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Owlofcreamcheese posted:America dropped an actual nuclear bomb right on hiroshima and it's not some uninhabitable realm of radscorpions and a glass desert or anything. This is kinda my point but it should be noted that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were air bursts. EDIT: new page, new grooves to make up for the nuke-chat: https://youtu.be/lwoSFQb5HVk
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Oct 3, 2017 00:31
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Baronjutter posted:I don't know but everyone was super shocked and impressed when he'd poorly sound out street signs and stuff. I've heard similar stories from people visiting over asia, where being able to read or understand any of the local language/writing elicits shocked surprise because language is genetic no?? Activision (I worked there from '88 to '94) had an American (last name Swartz) running the Tokyo office who could read/write/speak Japanese to perfection. This greatly upset some people who would show up for meetings.
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Oct 3, 2017 00:32
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It's kind of crazy to go to http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ and compare the Hiroshima bomb with what the North Koreans have just tested, let alone the average warhead sitting in the US or Russian arsenals. Hiroshima can level a downtown district, but most modern bombs can take out a whole metropolitan area.
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Oct 3, 2017 00:37
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freebooter posted:I would dearly love to know what it's like inside his head; how much of all the bullshit he actually believes, and how much it's just a case of, "well, here I am, better consolidate my position in case they overthrow me." I think Kim Jong-un exists solely as an object of legitimacy for the North Korean ruling class; "grandson of the great Kim Il-sung" and all that horseshit, thus keeping up the narrative that North Korea is still the same nation ruled under the same principles that it has always been after the Korean War went onto the back burner. Just changing the face of authority in the country, willy-nilly, would probably be as jarring and worrying to the North Korean populace, as it would be for American leaders to suddenly all be direct descendants of George Washington going on back to the founding of the US, claiming their authority derives from their unbroken lineage to him and the first Washington's principles (of which these hypothetical descendants will claim to be the only upholders and allowed changers of). But actual authority, and all the killing and whatnot that you mention, seems more like Kim is a public face for behind the scenes political scheming. It's not various figures and factions trying to consolidate influence and advance their positions through bloodthirsty maneuver; nah, "absolute dictator" Kim is just a bloodthirsty loon who will kill anyone that displeases him or falls out of his favor. Totally, guys, he's a goddamn mad dog! It's a good line to spin and front with, and it definitely work in line with the whole image of being a brutal, paranoid state in general. But the death of Kim's uncle was more likely some influential faction cleaning up loose ends after Kim Jong-il's death, especially if there are some secrets (infidelity, adultery, illegitimate children, or even just being a reformist thinker who is getting too much power) that the outside world doesn't know about to put it into more context, but which are relevant to the innermost circles of power in North Korea. And, too, it might be worth asking how voluntary the current Kim's commitment to ruling North Korea is. Not that I'm saying he's some misunderstood and gentle soul, trapped by brutes in a tall tower; but it seems just as likely that Kim was made an offer he couldn't refuse, as it is that he willingly came back to take over after his father's death. He doesn't seem like the most politically savvy guy, doesn't seem that assured as a leader, and it's hard to believe that one youngish guy, disliked by the international community with few friends, could warrant so much vested faith by old and grizzled military men with stained souls in his ability to make decisions. Not when getting him out of the picture is just a submachine gun burst away, and it could even be spun right to the outside world for extra gain.
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Oct 3, 2017 03:41
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Lum_ posted:Yes, it's pretty unique that way; other alphabets either use some form of Latin/Greek script, Chinese-style pictograms, or weird freaky stuff like Mongolian and Arabic It's worth noting, a lot of writing starts out thousands of years ago representing a given language on a given accent in a given place excellent and then gets borrowed for thousands of miles around and used thousands of years into the future, losing that connection bit by bit. Hangul has the luck of being relatively young, designed for the same language that still uses it, and minimal apparent massive sound shifts - perhaps having them prevented by the spread of the Hangul itself?
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Oct 3, 2017 06:51
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One bit I really did like about Hangul was that the characters in it kinda look like the way your lips and tongue are positioned when they're intoned - that was pretty inspired.
