skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Kim Jong Il just wants to be loved. Is that so bad? It was a cry for attention; a cry for help.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a visiting Chinese delegation that the communist nation was not planning a second nuclear weapons test, a South Korean news agency reported Friday.
The news agency, Yonhap, attributed the information to a diplomatic source in Beijing.
Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan led a delegation that met Kim on Thursday in Pyongyang to deliver a message from Chinese President Hu Jintao.
I'm guessing that China had his balls in a vice. They are plenty pissed off. Maybe this is what China meant by not needing any military actions as penalties in the new sanctions.
I have this image of Kim Jong Il tied to a chair in a smokey, dim-lit room. Two juiced goons are next to him with sleeves rolled up and holding baseball bats. All the while a slim, reedy looking Chinese diplomat with reptilian eyes is staring hard at him saying, "Now about those nuclear tests..."
You know, the Al Capone School of Negotiation.
PS - That title is a blantant steal from the cover of a Red Eye issue(a tabloid format put out by the Chicago Tribune). It's a freaking brilliant title and I couldn't resist.
Sensing the world's attention focused on North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has issued a warning to Europe, reminding us that Kim Jong Il is not the only rabidly crazy world leader.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned Europe that it may pay a heavy price for its support of Israel.
"You should believe that this regime (Israel) cannot last and has no more benefit to you. What benefit have you got in supporting this regime, except the hatred of the nations?" he said in nationally broadcast speech Friday.
"We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region," he said.
Does he really expect us to believe that Israel is the reason for this hatred? Or the hatred of the Middle East?
Please.
I think Steven Den Beste, back when he was writing on USS Clueless, exposed the real reason for the resentment and seemingly white hot fury aimed at the Western World. From his article written on 1 Aug 2002:The problem is that Americans permit freedom of religion; Islam is tolerated and even celebrated here, along with many other religions. We certainly are making no important attempts to suppress it. But it doesn't seem to be dominating, and there's no sign that their attitudes are affecting us in any significant way. On the other hand, American ideas and attitudes are infiltrating their own societies and eating away at the foundation of Islamic practice. We offer things which are attractive to individuals, and they find them irresistible. Their young people want to wear blue-jeans. They want to listen to loud music. They like the idea of dating one another, just like young people do in the west. To reactionary Islamic zealots, it's not just that they don't seem to be spreading the faith, but that the faith is being eaten alive by a sinful attraction to our heathen ways. Islam is actually in retreat. It can't even be secure in its own nations, let alone try to take over ours.
The Q'uran also tells them that their nations should be powerful and important, and there was a time when it was true. The golden age of the Islamic empire was glorious. It also ended 600 years ago, and these days the reality is that the only reason that Saudi Arabia isn't a terribly impoverished third world nation is that it's sitting on reserves of oil. But among the Islamic nations, the only ones who have managed to succeed at anything other than selling natural resources have been those which have adopted western ways, western technology, western attitudes. The more devoutly Islamic a nation is, the more it seems to be a failure in all other ways. To be devout should mean being strong, but it seems to make them weak. It's almost as if the Q'uran was wrong – but the Q'uran cannot be wrong; it's the word of God.
So we (you and I) are a living, walking, talking heresy. We're not even trying to spread our culture to the Islamic nations; it just happens on its own because, quite frankly, they are not very fun places to live. Irrespective of whether a devout Islamic life might be good for the soul, it's boring and unpleasant for the body and mind. The people there prefer our lifestyle; they eagerly seek it out. We seem to have no interest at all in their culture, however, except as an intellectual curiosity. There's zero chance of American women adopting the abaya, for example.
In summary, we are an affront to their entire world-view. We are infidels, but worse than that we are prosperous and happy infidels with no desire to convert to the correct religion. And our prosperity is contagious. The hard-liners resent and fear this. The corruption, as they see it, of their culture is a deadly threat and they work tirelessly to eliminate its cause.
Us.
So when Iran says that our support of Isreal will cause a backlash, I say how can that be any worse than things stand now? Ahmadinejad's impetus is similar to Kim Jon Il's. He's simply being more subtle about it. His goal is to maneuver the situation so that the fear of the Middle East will soften or reduce the impact of any sanctions imposed by the UN over their nuclear program. North Korea was a wake-up call for the UN. It showed that a hard stance is needed at the outset, with tough sanctions that actually have teeth.
This is the last thing Iran wants or needs. After all this bluster and posturing, he stands to lose enormous face in the Middle East if the Western world manages to effectively castrate his nuclear program.
