Noisy neighbors to the north acting up again. o,0

[Coito ergo sum]

I hope I'll be too busy getting laid to notice.

If the military scrambles you'll be hard boiled.

I bet you've poached those puns from some pun-related website....

I blame shell-shock.

You seem a bit deviled.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I hope I'll be too busy getting laid to notice.

If the military scrambles you'll be hard boiled.

I bet you've poached those puns from some pun-related website....

I blame shell-shock.

You seem a bit deviled.

How quiche of you to notice.

[Clinton Huxley]

Being serious for a moment, the solution to the perpetual grumpiness betwixt the two Koreas is to teach both to play Test cricket.

[FBM]

Being serious for a moment, the solution to the perpetual grumpiness betwixt the two Koreas is to teach both to play Test cricket.

Fine. Let them play a game instead of having a war. What's another 60 years?

[Clinton Huxley]

Being serious for a moment, the solution to the perpetual grumpiness betwixt the two Koreas is to teach both to play Test cricket.

Fine. Let them play a game instead of having a war. What's another 60 years?

I could do a "50 ovas a side" quip at this point, but there are too many Merkins in the thread.

[FBM]

Being serious for a moment, the solution to the perpetual grumpiness betwixt the two Koreas is to teach both to play Test cricket.

Fine. Let them play a game instead of having a war. What's another 60 years?

I could do a "50 ovas a side" quip at this point, but there are too many Merkins in the thread.

50 a side? Damn, that's a lot of eggs.

[Coito ergo sum]

[Ian]

I haven't been on the forum much over the last few days. When I glanced at the title of this thread, I initially thought that FBM had some upstairs neighbors who were being loud at having sex.

Today I finally looked at the thread and realized it was about North Korea. Silly me.

[FBM]

I haven't been on the forum much over the last few days. When I glanced at the title of this thread, I initially thought that FBM had some upstairs neighbors who were being loud at having sex.

Today I finally looked at the thread and realized it was about North Korea. Silly me.

I was sorta hoping you'd chime in with a dab o' wisdom and/or insight...

[Ian]

I haven't been on the forum much over the last few days. When I glanced at the title of this thread, I initially thought that FBM had some upstairs neighbors who were being loud at having sex.

Today I finally looked at the thread and realized it was about North Korea. Silly me.

I was sorta hoping you'd chime in with a dab o' wisdom and/or insight...

I'll be succinct with my first thoughts...

I think there's a 5% chance of a full-scale war happening over the next year. That's not a well-calculated number, just my way of saying that nobody is actually angling for one, including Dear Leader Kim.

This incident is very much the same thing that happened with the Cheonan, just with a smaller body count. The North still hasn't admitted it was behind the Cheonan, but it should seem obvious enough to everyone. I know some of the guys who helped the South investigate that incident - believe the South's government when they say that it was either a North Korean sub or it was the Martians. As for this, I understand that the North hasn't been showing this on their television much.

The North is inventing crises to enable Kim Jong-Un to show the ruling elite in Pyongyang that he is a man capable of handling crises. The same stuff happened when KJI was declared to be the leader-in-waiting. It's a dictatorship, but not exactly a monarchy; the heir apparent must prove his bona fides in order for his underlings to accept him.

I think all that is conventional wisdom by now, now that Kim Jong-Un is officially the heir apparent. Incidents like this also do other things for the North: nothing changes on their side of the border, but others react and possibly make mistakes. Lo and behold, the South's defense minister resigned after the North did a little artillery target practice a couple days earlier. Maybe this is beneficial to the North, maybe it isn't. But the South's government is a bit less balanced than it was last week, that's for sure. Meanwhile, the US is obligated to ask China yet again to do something about their lunatic client state. And maybe the 6-Party Talks gets brought up again, and maybe the North, surprise surprise, is suddenly willing to come back to the table and start negotiating again. But I thought their announcement about the 2nd nuclear plant last weekend was a maneuver for that to happen.

I think it's a waiting game for China. They would LOVE to use their clout to overhaul that retarded country. But they can't do it so long as KJI is alive. There's a real cult of personality around him, and he's not going to change between now and when he dies. Beijing needs to hope that he croaks before the North Korean people and leaders in Pyongyang have much time to become devoted to a 3rd generation of Kims. I don't know if they're there yet. But his dad sure is making sure they have a chance to see him a lot in the meantime.

Anyway, when I get back to work on Monday I think I'll brush up on the latest version of OPLAN 5027.

//End train-of-thought.//

[FBM]

Got it. It'll take some time to digest, being a civvie and all, but...

[Coito ergo sum]

North Korea fires more rounds, and threatens war over the upcoming ROK/USA wargames: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101126/D9JNPTIO2.html

[Coito ergo sum]

China protests the (lawful) joint ROK/USA exercises: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopStories

[Coito ergo sum]

DPRK says we're getting closer to war: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20101126/tt ... f96_3.html

[klr]

DPRK says we're getting closer to war: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20101126/tt ... f96_3.html

Meh. I call Mandy Rice-Davies on that one.