HeyYou

It all depends on what the goal is in the beginning, and how we set out to accomplish it. If all we want to do is get rid of lil kim, then a quick surgical strike on a select few targets should accomplish the goal. Once he is dead, are the NKs STILL going to want to get into a dust-up that they KNOW they will LOSE? I don't think it really needs to be an 'all-out' invasion. That would indeed guarantee massive casualties on both sides.... From what I have read, NK has something to the tune of 8 THOUSAND artillery tubes that are in range of Seoul....... If they decide to start crankin' on those, they are going to make a serious mess, in short order. We can destroy them with counter-battery fire..... but, in order to know where to fire, THEY have to fire FIRST...... They can't fire the gun, then move it back into cover before the counter-fire shows up..... But even so, if each tube only gets one shot, (wildly optimistic) and only 10% of those actually hit the target, (again, wildly optimistic) that is still 800 rounds coming down in a densely populated city. Yeah, casualties will be high, to say the least. Trouble is, NK is ALWAYS going to have that capability. Their ability to inflict massive casualties is only going to INCREASE over time. Geometrically....... if they have the ability to put nukes, even poor-performing ones, on even short range missiles, it's a whole new ballgame. Just a couple of those would dwarf the damage the artillery would be able to do....... So, what do we do? Do we continue with our 'strategic patience'.... knowing full well that once lil kim has the confirmed ability to strike pretty much anywhere he wants with hydrogen bombs.... he is going to be 'negotiating' from a MUCH stronger position. (which is likely exactly what he wants......) You think his demands are outrageous NOW? Wait until he can threaten to drop an H-bomb on a large city...... He is going to be absolutely impossible to live with, and taking him out at that point will be MUCH more expensive.

Terribly sorry, but, "rational" actors don't regularly threaten everyone and their cousin with wiping out their country with nuclear weapons. Especially when everyone KNOWS it is an empty threat. Currently. So, shall we allow NK to develop their weapons/missile programs to the point that the can back that threat up? We have been negotiating with NK for decades, and if follows a familiar pattern. Belligerence, negotiation, concessions, quiet for a while, then right back to belligerence. Not a single agreement with NK has lasted more than 2 years. Not. One. So, let me ask you this. Would YOU continue to negotiate with someone that you KNEW FOR A FACT would NOT honor the agreement?

No one WANTS a war. But, that doesn't mean there isn't going to be one. Lil Kim is already indulging in nuclear blackmail, the longer we wait, the worse it is going to get. At this point, he may, or may not... have warheads he can actually put on missiles, the longer we wait, the higher the likelihood that he WILL have them. And yes, IF there is a war, folks are going to die. That is just the way things work. However, if we fight him NOW, we can quite likely limit the war to conventional arms. That is not going to remain the case for much longer. If Kim starts tossing nukes, the casualty count will dwarf the damage he can currently do. We will go from 10 of thousands, to millions...... Personally, I would MUCH prefer that damage was limited to the Korean peninsula..... I would just as soon not give kim time to get his weapons program to the point he can actually hit Japan, Guam, or the US.

Probably be even worse than what we have today...... considering a certain segment of our population feels that another segment of the population 'owes' them something.......

Have a look at your installed programs, and see if .net 4.5.2 is already there. If it is, uninstall it, reboot, then try your offline installer again.

Not to mention what is going on in Eastern Europe even today..... Moving tanks and such towards Ukraine..... Russia taking Crimea didn't help matters.. Neither Russia, nor China, have ANY reason to believe we would honor any such agreement. And China is supposed to be our "friend"..... considering most of our manufacturing is there..... The world is a complicated place, and there just aren't any easy answers.

Yeah, we have had serious sanctions against Cuba for decades, because of their form of government, and their human rights abuses..... Then we have China, with the same style of government, and a pretty poor record on human rights.... and they have 'most favored nation' trading status....... The US government are just being hypocrites.

For whatever reason, China doesn't want an american ally on the southern border.... They likely assume that means they would have american TROOPS on their southern border, but, to my mind.... If there was a unified Korea, would we still see a need to keep troops stationed there? When we already have quite a few not so very far away in Japan?

