Well this is fun. Click here to see the US Geologic Survey's report of a seismic event that registered 4.2 on the Richter scale on the northern part of the Korean Peninsula early this morning. Thanks Bush! I'd always wondered what a world with a nuclear North Korea would be like, and now I'll get to see exactly what that's like. Now the Japanese can get themselves a full-on military again and no one can say anything to them about it. "We have to protect ourselves from our belligerent and now nuclear- capable neighbor," they'll say if anyone tries to raise a fuss. Hard to argue with that. So in addition to nuclear North Korea, I think everyone's really excited about a remilitarized Japan.Once again, Clinton had his eye on the ball on this one, just as he did with Al Qaeda, (even as the high-handed Republicans worked ceaselessly to get him to take his eye off of it), and Bush never saw the ball. Bush goes into office and focuses instead on tax cuts for the wealthy, giving us No Child Left Behind, and taking lots of vacation days. And we voted this guy in for another term. No wonder the rest of the world thinks we're stupid.
Reports that North Korea had a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to Los Angeles came out a few years back while I was living there, but those have since been debunked -- I suppose, however, that Kim's gang of starving Communists might have a sweet ICBM that could reach Alaska or Hawaii, and I think a war of some kind may have started in Hawaii before. Anyway, Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has a brief but astute reading of what Kim Jong Il's nuclear test means and who deserves all of the blame for it -- I think you can probably guess who that is. If you're bored at work or at home, you can read it here (you'll have to scroll down until you see the posting headed up with a photo of Bush in his flight suit costume -- the site's not giving me a permalink for whatever reason.)
Anyway, enough of the bad. Now for the good. Peggy and I saw "The Departed" on Friday night, as I imagine some of you did, too, and it's just brilliant filmmaking. If you haven't seen it yet, see it tonight or see a matinee this weekend. It's not a movie you should miss seeing in theaters. I'll see it again before it finishes its run, but I would say that after having seen it the once, that it's up there with the best of Scorsese's work, and that's saying a lot.Also watched "Thank You For Smoking" and "Shattered Glass" on DVD over the weekend. I'll tell you about those later in the week. Hope everyone had a good weekend.
5 comments:
"The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the test, the first ever by the country, was performed successfully "with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent," and that no radiation leaked from the underground test site."
"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the (Korean People's Army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability," KCNA said, adding this was "a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous, powerful socialist nation."
Scared yet???
If you look at the nuclear powers of the world just simply in regards to geography it's almost too easy to see the future power shift that could so easily happen. If China surpasses the U.S. as an economic power (and all signs seem to suggest it will) then four handshakes with N. Korea, Russia, India, and Pakistan - who will all surely want to share in China's prosperity to a degree - are all that's necessary to change the way the entire world has worked for the past 100 some years.
No country in South America has nukes and neither does Canada. The U.K. and France might help (and at this point I'm not sure why France would want to, really) but there's no other country near us with the power to do battle on a catastrophic level. If Japan DOESN'T arm itself they'd be a speedbump in the Pacific for the rest of the Asian powers.
After that, it's Red Dawn time folks. Yay wolverines...
This is insane. I have a hard time believing that if the other Asian nations were truly concerned about N. Korea they wouldn't have done something to stop Kim Jong "so ronery" Il a long time ago. What are they waiting for???
They're waiting on the 'okay' from you, Harwell. Give it to them! Now! We're all gonna die! OH NO!
man you "filmmakers" are changing the world with your words.
Come on, Hardswell, have a sense of humor. What Anonymous said is not only truthful, but it's also kind of mean spirited the way he (or she) shined a light on the futility of armchair criticism of the modern political climate (Man, that sounded gay... I will never put those particular words in order ever again, promise.).
All truths passes through 3 stages, said the philosopher Schopenauer. "First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, third it is accepted as being self-evident."
To question, debate, and be a contrarian is the cornerstone of any real democracy.
You must have an active engaged citizenry to have a healthy democracy.
The body politic the ancient Greeks called it - the agora or town square where they all debated their ideas and points.
It's the beginning of opening the mind. Obviously, there is an intense and obtuse focus in capitalist society on doing things, success and accomplishments. But it doesn't take praxis necessarily to be radical or have some cosmic effect on the world.
Once you start reading different literature and questioning, the rest follows naturally - even subconsciously. Things change within your self and within the context of your life.
To spend time waiting out for the "specialists" to take care of the world's problems or to let them play out on their own - is a passive, consumerist, negligible position that has put us in the place we are today.
Capitalists love a divided, atomized, alienated population that sits back and watches the tube, shops, eats, shits and does nothing else. The sheep I call them.
And BLOOP! to that!
- PAPA
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