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Oct 3, 2017 09:41
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LogisticEarth posted:Interesting information, but there's two separate points to touch on. Firstly, I don't think anyone is in dispute about potential impacts at the blast site itself, which is what you're describing there, but dispersed fallout hundreds of miles away. Secondly, and probably a bit of nitpick given that there was immediate contamination problems, the wiki article you cited mentions that the site is uninhabitable not specifically due to the 1947 tests, but later repeated hydrogen bomb testing at much larger yields in the 1950's. Here is what I can tell you for sure. My grandfather was an engineer in the navy for 36 years. At Operation Cross Roads he was given the run task of boarding target ships after each blast and assessing their damage from a damage control perspective. After the Able blast there wasn't a whole lot of contamination and the assessment teams from the salvage and rescue ships could spend quite a bit of time on the ships. After the Baker blast many of the target ships were too radioactive to board--even after days of decontamination efforts. It was also after that blast that things started to go bad on my grandfathers ship--USS Conserver if anyone is interested. For example, the desalinization plant became so radioactive nobody could go near its components and the officers' ward room table, where my grandfather and the other ship officers ate, was giving off 3x safe levels of radiation. In addition it was after the Baker explosion that one of my grandfathers subordinates took a piece of metal off a target ship--way against the rules--and hid it under his bunk. He ended up dead and his bunkmate ended up with acute radiation sickness. As for the the contamination not being the result of this test on Bikini, that absolutely could be the case. As I recall the Ivy Mike test you're talking about resulted in the vaporization of a large section of an island, indicating that it was a true ground burst test. And hydrogen bombs, while containing less fissile material, can cause worse fallout precisely because of the amount of earth/salineated water they can vaporize, turning the whole volume of the vaporized stuff into deadly radioactive slag that rains all over the fallout path in microscopic little particles. Edit Tried to fix the glaring typos that were the result of phone posting. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Oct 3, 2017 |
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Oct 3, 2017 15:24
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ZombieLenin posted:There was a short window where nuclear weapons could be "rationally" used in warfare post 1945. This lasted until around 1950 (the Soviets developed their weapon in 1949). Pakistan and India was another proxy conflict. India was more or less Soviet-aligned so the US allowed Pakistan to steal enrichment tech to develop their own as a counterweight.
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Oct 3, 2017 16:51
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ZombieLenin posted:As for the the contamination not being the result of this test on Bikini, that absolutely could be the case. As I recall the Ivy Mike test you're talking about resulted in the vaporization of a large section of an island, indicating that it was a true ground burst test. Yeah, ivy mike was a true ground burst, in fact it was such a cumbersome design that you couldn't really use it as a weapon (it used cryogenically cooled liquid deuterium, in addition to it being just really big... the whole thing weighed ~54 tons not counting the cryogenic equipment).  It was also not a really efficient device, with a lot of the 10.4 megatons of blast coming from the uranium tamper and not from fusion reactions (which are relatively clean). Overall a good example of how it can be relatively simple to make a fusion bomb... the trick is making it deliverable and safe.
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Oct 3, 2017 17:40
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Mr. Despair posted:Yeah, ivy mike was a true ground burst, in fact it was such a cumbersome design that you couldn't really use it as a weapon (it used cryogenically cooled liquid deuterium, in addition to it being just really big... the whole thing weighed ~54 tons not counting the cryogenic equipment). Ivy Mike, I believe, was a proof of concept test. And just to muse a little bit more about nuclear war, the vast majority of weapons would be used as airbursts. Exploding over the target and having the shockwave and thermal radiation (heat) do most of the damage--its way more effective to use them this way. Ground bursts are reserved for highly hardened targets like silos or command centers (think NORAD and Cheyenne Mountain) OR for sinking ships--so my hometown of San Diego would be in trouble. It's also worth noting that the notion of strategic redundancy plays a role in nuclear war planning--particularly when we are talking about massive stockpile states. Essentially the idea is that we accept the possibility of weapons failure, compromise, or lost launch platforms. Given that one of these things is likely to happen to some of your warheads, massive stockpile states build in strategic redundancy for In reality this would mean the same target might be hit with 10 or more warheads, just to, you know, "be sure." In other words, if anyone ever wondered "why do countries need stockpiles of thousands of warheads..." the answer is strategic redundancy. All of which is to say, a nuclear conflict of any kind risks escalation and the sudden catastrophic involvement of non-aligned massive stockpile states. Here's a hint the trading of a few thousand nuclear warheads risks putting an end to human beings in their entirety, not just the human beings in the nuclear states. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Oct 3, 2017 |
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Oct 3, 2017 20:41
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-n...SKBN1CD03V?il=0 A Russian lawmaker just from North Korea said they're going to test a missile that can the US mainland. In non missile/nuke/tweet news there's been some moves in the North Korean politburo. Kim's sister has been made an alternative member. Two members of the missile program were also promoted, but the article doesn't specify. Ri Yong Ho, the North's foreign minister was promoted to full voting member.