Nation building? Hell, I just want to get through the actual war without having the largest civilian body count since 1944. Winter is coming.... Just a guess but I think we might be surprised by how quickly NK changes its posture when their dictatorial regime is removed from power (btw imo the exact same is true for the graft operation that calls itself the PRC, but that's another thread). But nobody else in the world is more familiar with the wealth disparity in Korea between south and north than the Korean people, so I think their response will look far more like East Germany's when the Berlin Wall fell. According to the press..... (yeah, I know....) the N. Korean people are 'fanatically devoted' to their leader...... My question becomes: What are they going to do when their 'leader' vanishes in a puff of smoke? (along with a bunch of his cronies......) Two words: paid wailers: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/13/north-korea-punish-mourners-insincere-kim-jong-il_n_1204377.html I think they were more referring to the grunts in the military. After all, their life is somewhat better than the average citizen.... and if lil kim goes away, what happens to them? (and if he is already gone, then what are they gonna do?) My money is on the Chinese. They will take him out and replace him with someone that's less wacked out. The NK generals know which side their bread is buttered on and get in line . It would take both China, and Russia, to completely cut off ALL trade/aid to NK to really get his attention, and end all this without a shot being fired. I really don't think they will though.... But, you are correct. China could take him out, in whatever manner they saw fit, and no one would bat an eye. :D

Nation building? Hell, I just want to get through the actual war without having the largest civilian body count since 1944. Winter is coming.... Just a guess but I think we might be surprised by how quickly NK changes its posture when their dictatorial regime is removed from power (btw imo the exact same is true for the graft operation that calls itself the PRC, but that's another thread). But nobody else in the world is more familiar with the wealth disparity in Korea between south and north than the Korean people, so I think their response will look far more like East Germany's when the Berlin Wall fell. According to the press..... (yeah, I know....) the N. Korean people are 'fanatically devoted' to their leader...... My question becomes: What are they going to do when their 'leader' vanishes in a puff of smoke? (along with a bunch of his cronies......)

If we simply do a surgical strike, and cut off the head of the beast, and NOT invade.... no 'boots on the ground', and then allow the N Korean people to decide what happens next, we will be in a much better position than attempting to impose anything on them. (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya..... et. al.) It should be patently obvious to everyone, that we flat out suck at nation building. Sure, we were good at it back in the late 40's, but, today? Not so much.

Neither side wants a war, but, there is going to be one anyway. Once Kim demonstrates that he does indeed have nuclear tipped ICBMs, he is going to start with his demands "or else". We are already seeing the precursor to this. So, unless we want to continually be subject to NK nuclear blackmail, the situation needs to change. We can do it NOW, and be pretty sure no nuclear weapons are used, or, we can wait until later, and be pretty much assured that nuclear weapons WILL be used. Either way, Seoul is going to take a pounding. Unfortunately, I don't see a good way to avoid that. The question becomes, do we want to save more lives today, only to sacrifice more lives later? There really isn't a good, reliable solution here. Ideally, China/Russia would put the screws to lil kim, and tell him flat out: "no more trade till you dismantle your nuclear/missile programs." But, that is extremely unlikely to happen. Russia is already beginning to supply more aid to NK, and NK tankers are filling up in Russian/Chinese ports, with listed destinations 'elsewhere', but, returning to NK to offload anyway. (violating the sanctions that both russia, and china, voted for.) So, there you have it. War now. Or war later. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that trumps goading of the 'little rocket man' wasn't specifically intended to prompt him to make the first move, in which case, Russia, and China, have both stated they would "stay out of it." If I were The Donald, I would have DAILY flights of supersonic bombers cruising just outside NK territorial waters, with a couple fighters for company, to shoot down any SAM's NK should happen to launch.

Correct. Heart attack. Major loss to his fans.

Dogs have owners. Cats have staff. Someone may come up with a mod that will possibly convince the in-game cats that they should deign to be petted by the player, but, it's an uphill battle. After all, these are cats that grew up in the wasteland, where most of their usual prey has mutated to the point that their roles are now reversed.......

I haven't watched it yet, and, given what I have been reading here, I don't think I am going to bother. Not to mention that I don't have any real desire to subscribe to some pay TV thingy, to watch ONE show. I'll wait for it to hit netflix, and then see what happens. (but, likely I won't want to be socially engineered then either.)

Pretty much. The bean counters wanted a new revenue stream.

Russia already has a 'potentially' 100 megaton bomb. They actually detonated one, but, had it dialed back to a 'mere' 50 megatons........ If it were an air burst, the Total Destruction radius (EVERYTHING reduced to rubble, regardless of construction.) would be in the neighborhood of 11 MILES in diameter, with 90% casualties..... (likely 100% within a few days.....) Heavy destruction RADIUS goes out over 37 miles...... ouch. That would HURT. Now, no one is going to launch a fistful of those at anyone. (mainly because they simply don't have that many.....) Spreading a handful of MIRVS over a similar area, say, 10 or so, with 100KT yield, (which a selection of folks actually HAVE....) would be rather similar effects. In any event, nuclear war would just be bad news, no matter which way you slice it. Even a 'tactical' nuclear war would be bad news......

Why would you (or Russians in general) expect our government to be any less dysfunctional and corrupt than your own? If you haven't read Mikhail Gorbachev's books, it was not one but two giant military establishments that were outrageously kept at wartime levels after WWII ended. Gorbachev refers to the "Cold War" as a colluded effort between the two machines, both of which spent (and still spend) their time meddling in the affairs of other countries. Because they had nothing else to do, and still don't. Since 1945 and between the US and USSR, over $100 trillion has been and still is funneled to this war machine. Gorbachev is blamed for USSR fall and hated. Were things that much better under the communists???

