Talk-Polywell.org

If you are saying NK is not yet able to build a dependable 10 megaton fusion warhead for one of their excreable little rockets, sure. They won't be nuking Hawaii any time soon. And if they did it would be their last act.

But if they can build any type of nuclear explosive at all, they can put it on a small ship, possibly even one of their subs. I expect they could reach SK or Japan with no problem. For that matter, a small ship with sufficient fertilizer and fuel oil and the waste from their reactor would be unpleasant going off in the harbor of one of our friends.

I have to wonder how long before those wusses wise up and take down their own leadership. They like telling us how brave they are, and how smart and well-educated their superior social system makes them. When do they prove it and take back their own government with one that is not so bent on getting them vaporized?

Tom Ligon wrote:If you are saying NK is not yet able to build a dependable 10 megaton fusion warhead for one of their excreable little rockets, sure. They won't be nuking Hawaii any time soon. And if they did it would be their last act.

But if they can build any type of nuclear explosive at all, they can put it on a small ship, possibly even one of their subs. I expect they could reach SK or Japan with no problem. For that matter, a small ship with sufficient fertilizer and fuel oil and the waste from their reactor would be unpleasant going off in the harbor of one of our friends.

I have to wonder how long before those wusses wise up and take down their own leadership. They like telling us how brave they are, and how smart and well-educated their superior social system makes them. When do they prove it and take back their own government with one that is not so bent on getting them vaporized?

I think you may be underestimating the success of the oppressive propaganda that's been in place there for nearly 2 generations now. North Korea is the single MOST religious nation on the planet, and their God is Kim Il-Sung. The people who do not devoted believe and commit to that religion are quickly and constantly filtered out and placed in concentration camps. The minority of North Koreans that have the means to put up a meaningful resistance to the current regime are carefully scrutinized and under constant supervision to ensure they are also the minority who most honestly and devotedly believe in the propaganda.

Most oppresive?
Maybe, but also Iran, Saudi Arabia and another couple of nations are not much different than Nork Korea if you look at them only from the propaganda point of view.

Anyhow, I think we agree that they do not pose a short term nuclear threat.

Giorgio wrote:

Skipjack wrote:

gave indications of less than 1 KTon for first test and a couple of KTon for second test

Well piling up two thousand tons of TNT and exploding them all at once is not that easy either. So I would assume that they built at least a low yield nuclear explosive device. Of course nobody really knows what the NKs have or dont have. If they dont have any nuclear bombs though, why is everybody freaking out about them.

I agree that exploding with a correct timing the whole 2K tons is not an easy task, but I wonder how much more easy it is to do that in respect of actually buillding a fission device.

As on why everyone is freaking at them, that's a good question, even if I am still trying to understand why everyone was freaking out at Saddam Hussein....

In 1933 a certain Austrian Corporal had intentions and insufficient capability. By late 1939 he had acquired capability. The rest as they say is history.

That influences the way geopolitics is done these days.

May I add that Saddam was a student of the Austrian Corporal. Look up Baath Party and its history. You might also want to check out the history of The Muslim Brotherhood.

The Austrian Corporal really screwed up the ME. We are still paying for it.

Can we please stick to the topic of North Korean FUSION, or move the topic to general?
Please lets keep the "Austrian Corporal" out of News. The topic causes me pain in the temples and makes me want to puke constantly.

MSimon wrote:In 1933 a certain Austrian Corporal had intentions and insufficient capability. By late 1939 he had acquired capability. The rest as they say is history.

That influences the way geopolitics is done these days.

I do not see as this example can enter this discussion. I can bring at least a dozen counter example of paranoid people that got the power in their own country and limited their doing to their own country.
So, what is your point?

MSimon wrote:May I add that Saddam was a student of the Austrian Corporal. Look up Baath Party and its history. You might also want to check out the history of The Muslim Brotherhood.

I do know quite well Arab history. I have worked in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan for 10 straight years and I speak Arabic in a quite fluent way.
I was in Cairo when 11 September happened and I saw the people spend the night making feast and distributing candies on the roads. You might be surprised how differently arab people interpret their own history in respect to us.