But this is exactly what we need to do. Ahmadinejad has shown that he is not the most... emotionally stable of world leaders. I truly fear what would happen if he manages to join the club of nuclear powers.
Do I think that Iran would bootstrap their program from energy production to weapons production?
Yes, I do. I also think that these weapons will end up in the hands of extremists. Iran has already shown it's willingness to arm terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah with large scale munitions and weapons.
It's time to make a stand.
Honest to God, I though Foley was making this up.
I have to laugh.
A leaping stingray stabbed an 81-year-old Florida boater in the chest, authorities said Wednesday, leaving its poisonous stinger lodged close to his heart in an incident recalling the one that killed Australian TV naturalist Steve Irwin last month.
Now the damn things are leaping out of the water to get us.
This has got me a little concerned.
On October 17, 2006, an Islamist website posted a message titled "You Can Spy on the Enemies' Airports Directly by Controlling the Cameras' Direction." The message contains a link to a screen showing what it claims to be a live view of various areas within Anchorage International Airport via several cameras (http://209.193.48.89/view/index.shtml). The message gives directions for how to control the cameras and promises to provide links in the future for other airports as well.
The sample screen-shots on that page are from "Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport". I thought one of the requirements of having a place named after you was being dead (or is it for his father?)
The TSA and Homeland Security like to tout their initiatives to prevent unlikely movie-style terrorist plots and waste time foiling unlikely binary explosives. How about they spend just a teeny amount on securing our nation's airport computer networks?
The new arena of war and agression is the Internet. And the new special forces in this theater are the hackers (for good or ill).
And if you don't beleive that Islamic terrorists do not have people actively attacking our network infrastructures... well, I have a bridge in Alaska I want to sell you.
I never thought I'd say this. I'm actually rooting for Wal-Mart, here.
Less-expensive CDs are something consumers have been demanding for years. But here's the hitch: Wal-Mart is tired of losing money on cheap CDs. It wants to keep selling them for less than $10 -- $9.72, to be exact -- but it wants the record industry to lower the prices at which it purchases them. Last winter, Wal-Mart asked the industry to supply it with choice albums -- from new releases from alternative rockers the Killers to perennial classics such as Beatles 1 -- at favorable prices. According to music-industry sources, Wal-Mart executives hinted that they could reduce Wal-Mart's CD stock and replace it with more lucrative DVDs and video games.
"This wasn't framed as a gentle negotiation," says one label rep. "It's a line in the sand -- you don't do this, then the threat is this." (Wal-Mart denies these claims.) As a result, all of the major labels agreed to supply some popular albums to Wal-Mart's $9.72 program. "We're in such a competitive world, and you can't reach consumers if you're not in Wal-Mart," admits another label executive.
This has got the RIAA shitting bricks. Wal-Mart is a huge percentage of their sales. Wal-Mart could severely hurt the music industry if they cut back on their inventory. Wal-Mart would barely notice; CDs are a loss-leader to them. The RIAA (and the associated labels) is the poster child for rampant greed. Yes CDs cost money to make, but to have the price point close to, and sometimes exceeding, DVDs? That's ridiculous. I cannot believe any album incurs more costs than a motion picture. It's about time someone with more clout puts them in their place.
Virtually no industry executives would publicly comment about their company's relationship with Wal-Mart. But off the record, many record-industry executives shared their concerns. "I don't think there is a music supplier in America who really enjoys doing business with Wal-Mart," says one major-label rep.
Oh, cry me a fucking river. After your shotgun legal cases aimed at file sharing, your insane profit margins, and the gouging of the majority of your contracted artists (anyone remember TLC declaring bankruptcy the same year they had a platinum record?) I have absolutely no sympathy when you end up being the ones bending over and taking it in the ass.
Lube up boys. Time to price your merchandise fairly (or at least more fairly than before)
Kind of a light day, but here's an interesting stroll down memory lane. I remember almost all of these commercials.
A Brief History of Computers, As Seen in Old TV Ads
I don't even play Grand Theft Auto and I want to kneecap this publicity whore.
A US judge has rejected attempts to ban videogame Bully in Florida, after complaints it was a "public nuisance".
Judge Ronald Friedman said that violence in the school-based game did not mean it was a nuisance.
The attempt to ban the title was made by lawyer Jack Thompson, a well-known campaigner against what he believes are violent video games.
