and when Illiopolis, IL blew up nobody mentioned it....
Last week a plastics factory blew, evacuated the town and everything......
It got a blip on CNN's scroll bar.....
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
My God! How could the North Korean government could downplay such a disaster! It looks like a nuke hit the area!
Judging by the scale-bar - the blast radius looks to be 500m! That is crazy!
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ritten: and when Illiopolis, IL blew up nobody mentioned it....
Last week a plastics factory blew, evacuated the town and everything......
It got a blip on CNN's scroll bar.....
Yikes. That's... quite a mess.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Last week a plastics factory blew, evacuated the town and everything......"
Well, if it didn't evacuate the people by actually blowing them up, it isn't quite the same thing.
Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
Strange, the Korea disaster was said to have casualty figures in the 3000's, when the news broke. Now, it's what? 120? Not that I'm not relieved as hell, although 120 people is saddening enough, but how could they make such an error in estimation????
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"How could the North Korean government could downplay such a disaster!"
Because that's what all despots do to retain their power.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
That, and I'm sure he just doesn't care.
Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
It's like China during the SARS-epidemic. Dictatorships are mostly interested in keeping productivity, morale and order at an acceptable level. If something happens, you go out of your way to hide it to keep things rolling like nothing happened and to keep snooping foreigners out. As with both examples, their "ostrich"-method failed, it even cause more harm to be done.
In the documentary I saw about North Korea, the south-korean representatives didn't even want a power change, it would cause so much trouble and instability, though they always gladly accept north-korean refugees fleeing from the concentration camps and torture chambers.
Did you guys know N.K still administers punishment based on the "three generation" principle, the medieval bastards? If a man is charged with political crimes (no.1 prosecution in N.K) for expressing anticommunistic feelings or mismanaged his government job (ie scapegoat), not only will he go to jail, concentration camps and the torture chambers, but his children and future grandchildren, just out of spite. They estimate that about 40% of all people in concentration camps in N.K are innocent "Generation"-prisoners. Men, women and adolescents. As soon as you pass the line of being an adult, you can look forward to life in jail, because of something your grandfather did, or didn't do. Needless to say, the suicide rate is high.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
..and yet, when the US throws NK in with the "Axis of Evil" (and probably the Legion of Doom while we're at it) everyone gasps at the audacity.
They're fuckers and if they didint have their handful(?) of nukes, we'd be in their face right now.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Like you were in Saddam's face, who by all BushCo accounts also had nukes?
Oooh Siiimon, where aaart thou?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I still think there ARE WMDs somewhere in Iraq... Saddam couldn't have been in power since 1979 and NOT had some sort of secret bunker somewhere in their vast deserts filled with nasty weapons to offload onto their 'enemies' be it their citizens, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the US and it's allies.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Cartman: Like you were in Saddam's face, who by all BushCo accounts also had nukes?
Oooh Siiimon, where aaart thou?
I dont recall anyone ever actually saying saddam had nukes (certainly not me), but that they were afraid he'd get them, given time.
By "we" I dont actually refer to me, personally (as I'm not in control over foreign affiars....yet), and I am including the United Nations that knows all about NK's human rights violations but also does shit about it because KN has the Bomb.
There will be no "coallition of nations" to *ever oppose NK: it's just not a viable target while a true screwball is in charge of nuclear weapons.
Kinda nullifys any power the UN, US, NATO or any Coallition has, once the bad guys have the big stick, we do nothing while people suffer.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I am in scary limbo, like usual.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Is there Calypso music and a horizontal bar? If there is, you're actually in The Limbo Rock. It's an embarassing like of hell for Sam Cooke fans.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Welcome back from the abyss, Simon.
I dont recall anyone ever actually saying saddam had nukes (certainly not me), but that they were afraid he'd get them, given time.
That sort of takes the "M" and the "D" out of the whole WMD shebang then, doesn't it?
There will be no "coallition of nations" to *ever oppose NK: it's just not a viable target while a true screwball is in charge of nuclear weapons.
I'd say Saddam was as big a screwball as Kim, and he was a viable enough target. I mean, there was plenty of concern Saddam might panic and use whatever weapons he did have on Coalition troops, yet the invasion was gone ahead with anyway, so either the immediate danger wasn't that immediate after all or there were other factors weighing in on the decision.
Besides, if you only oppose countries with semi-screwballs in charge of their nuclear arsenals because it's safer (and more lucrative), you won't be opposing much.
Kinda nullifys any power the UN, US, NATO or any Coallition has, once the bad guys have the big stick, we do nothing while people suffer.
Aaand bingo, you've hit the double standard.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"That sort of takes the 'M' and the 'D' out of the whole WMD shebang then, doesn't it?"
You'd think so. Except that they throw chemical and biological weapons under the "WMD" label, too. Despite the fact that they're really just weapons of mass death, rather than destruction.
"I'd say Saddam was as big a screwball as Kim..."
Well, there's a little bit of a difference. Saddam was more of a mini-Hitler. Kim is more of a mini-Caligula.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
May be before the Invasion of Iraq, but still relevant.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN:
"That sort of takes the 'M' and the 'D' out of the whole WMD shebang then, doesn't it?"
You'd think so. Except that they throw chemical and biological weapons under the "WMD" label, too. Despite the fact that they're really just weapons of mass death, rather than destruction.
They don't have to change the letters though. Convenience!
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Kinda nullifys any power the UN, US, NATO or any Coallition has, once the bad guys have the big stick, we do nothing while people suffer.
As opposed to all those other times.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Well, yeah...that's the point. Once a dictator gets to the Nuke stage, they're suddenly allowed military leeway for fear of nuclear exchange.
As to WMD, biological and chemical weapons are still filed under the "Mass destruction" label. Even horrible novelties like White Phosphorus weapons count.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Well the next animation is quite relevent even now.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)