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Oct 8, 2017 08:48
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OhFunny posted:http://www.reuters.com/article/us-n...SKBN1CD03V?il=0 i can believe that. i assume the mean today or tommarow or soonish?
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Oct 8, 2017 20:47
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https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/917341511754436609 So whatcha gonna do instead? Gonna start something?
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Oct 9, 2017 11:57
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OhFunny posted:https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/917341511754436609 
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Oct 9, 2017 12:09
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Grouchio posted:No? gently caress off then Orangutan. Orangutans are very smart and generally chill, don't besmirch their name by comparing Trump to them.
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Oct 9, 2017 14:01
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Grouchio posted:No? gently caress off then Orangutan. Honestly, Trump is the kind of guy who will start a war purely because he sees someone as daring him to.
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Oct 9, 2017 14:13
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OhFunny posted:http://www.reuters.com/article/us-n...SKBN1CD03V?il=0 How long until Kim go Ramsay Bolton on his sister?
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Oct 9, 2017 14:40
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Depends on whether she has a power base of her own or is reliant on Un's backing (and as a result not a threat to him yet).
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Oct 9, 2017 21:49
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Like any good mafia family, Kim Jong-un's siblings are the only ones he can actually trust, it's why his older brother Kim Jong-chul moved back and is apparently a top advisor now despite having no experience or apparent interest in governing before Kim Jong-un took over. Kim Jong-nam was an exception; Kim Jong-un probably suspected the Chinese were grooming him to take over (a not unreasonable reaction) and thus had him assassinated with VX nerve gas by women in an airport wearing LOL shirts (a somewhat more unreasonable reaction). He also is only half-brother to Kim Jong-un and they were raised separately. His only other close relative still alive is Kim Kyong-hui, Kim Jong-un's aunt who was married to Jang Song-taek. Since his execution (and before) she has reportedly spent her time drinking herself to death, so isn't considered a threat. (disclaimer: 99% of this is from defector gossip)
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Oct 9, 2017 21:50
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Kim Jong-nam seemed like an oaf, but the idea that China would consider him as a replacement for Kim Jong-un seems plausible (assuming worst came to worst). He was "of the blood", didn't cause immediately loathing and dislike when his name was mentioned, and the fact that he lived outside of North Korea and seemed to have some interest in the outside world suggest that maybe he would have been a more liberal and less insular leader. So it would make sense to kill him and remove him as a threat, both directly and as a message to anyone who might have been sympathetic to him. Although I keep harping on how the North Korean leadership don't take anything about the country but their own self-interest as holy writ, that doesn't mean that government and military officials can just openly dissent against the official line of Kim Jong-un and his cadre. Too much dissent, too openly, would be a signal to Kim's crew that somebody (or some faction) might feel comfortable enough to challenge the existing state of affairs and cause internal strife that would mean the end of Kim Jong-un or North Korea in general.
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Oct 10, 2017 00:36
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Kthulhu5000 posted:Kim Jong-nam seemed like an oaf, but the idea that China would consider him as a replacement for Kim Jong-un seems plausible (assuming worst came to worst). He was "of the blood", didn't cause immediately loathing and dislike when his name was mentioned, and the fact that he lived outside of North Korea and seemed to have some interest in the outside world suggest that maybe he would have been a more liberal and less insular leader. China didn't try to replace Un, it was the uncle who was executed suggested it when he was in Beijing. China's position was never made public. However, the uncle's plan was leaked to NK by a Chinese fraction. The Chinese fraction was Bo Xilai. If you are not familiar with him, you are going to have a lot of fun wiki him up. I only mention this to point out that China cares about stability and predictability of the NK regime far more than which particular Kim gets to rule. China usually just deal with whoever is running the show in the neighboring country, they don't pull back if a pro-China government is replaced with an anti-China government. See Thailand, South Korea and probably Burma too.