This goofball is the biggest moron out there. His biggest complaint is that this game will spawn more "Columbines". The idea that a game influences copy-cat violence is... tenuous, at best. Usually, there's a lot more going on in the noggin of a murderer and perpetrator of a violent act than a replay of the last game level they played. What I find most disturbing about his arguments is the he appears to remove any semblance of personal responsibility in the commission of a violent acts. And parental responsibility from actually, you know, raising a child. It's all the games (and by extension the developer's) fault. He sees the game industry as this insidious puppet master influencing millions of innocent teens around the world.
It's mind control, I tell ya!
He seems to have a real hard-on for Rockstar Games (of the Grand Theft Auto infamy). Every time they come out with a game, out comes the lawyerin' hat.
Here's the wikipedia entry on him. Read it. Especially the litigation section. It's good for a laugh.
Here's a fun Jack Thompson fact (I forgot he was the one that did this):
Thompson gave Reno a letter at a campaign event requesting that she check a box to indicate whether she was homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. Thompson said that Reno then put her hand on his shoulder and responded, “I’m only interested in virile men. That’s why I’m not attracted to you.” He filed a police report accusing her of battery for touching him. In response, Reno asked Florida governor Bob Martinez to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate. The special prosecutor rejected the charge and concluded that Thompson did it as “a political ploy.” Reno was ultimately re-elected with 69% of the vote. Thompson repeated allegations that Reno was a lesbian when she was nominated as U.S. Attorney General, leading one of her supporters, lieutenant governor Buddy MacKay, to dismiss him as a “kook.”
This guy is seriously insane, although I must admit I do enjoy watching him froth at the mouth. And arguing with 14 yr olds via email.
And losing.
I am stunned by this. This is twice now that news has come out recently of the UN acting sensibly. First the rather stringent North Korea sanctions and now this.
Guatemala topped Venezuela in the first four rounds of voting Monday for a U.N. Security Council seat, but it failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority to win a two-year term on the powerful United Nations body.
That result opened the door for others to join the race, in what could be a blow to both countries' chances for a seat. Now diplomats will search for a compromise candidate to break the deadlock.
The results were an embarrassment to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who had waged a highly public campaign on the claim that his nation would use its seat on the council to speak out against the United States. The U.S. and its allies argued that Venezuela's stance could stymie the council and undermine its credibility.
Venezuela's ambassador certainly did not go gently into the night.
Venezuela's U.N. Ambassador Francisco Arias Cardenas complained the United States has pressured countries worldwide to prevent Venezuela from winning the rotating seat.
I think Chavez's recent bit of performance-art at the UN last month was what prevented their seat. The UN figured out it would be exceeding its quota for crazy if Venezuela had been elected to the Security Council.
Paint me cynical, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. The UN will do something totally boneheaded (and completely in character) sometime soon.
It appears that the UN has passed a somewhat toothy resolution in response to North Korea's alleged nuclear testing.
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose financial and weapons sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test in a resolution that Pyongyang called a "gangster-like" action.
The U.S.-drafted resolution, which said the reclusive Communist state's action was a "clear threat to international peace and security," allows nations to stop cargo going to and from North Korea to check for weapons of mass destruction or related supplies.
It's worth noting that while China did not approve of the searching of vessels, they still passed the resolution. I think this reflects just how much China recognizes Kim Jong Il as a madman. China does raise a valid point, we should act on intelligence, but not exercise this power willy-nilly. In stopping a bully, we should take care not to be a bully ourselves.
It does stop short of military intervention, and I think that may be a mistake. North Korea is no danger to privation and the regime has shown its willingness to let its people starve. I still feel military retaliation should be called for if they violate these sanctions, but I'll take what I can get. At least this is an actual sanction instead of a statement of condemnations.
The UN has taken the first step to regaining a spine. Now we just need to see if it takes.
Classroom trash can used as toilet
A fifth-grade teacher allowed five students — a boy and four girls — to use a trash can as a toilet during a school lockdown drill when no one was supposed to leave the classroom.
During lockdown, the rooms are locked and no one is allowed to leave the room for any reason. These drills are usually practice against the eventuality of an armed intruder entering the school.
Philip Frandino has since been put on administrative leave with pay. And I'm not sure that's the correct reaction in this situation.
Kids, especially at this age, are not really known for their iron will with regards to bladder control. He had girls shield the girls with coats while the boys stood at the far side of the room with their backs turned. And vice versa for the boys. I have to say this is far less humilating than letting the youngsters piss their pants. And while the drill only lasted an hour, who's to say how long a real lockdown could last. I think this was a creative solution that afforded the most amount of privacy given the circumstances.
But we got trouble in River City. It appears he was reprimanded last year for another lapse in "judgement".
The Charleston County teacher, Philip Frandino, was reprimanded last year for putting cardboard around a student's desk and keeping him isolated from his classmates for two hours for talking, The (Charleston) Post and Courier reported Friday.
Huh. Reprimanded? For that? Again, sounds like a pretty creative solution to me. Listen, I was a trouble maker in school. Especially in fourth and fifth grade. More than once I had to drag my desk out into the hall because I caused disruptions. I'm sure if my teachers had come up with the cardboard barrier idea, they wouldn't have hesitated one second to use it. That way they could keep an eye on me while still conducting class. They probably would have gotten away with it, too (most likely with my parents cheering them on). I doubt anyone would have raised the issue about the imapact on my self-esteem this cardboard "chamber" would have created when I was in school. Then, it was understood that the need for discipline and acceptable standards of behavior were important parts of schooling. Now, however... well, we don't want to hurt Johnny's feelings, do we?
And what article is complete without a whiny, smugly self-righteous parent. Of course, the quote comes from the parent of the cardboard prisoner.
Last year, Caren Weldon walked into Frandino's fourth-grade classroom and found her son surrounded by a cardboard box.
She planned to re-enroll her child this year, but didn't when she found out Frandino would be her son's fifth-grade teacher, she told the newspaper.
"Thank you, Lord, my child is not in that class," she said. "It just shows he makes poor decisions when it comes to the children."
I'm sure she would have been singing a different tune if her kid had been the one to come home with pee drenched pants. Then, Mr. Frandino would have been making poor decisions regarding children, because he didn't take into account bladder control during the drill.
I really don't see what the uproar is about. Well, I guess I do. I just don't agree with it. And a teacher who has shown that he can think outside the box (and urinal) will probably be replaced by another group-think drone fresh out of college.
This is a little disturbing.
The United States has evidence of radioactivity from a site where North Korea was suspected of conducting a nuclear weapons test, a U.S. official said Friday.
The official said the evidence is preliminary, but if it is confirmed, the United States will be in a position to confirm North Korea's claim on Monday that it successfully set off a nuclear blast for the first time.
Well, crap.
Officials emphasize the data collected are preliminary and provide no conclusive evidence about the North Korean event.
It is possible there was no radiological data. That could be the case if: the North Koreans successfully sealed the site; it was such a small detonation and so deep underground there was no escape of nuclear debris; or the test was actually conventional explosives
I'd say that's just whistling in the dark, there. We need to go forward with the assumption that not only does North Korea have the technology to create a nuclear weapon, they also have the means to create more.
Unfortunately, the situation is more complex than it appears. China will most definitely block any resolution that includes military intervention. They will also not accept any resolution that would cut off aid and food. At first I thought it had more to do with the with the balance of military might, but I think there's a simpler explanation.
Refugees.
It seems North Korea has threatened to relax border security in the past, and China is absolutely terrified of this. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of refugees seeking to escape DPRK would flood across the Chinese border. This is one of the reasons China has substantially upped the number of forces on their shared border. There have been relatively tiny waves of people crossing before. And usually it was followed by outbreaks of theft and occasionally murder. And China does not want to deal with that.
Japan has already imposed unilateral sanctions on its own, refusing to deal with North Korea (imports and exports) and denying its ports to DPRK vessels. The UN will need to enact something similar at the very least. Demanding search rights for all vessels would be a good addition as well to deny North Korea the ability to sell these things to other countries or groups.
Unfortunately, given the UN's track record and weak-willed resolutions, I'm not going to hold my breath.
I hereby nominate this waste of space for the wood chipper treatment. Willfully harming a child is bad enough, but to harm one because of fucking youth league baseball? How well does the average 8 year old play ball, anyway?
A youth baseball coach accused of offering an 8-year-old money to bean an autistic teammate so he couldn't play was sentenced Thursday to one to six years in prison.
Fayette County Judge Ralph Warman sentenced 29-year-old Mark R. Downs Jr. of Dunbar, Pa. to consecutive six-to-36-month sentences for corruption of minors and criminal solicitation to commit simple assault. A jury convicted Downs in September.
Warman revoked Downs' bond and sent him to prison.
Downs didn't speak at the sentencing but told reporters "I didn't do nothing" as he was led out of the courtroom.
