Dishes. Served cold. You do the math.

Shows you're thinking, sorta.

So... Pumpkinhead Kim has a nuke cargo ship milling aimlessly about the Pacific, waiting for a daily call on the satellite phone. It doesn't come through, they toodle over to Frisco and go boom.

Two problems. First, how do they even get past the Coast Guard? That's gonna be one suspicious looking ship. Voyage not filed with the harbormaster. Ship's registration can't be reliably confirmed. Refusing to be boarded. US inspectors? We ain't got no inspectors. We don't need no inspectors! We ain't got to show you no stinking inspectors!

A smaller craft might improve their chances of slipping by, though it's a stretch. It'll certainly improve their chances of sinking in a storm while in transit. They need an oceangoing vessel here. A canoe won't do. Plus, too much hardship and the crew may die before the call comes. As the Chinese mine employee said: "SUPPLIES!!!"

Second problem: the longer they go in circles in the middle of the ocean, waiting for the call, the greater their chances of being detected by satellite recon and other means. Speed is an important component of stealth. And this just isn't speedy.

A submarine? Very difficult to track, but we have an advantage there. We have the technology and infrastructure to track subs, and they haven't the means to track ours. We can seize their harbors by surprise, but they won't be able to sneak up on ours.

Best they can hope for is to hit some remote piece of coastline far from the patrols. Kill a few humans and a lot of seagulls. Acceptable? What are the alternatives?

Maybe that's why Kim is going to all that trouble to have ICBMs. Could be he knows something you don't.

And yet they still need ICBMs?

I used to think you weren't giving Kim Il Sung enough credit for brains. Now I'm starting to think you're giving him too much.

Say, how does it navigate? We control the GPS satellites. Inertial guidance is no good over the long haul. Compass is horribly imprecise. It can't very well surface and ask for directions. A star tracker? Think that regime can build and use one of those?

These backward terrorists using our technology against us works - once. Actually, now that we've upped our vigilance, it hasn't worked a second time. No successful terrorist attacks on our soil since 9/11. That's partly luck, but not all luck.

So you wanna wait until our luck runs out, or take on the threats now? `Coz to hold off of the PRK because of fear of retaliation is to submit to blackmail. And a blackmailer always increases his demands. What happens when he demands we all be annexed by North Korea and starve to death under their Stalinist economy? That's gonna be a whole lot more deaths than any swimming nuke. And they will be deaths wholly without honor or dignity. Is that what you want? Ten of millions dead later, because you wouldn't risk a couple of millions now?

No matter how you look at it, it just doesn't make sense to be indefinitely paralzyed by fear of what Kim might do. Right now he appears to have both nukes and an ICBM delivery system. We know he has no compunction about mass murder. A coward would say, give him whatever he wants and hope he eats us last. A leftist loon - probably insincerely - would say we oughta be invading his turf right now instead of picking on poor little Saddam. I reject both these extremes, and the idiocies that support them. My stance is the middle ground, the MODERATE approach. I say: stall for time now, while we work on a defense for the weapon we actually KNOW he has. Then go for it.

Unless anyone has a better idea? Anyone?

Seems you're the only one besides me around here who has any inclination to even try to think strategically. But if you want to box me into a corner, you need to try a lot harder.