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Oct 10, 2017 01:12
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The irony is that Xi Jinping is basically the anti-Bo Xilai in every way and a huge part of the break between China and NK is that no North Korean leader has yet kowtowed (I use that phrase intentionally) to Xi's administration.
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Oct 10, 2017 03:55
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I can totally believe that a large part of the NK elite were pro-Bo Xilai because he was (a) wealthy and willing to spread it around with his buds and (b) pushing a radical left "bring Maoism back" agenda which would reflect well on the North Korean weird-Marxist contingent. Whereas Xi Jinping is more a hardline China uber alles nationalist and sees North Korea as a disobedient client state.
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Oct 10, 2017 04:03
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whatever7 posted:China didn't try to replace Un, it was the uncle who was executed suggested it when he was in Beijing. China's position was never made public. However, the uncle's plan was leaked to NK by a Chinese fraction. The Chinese fraction was Bo Xilai. If you are not familiar with him, you are going to have a lot of fun wiki him up. I vaguely recall Bo Xilai...he was a Chinese government official that got caught up in corruption and a murder scandal that led to his downfall? I recall, from the China thread on here, that it was notable for being one of those "cinematic" style scandals, rather than the more mundane cash for construction contracts kind of stuff. Anyhow, I don't think we're at odds here. If Kim Jong-un's uncle was supposedly talking to China about replacing him with someone else, then one would assume he had at least a broad vision in mind of how it would work out. And that alone, once it got back to Kim Jong-un, would likely be considered traitorous and worthy of execution - especially since Jang Song-thaek only married into the Kim family, rather than being born into it. Perfect propaganda spin, if needed: some poisonous outsider trying to undermine the glorious North Korean nation founded by Kim Il-sung, of whom Kim Jong-un is the direct and valid descendant and heir to his legacy. And more mundanely, of course, it would be pretty threatening to Kim Jong-un and his faction that his uncle was apparently spreading treasonous rhetoric and plans to China, the nation that is ostensibly North Korea's ally and patron, but also likely to be a strong player in the nation's future however it might shape up.
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Oct 10, 2017 04:27
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Kthulhu5000 posted:I vaguely recall Bo Xilai...he was a Chinese government official that got caught up in corruption and a murder scandal that led to his downfall? I recall, from the China thread on here, that it was notable for being one of those "cinematic" style scandals, rather than the more mundane cash for construction contracts kind of stuff. He was corrupt as balls apparently, and Neil Heywood, a British businessman with whom his wife had dealings with, threatened to expose her after she tried to clandestinely move fairly large sums of money through him because she was a bit jumpy due to existing corruption allegations. He demanded a larger commission than was his usual rate, so she had him poisoned. I think Bo was involved in the cover-up afterwards, because the official explanation of "he drank himself into acute alcohol poisoning" didn't wash because while he wasn't exactly a teetotaller, he wasn't known to chug down beer after beer either.
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Oct 10, 2017 04:58
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This is probably super simplified, but Bo and Xi we're both competing for the top job in china. Bo didn't have the party connections Xi did, and basically got sent to Chongqing as a form of comfortable internal exile. Except, instead of being happy, marginally corrupt and quiet like he was supposed to, he turned himself into a populist hero and started building a set of parallel police, internal security and bureaucratic offices loyal to him personally. He started arresting the local gentry who didn't ally with him and used their money to fund development and welfare projects for the poor. He was basically building a parallel state and patronage network to challenge Xi and the central committee for legitimacy and the central government wisely sent in federal police to arrest him and his closest comrades before he could precipitate a civil war (or at least a nasty constitutional crisis). The bizarre corruption and murder stuff his wife got into was just really conveniently timed, IIRC. Also I don't believe anyone ever had evidence he was actually a committed Maoist, it seems more likely that he was merely redistributing the seized assets of his political opponents in a cynical ploy to gain the support of the poor. Xi, though incredibly cynical in his own pursuit of power, is rumored to believe at least some Marxist stuff and apparently holds a certain disgust for China's hideously corrupt new rich. You could basically replace all the Chinese names with roman ones in this story and it would just sound like a less well managed version of Ceaser's rise to power.
