HeyYou

One of the biggest complaints I continue to see from our government, is the LACK of intelligence from North Korea. We get signals intercepts, and satellite imagery, but, that's it. We have nothing, and no one that can provides us with RELIABLE, up-to-date intel. It's likely the primary reason this particular situation has gone on as long as it has. You can bet your bottom dollar that even some of the defectors were SENT to provide disinformation. It's certainly a tactic I would use....... if nothing else, just to muddy the waters a bit.

Trouble is, NK has already demonstrated, on MANY occasions, that it doesn't matter what "deal" you make with them, they will honor it for a little while, then go right back to the same belligerent behavior. There really is no point in negotiations, as all it does is move the problem further down the road, giving NK time to further develop its weapons programs.

Wholeheartedly concur. And now, I see folks noising about, that the chemical attack was indeed staged, and ISIS is likely the responsible party.

No one can 100% guarantee that they are 'hack proof', and zenimax is just doing the CYA thing there. Why would they have your credit card information in any event? I am not entirely sure they even have my real name.... They do have one of my email addresses, but, they don't have the password to it...... I don't see the issue here.

I would like to think that China isn't so foolish as to start a war of conquest with a US ally...... That would indeed be bad news, for all concerned.

Not like they don't have enough troops in the area to do just that.... And quite frankly, I think I would rather have China in charge there, than Lil Kim...... Let China spend money/lives to get that little dirtbag out of power.

If we did that, lil kim would have no motivation to change his ways...... That, and the free travel would ensure that his spies had free access to countries he was interested in. An interesting idea, and with some other country, it might even work, (cuba?) But in this case, I think it would do more harm than good, and we would find ourselves in an even worse situation later. We have already shown that the kim regime (all three of them) do not stick to the terms of any agreements we come to. We have tried the lure, now it's time for the stick.

But you just know that our government will show their evil grin, wring their hands in anticipation, and build a base within spittin' distance of the new border....... We seem to revel in our stupidity. :D I do not see why our bases in Japan and the Philippines are not sufficient for the job. Leave a small trip wire force in southern Korea that can delay until the cavalry arrives in the event of some Sino-Korean dispute. Of course. But then, you are actually a reasonable human being. (or, a VERY good AI.....) Our government.... well..... isn't...... I don't think 'reasonable' falls anywhere into their definition, unless immediately preceded by "Un"...... There has to be a resolution to the Korea Problem before Kim can get an nuclear capable ICBM . We are notoriously bad assassins so that option is not promising. The recent noises from China are encouraging , one can hope but I doubt that they are going to have a real effect. NK is the only hereditary Communist Dictatorship in existence and in reality is a family (read mafia) business. Kim knows that without a nuke that can be delivered his days are numbered. If Kim's actions in the past are a predictor of the future then the omens are not good. That leaves war now (endangering South Korea and Japan) or war later, which will throw the west coast into the pot. It seems to be a choice between pestilence and the plague if you ask me. I have always been a pragmatist rather than ideologue in terms of Foreign Policy, but damned if I can see another way out of the maze. Yeah, we are left with a bunch of poor choices..... And I would suspect that the S. Korean government isn't in a hurry for a shooting war, as they are very well aware that they are the ones directly in the cross-hairs..... Theoretically, it seems that we already suspect that NK has short-range missiles that *might* have nuclear warheads..... Would lil kim opt to use them, should a shooting war start? I don't really think he would launch first, to initiate hostilities.... but hey, with him, ya just never know..... It is only going to become more difficult to find an acceptable solution to this knot. And I think the level of 'acceptability' is going to end up being a very low bar. No matter which way we slice it, the body count is going to be high..... The longer we wait, the higher that number is going to be.... Wonder if the SK government is aware of that, or if they are still in denial.

But you just know that our government will show their evil grin, wring their hands in anticipation, and build a base within spittin' distance of the new border....... We seem to revel in our stupidity. :D I do not see why our bases in Japan and the Philippines are not sufficient for the job. Leave a small trip wire force in southern Korea that can delay until the cavalry arrives in the event of some Sino-Korean dispute. Of course. But then, you are actually a reasonable human being. (or, a VERY good AI.....) Our government.... well..... isn't...... I don't think 'reasonable' falls anywhere into their definition, unless immediately preceded by "Un"......

