Thanks to Wikicommons.

As if fission didn’t anger the US enough… Iran announces start of fusion power program.

Is N. Korea actually at fault? Questions over supposed torpedo attack on South Korean ship.

US Soldiers captured. Taliban forces seize two US soldiers in Afghanistan.

Thanks to Wikicommons.

What ever makes them happy? North Korean leader more popular after sunken South Korean ship blamed on North.

A step in the right direction. Oil cap collects 10,000 barrels a day in Gulf.

Terror arrests made in New York airport. Two New Jersey men arrested on accusations of terrorism as they attempt head to Somalia.

You know, just some warheads. Courtesy of Wikicommons.

Have you had a drill in school where you curl up under your desk and hope that the Soviets don’t drop a nuke on you?

Believe it or not this was a standard practice in US schools not long ago. Clearly American school desks were once quite robust if they could protect children from nuclear annihilation.

With poorer school desks available today, we were relieved to learn that the Russians and the Americans have agreed to reduce their arsenals of nuclear weapons. (Check the link for our explanation.)

Today, President Obama and Russian President Medvedev are set to sign the “new START” (START = Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) in Prague, signaling a new wave for American nuclear policy. To go along with this big meeting, the Obama administration just released the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

Essentially, one key factor in the nuclear weapons game is the idea of deterrence. You know, if Country A has the power to destroy Country B and vice versa, then they both might be deterred from using them against each other. Right?

What the NPR says is that the U.S. will respect the idea of deterrence while promising not to use nuclear weapons against countries that have promised not to use them either — in other words, countries that are down with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Sounds diplomatic enough, right? But there’s more…

Slate points out that the United States hasn’t given up its potential to use nuclear weapons first against certain nations, and there are a few other important messages within the NPR:

Second, it provides another incentive for countries — even unfriendly countries — not to develop nuclear weapons (if they believe the U.S. declaration, anyway).

Third, it further isolates those countries that are in violation of the NPT — which is to say, Iran and North Korea.

The report additionally indicates that the United States will no longer be producing new nuclear weapons, just rehabilitating the old ones when needed.

The NPR was sure to not please everyone, given the sensitive nature of the subject, and one of the displeased was Walter Shapiro, writing for Politics Daily. Speaking of the document:

This is an inspiring piece of writing filled with bold pronouncements that are immediately contradicted by fine-print caveats. The document unequivocally pledges that America will not initiate a nuclear exchange (except in those cases where we might) and earnestly promises to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the overall national security strategy (while maintaining most of the current nuclear arsenal as a devastating deterrent).

Additionally, Michael Levi for The Daily Beast sees the policy shift happening in the NPR, but notices a loophole:

The United States now appears to be keeping open the option of using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear Iran, but not against other states that might pose identical military threats.

Levi also points out in his piece that essentially, the real ways to deal with current nuclear threats, like nuclear terrorism, aren’t quite explicit in the Review at all… (This could be a problem.) He concludes,

Those efforts, though, receive only passing attention. That’s fine: This strategy is supposed to be focused on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. But it means that the administration still has much work to do.

What these two writers have in common is the complaint that the report doesn’t really do all that much in terms of creating peace. (But the trust-building potential is there.) Though not discounting that there actually is a shift happening, they note that the dramatic shift some might have been hoping for just wasn’t there.

One thing is clear from what we’ve sampled here: there’s no clear-cut path to a nuclear-weapons free world, and that’s why this Review isn’t clear-cut in its ways to get there.

All we can hope for is that the U.S.’s nuclear defense strategists won’t find themselves in a “Dr. Strangelove” kind of setting…

Let us know what you’re thinking! Can we have a world without nuclear weapons, or are we just going to keep living on the edge of our seats (or under our desks)?

Happy Birthday, Kim Jong Il! North Korea’s leader celebrated his 68th birthday.

President vs. Prime Minister? Kenya’s two top leaders are in a slugfest!

Disguises, assassinations, and hit men. It sounds like a TV drama, but it’s real life!

Courtesy of the New York Times

Remembering Fort Hood.

He started it… a North and South Korea naval vessels exchange some shells.

Don’t you like what I’ve done with the place…

A Northern Ireland filmmaker has won euro46,000 ($69,000) in damages after a judge ruled that his Irish island home was transformed into a parking lot while he was overseas for six years.

Imagining that you might too, we’ve decided to expand our classic “What’zup today?” section to help you catch up on some of the important, or just interesting, or maybe bizarre, stories floating around the world wide web. You know, so you have something to talk about at all the parties you’ve promised to attend in the coming days.

