North Korea: Welcome to the Club

[sleeper]

Originally Posted by Lie

Hi, Mark.

im still waiting for your reply to that religion discussion

[Effloresce]

I'm so sick of the expression "WE WON'T TAKE THE MILITARY OPTION OFF THE TABLE."

FUCK THE TABLE. Say it some other way. "We won't forget about the military option, but we're not looking to use it either." "Military action is still a possibility, even if an unlikely one." Fuck the fucking table.

[Lie]

Originally Posted by sleeper

im still waiting for your reply to that religion discussion

Meet me in Detroit and we can talk about whatever you want.

[sleeper]

no, that sounds pretty disgusting

to be clear, you didnt actually move there did you? if so, youre totally insane and i dont think i can associate with the likes of you at all

[Mablak]

Don't you see guys, North Korea can't possibly afford two nukes, your speculation is in vain

[sleeper]

ive always loved this photo

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images...er_CA0.450.jpg

[sleeper]

hey deviousj, what do you think of the idea of an international nuclear fuel bank, like the one warren buffet gave some money to, where reactor-grade fuel is made available to nations that want nuclear energy, with the idea of giving them an option against developing their own capacity to enrich fuel on their own soil? i think its inevitable and the only real solution

[DeviousJ]

Originally Posted by sleeper

hey deviousj, what do you think of the idea of an international nuclear fuel bank, like the one warren buffet gave some money to, where reactor-grade fuel is made available to nations that want nuclear energy, with the idea of giving them an option against developing their own capacity to enrich fuel on their own soil? i think its inevitable and the only real solution

Well that was really the idea behind providing NK with those light-water reactors - they'd have to import enriched uranium, and that fuel and the waste could be easily tracked so clandestine enrichment would become much harder to conceal. But you could be right, the world's going to rely more and more heavily on nuclear power and that requires enriched uranium and plutonium - and if you don't want countries to own the technology to do this (which can potentially be extended to develop weapons-grade material, although it's hardly like flicking a switch) you have to provide them with the refined fuel. And it has to be fair and viable too.

Oh yeah, nobody's mentioned it but the test was confirmed by US analysts who tested the air - the explosion was a small nuke.

And did anyone see the 'celebration' in Pyongyang? Creepy, in an impressive way. There's something amazingly primal about this huge military display with people carrying actual burning sticks of wood to create this huge light show

[sleeper]

Originally Posted by DeviousJ

Well that was really the idea behind providing NK with those light-water reactors - they'd have to import enriched uranium, and that fuel and the waste could be easily tracked so clandestine enrichment would become much harder to conceal. But you could be right, the world's going to rely more and more heavily on nuclear power and that requires enriched uranium and plutonium - and if you don't want countries to own the technology to do this (which can potentially be extended to develop weapons-grade material, although it's hardly like flicking a switch) you have to provide them with the refined fuel. And it has to be fair and viable too.

Oh yeah, nobody's mentioned it but the test was confirmed by US analysts who tested the air - the explosion was a small nuke.

And did anyone see the 'celebration' in Pyongyang? Creepy, in an impressive way. There's something amazingly primal about this huge military display with people carrying actual burning sticks of wood to create this huge light show

that was my line of reasoning as well. nuclear energy is something that cant be denied to developing powers or developed powers that choose it (its in fact explicitly allowed for ("inalienable right" as ahmadinejad likes to say) in the NPT, as we know) so the debate then shifts towards the peaceful institution of this nuclear world and not the limiting of it. as im to understand (a while ago i took it upon myself to learn all about nuclear weapons and proliferation but you still know a lot more about it than me, so excuse any stupidities) nuclear fuel and enrichment is the linchpin of the whole process so it has to be, almost more than anything, controlled and institutionalized.

