North Korea admits Nukes

Team America - fun fiction or prescient documentary?

N. Korea Announces It Has Nuclear Weapons:

Feb 10, 7:35 AM (ET)

By SANG-HUN CHOE

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea on Thursday announced for the first time that it has nuclear arms and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks anytime soon, saying it needs the weapons as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

The communist state's pronouncement dramatically raised the stakes in the two-year-old nuclear confrontation and posed a grave challenge to President Bush, who started his second term with a vow to end North Korea's nuclear program through six-nation talks.

"We ... have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North)," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

The claim could not be independently verified. North Korea expelled the last U.N. nuclear monitors in late 2002 and has never tested a nuclear bomb, although international officials have long suspected it has one or two nuclear bombs and enough fuel for several more.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said North Korea should return to disarmament talks and avoid a path toward further international isolation. She said the world "has given them a way out and we hope they will take that way out."

"The North Koreans have been told by the president of the United States that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea," Rice told a news conference in Luxembourg. "There is a path for the North Koreans that would put them in a more reasonable relationship with the rest of the world."

Previously, North Korea had reportedly told U.S. negotiators in private talks that it had nuclear weapons and might test one of them. The North's U.N. envoy said last year that the country had "weaponized" plutonium from its pool of 8,000 nuclear spent fuel rods. Those rods contained enough plutonium for several bombs.

But Thursday's statement was North Korea's first public acknowledgment that it has nuclear weapons.

RTWT

It's only a matter of time before Team America goes over there and f*cks that a**hole.

Crude, yes.
Correct, yes.

The State of the Union

I thought I'd try my hand at live-blogging the SOTU address - I find it hard to pass up commenting on history in progress :)

Continued below the fold

Is it just me, or a lot of people wearing the same particular shade of blue/purple that the Iraqis used to vote?

...President Of The United States!

... And off we go!

...free and sovereign Iraq.

This is going to be a long speech, every time he mentions the Iraq vote, they will give a standing ovation...

Not that that's a bad thing!

Hey, the ink-stained V for Victory is catching on.

...active force for good in the world...

I like that!

...good stewards of the economy...

I wonder if he'll say anything about tax reform?

Hey.... Is John McCain sleeping?

...restraining the spending appetite of the federal gov't,,,

Amen!

...cut the deficit in half by 2009...

I like that... but how?

..taxpayer money spent wisely, or not at all...

...especially women and minorities...

Come on! I still firmly believe that there are no biases against women or minorities... Whatever happened to merit or skill based standards?

...community health centers, blah blah blah more spending...

Can we please stop making the government the only solution for everything?

...safe, cleen, nuclear energy.

About dang time! Nuclear (nukyular) energy is and has been clean for awhile now - let's get over our fear of nuclear energy and use it!

...just the beginning of our duty.

Heh, he said "doody".

...examine the tax code from top to bottom...easy to understand, fair to all.

Rock on!

...America's immigration policy is also outdated...Temporary guest workers, closes the borders...

ok, I like where this is going... let's see if he can bring it home

...social security is a great moral success of the 20th Century...

Please Please Please stop pandering!

...by 2042 the system will be bankrupt...

Cue boos from the Democrats...

...our children's retirement security is more important than partisan politics...

Yes it is, so would you please let the people handle that instead of the gov't?

...voluntary person retirement accounts...

And half of the congress applauds!

I must admit, I like the idea, but why must the government be the implementor?

...the money is yours, and the government can never take it away.

Of course, liberals don't applaud this line.

What's up with the Cheney smirk?

...eventually permitting workers deposit up to 4% of their payroll taxes into their own personal accounts...

Hmmm... considering that SS currently takes out 6% of my payroll, I guess that sounds pretty promising. The question is, what will my percentage be by the time I can use 4%?

...guarantee that human life is never bought or sold as a commodity...

Funny how the Democrats almost didn't stand up for that one.

...every judicial nominee deserves an up or down vote.

Again, no Democrats standing.

...expect the Syrian gov't to end all support for terror...

Or else what? Let's put some real pressure on them - move a bunch of troops up the border!

...our men and women serving in Iraq will return home with the honor they deserve.

Nice refutation of the whole "Viet Nam" comparison.

[deceased Sgt. Norwood's mom hugs Iraqi woman who voted]

I am holding in the tears...

Nope, can't do it.

MOVING. Simply moving.

...
and he's done!

More thoughts later.

Reference: 2005 State Of The Union site

Text: 2005 SOTU

The Return

Sorry for the extended paucity of postage, but I will try and pick up my writing mantle again, as I am back in town for the week (and therefore able to devote some time to writing) and since Joel is in Africa.

Let's see if I can drive away our last few readers :)

You know what makes me angry?