Based on his statement, I'm guessing this brain-trust won't be haunting Mensa meetings any time soon. I'm sure in his small, puerile world he didn't do anything wrong. Anything to get a winning record is justifiable right?
Because, as I'm sure you know, the 8 year old baseball league is a stepping stone to the Majors.
The Dems have been practically handed the November elections by the Republicans. But of course they have to show that scandals aren't restricted to the GOP.
First we have voter registration fraud in the form of registering underage voters and dead voters by the ACORN Group.
St. Louis Election Board officials say they've discovered at least 1,492 "potentially fraudulent" voter registration cards - including three from dead people and one from a 16-year-old - among the thousands pouring in before today's voter registration deadline for the Nov. 7 election.
City Republican elections director Scott Leiendecker said the board's staff expects to find even more bogus voter-registration applications among the thousands remaining to be processed. The board plans to turn all the questionable cards over to city Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce for investigation and possible prosecution, said board chairman Kimberley Mathis.
Not only that, but it also seems that the ACORN Group was instructing its workers to encourage people to vote for a Democratic candidate while registering voters. This is a violation of federal election laws.
Several former and current workers demonstrated today in front of the St. Louis office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) demanding to be paid for work they had performed and alleging that they were instructed to tell people to vote for U.S. Senate candidate Claire McCaskill while registering voters in support of the proposed minimum wage increase.
Ten-year ACORN veteran Josephine Perkins claims she was fired last week, in part because she informed the teams she supervised that it was inappropriate and illegal for them to campaign for McCaskill while being paid by ACORN and Give Missourians a Raise, the political action committee which supports Proposition B and, according to campaign finance reports, has given money to ACORN to circulate its literature.
Well, it is only St. Louis and may not affect the Dems nation-wide. And it probably wouldn't.
Enter Harry Reid, senior senator from Nevada. It appears that knowing Sen Reid will make you money. Lots of money. (via Flopping Aces). What I find doubly ironic is that he is vice chairman of the Ethics committee. I think it was the Daily Show that said that committee appointments in the Senate are based on the Senator's greatest weakness.
Now I know a sex scandal is easier to wrap your heads around then a financial one, and a more sexy scandal to gossip about, but this is a easy one. Basically Reid buys some residentially zoned land, he transfers it to an LLC corporation for no profit, but a share of the LLC. Then, the LLC applies to rezone that land to a commercial zone but they are denied. They appeal it and during that appeal Reid’s partner mentions Reids name and bam….the land is rezoned. The LLC then sells the land for a 1.2 million profit. Harry gets a profit and fails to notify the Senate.
Be sure to look at the PDFs Flopping Aces has linked. Also check out the round-up at The New Editor.
Now, I'm fairly sure that this will not eclipse the Foley scandal. But just barely. But of course there are still some weeks left before the election. I've noticed that if you give Dems enough rope and some time, they manage not only to strangle themselves, but everyone else in their vicinity.
This just goes to show that scandal is not limited to one party or the other. Not even sex scandals. What it does show is that we have power-mad, corrupt people serving as representatives and senators in our government. Some of this is to be expected. But it appears that these... people... are becoming more and more brazen.
Until some viable alternative to the Republicans and Democrats appear, we're going to be stuck with these goons for some time.
Time to freak out (FOX), everyone.
"Everyone was running down the street, kids were screaming and crying," Rich Behar, a New York City resident and former Time magazine reporter, told FOX News. "There was a lot of horror and terror when it hit," Behar added, saying the whole ordeal reminded him of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
I can kind of understand an initial panic, but to say this reminded him of 9/11... Well, that's stretching hyperbole to its breaking point.
It was a small fixed wing aircraft (CNN) hitting a high-rise residential building. Not two jumbo jets crashing into the symbols of Western capitalism. Yes, two people so far have been declared dead. But that is a far cry from the thousands that lost their lives at the WTC.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the plane as a "general aviation" fixed-wing aircraft flying under visual flight rules, meaning a pilot was flying by visual landmarks.
I have one question. If someone is using visual landmarks to navigate (and if this indeed was an accident), how the hell do you not see the god-damn building?
UPDATE: Well, there's now six additional paragraphs in the CNN story. Makes my last sentence look a little asinine. (thanks, Anne, for pointing that part out - the info not the being asinine)
UPDATE 2: Edited to clarify what news story the links were pointing.
Hans Reiser has been arrested on suspicion of Murder.
The estranged husband of an Oakland woman who has been missing for more than a month was arrested today on suspicion of murder.