what i was really thinking though was that the simple existence of this nuclear fuel bank, even if it wasnt even used at first, would have really positive diplomatic implications. any country coming up now demanding nuclear power couldnt reasonably justify a desire to develop fuel indigenously, as its already available to them on the market, so to speak. and if this fuel was "sold" by a totally honest, impartial broker that wasnt the subject (or at least wasnt perceived to be the subject) of the political influence of individual nations, then this would also take away the argument for the development of a domestic enrichment capacity on national security grounds, as their access to fuel wouldnt be dependent on good relations with some nation or another. i mean, just look at iran

this is also a key thing
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/wo...a/17diplo.html

in a nutshell: that plutonium was diverted from their nuclear reactor, and their uranium enrichment program, which is the one that was started secretly under clinton, is still behind, the fact that they used plutonium suggests. they also know roughly how much plutonium north korea has so they can kind of count cards on this, assuming north korea uses regular amounts. which makes me wonder: do you think the tiny size of the explosion means that they just used a kind of sample amount of plutonium for testing purposes or that the thing just fizzled out?the latter would of course be better for a number of reasons. i guess the former makes no sense. i mean, wouldnt it take a tiny, tiny amount to make the explosion that it did? under a kiloton?


no i didnt see that celebration. youtube link? i did find this looking for it just now though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECxuD0RFO0A

thats really sick

[killer_tomato]

i saw the "anti-imperialism anniversary celebration" in pyongyang. it was on skynews. while i was waiting in line for the checkout at tesco's.

[killer_tomato]

you can see a bit of it here

[DeviousJ]

Whoa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LnOTq_OKos

Not sure if it's on youtube, I saw it on the news. Let me have a look

There's a bit here: http://euronews.net/create_html.php?...=385877&lng=1#
Here too: http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/vi...6_1500,00.html

That's a good point about a fuel bank making any attempts to enrich material obviously 'suspicious' too, although I can see people talking around it. Testing different reactor models would require different types of fuel (even using other elements such as thorium), countries would probably still want to be self-sufficient (especially since currently producing countries really would not be giving up THEIR rights to enrich fuel) and also talk of some huge plot, although obviously these reasons differ in their validity. It would definitely help the situation anyway, and this is probably something the UN should be involved in to a degree. Then of course you'd have to work out who produces what where and when and all that, but once it's in place it would probably be a good thing.

This is probably the relevant bit on the actual device they built (I don't know THAT much by the way, I'm no expert or anything so say what you like), but basically with plutonium you need to make an implosion device, which involves getting a hollow ball of plutonium of a minimum mass and detonating these surrounding lenses simultaneously, which all compress the plutonium down into a dense ball creating a critical mass, which then goes nuts. Getting a neat even compression is very complicated, both in terms of science and the mechanics involved, etc etc, so it's very possible they used the minimum and fucked it up. The more efficient the detonation the higher the yield, and I wouldn't trust them to get it perfect first time (not to mention they probably don't have the technology for boosting the yield further either). I mean this can be set to a 0.3kt yield, and I'm assuming it's a precision device (not sure what nuvlear material's in it, but whatever), so a crappier design could possibly go critical and then fizzle out, yeah

[sleeper]

Originally Posted by killer_tomato

you can see a bit of it here

i cant get that link to work for some reason, in firefox or in IE. i turned on ********** and everyhting too

[killer_tomato]

sorry about that. i think you should be able to just click watch on this page though.

[sleeper]

Originally Posted by DeviousJ

Whoa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LnOTq_OKos

Not sure if it's on youtube, I saw it on the news. Let me have a look

There's a bit here: http://euronews.net/create_html.php?...=385877&lng=1#
Here too: http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/vi...6_1500,00.html

That's a good point about a fuel bank making any attempts to enrich material obviously 'suspicious' too, although I can see people talking around it. Testing different reactor models would require different types of fuel (even using other elements such as thorium), countries would probably still want to be self-sufficient (especially since currently producing countries really would not be giving up THEIR rights to enrich fuel) and also talk of some huge plot, although obviously these reasons differ in their validity. It would definitely help the situation anyway, and this is probably something the UN should be involved in to a degree. Then of course you'd have to work out who produces what where and when and all that, but once it's in place it would probably be a good thing.