But you just know that our government will show their evil grin, wring their hands in anticipation, and build a base within spittin' distance of the new border....... We seem to revel in our stupidity. :D

The US needs to stay the hell out of nation building exercises. We have already more than adequately demonstrated that we outright suck at it. Personally, I don't feel any real need to spend billions to destroy a country, and then spend trillions to rebuild it. That's just stupid. There is no return on investment there. Sure, the rebuilding of Europe after WWII worked out fairly well, but, N. Korea is NOT Europe. it is an entirely different culture, that has been taught for generations to hate america. We stand zero chance of accomplishing anything good there. We need to dispose of the precedent of blowing crap up, and then immediately giving about huge piles of money to rebuild it, to people that hate us. There IS a problem there, that we WILL have to deal with sooner or later. So, lets deal with it, and then let THEM pick up the pieces of the mess THEY BROUGHT ON THEMSELVES. If you pick a fight with a guy that is MUCH bigger, and more powerful than you, you should fully expect to get your ass kicked.

I have been seeing things of that nature for decades. A company that used to be in Ann Arbor, was working on the same type of tech. That was back in the late 80's, early 90's..... Granted, Lockheed has a boatload more resources to throw at the problem, that still isn't a 'guarantee' of success. Will research move faster? Quite likely. Will they be any more successful? That remains to be seen. You aren't showing me anything new. ALL of these ideas have been around for decades, yet we still don't have fusion power. We have a LONG way to go, and I would be absolutely astounded to see anything come of it within the next 10 years...... Edit: What? You mean, "Off Topic"????? Nah, we would never do that...... :D

Trouble is, a dog meets those criteria..... They can most certainly feel pain, and they do indeed suffer from it. They are also aware of themselves as individuals, though they much prefer to be part of a greater whole. (pack.) Granted, at this point, a dog does indeed have more rights than an artificial construct...... Folks would be mighty pissed if they saw me kick my dog. (something I would never do in any event) But, no one would think twice about me kicking my computer.

Can you please refer us to a single known instance of exaggerated or unfulfilled claims by Skunk Works. They don't talk much, but, they are out there. A google search will turn them up for you. Sorting the wheat from the chaff will be the fun part. An exercise I am not really interested in indulging in. For more than five decades, I have seen various folks, both public, and private, state flatly that "we will have fusion power within X years." I have not seen a single one of those predictions come true. We can barely manage to get more energy out of the reaction, then we put into it at this point. We are still a LONG way from a sustainable reaction, that we can actually use for power generation. Unless someone gets really lucky, and stumbles upon the trick we seem to be missing, I am quite certain that will continue to see these 'predictions', but, we still won't see a viable fusion power plant.

Really the Chinese Foreign Minister said 9 hours ago that war may be imminent and that there is no wiinners in a war with N Korea. http://www.rferl.org/a/chinese-fm-says-no-winners-in-nkorea-war/28429546.html With what is happening in the world I wouldn't be so certain of anything. Especially considering its Kim Jong Un who is in charge in N Korea, not exactly a stable individual. And then there is Trump , thats not a good mix. I will agree that neither one of them is what I would consider 'stable'.... But, I would like to think that lil kim is WELL aware, that if he actually starts a shooting war, his life is forfeit, and it WILL mean the end of his regime. He simply cannot stand up to the US and S. Korean military. Trouble is, I doubt it would be a 'short' war.... and the body count would be extreme.... and mostly civilians..... A situation best avoided. However, there comes a time when diplomacy has run its course, and all you are left with is bad choices. I think it was shown over a decade ago, that diplomacy only kicks the can down the road a little further, as kimmy boy is doing exactly what his father, and grandfather before him have done. Be belligerent, get into talks, get some concession, be a good boy for a little while, and then right back to be belligerent. It was worked quite well for them so far...... He has little reason to think anything has really changed. Perhaps that is the message Trump is attempting to send him.... Things HAVE changed...... Personally, instead of invading.... I could see dropping a moab on his state house, when we know he is there, and then NOT invade....... See what happens. Have contingencies in place to deal with his artillery as quickly as possible, should that become an issue.

My apologies for any misunderstanding, I shouldn't have been so lazy, I should have put a little more effort into making myself understood. "sometimes the way to end it is to win it" wasn't aimed specifically at Syria, though I might apply it to the Russian involvement there as they seem to be in the best position to bring this thing to a close if they were willing to make a full commitment. Of course that would mean a lot of dead Russian boys, and those kids don't deserve to die either. That comment was really aimed at the philosophies of another poster, and saying that you can't always turn the other cheek and walk away, sometimes you have to fight. War is never desirable, and no leader should ever make the decision to go to war without a deep understanding of the grave consequences to your own people and the people you would war against. But if you must go to war, then the objective should be to win swiftly if you can, because dragging it out will only cause more misery. That seems to be a lesson our government has forgotten.

To date, no one has managed a fusion reactor that would be anything remotely close to 'commercially viable'. If China can manage that in the next 5 to 10 years, I would be seriously impressed. It would certainly have a dramatic effect on the world economy. We've been through this topic already. Skunk Works is claiming five years or less and $40B or less to commercial fusion power plants. That is less than a single year's federal tax subsidies to Mr. Tillerson's company. And we have been hearing those claims for decades, yet, we still don't have fusion power. Just because someone says something, does not necessarily imply it is actually going to happen that way. I tend to take anything those folks have to say with a pound or so of salt.

