Moreover, EBD nailed the reference when he strung together the letters “inevitribbre” at 7:44 PM yesterday.
Vitruvius…KevinB…return to base immediately for debriefing and cocktails!