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Oct 10, 2017 07:14
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To add to this, it started with the police chief of Chongqing that Bo personally groomed suddenly showing up in the US consulate seeking political asylum. The rumor I heard was that the place was soon surrounded by police force loyal to the Xi faction. The police Chief spent a night in consulate before he was summarily handed over and taken directly to Beijin. Afterward Neil Heywood's dead body was found and the authority moved on Bo and his wife. Very Byzantium indeed.
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Oct 10, 2017 09:10
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Thank you all for filling in the details on Bo Xilai for me some more.
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Oct 10, 2017 19:30
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The best Bo story I heard is that he dumped his first wife, who is a daughter of an old red army officer, for his much prettier, murderous 2nd wife. His ex wife and son from that marriage hated him for that reason. In order to prevent his ex-wife spill dirt from his younger days, he actually put his older son in prison for a short time to give them a fair warning. This guy is totally a relentless mafia.
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Oct 10, 2017 22:26
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I saw some Japanese people on the internet claiming poo poo's gonna get real on November 9th (Xデー), if I understood well. Does anyone here knows what the gently caress is this all about?
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Oct 11, 2017 06:13
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9/11?
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Oct 11, 2017 06:16
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Negrostrike posted:I saw some Japanese people on the internet claiming poo poo's gonna get real on November 9th (Xデー), if I understood well. Does anyone here knows what the gently caress is this all about? Lou Ferrigno turns 66. to celebrate, america is sending new top secret weapon called the hulk to defeat kim jong un
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Oct 11, 2017 12:33
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Negrostrike posted:I saw some Japanese people on the internet claiming poo poo's gonna get real on November 9th (Xデー), if I understood well. Does anyone here knows what the gently caress is this all about? It's my birthday
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Oct 11, 2017 12:46
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symphoniccacophony posted:To add to this, it started with the police chief of Chongqing that Bo personally groomed suddenly showing up in the US consulate seeking political asylum. The rumor I heard was that the place was soon surrounded by police force loyal to the Xi faction. The police Chief spent a night in consulate before he was summarily handed over and taken directly to Beijin. He also demanded to be flown to Beijing on a Western airline flight, fearing a bomb would be placed on a domestic flight.
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Oct 11, 2017 12:59
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CeeJee posted:He also demanded to be flown to Beijing on a Western airline flight, fearing a bomb would be placed on a domestic flight. Yeah the guy went a little nuts when it all started to unravel. But before then, he served as Bo's brutal enforcer and probable right hand man. I think he also had his own tv show where he would, like, arrest people and pose with guns and stuff. It's really bizarre
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Oct 11, 2017 13:48
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Lube banjo posted:Lou Ferrigno turns 66. to celebrate, america is sending new top secret weapon called the hulk to defeat kim jong un mediadave posted:It's my birthday It's all coming together.
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Oct 11, 2017 18:10
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Negrostrike posted:I saw some Japanese people on the internet claiming poo poo's gonna get real on November 9th (Xデー), if I understood well. Does anyone here knows what the gently caress is this all about? A simple google search of Xデー shows this : http://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/-/52551 Some Japanese tabloid article from August saying that 9/9 is a day of escalation because 9/9 is the founding date of NK or something? Another article on wikipedia say that X-day is a Japanese shorthand for "something big will happen".
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Oct 12, 2017 03:34
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Does predicting north Korea based off their holidays ever work?
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Oct 12, 2017 05:55
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Stairmaster posted:Does predicting north Korea based off their holidays ever work? I would say yes, NK is a political animal, they schedule important events to coincide with significant dates like founding, new years, leader's birthdays etc. to deliver maximum impacts and symbolism, they are not the only one to exploit important date either, Yum Kippur war and Tet offensive are the first things that came to my mind. That being said, these predictions only works if the people making the prediction actually knows what they are talking about. Tabloid articles and random internet conversation usually do not. symphoniccacophony fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Oct 12, 2017 |
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Oct 12, 2017 07:01
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I apologize if this was posted already and it's a bit old but Citations Needed did an episode on US/NKorea relations and the US media's narrow perspective on the issue that I thought was pretty good. They had Tim Shorrock from The Nation on as a guest. They go into the deal done in the '90s, a bit about diplomacy under Trump and a bit about SKoreans views and THAAD's effects on SKorean politics in the recent elections.
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Oct 12, 2017 10:03
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