Considering the sheer number of artillery tubes within range of Seoul, I don't see any conflict happening, that doesn't leave large parts of the city basically a wasteland...... And Lil Kim is making noises about another nuclear test in the not-so-distant future as well..... That should go over well.

To date, no one has managed a fusion reactor that would be anything remotely close to 'commercially viable'. If China can manage that in the next 5 to 10 years, I would be seriously impressed. It would certainly have a dramatic effect on the world economy.

The least you could do is make your quotes a little less cumbersome.It's the button with "DEL" on it? HAD an influence...sigh... I just posted several links that show the early developing relationship of Trump and Putin.Do you dislike reading? Depends on what I am reading. When you provide biased sources, that support your side of the argument, do you expect me to just take it all at face value? I am a bit more cynical than that. All that aside, any influence that he may have had, he likely still does. Which, in my opinion, was very little, if any. Putin will do as he pleases, regardless of the actions or wishes of any american. Doesn't matter who he is. Are you are truly unaware of how a 'De-confliction Line' is supposed to function? The same line that Kerry instituted? It's purpose is to give another non hostile force in the area a heads up that a impending strike will be in proximity to their personnel. It prevents escalation due to causalities. SOP is to make the call with enough time for them to bunker down but not enough time to effectively interfere with the mission. It is my understanding that the call was made from Centcom (as per the ROE) with 15 minutes to spare. Lack of knowledge on how a war zone functions seems to be your forte. Thank you my narcissistic teacher,now go away. :tongue: And that statement right there negates any validity to any of your arguments. He speaks that which he knows, far to well, and you discount him as nothing. Terribly sorry, but, I put much more stock in what he has to say, the what comes from you. So, on that note, I am just going to leave it as it is. I don't have any real desire to continue with this. have a nice life.

No, not now but pumpkinhead and Putin had a little bromance going on who knows where that might have led,diplomatically?Leave it to pumpkinhead to screw that up.No no winners but it would be nice to have a few more survivors. So you admit that no one knew what could happen, and in the next breath, 'trump screwed it up'........ Hhhhmmmm...... Where did you ever get the idea that US goals, and Russian goals, had anything at all in common? "We", apparently, want assad ousted. Russia does not. They feel strongly enough in that regard, that they are taking direct military action in support of him. The missile attack is the first time that we have ever actually directly gone against Russias wishes. We have been playing on the sidelines, supplying weapons to our 'allies'.... (and I use that term VERY loosely.....) and bombing various ISIS locations. Quite frankly, I don't see any common ground between us and Russia, and certainly nothing to imply that we could reach any sort of agreement, that would satisfy both sides. Trump lost nothing by firing missiles. He DID, however, send a clear message to the world in general, that the days of us sitting back, and doing nothing, when folks cross our 'red lines', are over. Let us hope that Lil Kim takes note of that. What i said was, Trump screwed up the possibility of using his influence with Putin by his self-serving knee jerk attack. The rest of your post is you assuming you know what i think then you lecture me and i won't answer any of that nonsense. Interesting maybe Tillerson, the friendly oil man, will strike a deal. He did? Really? And you know this how? What leads you to believe that Trump has an influence with Putin in the first place? And of course Russia is going to paint this incident in the worst possible light. That is to be expected.

No, not now but pumpkinhead and Putin had a little bromance going on who knows where that might have led,diplomatically?Leave it to pumpkinhead to screw that up.No no winners but it would be nice to have a few more survivors. So you admit that no one knew what could happen, and in the next breath, 'trump screwed it up'........ Hhhhmmmm...... Where did you ever get the idea that US goals, and Russian goals, had anything at all in common? "We", apparently, want assad ousted. Russia does not. They feel strongly enough in that regard, that they are taking direct military action in support of him. The missile attack is the first time that we have ever actually directly gone against Russias wishes. We have been playing on the sidelines, supplying weapons to our 'allies'.... (and I use that term VERY loosely.....) and bombing various ISIS locations. Quite frankly, I don't see any common ground between us and Russia, and certainly nothing to imply that we could reach any sort of agreement, that would satisfy both sides. Trump lost nothing by firing missiles. He DID, however, send a clear message to the world in general, that the days of us sitting back, and doing nothing, when folks cross our 'red lines', are over. Let us hope that Lil Kim takes note of that. Yeah. He "took note" alright....and then directly challenged the US in any form of war. This while China sits back and watches. Playing with fire I say. The fact is that we have CIA operatives that could probably take these people out. Wonder why they don't? I think that had more to do with us sending another carrier into the area. :) According to theory, the US Govt. decided that assassinating 'heads of state' was a bad idea, and vowed not to do it. There might even have been some variety of treaty involved, but, I don't remember. I think that stemmed from the botched attempt to whack Fidel dead, back in the late 50's, early 60's....... Granted, technology has improved.... and it would likely be a simple matter to remove lil kim from the picture....... but, the consequences of getting caught are pretty dire.

