North Korea just launched a rocket!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-north-korea-rocket5-2009apr05,0,4003556.story

Reporting from Seoul -- Defying weeks of international pressure, North Korea launched a multistage rocket today, a move that the U.S. and its allies fear masked an effort by the reclusive state to expand its ability to deliver nuclear weapons.

Reaction was swift and harsh to the launch from the Musudan-ri site in the country's northeast. The Obama administration, confronted with an early foreign-policy challenge, said the launch was a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and that the U.S. would take steps to enforce the message that North Korea cannot threaten its neighbors with impunity.

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N. Korea claims it was a satellite launch.

Goddamn it, North Korea!

We already knew you were evil, but this isn't funny anymore.

But is is a rocket, or is it a missile?

I think its a multistage missal, actually.

Or rocket. I don't really know the difference and I really should...

Plain rocket goes up. It either clears the atmosphere or falls back to earth.

Multi-stage is just what it sounds like, more than one stage involved in the launch. One piece is mounted on the tip of the other. The propulsion system launches the rocket up, then falls away while the guidance system or engine or whatever you want to call it can take it in another direction.

(Surely there's a military person who can explain it more betters than I almsot just tried to maybe accomplify...)

Rockets another example of the double edged sword that is technology .

A rocket is pretty much both, a missile and a vehicle. There's really no difference between two, merely the purpose the payload.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. . . . Yu dum people no invite me to big G meeting??

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I launch missew.

I must admit that this makes me slightly nervous.

If China told us we weren't allowed to launch missiles, we'd tell them to bend over to give us a good target.

Why would anyone be nervous? They built a crude fission device that didn't work and a rocket that failed to achieve orbit, if that was the intent. They can't fit their non-working device on it because it's too big. What are they going to do with it and who are they going to do nothing to?

It's simple physics that it has to travel over Japan in a ballistic curve. If the earth rotated the opposite way, it would be going west during climbout.

It's just a propaganda tool to try to extract money and/or food and fuel.

North Korea seems to be the country that it's okay to hate. As for this rocket launch, the UN previously passed a resolution banning launches by that country. So how can the UN do that, exactly? By what right?

I have a hard time taking a country seriously when their head of state is a Michael Jackson fan. But that's just me.

... MacArthur was right.

Bird of Prey said:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. . . . Yu dum people no invite me to big G meeting??

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I launch missew.

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As a proud Asian American, I find this stereotypical mangling of the English language offensive.

Julie Worth said:

North Korea seems to be the country that it's okay to hate. As for this rocket launch, the UN previously passed a resolution banning launches by that country. So how can the UN do that, exactly? By what right?

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Generally, it doesn't pass specific resolutions banning anyone of anything, but merely suggestions/recommendations. But it also has Peace-keeping troops, should it wish to enforce anything. I know they're meeting today to discuss what is happening with North Korea. I was looking at the security council members and I know they're going to pass someone. The only country I really see maybe objecting is Libya, but non of the P-5's look like they would veto any resolutions and/or decisions, so I'm just kind of waiting to see what the UN does.

It is interesting how much noise this unsuccessful launch generated as opposed to a successful similar launch by Iran two months ago

misslissy said:

Generally, it doesn't pass specific resolutions banning anyone of anything, but merely suggestions/recommendations.

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To quote from the 2006 resolution: [The Security Council] demands that the DPRK suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme, and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching...

The "commitment" this UN blather refers to was unilateral, and therefore not binding.

misslissy said:

Generally, it doesn't pass specific resolutions banning anyone of anything, but merely suggestions/recommendations. But it also has Peace-keeping troops, should it wish to enforce anything. I know they're meeting today to discuss what is happening with North Korea. I was looking at the security council members and I know they're going to pass someone. The only country I really see maybe objecting is Libya, but non of the P-5's look like they would veto any resolutions and/or decisions, so I'm just kind of waiting to see what the UN does.

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The UN doesn't have any peacekeeping troops. They get troops allocated from member nations, who usually stand around and enforce nothing, as they showed us in Bosnia-Herzegovina (and Somalia, too). They even had a cool name back then, UNPROFOR. I'm sure some UN bigwigs came up with that one while sampling fine wines in a bistro on the Upper East Side.

Julie Worth said:

To quote from the 2006 resolution: [The Security Council] demands that the DPRK suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme, and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching...

The "commitment" this UN blather refers to was unilateral, and therefore not binding.

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The UN will condemn the act, and then sit around and watch as North Korea sets another rocket up and tries again. Just as they do with their other resolutions.

dmytryp said:

It is interesting how much noise this unsuccessful launch generated as opposed to a successful similar launch by Iran two months ago

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One thing we Westerners are good at, is focusing on problems we know we can solve while ignoring problems that require 'tough solutions'.

Iran is such a problem and our favorite recourse is the Ostrich method followed by the Scape Goat Tactic.

IMO, North Korea does this because their #1 export is Instability.

Every few years they Sabor Rattle, then we, the West, go in and negotiate and N. Korea gets something.

THen a few years pass, they need some more stuff, they Sabor Rattle somemore, we come back in, negotiate, and they get more stuff.

Instability is their #1 commondity and they are adept at using it to get what they want.

It is what they do

Mel...

They also make great bad guys for the Crysis video game series.

So...that rocket come down yet?
Whatever happened with this?

The Korean DMZ is the strip of land that straddles the border between North and South Korea, and is one of the most well preserved forest areas on the planet. This is because it is also home to an estimated one million landmines, so nobody is real interested in bothering it. It's possibly also proof that the endangered rainforests just aren't doing it right.

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Let's hope a green party extremist never reads this part...

Ironically, the reported story of Shin and Choi would have made a fucking unbelievable film. They were kidnapped, tried to escape, failed, were placed in solitary for years, thought the other to be dead, discovered the other was alive after being brought to the most Idi Amin-esque dinner party ever, were then forced to make films and then fell back in love, before finally making a dramatic escape (including a taxi chase!) in Vienna.

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That's going to happen, I swear it will.

To attempt to create proof, North Korea sent people into the tunnel to paint some walls black so that they might look like coal. To a toddler, anyway. See, this is the attitude that keeps North Korea from making friends. And they really need friends, because only a friend would point out that, as a coal-producing country, they could easily have just planted the real thing.

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