This is probably the relevant bit on the actual device they built (I don't know THAT much by the way, I'm no expert or anything so say what you like), but basically with plutonium you need to make an implosion device, which involves getting a hollow ball of plutonium of a minimum mass and detonating these surrounding lenses simultaneously, which all compress the plutonium down into a dense ball creating a critical mass, which then goes nuts. Getting a neat even compression is very complicated, both in terms of science and the mechanics involved, etc etc, so it's very possible they used the minimum and fucked it up. The more efficient the detonation the higher the yield, and I wouldn't trust them to get it perfect first time (not to mention they probably don't have the technology for boosting the yield further either). I mean this can be set to a 0.3kt yield, and I'm assuming it's a precision device (not sure what nuvlear material's in it, but whatever), so a crappier design could possibly go critical and then fizzle out, yeah

haha, that first one was great. maybe they should stay away from the words "great leap forward" in their propaganda though. i mean, they might as well say that theyre going to create a 1000-year empire while theyre at it

those rallies were fantastic. judging by the night rally and grandeur maybe they actually are modelling themselves after the nazis.
http://www.leninimports.com/nurember..._gallery_2.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...sparteitag.jpg

what is it with totalitarianism and these huge rallies? theres an undeniable correlation.

ive never even heard of thorium. probably the coolest sounding element yet though. (did you hear about the new element? californium or something like that? it existed for 1/1000 of a second or soemthing and everyones getting all excited about it or whatever)

i just think it will create more of an onus on some nation to justify their desire for controlling the fuel cycle. even right now, you have russia stepping up saying theyll enrich uranium for iran. this kind of stuff pushes a country more and more into a corner, especially when its a country like iran, which has pinned so much of its hopes on simple rhetoric about wanting "peaceful nuclear energy" and thats it. this stuff is easy to contradict. its on that level that a lot of politics seems to be conducted. the actual substance of a nations interests will ultimately rule the day, but its interesting how much their rhetoric can haunt them. if they, say, only do want nuclear energy (i dont think this is the case) then you can tangle them up by proposing things that are consistent with their rhetoric but not their real aims, and their subsequent refusal will reveal their bad faith. all i know is that this can potentially be just another valuable layer of defence against proliferation, but it obviously wont do it all

yeah i know a bit about the implosion type and whatever, i was just wondering how possible it was to deliberately scale it down to such a low level. just less fuel or less refined fuel? that type of thing. but the fizzling out theory is more believable, i agree. i just thought that, with so limited a stockpile of plutonium, theyd be keen on saving as much as they could and would only use enough to test some principles or whatever, but i dont think makes technical sense. besides, it only really takes one bomb aimed at seoul to have that deterrent, and theyre already working on enriching their own uranium

[sleeper]

Originally Posted by killer_tomato

sorry about that. i think you should be able to just click watch on this page though.

haha the guy said what i just said about night rallies and dictators.

but its funny and ironic that the north koreans release these videos to the outside press at all. they seem to seriously believe that these clips make them look magnificent and strong to the world, and not just backwards and insane. they are very enjoyable to watch though

[The Omega Concern]

there's little doubt to me that China is letting North Korea go on like this. They're rattling about another test and it serves China's purpose to have the U.S. pre-occupied with a war and scurrying around about North Korea.

Condoleezza Rice looks about as formidible a Sec. of State as Big Bird does for Sesame Street.

[Ol' Couch Ass]

Originally Posted by sleeper

ive always loved this photo

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images...er_CA0.450.jpg

I just can't trust a man with that much pocket space.

[The Omega Concern]

so true.

and those shades. those are the shades of a sinister man.

[Ol' Couch Ass]

I like how the one dude is holding the binoculars. It's as if he just told everyone to look alive because there is someone with a camera and a telescopic lens up 'yonder.