I've seen a paradoxial shift in what draws my attention. Several months ago I probably wouldn't have given priority to news articles discussing the AIDS epidemic, and yet what draws my attention now? You guessed it. So today I was reading the Drudge Report and saw a headline that he called out:

Chirac proposes international tax to fight AIDS

This grabbed my attention for two reasons: 1) I don't like Chirac and 2) a discussion on AIDS. I knew heading into this article that I was going to get mad, and boy am I ever. To start off this is how it reads:

French President Jacques Chirac called for an "experimental" international tax to help fund the war against AIDS, suggesting it could be raised via a levy on airline tickets, some fuels or financial transactions.

In a speech via video link to political and business leaders in the Swiss resort of Davos, he said at least 10 billion dollars (7.7 billion euros) a year was needed -- up from six billion annually now -- to stem the spread of the disease.

What in the world?!?! So basically he's saying, "Let's throw money at this problem and it will go away!" Where does his logic originate from? It goes to show that the world, at large, has no clue what is really going on in countries plagued with AIDS. Granted, I've never been to a country with a high ratio of AIDS, yet, but common sense tells me that this is not a solution. It is barely a band-aid, creating more opportunity for bureaucracy. What will they buy with all this money? Let me guess: condoms? Oh yeah, that's effective. Would they actually take a significant portion of this money and give it to "faith based initiatives" that will teach and promote abstinence? I truly doubt it. You know what, we'll never really know, 'cause this article never defines what Chirac thinks the money would best be spent on. Nope, it stops short by telling everyone where the potential sources are to gather the money. When will they ever see that the only way to change the course of an AIDS plagued society is to change individual lifestyles, and the only way to change an individual's lifestyle is for them to have a change of heart. The change of heart will only come from the work that only God can do.

The Global Warming Farce

Rush Limbaugh brought out this story from Reuters yesterday that just amazed me at one more instance of real world activity proving tree-hugging, tofu-farting wackos wrong about the dangers of global warming. The efforts and lengths that they are going to ensure that the US and other countries prevent global warming, is ridiculous. Then to find out that those very efforts are in many ways increasing our risk to the very thing they are trying to prevent. So without further delay:

Fossil fuel curbs may speed global warming-scientists
13 Jan 2005 00:00:42 GMTSource: Reuters

By Matt Falloon

LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Cutting down on fossil fuel pollution could accelerate global warming and help turn parts of Europe into desert by 2100, according to research to be aired on British television on Thursday. "Global Dimming", a BBC Horizon documentary, will describe research suggesting fossil fuel by-products like sulphur dioxide particles reflect the sun's rays, "dimming" temperatures and almost cancelling out the greenhouse effect.

The researchers say cutting down on the burning of coal and oil, one of the main goals of international environmental agreements, will drastically heat rather than cool climate.
"When the cooling affect goes away -- and it must do because particles like sulphur dioxide are damaging to humans -- global warming will be much stronger," climate change scientist Dr Peter Cox told Reuters on Wednesday.

Temperatures could increase in the worst case by up to 10 degrees by the end of the century, the researchers said -- much more than current estimates.

Scientists differ as to whether global warming is caused by man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases, by natural climate cycles or if it exists at all.

Take away fossil fuel by-products like sulphur dioxide without tackling greenhouse gas emissions, and the extra heat will speed warming, irreversibly melting ice sheets and rendering rain forests unsustainable within decades, Dr Cox said.

"The climate will warm more in the future but the ability of the land to store carbon dioxide will be compromised," he said, adding that warmer soil was less able to hold the greenhouse gas.

A Pause

Sorry for letting our dear readers down lately, what with the lack of postage - but I am currently TDY for the month of January, and working my butt off. Not to mention that I am now in cubicle-land, and no longer have the ability, or privacy to post as often as I'd like.

Joel, however, will probably be able to post a lot more... say around the 4th or so... :)


Anyhoo, i've got some nice big articles coming up, so keep your eyes peeled!

Breaking news: Rock 'n Roll is Satanic

I got this from my sister, who got it from an BJU article:

One of the greatest causes of sensorineural deafness in teenagers and young adults is their addiction to violent sounds of rock music. Although the damage caused by rock music to sense the hearing is great, rock music may cause even greater damage to the mind. The pulsating jungle beat and syncopated rhythms of rock music cause a phenomenon known as nerve jamming, which is similar to hypnosis. A person under the influence of the sound and beat of rock music loses conscious control of himself and is open to manipulation by the rock musicians with their messages of drugs, immorality, and violence: the listener's mind is no longer in control of his body. Prolonged exposure to rock music affects a person's subconscious mind. Listening to rock music is, therefore, morally and spiritually harmful as well as physically and mentally damaging.

(This is not our view, just the view of BJUP -- we just find it funny)