Here goes nothing…

Here, The Daily Beast explores the possibility of “The Next Sarah Palin?” Can there be a “next” when the original is still hanging around? We smell a rivalry…

Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire’s GOP rising star, is a folksy, gun-loving mother of two who has her eyes on a Senate seat. And, you betcha, she married a dude who puts Todd to shame.

The new “the FBI made me do it” defense makes its debut… A blogger charged with making threats against lawmakers and government officials claims the FBI taught him how to do it all.

“His job was basically to publish information which would cause other parties to act in a manner which would lead to their arrest,” Orozco said.

Robert “Mr. Smug” Gibbs gets dizzy more often than you think. Why? A photo.

The “burqini” for Muslim women gets banned in northern Italy. One would presume it just doesn’t show enough skin for the Italians.

A modest fit burqini, thanks to: http://www.ahiida.com/

“The sight of a ‘masked woman’ could disturb small children, not to mention problems of hygiene,” mayor Gianluca Buonanno was quoted as saying.

Who is better at swimming: Shaq or Michael Phelps? We will soon find out….

America loses another pioneer in news… The inventor of the news magazine and the televised presidential debate, Don Hewitt, has passed away.

We’ve heard about the uproar at health care town hall meetings, but have we seen the best protest signs? The Huffington Post helps us out in finding the most amusing. Our favorite:

What this country needs is more "Arrested Development."

You think American news outlets have major spin going on? Try living in North Korea. (OK, that wasn’t fair…)

Last week, KCNA took a similarly rose-colored look at the fact that the country’s capital city still has no traffic lights and relies instead on a corps of women who direct traffic the old-fashioned way, by hand, in an article headlined: “Traffic Control Platform beneath Umbrella Installed at Intersections of Pyongyang.”

Must be cool under there.

Is Putin back in the saddle? (Come on, that one’s worth a little smile.) The presidency may be in his future (despite also being in his past…).

See why we're funny?

Apparently, T-shirt-making is a science. That ragtag collection in your dresser doesn’t pass muster when it comes to T-shirts being fashionable, you know.

This shirt, if you’ll excuse me for sounding ridiculous, may be the most perfect garment I own. The fabric is thin to the point of almost being sheer, made of high-gauge long-fiber Sea Island cotton that is difficult to describe without resorting to clichés: soft as a buttered, cashmere baby’s bottom? Yes, that soft!

Barney Frank loses his cool over health care “Nazi policy” accusations come up. Well, it is August…

After all the uncomfortably testy town-hall footage we’ve seen this month, watching Frank deal with an over the top Obama-as-Nazi accusation is pretty entertaining. Nothing like an accusation of Nazism to lighten up August.

Time has come for the Afghan vote! (Catch up on the Afghan election situation here.)

And to wrap up, a bit of fake news: Obama gets tangled up in coat hangers! (Via The Onion.)

]]> http://www.usdemocrazy.net/2009/08/20/whatzup-today-deluxe-edition/feed/ 0 http://www.usdemocrazy.net/2009/08/06/out-of-north-korea-into-the-history-books/ http://www.usdemocrazy.net/2009/08/06/out-of-north-korea-into-the-history-books/#comments Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:21:31 +0000 ForeverPlaid http://usdemocrazy.wordpress.com/?p=2244

Lee and Ling, pardoned in North Korea

In recent weeks, months, and years (millenia?) there’s been a lot to say about North Korea.

Whether it’s running jokes about North Korea’s leader on late-night TV…or a professor of international relations stressing out on the radio about the DPRK’s nuclear tests , or anything in between, we here at USDemocrazy have heard it all.

Surely you’ve heard of the imprisoned American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling (pictured above) and their release from a hard labor camp in North Korea. (If not, that’s ok… It was on our “What’zup today?” page yesterday!)

The two had been working along the border of North Korea and China, when they were arrested (for spying) and have been held in prison for the past five months, until yesterday.

The two were employed by Current TV, a news channel founded by former Vice President Al Gore. Big Al expressed his joy at a news conference iat the airport where the two landed safely in the United States. Gore mentioned:

It speaks well of our country that when two American citizens are in harm’s way that so many people would just put things aside and just go to work to make sure that this has had a happy ending.

Gore is referring to the outreach from (mostly online) movements to free the two. The site www.lauraandeuna.com and the very active Twitter page tried to raise awareness about the two women’s plight.

Much has been said, too, about just how the pardons from leader Kim Jong-Il came about.

It’s widely known that former President Bill Clinton took a trip to Pyongyang to work his southern charm on the other side of the world.