No, not now but pumpkinhead and Putin had a little bromance going on who knows where that might have led,diplomatically?Leave it to pumpkinhead to screw that up.No no winners but it would be nice to have a few more survivors. So you admit that no one knew what could happen, and in the next breath, 'trump screwed it up'........ Hhhhmmmm...... Where did you ever get the idea that US goals, and Russian goals, had anything at all in common? "We", apparently, want assad ousted. Russia does not. They feel strongly enough in that regard, that they are taking direct military action in support of him. The missile attack is the first time that we have ever actually directly gone against Russias wishes. We have been playing on the sidelines, supplying weapons to our 'allies'.... (and I use that term VERY loosely.....) and bombing various ISIS locations. Quite frankly, I don't see any common ground between us and Russia, and certainly nothing to imply that we could reach any sort of agreement, that would satisfy both sides. Trump lost nothing by firing missiles. He DID, however, send a clear message to the world in general, that the days of us sitting back, and doing nothing, when folks cross our 'red lines', are over. Let us hope that Lil Kim takes note of that.

That's right now you're catching on.Good on ya. So, if all of them do it, and on a fairly regular basis at that, why single out trump for it? Not a single politician has stated a position, and then never varied from it. So why does it seem you think it a capitol crime for trump to do so? Or is it only OK when the dems do it? It doesn't matter to me if it's a democrat or republican i'm apolitical all i care about are the issues that concern most Atheists and Humanists anyone that opposes those concepts are the enemy. That's gonna leave you with an awful lot of enemies...... In all reality, I think we are taking the wrong side in Syria. It has already been more than adequately demonstrated, that we flat out SUCK at nation building. Not a single one of our efforts in the middle east has bore any fruit. Unless, you count what basically amounts to civil war as a 'good' outcome...... In every single instance where we have stepped in to overthrow the 'evil dictator', the country has plunged into faction warfare, chaos, and anarchy. What makes us think overthrowing Assad is going to be any different? And it's even worse in Syria.... Instead of two or three major factions, we have a whole slew of minor ones that we ostensibly 'support'. If Assad is gone, all we are going to see happen is all those factions start fighting amongst themselves for power. It's going to be Iraq all over again. We aren't ending a civil war be deposing Assad, we are only shuffling the combatants. We don't seem to have figured out that the populations in those countries have ENTIRELY different cultures/goals/ideas than we do. And it seems are politicians just can't fathom folks having different values than they do. So, we continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, for the very same wrong reasons. Indeed we Atheist and humanists are surrounded by enemies. Hehe.. Wonderful post my brother.If we can't diplomatically find a way to remove the noncombatants from Syria then we should leave Syria alone.What choice do we have?If Trump had attempted to use his influence with Putin who knows what he might have been able to achieve?He screwed any possibility of a diplomatic solution by his self-serving knee jerk attack. There isn't going to be a diplomatic solution. We are WAY beyond that stage. I expect that fighting will continue there, for the foreseeable future.... There simply aren't going to be any winners.

That's right now you're catching on.Good on ya. So, if all of them do it, and on a fairly regular basis at that, why single out trump for it? Not a single politician has stated a position, and then never varied from it. So why does it seem you think it a capitol crime for trump to do so? Or is it only OK when the dems do it? It doesn't matter to me if it's a democrat or republican i'm apolitical all i care about are the issues that concern most Atheists and Humanists anyone that opposes those concepts are the enemy. That's gonna leave you with an awful lot of enemies...... In all reality, I think we are taking the wrong side in Syria. It has already been more than adequately demonstrated, that we flat out SUCK at nation building. Not a single one of our efforts in the middle east has bore any fruit. Unless, you count what basically amounts to civil war as a 'good' outcome...... In every single instance where we have stepped in to overthrow the 'evil dictator', the country has plunged into faction warfare, chaos, and anarchy. What makes us think overthrowing Assad is going to be any different? And it's even worse in Syria.... Instead of two or three major factions, we have a whole slew of minor ones that we ostensibly 'support'. If Assad is gone, all we are going to see happen is all those factions start fighting amongst themselves for power. It's going to be Iraq all over again. We aren't ending a civil war be deposing Assad, we are only shuffling the combatants. We don't seem to have figured out that the populations in those countries have ENTIRELY different cultures/goals/ideas than we do. And it seems are politicians just can't fathom folks having different values than they do. So, we continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, for the very same wrong reasons.