Hans Reiser, 42, was taken into custody at 11 a.m., hours after Oakland police and FBI technicians searched his home in the Oakland hills. His estranged wife, Nina Reiser, 31, has been missing since Sept. 3, when she dropped off the couple's son and daughter at his home on the 6900 block of Exeter Drive.
This is big news in the OSS/Linux world. Hans Reiser led the team that released one of the first stable journaling file systems built into the Linux kernel. However, when news broke on Slashdot, tacked onto the article summary this comment from a user:
While the disappearance (and possible murder) of his wife is tragic, Linux users will wonder where this will leave Reiser 4. If Reiser is found guilty, will Novell or IBM pick up the pieces and finish up Reiser 4 for inclusion in the kernel or is this the end of the Reiser filesystem project? Will there be any future for the Reiser filesystem, and if Hans is found guilty and the project is continued, will the project be renamed to avoid notoriety?
Slashdot has ceased to amaze me. Geeks truly are socially maladjusted.
Of all things to be concerned about... This blows my mind. While there are probably people concerned about this, I would say this was in poor taste, to say the least, to include this in a report about his alleged involvement in murder. The inclusion of this in the summary seems to equate the the concerns of the state of the latest version of the file system as nearly, if not more, equal to the murder of a human being. A more appropriate way to do this would have been to create a completely different article summary that addressed these concerns.
Of course, comment threads being as they are on Slashdot, they devolved quickly into the morality of the death penalty, how many people are truly psychopaths, punishment vs. rehabilitation in prisons, and, strangely enough, Scott Peterson (started with a comment in his defense, no less).
Ok, I am completely confused* now. Michael Yon claims that "well placed government source" has claimed the explosion in North Korea was non-nuclear in nature.* - Of course, I can think of one or two (so-called) friends who will say my state of confusion is nothing new.
via Rueters.
China, North Korea's most important ally, on Tuesday joined other world powers in calling for a tough response to the reclusive communist state's announcement of a nuclear weapons test.
China and Russia, which both border North Korea, met with other veto-holding members of the U.N. Security Council to discuss a range of sanctions proposed by the United States and Japan to pressure Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.
China's U.N. Ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters: "I think that there has to be some punitive actions." He added: "We need to have a firm, constructive, appropriate but prudent response to North Korea's nuclear threat."
But these "punitive actions" do not include actually doing anything. Instead, we'll all stand around with somber faces and pass resolutions about how bad this is. Kim Jong Il will not stop until someone has a boot on his neck. Similar to how you deal with a dangerous snake. And I don't care who does this. The US, China... In fact I'd be tickled if China could take care of this.
We should just send Chuck Norris over there. He'd round-house kick everyone into submission, smack Kim Jong Il across the snout with a rolled-up newspaper, point at the nuclear test-site, and say in a firm tone, "No! Bad Dictator!"
Speculation on the suspiciously low-magnitude explosion in North Korea.
North Korea’s provocative weapons test Monday was either an unusually small nuclear bomb, only partially successful, or possibly even a faked test done with conventional explosives, say seismologists studying the latest freely available seismic data from South Korea and China.
Of the three, I'd probably lean more toward the first option. While the other two are entirely possible, I think it best to assume the worst. One of the best deceptions is to make an enemy think you're incompetent. Of course, I may be crediting Kim Jong Il with entirely too much Machiavellian skill on that count. He doesn't actually present himself as that shrewd of an operator --but of course that may be his point (cue dramatic bad-guy music)
One of the reasons I think option one is most likely, is I believe that they probably have a very limited amount of fissile material. They most likely used just enough mass to create the supercritical reaction necessary for an explosion.
This is a pretty interesting power generator.
Proponents say other plusses of the merry-go-round generator are the contained cost of 360,000 euros and limited amount of space needed. Even with a modest diameter of about 320 feet (100 meters), they estimate KiteGen can produce half a gigawatt of energy. Emulators for the scalable project envision a 2,000 meter-version that would generate 5 gigawatts of power.
If true, this would be an enormous breakthrough in clean energy production. But most analysts are taking a wait-and-see stance. So am I. A 2,000 meter (that's a little over a mile) kite array (~314 m2) produces 5 gWh. US consumption approaches 3.5 tWh (7,000 times as much). To even produce a 100th of the US power needs around 11,000 m2 of kites. That's a lot of sky.
That's the problem with most alt-energy plants. They don't scale very well. However, for smaller communities (I'm thinking mostly western states, here) This could be a huge asset.
Feedburner
