an all-expense-paid 90 day observation stay at a lunatic asylum.

I was in Korea back in the early 90s when rumors were getting out that Kim Il-sung was very ill and that his crazier son would soon be taking over. I didn't realize that the current Kim is even crazier still.

Be the craziest in the family.

I picture a bunker someplace with some big, multi-sided dice that they roll each morning to generate the latest bellicose threats.

Or, does this mean the latest crazy supreme leader wants the artillery to be DOUBLE-SECRET combat-ready?

The shriek-o-meter must be hitting elevens!

Like pulling artillery rounds out of storage and having them on hand at firing positions. "building combat power" is what they tell us in here

LOL.

Sounds like typical American propaganda bullshit to me

Good grief

an Obama = Bush post.

Lovely.

Reign in this little psycho. If he dared to fire a rocket into anything of ours unprovoked China knows they could not say a word when we retaliated. I think that is their biggest fear, not being able to keep North Korea from such actions as would open the door for us to go in and clean out the riff raff and secure it so that South Korea could take over. That would totally bum China's trip.

The idiots will get shown what it means to be knocked back into the 19th century.

Rhetoric sounds about the same as Curtis Lemay's Bomb them back to the Stone age.

There has been peace (at least tentatively) for 60 years. Also keep in mind I am talking about if North Korea starts a war, much like they did in 1950. In that case, South Korea has every right to defend itself to the full extent and the US has pledged to defend them.

The saying "bomb them back to the stone age" is more an idiom to me as I don't take it literally. It's very obvious you can't send them back thousands of years.

Again, if they do attack, I believe we have the right to use most everything we have to stop them (I would draw the line at biological and nuclear because they should not be used). As I have said countless times, I live pretty close to North Korea, and given the crap they pull with China essentially backing them up most of the time, an attacked should be the last straw.

The only place that has any light is Pyongyang.

It is actually quite shocking given how much you see in South Korea.

POTUS Obama needs to reply: "Bring it on, you bad mofos, bring it on!!"

first of all, I don't think Un is in charge. Secondly, note the time of the year. After winter. They need grain and this winter was apparently pretty harsh up there. They have people starving. So rather than be an adult like nation, they use their usual rhetoric to "blackmail" the world (aka U.S.) into "coughing" up some grain. (which we give to them anyway).

lastly, with the show of force, it's just another way for NK to show their brainwashed population just how "important" they are in the world.

After a bit of their crazy-ness, they will stand down and make some sort of announcement to the people of NK along the lines of, "the might of the NK army has frighted the world and they have backed down, due to our glorious god leader ability to stare them down!" blah blah blah.

The song remains the same.

into precise detail how much grain the U.S. actually provides to North Korea after the Bush Administration significantly reduce that commodity to North Korea? Bush significantly reduced food to North Korea after he labeled them part of the Evil Axis. That was when the Clinton Administration had made significant improvements with ongoing talks with the North Koreans but it became more intensed after the Bush Administration changed U.S. Policy after 2000. North Korea restarted their nuclear program after the Bush Administration gave hostile language.

I've seen some reports that the previous causes of famine in North Korea came from natural causes such as certain disease. North Korea got aid from a number of countries, mainly China and even from Japan. Even the Clinton administration allowed Aid provided to them for food. The Clinton Administration did not use food and starvation as a weapon. If the religious extremists in this country and extremist Republican Party are really so concerned about the welfare of the North Korean people, then their politicians would not be advocating introducing policies with food as a weapon for regime change. I do not think the North Koreans militarized with intentions to invade the World as must on the Right try to convince everybody. And I don't see the rightwing extremists in the United States being the grownups many people perceive them as.

There will not be a War on the Korean peninsula because the Chinese nor Russians will allow it. So both sides are immature and beating their chests, instead of talking to each other. It was also the North Koreans that helped Japan get rid of some of their nuclear waste. The North koreans does about 70 percent of their trade with China, and surprisingly have also done some reform by allowing a little capitalism within their system through China. The bottomline, it is better to communicate without the insults because it will bring more insults, that will get you no where. President Obama needs to be the grownup and have direct talks, instead, he rather appease a rightwing Party, which created the whole situation. he would probably make more progress with the North Korean leader than the Teabaggers and neocons in the Congress.

and some which I don't agree with.

And some, which seem, you through in for just the heck of it.

Cheers!

on condition that they can keep like 10% profit above rebuilding costs, but that they will knock down some of their own buildings and destroy some of their own artillery. Saves both countries some money.

He better settle down or he's going to receive a big spanking.

but exactly what kind of artillery could ever reach Hawaii, much less the American mainland? Missiles I understand, but artillery?

as artillery (they have been in the past).

I hear "artillery" and I think howitzer.

your thought is correct but the more modern definition has included rockets

Mostly Katyushas and their younger siblings these days. They also generally don't draw as firm a distinction between "rocket" and "missile" in military terms as western militaries do, which is why you'll occasionally hear things up to and including ICBMs referred to that way. The US has something similar in the MLRS, which is probably the single deadliest thing in the Army's inventory as far as conventional weapons go.

Rocket artillery is usually in the realm of "anything within 20 miles of the truck has a bad day" devices though. North Korea claiming they have anything capable of hitting the mainland US is concentrated sillysauce, though I'm sure it sounds great to their target audience at home. They could wreck anything near the DMZ, of course, but that hasn't been news since the 1950s.

That's what I thought.

They apparently are attempting to build an ICBM which would be able to hit the US mainland.

They have tested some rockets, but they often don't work.

However, they have been able to shoot a few to their west.

At least one flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific. Obviously, the Japanese were furious and a little frightened. I don't blame them.

Right now, there is concern that the North Koreans could get lucky with one of their rockets and land on on or near our base in Guam or our base in Onkinawa, which would get Japan and the US at the same time.

If they were truly serious about attacking the US and South Korea, they wouldn't damn well tell the world about it. They'd simply attack at 2am local time in the hopes of catching everyone off guard.

Announcing to the world that you're going to "combat duty posture No. 1" kinda ruins the element of surprise.

I was wondering why no one pointed that out yet...

I mean after allowing 9/11 to happen, the dreadfully run wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the dysfunctional houses of Congress for the past 5 years, who would be?

Doesn't work, but the world doesn't know that.

Wolf

It didn't go boom. See 'The Mouse that Roared for confirmation.

Wolf

Make lots of war noises so people won't call you a wimp.

every so often they do this

Well, to a greater-than-usual level. They'll rant threats whenever more than three people in the North Korean government are conscious, of course.