[Darkage]

Originally posted by Janos


no u do not understand bush=usa you cant criticize anyone from anywhere without critizing everything everywhere you stupid liberal pinko communist european arab terrorist bush is the best and kerry would surrender to terrists everything is perfect here shut your hole 9/11 never forget

Got water?

[Jetmech Jr.]

Originally posted by Unknown Target
I think people on HLP disagree with things or bash the US just for the sake of doing it.

Cause everything that happens ends up somehow bashing the US.

There really hasn't been any U.S. bashing in this thread that I've seen. Except maybe a little from Rictor, but that could only be considered bashing if your really sensitive about it or something.

[Janos]

Originally posted by Darkage


Got water?

water is terrorist

[Darkage]

Go see a doctor dude.

[StratComm]

Actually the problem is that someone percieves offense (even when none is intended), and gets defensive.  And then it's into the black hole of criticism that is an internet political debate.

[Janos]

Originally posted by StratComm
Actually the problem is that someone percieves offense (even when none is intended), and gets defensive.  And then it's into the black hole of criticism that is an internet political debate.

Everyone goes offensive (even when none is even needed, FFS) which automatically makes the other guy to want to gain intiative, so he goes offensive as well, as does everyone else. Power of anonymity, stupid arrogant nationalism, complete incapability to change your point of view and smileys really bring out the good sides in human nature.

INTERNET

In other news, more on-topic, nothing has been found that would prove or unprove the DPRK accident. Tinfoils are overheating all around the world, it's really comical. Best of:
- it was actually an US airstrike on NK nuclear facility
- China trying to force NK or USA to attack the other guy so the [chinese] could attack Japan. Or Russia!
- everyone knows it's a nuke test but don't dare to publicize the data []
- LIBERAL MEDIA
- Bush is trying to force NK to war [another pretty ]
- NK just threw some old munitions together and made a blast which resembled a nuke blast, just to get attention. This could actually be not so far out as the other suggestions.
- generic "industrial accident"
- it really was a forest fire. You know, the type of forest fire which leaves craters. Ho hum.

[an0n]

I'd say it's either a US missile strike or one of the NK guards got a little drunk and dropped his cigarette onto the 'Celebration Munitions' cart.

[StratComm]

I'd love to know what sort of air strike anyone could throw out there that leaves a 2-mile-wide pock mark.  I can see a conventional weapons dump, certainly, if it was arranged to all blow up simultaneously.  That's how the kiloton rating came into being in the first place.  But since the concensus is that it wasn't a nuclear detonation, it places the blame for the explosion on the North Korean government, either deliberate or accidental, or on natural disaster.  Remember that big train explosion a while back?  It could be similar.  The area isn't prone to vulcanism as far as I'm aware (good posibility for a large explosion in a mountain range, after all) but then it is also possible.  And the wild chance that it was an asteroidal impact or something.

[Tiara]

I think I overdid it a bit a the party...

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Janos
- NK just threw some old munitions together and made a blast which resembled a nuke blast, just to get attention. This could actually be not so far out as the other suggestions.

I'd go with that one actually. NK have a habit of doing really outragous things in order to get publicity. Remember when they did that missile test and decided to fire the damn thing through Japanese airspace for no good reason?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by StratComm
I'd love to know what sort of air strike anyone could throw out there that leaves a 2-mile-wide pock mark.  I can see a conventional weapons dump, certainly, if it was arranged to all blow up simultaneously.  That's how the kiloton rating came into being in the first place.  But since the concensus is that it wasn't a nuclear detonation, it places the blame for the explosion on the North Korean government, either deliberate or accidental, or on natural disaster.  Remember that big train explosion a while back?  It could be similar.  The area isn't prone to vulcanism as far as I'm aware (good posibility for a large explosion in a mountain range, after all) but then it is also possible.  And the wild chance that it was an asteroidal impact or something.

How big is a MOAB blast?

I'd go for the complete ****up option, myself.  Probably lax safety at a fuel /arms dump or something similar.

[ChronoReverse]

From what I've heard, a MOAB at best would only be half the size of that mushroom cloud.

However, such a "mushroom cloud" could be caused by many types of non-nuclear events ranging from forest fires (with correct atmospheric conditions) to pipelines exploding.


It's almost certainly not nuclear since a nuclear explosion always sets off a characteristic spike that the seismologists all over the world can easily identify.  So unless there's someone who can cover up every single seismologist in the free world, we'd know by now that it's nuclear (well, a clean explosion anyways).

Even if it was nuclear, there's really no method other than diplomacy to deal with N. Korea.  Afterall, they have enough artillery pointed at Seoul to reduce it to dust in an hour.  So unless you propose simultaneously nuking N. Korea to glass in 5 minutes...

[an0n]

All you need to do to destroy North Korea is take out....err....Kim Sung Il, is it? And leave evidence suggesting it was one of his cadre.

Instant civil war.

[StratComm]

Actually the only thing seismically characteristic about a nuclear explosion is the magnitude of the shockwave, and then it's more often a measure of an underground test than a surface one.  And even with the North Korean regime being what it is, I can't see them being stupid enough to conduct a surface test.  The civilian contamination would be far to great, even for them.  The reason we'd know by now that it was not nuclear would be that we have not detected increases in radiation at the blast site or in the smoke plume, which incidentally is how the US discovered that the Soviet Union had nukes as well.  The South Koreans did pick up two seperate explosions within about 2 hours of each other using seismic equipment, so they knew that and when it happened, just not why.

A MOAB produces an explosion maybe several hundred meters (at most 1km) in diameter, nothing close to the reported 2 miles.  Remember that the size of the blast is logrithmically related to the force of the explosion once you're in that range.  The only thing that can create a blast that big is a single concentrated explosion on the order of a thousand tons of explosives or the nuclear (or environmental) equivalent, which could not have been caried on a plane.  Dropping multiple bombs wouldn't work either, as the timing would have to be impossibly precise to not make it painfully evident as to what happened.

[Janos]

There was something resembling a spike in seismographic charts, but no one I know has any idea if it's an anomaly or not, because, well, no one has a clue about anything anywhere.

edit: Oh they destroyed a mountain, nothing more, move along.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3650702.stm

North Korea has given its first explanation for the huge blast last week which prompted speculation that it had carried out a nuclear test.

The country's foreign minister, Paek Nam-sun, said the blast was in fact the deliberate demolition of a mountain as part of a huge, hydro-electric project.

His remarks came in response to a call for information by the visiting UK Foreign Office minister, Bill Rammell.

North Korea had said nothing about the incident until now.

[Liberator]

They demoed a mountain for a dam?  Don't mountains usually play a significant role in supporting dam on one side or the other?  I mean you've got to have a large geological structure in place next to the river to make building the dam anywhere near cheap enough to warrant construction.

[kode]

depends on what kind of mountain, and where it is. for example, if it is where the actual water is planned to be, you blow it to pieces

[Akalabeth Angel]

Maybe it was an FAE test . .  . those'd probably produce mushroom clouds.

The whole thing about NK not getting nukes is a bunch of bull anyway. Any country hoarding thousands of nukes and other WMDs has no business telling any other country what they can and cannot build.

[Bobboau]

and a country with no military has no bussiness telling us what we can and cannot do.

[Janos]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
Maybe it was an FAE test . .  . those'd probably produce mushroom clouds.

The whole thing about NK not getting nukes is a bunch of bull anyway. Any country hoarding thousands of nukes and other WMDs has no business telling any other country what they can and cannot build.

Yes they can. NPT.

Originally posted by Bobboau
and a country with no military has no bussiness telling us what we can and cannot do.