These are the first steps toward mass censorship. Censorship called for by people and enforced by the state is in essence totalitarianism. Totalitarianism and oppression are the very things this country fought against in the Revolutionary War. Our countries founding fathers evidently fought for nothing as we "politically correct" ourselves towards this a scant quarter millennium later. When a person or group cry and wail about something or someone they don't like- and then get others to agree and then say things like "that should be against the law!" and then it becomes law........They have just given up more of everyone's rights!!!!!!!! People never learn. :confused: In other somewhat related news- our country's veterans are committing suicide at an alarming rate. That should be a major concern for our govt., but they turn a blind eye it seems. https://www.thetrace.org/2017/03/soldiers-veterans-high-rates-suicide/ Yeah, at one time, they were talking about passing a law that basically said denying climate change would get you jail time. (or prison time.....) That was a real eye-opener. Fortunately, that died off, and I haven't heard anything about it for a while. Yeah, Vets are doing suicide at alarming rates, mainly because we have been at war for the last 16 years........ with no end in sight. So, I expect that trend to continue. (and I am a vet..... just not a recent one.)

No one person may be able to do anything about the species but they can sure as hell try to make themselves better by transcending the animalistic behavior you suggest is the extent of our primitive nature. Each individuals effort on this world, in this life means something. Otherwise there would be no point to existence other than to breed and make more of ourselves. I cringe when I hear people say that we are just accidental walking bio machines with no real purpose. The overall objective for us should be the betterment of mankind as a whole with much less focus on the individual- regardless of how we got here. I dare say we have a responsibility to ourselves and each other to elevate our consciousness to a higher plateau of refinement until we might some day be able to more effectively govern both ourselves and our societies. Your dismissal of the whole affair as a pointless and wasted effort is something like an infectious disease that is spreading very rapidly between individuals to have them believe that if we are about nothing, and are going nowhere then there is no reason to try to do anything. That poisonous apathy is the root of modern society's problems. It is much easier to whine about things that are wrong than to actually stand up, roll up your sleeves, and try and fix the problem. I won't lie, though. Motivation is sometimes a very hard thing to find, especially if you are looking for it from your surroundings. You have to learn to motivate yourself. But first you have to stop pretending that everything is beyond your control and choose some things that you can change. The ball will roll after that- it just needs you to push it some. The root of modern societys problems, is our governments. Left to themselves, people can actually get along. Drag religious beliefs/governmental philosophy into it, and you get wars. In all reality, there IS NO POINT. We are pretty much a flash in the pan, in the overall scheme of things. The universe is billions of years old, 'civilized' man has been around for a few thousand. I seriously doubt we will last another thousand. Probably not even another 100, before we kill ourselves off, be it thru war, or simply polluting ourselves out of existence. While I agree with you about govt and religion causing more problems than they ever solved, I think that yours is a fatalist stance. Saying that it is all their fault and there is nothing you can say or do about it sets a bad example for our younger generations. For instance, lawyers can still challenge the constitution to make amendments if deemed necessary by the Supreme Court. Also one vote may not count for much, but convincing others to vote in an effort to promote ones ideals is still rather potent in the world. If you don't like the candidates running for office than support someone you do like and/or trust. Just throwing up your hands in dismay will not accomplish anything. People may not be able to affect change for the better in one go, but chipping away at it will see some headway eventually. At least they can say they tried if their effort never pays off. The day govt realize there is little or no opposition from the people about any idiotic policy they want to sign into law then we are truly screwed. The trouble is, there isn't anyone I want to vote FOR. But, there are a fair few that I will vote AGAINST. It has come down to a choice between the lesser of two evils for most any election, and you really only get two choices. The dem, or the repubbie. Third party candidates don't really stand a chance here. And in all reality, except for a few minor issues, there just isn't that much difference between the dems, and the repubbies any more. I haven't seen a really significant shift in policy in decades, regardless of who is in power. Not to mention that even newbs going into government may start out idealistic, and make promise to 'clean up' the government, eliminate waste, reduce fraud, curb spending, etc, etc, etc...... That lasts about a month after they actually assume office. Then they become just like every other greedy crook in government, as that is the only way 'things get done'. The only time you hear about any of those issues in any event, is during election cycles, when folks are trying to get (re)elected. After that, crickets..... The problem there is, 'cleaning up the swamp', as Donny so eloquently put it, has a 'side effect' of depriving those very same folks of a significant revenue stream. Either while they are still in office, or, after they leave office. They have absolutely zero motivation to actually 'fix' ANYTHING once they get there, and a LOT of motivation NOT to, as it tends to make them wealthy. If you aren't rich when you get to congress, you can bet your bottom dollar that you will be by the end of your first term. No. Our government is broken, and given current circumstances, it is beyond repair, barring a rather significant movement for change. (civil war?) We are heading in a bad direction, have been for a while now, and we are accelerating down that road. We are burying ourselves in debt, which increases every year, and shows NO signs of slowing down. If the US of A were a corporation, we would have gone bankrupt long ago. We are going to get there anyway....... and then the whole house of cards is going to come crashing down. The result is NOT going to be pretty. (as I suspect that the US going down, is going to take a good portion of the world economy with it.) Yeah, I have a pretty dim view of the future. I may live to see it actually come to pass. I will NOT live thru it though. I am far too dependent on the current system for my survival.

