Kim Jong Un looking at basses

[ilan]

[ack1961]

funny, I thought he'd be more into headless basses...

[Pilgrim]

He thought they looked like basketballs, hence the confused look.

[Dave W]

If only we could control our drummers....

[chromium]

Did he play "Pass the Juche"? 

[godofthunder]

 He's fun to laugh at  but he's no joke. Again we underestimate  the communists, it's the 1950's and 60's all over again. The Russians developed the atomic bomb far faster than we thought they would and reverse engineered our B-29 to deliver it. It's a crazy world.......................still

[Psycho Bass Guy]

...and we're still pouring money into Reagan's failure of a Star Wars program, which even though it doesn't work, seems to be the US's "Plan A" when dealing with North Korea. Too bad the last administration broke the will and way of our military in their plundering of the American treasury and the Middle East or we might have the resources and equipment to deal with North Korea, instead of useless overpriced fantasy weapons. Looking at the US from the outside, North Korea rightly sees we are far, far weaker than we should be and the famous "American resolve" is already broken from within. While they may never invade the continental United States, with a few well-placed nuclear strikes here which they are nearly capable of conducting, they certainly have the ability to make good on their threat to reduce Seoul to ash and retake the entire Korean Peninsula. China may or may not support them; it depends on whether they want to simultaneously invade Taiwan and the Philippines or simply continue to ape the US's plutocratic march towards "corporate communism."

[rahock]

I pretty sure that Dennis Rodman will have all this straightened out in no time .
Rick

[Dave W]

I like KimJongNumberUN on Twitter (actually written by Andy Borowitz).

[uwe]

...and we're still pouring money into Reagan's failure of a Star Wars program, which even though it doesn't work, seems to be the US's "Plan A" when dealing with North Korea. Too bad the last administration broke the will and way of our military in their plundering of the American treasury and the Middle East or we might have the resources and equipment to deal with North Korea, instead of useless overpriced fantasy weapons. Looking at the US from the outside, North Korea rightly sees we are far, far weaker than we should be and the famous "American resolve" is already broken from within. While they may never invade the continental United States, with a few well-placed nuclear strikes here which they are nearly capable of conducting, they certainly have the ability to make good on their threat to reduce Seoul to ash and retake the entire Korean Peninsula. China may or may not support them; it depends on whether they want to simultaneously invade Taiwan and the Philippines or simply continue to ape the US's plutocratic march towards "corporate communism."

Let's not get carried away. A North Korean rocket wouldn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of hitting the US mainland. You'd have intercepted it way before.

It's peculiar that the US is either blindly intrepid (out of lack of proper intelligence) where everyone else is concerned or in national depression and awaiting its demise as the military power of the world. The truth is somewhere in between the two and I'm relaltively confident that Kim III will neither turn the US of A in a nuclear wasteland nor conquer it anytime soon. Do something about your decaying infrastructure instead. Underground electrical power lines would be a real start.

That doesn't mean that North Korea isn't a pain in the butt and does not need to be closely monitored. Keep a budget for those satellites.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Let's not get carried away. A North Korean rocket wouldn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of hitting the US mainland. You'd have intercepted it way before.

Our missile interceptors are best case 50% effective, and that's with firing a full volley of interceptor vehicles at a single incoming warhead. Add MRV's into the equation and it gets even more bleak. Missile interception is much harder than the proverbial 'hitting a bullet with a bullet,' and while the US has made great strides in the technology, even the most optimistic estimates place the technology as being another 30 years away from being truly viable. The US's best hope is to limit the amount of material North Korea could weaponize because if they do decide to attack the US, it will literally be their one missile against three hundred interceptors which cannot be reloaded in less than two days.

It's peculiar that the US is either blindly intrepid (out of lack of proper intelligence) where everyone else is concerned or in national depression and awaiting its demise as the military power of the world. The truth is somewhere in between the two and I'm relaltively confident that Kim III will neither turn the US of A in a nuclear wasteland nor conquer it anytime soon.

I never said that. North Korea would lob a nuke at the US as a diversionary measure while they attacked the South, and most likely WOULD nuke Seoul. The objective of a missile strike towards the continental US would be to put the US on the defensive as many of our missile interception is naval based and would divert resources that could do meaningful damage to the North away from the Korean Peninsula, which would also play quite heavily to China's advantage should they decide to have their way with Taiwan. North Korea has acted as China's aggressor proxy since it existed, and despite diplomatic overtures to the contrary, remains their plausibly deniable first strike option.

Do something about your decaying infrastructure instead. Underground electrical power lines would be a real start.

You're preaching to the choir. Unfortunately, the US has experienced a surge of national idiocy where a higher priority is placed upon maintaining the extreme wealth of its financial aristocracy than strengthening the country from the bottom up. That many in the middle class support these ideas is a refelection of delusion of the highest order, but the European kings also had many loyal serfs, too.