Politico wanted to know how Bill Clinton got the gig as negotiator for the non-Obama-administration affiliated mission:

In a mid-July phone call to their families from captivity, the two journalists passed along an astonishing offer: North Korea would be willing to grant amnesty and release them, if Bill Clinton would agree to come to Pyongyang as an envoy and seek their release.

Clinton is now being hailed by many as the reason the journalists saw U.S. soil so soon.

However, the Obama administration was sure to mention at every opportunity there was no message whatsoever from their administration to the naughty rogue Kim administration.

Still…Obama was, however, pretty happy with the job Clinton (and Gore) did.

Of course, in true American fashion, not everyone was wholly happy with the “Mr. Clinton goes to Pyongyang” situation. Former ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, John Bolton, said in an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered:

The symbolism of a former president going to meet with Kim Jong Il I think is something that benefits Kim Jong Il a lot more than the United States, and it only encourages others to do the same thing.

Bolton is sure that Iran is watching this concession: Act up, hold Americans hostage, or otherwise, and you might get some diplomatic talks out of the situation. (And Bolton isn’t the only skeptic on the situation, either.)

Even people in Seoul, South Korea are a little befuddled about the talks with Mr. Clinton, and how they could affect future North Korea/world politics.

So, what’s left to be seen is a lot: What will this mean for six-party nuclear talks? Will North Korea be more willing to engage in diplomatic talks anytime soon? How will the U.S. proceed in its relationship with the DPRK? What will Bill Clinton do next?

Thoughts?

]]> http://www.usdemocrazy.net/2009/08/06/out-of-north-korea-into-the-history-books/feed/ 1 http://www.usdemocrazy.net/2009/06/17/whatzup-today-55/ http://www.usdemocrazy.net/2009/06/17/whatzup-today-55/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:35:20 +0000 LegalEagle http://usdemocrazy.wordpress.com/?p=1729 Breaking the Brinkmanship Bonanza… U.S. and South Korea take a firm stand against North Korea.

Extreme Financial Makeover… Obama admin details proposals for overhauling financial regulation.

Blowin’ up the moon… this just sounds cool.

NASA is preparing to fly a rocket booster into the moon, triggering a six-mile-high explosion that scientists hope will confirm the presence of water

Woman suspected in 3 holdups in 35 minutes… say what you will, but she’s efficient.

This is just begging for a good caption.

North Korea has really got the USDemocrazy team in a foreign policy funk. The nuclear nastiness in the North is not going away…

You might remember our posts on North Korea’s nuclear tests  (but if not, read one here, and the other here).

Because of North Korea’s testiness, members of the United Nations Security Council are up in arms (nuclear arms).   They have agreed on a consensus on a draft resolution that would further sanction the North Korean nuclear knuckleheads. (Yes, a draft… Not the real deal…  yet.)

As for what the US thinks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out as a hard-liner on Sunday.  On “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”  she said that North Korea could go back on the list of card-carrying members of the terrorism-supporting club. She also warned if things don’t change soon, the world could face some dire consequences, namely:

an arms race in Northeast Asia.

It’s been said before, and it’ll keep being said (as in here, by the LA Times) that sanctions against the rogue state is sticky territory. (Maybe Kim Jong-Il spilled liquor everywhere?).

The “dear leader” of North Korea is so crafty, he gets his away around sanctions  – at least when it comes to his personal goodies (caviar, Cognac, and good ol’ DVDs from the West ). However the already-impoverished population of the state suffer terribly under these same sanctions.

So, what to do? Well, it seems the US has already ruled out invading the DPRK, according to special envoy Stephen Bosworth. (It would appear the US has got its hands tied in invasions elsewhere.)

To further complicate things, current leader Kim Jong-Il seems to ready to pass the torch (and keys to the nuclear weapons stockpile, one would presume) to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un. Not surprisingly, no one really knows too much about this guy, other than his adoration of Michael Jordan when he was in boarding school. (Cutting off supplies of re-run Chicago Bulls games to North Korea could be the next sanction)

In response, the eldest son of Kim Jong-Il, Kim Jong-nam, has appeared on Japanese television saying he’s apathetic when is comes to politics. Sure.

Right now, Mark Thompson wrote for Time that there could be a new Korean War (or a resumption of the old one, as the case may be) as a result of all this, and particularly because on May 27 the DPRK removed itself from the armistice signed in June of 1953, and no longer guaranteeing the safety of ships sailing off its west coast.

Basically, North Korea is all kinds of crazy right now.

What’s the solution, guys and gals?

Is this happy face familiar?

China’s chastising… And the US is glad!

Nine years later, no more fighting! Bush v. Gore lawyers join together for an important battle!

Is the economy staging a comeback? We surely hope so…

Pondering your freshman year? President Obama and the rest of the nation relive his!