No one person may be able to do anything about the species but they can sure as hell try to make themselves better by transcending the animalistic behavior you suggest is the extent of our primitive nature. Each individuals effort on this world, in this life means something. Otherwise there would be no point to existence other than to breed and make more of ourselves. I cringe when I hear people say that we are just accidental walking bio machines with no real purpose. The overall objective for us should be the betterment of mankind as a whole with much less focus on the individual- regardless of how we got here. I dare say we have a responsibility to ourselves and each other to elevate our consciousness to a higher plateau of refinement until we might some day be able to more effectively govern both ourselves and our societies. Your dismissal of the whole affair as a pointless and wasted effort is something like an infectious disease that is spreading very rapidly between individuals to have them believe that if we are about nothing, and are going nowhere then there is no reason to try to do anything. That poisonous apathy is the root of modern society's problems. It is much easier to whine about things that are wrong than to actually stand up, roll up your sleeves, and try and fix the problem. I won't lie, though. Motivation is sometimes a very hard thing to find, especially if you are looking for it from your surroundings. You have to learn to motivate yourself. But first you have to stop pretending that everything is beyond your control and choose some things that you can change. The ball will roll after that- it just needs you to push it some. The root of modern societys problems, is our governments. Left to themselves, people can actually get along. Drag religious beliefs/governmental philosophy into it, and you get wars. In all reality, there IS NO POINT. We are pretty much a flash in the pan, in the overall scheme of things. The universe is billions of years old, 'civilized' man has been around for a few thousand. I seriously doubt we will last another thousand. Probably not even another 100, before we kill ourselves off, be it thru war, or simply polluting ourselves out of existence.

Money and power are very closely related. If you have money, you can buy the power. If you don't have any money, it's unlikely you will be able to get any power. The people in power, with the money, seem to want ever more and more money, so, they use their money to buy influence, and use that influence to further their profits. The military-industrial complex makes TONS of money when we are constantly at war, firing million dollar missiles to destroy mud huts. Just so long as we keep ordering more of those million dollar missiles....

And that's a relatively recent phenomenon..... Started in the last decade. I don't recall any constitutional conventions that added the 'right to never be exposed to something you may find offensive'......... Our society is in serious decline.... The cops in Portland Oregon are going to no longer refer to gang members, as 'gang members'..... as it hurts their employability when they get out of prison....... We are going to 'politically correct' ourselves into our graves. You mean "former inmate" would not hurt their employment chances as well? :happy: But I completely agree with you here. Suppose that depends on what job they are applying for. :smile: Although, I don't see too many ads for "thugs" or "enforcers" in the local paper.... not even in the detroit paper. :D I used to think that the US was in an equivalent stage of 3rd century Rome...beginning the decline but now I believe we are more akin to the 4th century .....just before the Visigoths finished what internal civil discord started. Hi A. :D Long time no see. I think we are well into the decline..... and I don't think it's going to require an outside influence to push us over the edge either...... I suspect we are going to run right up to that cliff, and LEAP off.

And that's a relatively recent phenomenon..... Started in the last decade. I don't recall any constitutional conventions that added the 'right to never be exposed to something you may find offensive'......... Our society is in serious decline.... The cops in Portland Oregon are going to no longer refer to gang members, as 'gang members'..... as it hurts their employability when they get out of prison....... We are going to 'politically correct' ourselves into our graves. You mean "former inmate" would not hurt their employment chances as well? :happy: But I completely agree with you here. Suppose that depends on what job they are applying for. :) Although, I don't see too many ads for "thugs" or "enforcers" in the local paper.... not even in the detroit paper. :D

Yes, it's an automatic system. I don't think the forum mods can do anything with it though, other than contact someone that actually works for beth, and have them deal with it. What is really sad is, there are a selection of mod authors that have to deal with this on a regular basis, on the SAME mods. Been like that since they switched to the 'new' software.... (and possibly even on the jive platform, I don't recall.) It's idiotic, but then, it's beth, so, "idiotic" doesn't really come as a surprise.