Lastly, the muslim brotherhood was born in Egypt as an opposition organization to British monopoly of the Suez Canal.
So, if I have to apply your logic, no British in Egypt = No Muslim Brotherhood.

MSimon wrote:The Austrian Corporal really screwed up the ME. We are still paying for it.

I believe more that it has been and it still is European and American presence in the middle East that has screwed up and is still screwing up the ME from 1800 to our days.

We are drifting way out of the main topic, let's make a split of this thread in the General section if you want to discuss more about politics.

I stand on my points regarding NK.

They might have been testing some kind of Nuclear fission device.
They are not bound to become a Nuclear power nation in the medium terms.

Of interest:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/21 ... latestnews

Tom Ligon wrote:I have to wonder how long before those wusses wise up and take down their own leadership. They like telling us how brave they are, and how smart and well-educated their superior social system makes them. When do they prove it and take back their own government with one that is not so bent on getting them vaporized?

Sadly, the smart money is on "never." The people with the guns aren't suffering nearly as much. They get lavish lifestyles and sex slaves. The population probably isn't buying the official line anymore, but there isn't much they can do about it.

I believe more that it has been and it still is European and American presence in the middle East that has screwed up and is still screwing up the ME from 1800 to our days.

What's weird and tragic is they still have these regimes consciously modelled on the Nazis and Soviets long after those empires were dumped on the ash heap of history. Many would have collapsed without Western money for their oil. The liberation of Iraq was a small step toward atoning for our sins.

ladajo wrote:Of interest:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/21 ... latestnews

FWIW: There are a pile of xenon isotopes that are clear indicators (daughter nucleii) of fissioned uranium and plutonium. I am not aware that xenon is ever produced in any situation of fusion, so this press item on the presence of xenon cannot have anything to do with fusion per se (unless it is fission-induced fusion).

Perhaps the NKs have produced some form of beam-induced fission process.... nah!!

You might argue, for example, that proton induced fission is 'fusion'? A pretty straight forward proposition, if you wanted to do it. Not sure what the best substance is, to get a fission reactor from fast protons, but dead easy to do. Some thorium isotope, I guess...

This is the only way to get a stack of xenon, without a nuclear explosion, that I can think of. So, maybe the NK reference to fusion isn't light nucleii, but heavy fissioning nuclei?

I for one wouldn't take any bets that the North Koreans have discovered the secret to net-gain, high-yield, constant operation fusion. But, I for one, wouldn't be too upset if their efforts put a little more priority on funding fusion research among the leadership of S. Korea, USA, EU, et. al.

so lets get this strait a country know to be run by one of the most oppressive military regimes on the planet that has been pumping nothing but propaganda through it's media pretty much since it's establishment not only solves the net energy problem of the fusion community but the death problems of the human community as well, All in the same year

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/06/07 ... uper-Drink

and people honestly consider that they might have something,
right...

So did ya hear, they took the word gullible out of the dictionary

about their nuke tests no fission products make it a hard sell (that the tests were not conventional) to me for about the same reasons as why I doubt their fusion claims.

I do not see as this example can enter this discussion. I can bring at least a dozen counter example of paranoid people that got the power in their own country and limited their doing to their own country.
So, what is your point?

It depend on if you practice the Method of Intentions or the Method of Capabilities. The second is now doctrine in the US Military.

BTW you do know that Saddam outsourced his nuke program to Libya and the Khan Network don't you? So even if you follow the Method of Intentions Saddam was worrisome.

As to the ME problems being a leftover (at least in some measure) of WW2 you might like the picture and video here:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/201 ... eroes.html

Short version: Mein Kamf is still a best seller in the Middle East. Funny - the Euros don't seem to notice.

Short version: Mein Kamf is still a best seller in the Middle East. Funny - the Euros don't seem to notice.

Simon, please! This is the news section! You can talk about certain things all you want in the General section, just leave it out of news.