North Korea appears to have gone ahead and done it...

[Debonair]

Originally posted by -Concho-
...That dosen't count active or inactive reserves either.

but it does include him

[Neubob]

Originally posted by Debonair
but it does include him

That's the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen a Russian guy say no to free Cognac.

[Debonair]

i turned down a free doughnut once, a good one, from a great german bakery (Heidelberg, on Lee Highway in Arlington inbetween Glebe Rd & George Mason Dr - that place owns)

[Scherf]

They definitely have chemical weapons. Tested on political prisoners and their families, according to a commandant I saw interviewed after he himself fled via China.

Kim has apparently survived several attempts on his life. There's speculation that a massive explosion which levelled most of a northern town was intended to take out his personal train as it passed through.

[Angus]

News update, - they did it again. And they're showing the finger to the rest of the world as well

[Rolex]

They did what again?

[Scherf]

Japan and SK are saying they've detected a possible second test. Unconfirmed it seems.

[Debonair]

nah, kim jong il just got new subwoofers for his subaru XT6

[WilldCrd]

Originally posted by Debonair
but it does include him

ya know the pilot really wanted to "accidently" swerve closer and hit full throttle for a sec or 2 then.....oooops

[Rolex]

Nothing of the sort is being reported in Japan. Who is reporting this, Angus or Scherf?

[Angus]

The news I read seems to have been erronous and has disappeared. Could have been a bad translation from this one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6057718.stm
oddly enough it did mention a measured earth movement, if I remember right.
Anyway, the reaction of N-Korea seems to be in harmony.

[Rolex]

This is what is being reported universally, I think:

"Both South Korea and Japan have said they are aware of intelligence suggesting North Korea is possibly preparing for a second nuclear test."

[bj229r]

A look inside North Korea, and what they are, and AREN'T, spending their money on (note: the period depicted is mid to late 90's, when the US and several other countries were bribing Kim to play nice)

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24942

The United Nations must have heard that the aid was not being distributed, because an inspection was organised. The party cadres, who had been alerted in advance, had rice delivered to the schools from state storehouses, which were apparently far from empty. The children were told to tell the UN inspectors that this diet was perfectly normal. On the day of the visit there were all kinds of dishes on the menu: noodles, maize soufflé. Once the UN team set off again, the cadres took back everything, including all the uneaten food from the tables where the children were still sitting.

Hunger engulfed my little universe. The poorest children lived on nothing but grass, and during class their stomachs rumbled. After a few weeks their faces began to swell, making them look well nourished. Then their faces went on growing until they looked as though they had been inflated. Their cheeks were so puffy that they couldn’t see the blackboard. Some of them were covered with impetigo and flaking skin.

My classmates started dying during the summer of 1996. One girl spent her days by her dying brother’s bedside, going short herself so that he would have more to eat. She died before he did.

As time passed there were fewer and fewer of us sitting at the school desks. Sometimes there were only about 10 in a class of 35. The teachers themselves no longer had enough energy to take their classes. They sat shapelessly in their chairs, cane in hand, while we repeated by heart lessons we had already learnt about the childhoods of Kim Il-sung and his son and successor Kim Jong-il, the Dear Leader.

The famine encouraged the most selfish kinds of behaviour. My grandmother sold soya dishes and soups at home, a little trade that helped her to survive. I remember one father who regularly came to my grandmother’s house in secret to eat his fill far from the eyes of his family. Many parents left their homes in search of food, and most didn’t come back.

People generally died at night, and every morning we counted five or six deaths in our neighbourhood. Most of them were ordinary people, because neither party cadres nor policemen nor high-ranking military officers suffered as a result of the famine. My father calculated that the district where we lived had shrunk from 4,000 to 2,000 inhabitants.

Eventually, after contracting typhus from infected lice, my father was granted provisional release on condition that he would go back to prison if he recovered from the illness. Depressed, he hit the bottle and one evening he suddenly started shouting at the top of his voice: “Kim Jong-il, son of a ***** . . . bastard, swine!” My mother, in a panic, jammed both hands over his mouth. Our house was under constant surveillance from neighbourhood informers, and this sort of outburst could get us all shot.

He made up his mind to smuggle us to China. For more than a month he tried everything he could think of to persuade us, but my mother wasn’t convinced. “In spite of the shortages,” she insisted, “North Korea is without a doubt one of the most prosperous countries in the world!” I told him I would rather be a beggar in North Korea than follow him to China. I spouted phrases that I had learnt at school: “Let us safeguard socialism . . . I will fight to the death to protect socialism and the Great Leader Kim Il-sung!” My father went on insulting Kim Jong-il in the worst possible terms. My mother finally yielded. In turn she tried to persuade me, the confused 13-year-old. She said we would spend a year in China, no more, and we would earn money and come back to North Korea.

[Neubob]

I'm pretty certain that the North Koreans, at least those who have a say in it, want war. There's nothing worse than a totalitarian government that runs every aspect of the affairs of a well-armed, yet poor nation. They have a big army, they have nothing to lose, and societies like theirs would thrive off the pride generated from a national campaign.

They want to get into it with somebody. They're betting we don't have the resolve to hit them with any lasting effect. They're pretty certain that they'll get a few good licks in before things come to a stop. At this point, it's just a matter of provoking the other guy into starting it, thus legitimizing their righteousness.

[Debonair]

Originally posted by Neubob
I'm pretty certain that the North Koreans, at least those who have a say in it, want war. There's nothing worse than a totalitarian government that runs every aspect of the affairs of a well-armed, yet poor nation. They have a big army, they have nothing to lose, and societies like theirs would thrive off the pride generated from a national campaign.

They want to get into it with somebody. They're betting we don't have the resolve to hit them with any lasting effect. They're pretty certain that they'll get a few good licks in before things come to a stop. At this point, it's just a matter of provoking the other guy into starting it, thus legitimizing their righteousness.

those jerks!:mad: we should kick their bellybutton just for that!!!1:mad: