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11th March 2018, 01:42 AM | #161 |
Penultimate Amazing
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11th March 2018, 05:33 AM | #162 |
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I don't trust atoms. They make up everything. |
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11th March 2018, 07:29 AM | #163 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I'm afraid I didn't express myself very well there. Where I say "tends to confirm" I mean seems to confirm the notion that having nuclear weapons makes a nation more significant, not that they actually do. It's a notion that has served the nuclear powers well since WW2, as countries have poured resources into nuclear programs that could have been more effectively spent on conventional weapons or economic development.
To get down to cases : Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, but anyone in Iran who argues that it should has just been handed a gift by Trump. Sad. |
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It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150 |
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11th March 2018, 07:33 AM | #164 |
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It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150 |
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11th March 2018, 07:35 AM | #165 |
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It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150 |
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11th March 2018, 07:40 AM | #166 |
Penultimate Amazing
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11th March 2018, 07:43 AM | #167 |
Maledictorian
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Why do we need a negotiator of our own?
Just let the North and South Koreans work something out, and Trump will show up for the press conference and maybe won't forget to sign whatever they put before him. |
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“Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.” |
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11th March 2018, 07:45 AM | #168 |
Penultimate Amazing
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That's Xmas with my family in a nutshell.
Now I'm off to follow a conflict that really matters - Wales v Italy in the Six Nations. And to any of our French friends reading this, Allez France! Love you guys. Until next weekend, anyway. (For the uninformed, France beat England 22-16 yesterday.) |
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It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150 |
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11th March 2018, 07:46 AM | #169 |
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It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150 |
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11th March 2018, 07:48 AM | #170 |
Penultimate Amazing
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It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150 |
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11th March 2018, 08:13 AM | #171 |
Show me the monkey!
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Wolff said that Trump is currently having an affair. He said she is in his book but he won't name her. We have a thread on it.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=326593 |
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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11th March 2018, 08:46 AM | #172 |
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11th March 2018, 08:58 AM | #173 |
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It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150 |
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11th March 2018, 09:12 AM | #174 |
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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11th March 2018, 10:15 AM | #175 |
A broken man on a Halifax pier, the last of Barrett's Privateers
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It wouldn't surprise me if the N. Koreans are as nonplussed as many Americans are right now ("You mean the SOB agreed to meet!?!?!). They are getting something no other President (Republican or Democrat) has provided; International recognition and 'status' in their own right but now that they have had the 'invitation' accepted, they have to come up with a plan on either holding it or (IMHO, NOT holding it) that will work to their advantage. So I suspect we'll hear something in the next few days.
Call it what you will, the optics are that a President of the United States has accepted an invitation to meet with one of the worse dictators in the world and will, apparently, do so on said dictators' home ground. The leading power in the world either makes the invitations or accepts meetings after careful pre-negotiations and if the President goes somewhere it is because the President decides to do so, not because an International pariah invites him. Nixon went to China; Ike went to Korea. Trump is going to Korea. So yeah, summoned is perhaps a bad term; but it is still not a good look for the President of the United States. IMHO as always. YMMV. |
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No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. What? Look, somebody's got to have some damn perspective around here! Boom. Sooner or later. BOOM! -LT. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5 |
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11th March 2018, 11:00 AM | #176 |
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So we were talking past each other, which can happen. For instance when Trebuchet brought up "Fire and Fury" he was explicitly referring to Trump's threat and you went off on the book which adopted the phrase as its title.
Getting back to the more consequential world, Wales beat Italy by a comfortable margin so we can all sleep easy in our beds now. Until the France game, that is ... |
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It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150 |
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11th March 2018, 11:05 AM | #177 |
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It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150 |
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11th March 2018, 11:09 AM | #178 |
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Bingo.
The meeting doesn't have to accomplish anything more than taking place for NK to get a 'win' out of it. Nothing coming of it might be a positive outcome in and of itself, too. Kim can then credibly say "we conceded nothing to them!" This is where the tapatalk signature that annoys people used to be |
11th March 2018, 01:31 PM | #179 |
Дэлво Δελϝο דֶלְבֹֿ देल्वो
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I'm trying to find a way to make sense out of that, and failing. Can you give some examples to illustrate this general principle?
Until this thread, I would have thought that most people here, including me, would normally say that talking to adversarial countries is a good thing because talking is the only thing that can end a conflict peacefully. What reason was there to withhold that all along? Why does the location matter? Wait... in one sentence you make a hypothetical Tump-Kim meeting look about the same as Nixon in China and Eisenhower in Korea, and then in the next you're saying Trump in North Korea would be bad... so does that mean the other two examples were also bad? |
11th March 2018, 03:04 PM | #180 |
Penultimate Amazing
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You do realize that "went" is the past tense of "go", and going is its gerund, or don't you?
So what is the difference between Ike and Nixon on one hand, Trump on the other? Other than that their visits took place in the past, and Trump's may take place in the near future - which is why different tense forms of the verb "to go" come into play? |
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Thermodynamics hates conspiracy theorists. (Foster Zygote) The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. (Gilbert Keith Chesterton) |
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11th March 2018, 03:12 PM | #181 |
Nasty Woman
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Here's the win-win trade.
For Trump: NK releases all US prisoners (3 seems to be the number). For Kim: he gets a temporary lifting of sanctions until it becomes obvious he really hasn't stopped developing nukes and missiles. For Xi: he gets a retreat of US military presence in the S China Sea. (Degree of retreat to be determined.) For Putin: he gets a small respite from US attention. (Not sure of the value there.) |
11th March 2018, 03:39 PM | #182 |
Illuminator
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Kim's big fear is that things will get so bad that he will be driven out of power, and/or killed. He would of course welcome the propaganda victory that comes with just meeting with Trump, but more importantly he needs to loosen the tightening noose of the sanctions, without giving up the nukes, that is his ace in the hole.
At this point he won't mind giving up testing, since in his mind he has sufficiently demonstrated nuclear capability. Anything to avoid the fate of other dictators who sadly had no nukes. |
11th March 2018, 04:30 PM | #183 |
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Will Japan be a winner if Kim says no to nukes?
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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11th March 2018, 04:41 PM | #184 |
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11th March 2018, 07:22 PM | #185 |
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Who is going to drive him out of power?
Is there anybody in that regime who thinks, "All I need to do is drive Kim out of power, reform the country and get some democracy going!"? From what I can see, Kim Jong-un is completely in control in North Korea, and if there were such things as genuine polls, he would riding pretty high in the favourability ratings. Then, out of the blue, the president of the United States suddenly starts suggesting that he might do something they have demanded for decades. I think Kim Jong un can't believe his luck. He probably thinks, at this point, there is a chance they could win the Korean War (1950-present). |
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Слава Україні! **** Putin! |
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11th March 2018, 07:29 PM | #186 |
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the amount of murdering of potential rivals Un has done and keeps on doing suggests that his rule isn't very secure.
I believe that China could execute a regime change if it really wanted to, conjuring up a fake heir to the line to maintain the fiction. But the risk of total collapse is too great for now. |
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“Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.” |
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11th March 2018, 08:05 PM | #187 |
Дэлво Δελϝο דֶלְבֹֿ देल्वो
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It really isn't. It's the only thing that puts him in any danger of an American attack. He knows perfectly well that there has been no such attack for all these years while NK hasn't had nuclear weapons, and that the only reason Americans ever mention bothering to swat him down is to prevent him from getting them.
I think it's safe to presume that whatever ideas influence him are probably not preposterously kooky American left-wingnut conspiracy memes... maybe no better connected to reality than those, but at least not exactly the same ones. |
11th March 2018, 08:25 PM | #188 |
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Слава Україні! **** Putin! |
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11th March 2018, 10:46 PM | #189 |
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12th March 2018, 05:50 AM | #190 |
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Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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12th March 2018, 05:58 AM | #191 |
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12th March 2018, 05:59 AM | #192 |
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Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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12th March 2018, 06:02 AM | #193 |
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he has a sister...
But yeah, with that poison attack on Kim Jong-nam, he probably took away Chinas last ace for replacing him with someone more controllable. But it might be enough to get all the generals on their side. |
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“Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.” |
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12th March 2018, 06:06 AM | #194 |
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Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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12th March 2018, 06:13 AM | #195 |
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Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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12th March 2018, 06:35 AM | #196 |
Illuminator
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Kim is in control, but there are limits to what even his people will put up with. If even China joins in the sanctions, the squeeze will really be on. He is already afraid of attack by the US, that is what the whole nuclear thing is all about, and he is afraid of assassination.
The meeting with Trump is Kims golden opportunity to negotiate his way out of the sanctions without giving up his nukes. |
12th March 2018, 06:45 AM | #197 |
Illuminator
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It's a fine line, he knows he is pissing us off with his blustering, but he also knows what happens to dictators we don't like who we are not afraid of.
First establish that you are a threat, then offer to negotiate. A dangerous strategy with someone as inexperienced and uninformed as Trump. Kim is smarter than he looks though, I won't be surprised if he is successful in the end. |
12th March 2018, 07:55 AM | #198 |
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My heros are Alex Zanardi and Evelyn Glennie. |
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12th March 2018, 08:01 AM | #199 |
Fiend God
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Kim Jong-Fred, yes. That's the one.
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12th March 2018, 09:37 AM | #200 |
Banned
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The fact adults have to address dangerous situations is part of life. A child, wishing attention, may attempt to run and jump into a canal. Yes, an adult may need to stop the kid, thus fulfilling the desire for attention. Adults shouldn't waste their energy contemplating the self satisfaction of the dangerous.
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