--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------

Post #122,751 by kmself 10/24/03 7:05:55 PM Reply	Dishes. Served cold. You do the math. I suppose you arrived at the Wizard after the Scarecrow depleted supplies. --\r\n Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n [link\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n [link\|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/\|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n \r\n Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
Post #123,715 by marlowe 11/2/03 5:30:38 PM Reply	Dishes. Not served at all. You do the logistics. ---------------------------------------------------------------- DEAL WITH IT. Compromise is for suckers. Seeking a middle ground is what led to 9/11. "I do not want to be admired by scumbags and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites." - Bill Whittle Never mind all the mass graves. Where's the nerve gas? [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
Post #123,724 by marlowe 11/2/03 5:47:04 PM Reply	Or to put it another way... dead men launch no cargo containers. Let alone get them out of what was recently their own harbor, right past the US Navy. What was that about the scarecrow? ---------------------------------------------------------------- DEAL WITH IT. Compromise is for suckers. Seeking a middle ground is what led to 9/11. "I do not want to be admired by scumbags and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites." - Bill Whittle Never mind all the mass graves. Where's the nerve gas? [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
Post #123,729 by kmself 11/2/03 6:07:26 PM Reply	Dead man... ...switch? \r\n\r\n [link\|http://www.morethanzerosum.com/bin/Freight.jpg\|Now if I could only find a place to hide the damned thing]. --\r\n Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n [link\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n [link\|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/\|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n \r\n Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
Post #123,796 by marlowe 11/3/03 9:12:25 AM Reply	Okay, not bad. Shows you're thinking, sorta. So... Pumpkinhead Kim has a nuke cargo ship milling aimlessly about the Pacific, waiting for a daily call on the satellite phone. It doesn't come through, they toodle over to Frisco and go boom. Two problems. First, how do they even get past the Coast Guard? That's gonna be one suspicious looking ship. Voyage not filed with the harbormaster. Ship's registration can't be reliably confirmed. Refusing to be boarded. US inspectors? We ain't got no inspectors. We don't need no inspectors! We ain't got to show you no stinking inspectors! A smaller craft might improve their chances of slipping by, though it's a stretch. It'll certainly improve their chances of sinking in a storm while in transit. They need an oceangoing vessel here. A canoe won't do. Plus, too much hardship and the crew may die before the call comes. As the Chinese mine employee said: "SUPPLIES!!!" Second problem: the longer they go in circles in the middle of the ocean, waiting for the call, the greater their chances of being detected by satellite recon and other means. Speed is an important component of stealth. And this just isn't speedy. A submarine? Very difficult to track, but we have an advantage there. We have the technology and infrastructure to track subs, and they haven't the means to track ours. We can seize their harbors by surprise, but they won't be able to sneak up on ours. Best they can hope for is to hit some remote piece of coastline far from the patrols. Kill a few humans and a lot of seagulls. Acceptable? What are the alternatives? Maybe that's why Kim is going to all that trouble to have ICBMs. Could be he knows something you don't. ---------------------------------------------------------------- DEAL WITH IT. Compromise is for suckers. Seeking a middle ground is what led to 9/11. "I do not want to be admired by scumbags and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites." - Bill Whittle Never mind all the mass graves. Where's the nerve gas? [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
Post #123,799 by deSitter 11/3/03 9:20:53 AM Reply	How stupid are you? A complete nuke can be made the size of an artillery shell. Such can easily be hidden in anything from a piano crate to a refrigerator to a - well, never mind. It's pointless arguing about this. If a nuke ever goes off here, we know what it will arrive in. Only an idiot argues about this. The next most likely method is a GA airplane with a suicide pilot. I suppose you'll say that's impossible as well. -drl
Post #123,801 by Simon_Jester 11/3/03 9:35:34 AM Reply	Chuckle, all I know is that we've got tons of drugs coming into the US. But, it's okay, we can stop that measley ol' nuke....honest.
Post #123,932 by kmself 11/3/03 7:12:03 PM Reply	Going nowhere [link\|http://www.tno.nl/m3s/htm/tec/dms.htm\|Dead man's switch]. Also incarnated as [link\|http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?logic+bomb\|a logic bomb]. The ship's going nowhere. The cargo is deployed well in advance of anticipated need. The only thing that has to happen is for the "do nothing" instruction stream to stop. \r\n\r\n Of course, you'd know nothing about blackmail. --\r\n Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n [link\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n [link\|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/\|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n \r\n Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
Post #125,305 by marlowe 11/12/03 9:31:54 AM Reply	Are you suggesting they're gonna automate the whole shebang? And yet they still need ICBMs? I used to think you weren't giving Kim Il Sung enough credit for brains. Now I'm starting to think you're giving him too much. Say, how does it navigate? We control the GPS satellites. Inertial guidance is no good over the long haul. Compass is horribly imprecise. It can't very well surface and ask for directions. A star tracker? Think that regime can build and use one of those? These backward terrorists using our technology against us works - once. Actually, now that we've upped our vigilance, it hasn't worked a second time. No successful terrorist attacks on our soil since 9/11. That's partly luck, but not all luck. So you wanna wait until our luck runs out, or take on the threats now? `Coz to hold off of the PRK because of fear of retaliation is to submit to blackmail. And a blackmailer always increases his demands. What happens when he demands we all be annexed by North Korea and starve to death under their Stalinist economy? That's gonna be a whole lot more deaths than any swimming nuke. And they will be deaths wholly without honor or dignity. Is that what you want? Ten of millions dead later, because you wouldn't risk a couple of millions now? No matter how you look at it, it just doesn't make sense to be indefinitely paralzyed by fear of what Kim might do. Right now he appears to have both nukes and an ICBM delivery system. We know he has no compunction about mass murder. A coward would say, give him whatever he wants and hope he eats us last. A leftist loon - probably insincerely - would say we oughta be invading his turf right now instead of picking on poor little Saddam. I reject both these extremes, and the idiocies that support them. My stance is the middle ground, the MODERATE approach. I say: stall for time now, while we work on a defense for the weapon we actually KNOW he has. Then go for it. Unless anyone has a better idea? Anyone? Seems you're the only one besides me around here who has any inclination to even try to think strategically. But if you want to box me into a corner, you need to try a lot harder. ---------------------------------------------------------------- DEAL WITH IT. Compromise is for suckers. Seeking a middle ground is what led to 9/11. "I do not want to be admired by scumbags and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites." - Bill Whittle Never mind all the mass graves. Where's the nerve gas? [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
Post #125,352 by jake123 11/12/03 1:38:36 PM Reply	random access a logic bomb means you have to pick the target well in advance... years in advance. An ICBM means you can pick it right before launch. Therefore, for the best of both flexibility and threat, having both logic bombs AND ICBMs are better than just one or the other. Didn't you study any game theory? --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #126,365 by marlowe 11/18/03 11:41:53 AM Reply	You can plan it as far in advance as you like... but you still need a workable delivery system. Dare I suggest you think it through that far? Oh wait. I already have. And you declined. ---------------------------------------------------------------- DEAL WITH IT. Compromise is for suckers. Seeking a middle ground is what led to 9/11. "I do not want to be admired by scumbags and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites." - Bill Whittle Never mind all the mass graves. Where's the nerve gas? [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]

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