Again, the United States negotiates from a weak position

Good Grief!

Secretary of State John Kerry flew to China on Saturday and sought to elicit China’s help in dealing with an increasingly recalcitrant nuclear armed North Korea by saying that American missile defenses could be cut back if the North abandoned its nuclear program.

Mr. Kerry’s trip to China, his first since taking office, is part of an intensive three-day push to try to calm tensions on the Korean Peninsula that have threatened to spiral out of control and rattled world leaders.

In a news conference, Mr. Kerry suggested that the United States could remove some newly enhanced missile defenses in the region, though he did not specify which ones. Any eventual cutback would address Chinese concerns about the buildup of American weapons systems in the region.

China has zero to fear from US missiles, unless they try something they should not, and China knows it. Here is how I handle this. I tell the Norks that ANY attack on us, or South Korea or Japan, will be met with an overwhelmingly violent response. Further, I let them know that continued threats will be taken seriously, and that we WILL strike them the very next time they issue a direct threat, PERIOD! I tell China that they know, and we know that our missiles will ONLY be used in defense, so we have absolutely no plans to cut anything back.

Call it the Hagin Doctrine. We walk softly, we will carry a big stick, and if we are ever forced to use that stick, we will use it with such devastating force that no one will ever even want to think about screwing with us or our allies again. Of course if I were president John Kerry would not only not be in any position of authority, he would not even be allowed to shovel Rino dung, but that is another post altogether.

What to do about North Korea?

As I have said before, right here, on this very blog, I would say it on Fox News but they do not have the good sense to call, I would have a simple response to the North Korean threats. As president, any direct and credible threat against us or our allies, would be met with a severe response. How serious? Well, let’s just say that we know where North Korea has bases, and those would serve as worthy target practice for our military. In other words, my doctrine would be, you threaten to attack us, we annihilate your ability to carry out that threat. If you do not like that, then do not threaten us or our allies. 

Now, such a foreign policy would draw condemnation, and several strongly worded letters from the Useless Nations, and the “global community” would be outrageously outraged. can you think of two better reasons to adopt such a policy? The Other McCain has a similar plan

 

As a Neutral Objective Journalist, I was able to write a brief news summary of this story without sharing my personal opinion of the Commie dictatorship in Pyongyang, but speaking as a God-Fearing Red-Blooded American, there can be no doubt. If it were up to me, North Korea would be reduced to radioactive vapor and smoldering cinders, and if you disagree with that policy, I question your patriotism.

Of course, nuking Pyongyang to Kingdom Come would be just the start of The McCain Doctrine — if those Reds in Havana don’t take the hint, I say we send a couple of carrier task forces and a divison or two of Marines to finish the job that should have been finished in April 1961.

See, slightly different takes, but I think we can work with either one

Those Wacky North Koreans Are At It Again

North Korea Warns Of ‘Merciless’ Nuclear Strike – Sky News

The North Korean military says it has “ratified” a merciless attack against the United States, potentially involving a “cutting-edge” nuclear strike.

“The moment of explosion is approaching fast,” the army said in a statement on state news agency KCNA.

War could break out “today or tomorrow,” the statement said, quoting a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army.

“The merciless operation of (our) revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified.

“The US had better ponder over the prevailing grave situation.”

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Pyongyang’s latest pronouncement came as Washington scrambled to reinforce its Pacific defences, preparing to move an advanced missile defence system to the island of Guam.

The land-based weapon, which is primed to shoot down short and medium-range missiles, will be sent to the US territory to defend its bases there.

The Pentagon has already sent bombers, stealth aircraft and ships.

Tensions have been soaring on the Korean peninsula since the North launched a long-range rocket in December and conducted its third nuclear test in February.

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North Korea has threatened missile and nuclear strikes against the US and South Korea in response to UN sanctions and joint military drills.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said earlier on Wednesday that North Korea’s “bellicose dangerous rhetoric” posed a “real and clear danger” to America and its allies South Korea and Japan.

“They have nuclear capacity now, they have missile delivery capacity now,” he said.

“We take those threats seriously, we have to take those threats seriously.

“We are doing everything we can, working with the Chinese and others to defuse that situation on the peninsula.

“I hope the North will ratchet its very dangerous rhetoric down.”

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And in another escalation in the crisis, North Korea on Wednesday blocked access to the key Kaesong joint industrial zone with South Korea.

Any move on Kaesong – established in 2004 and a crucial source of hard currency for North Korea – carries enormous significance.

Neither of the Koreas has allowed previous crises to significantly affect the complex, which is the only surviving example of inter-Korean cooperation and seen as a bellwether for stability on the Korean peninsula.

China, the North’s sole major ally, appealed for “calm” from all sides, repeating Beijing’s oft-declared position.

Click HERE For Rest Of Story

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Alleged N. Korean Propaganda Video: There Are No Birds In U.S. Because Starving Citizens Have Eaten Them All

Alleged North Korean Propaganda Video: ‘This Is How Americans Live Today’ – Yahoo News

A new video has been posted to the Live Leak site that claims to be a North Korean propaganda video showing a dystopian American society.

It’s unclear if the translation is accurate, and whether the video did in fact originate in North Korea. But it’s tempting and easy to believe the video is the real deal. After all, it was only last month that the North Korean government released a truly strange propaganda video that depicted one of its citizens having a dream in which the U.S. is attacked by Korean missiles – set to the 1980s’ charity song sensation, “We Are the World.”

But if true, the video is hilarious in its attempt to create an imaginary America where the population lives off of snow and has eaten the entire population of birds. Yes, that’s right, the video repeatedly claims that there are no birds in America because the people have been forced to eat all of them.

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“Drinking coffee made from snow, living in tents and buying guns to kill each other, especially children,” the video intones. “You’ll see there are no birds. They have been eaten by the people who live in these tents and corridors.”

In one of the stranger moments, the video shows a person who supposedly lives in one of these tents. “The American Red Cross supplies curtains for walls for the tents with material from North Korea,” the translator explains.

And in another, a bearded, apparently homeless man waits in line for food from a street truck vendor. “This man, a former Republican candidate from Oregon, is having to get coffee made of snow from trucks,” our narrator grimly intones.

“People pass by, not caring, for they are in the same situation.”

The line that has generated the snarkiest responses so far comes at the video’s conclusion: “This is how they live in America: the poor, the lonely, the homosexual.”

So, what do you think? Is this propaganda video for real or is it too weird even for the North Korean government?

Click HERE For Rest Of Story

This is certainly not encouraging

Not encouraging at all

(Boston Globe) — America’s top military officer in charge of monitoring hostile actions by North Korea, escalating tensions between China and Japan, and a spike in computer attacks traced to China provides an unexpected answer when asked what is the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific region: climate change.

Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, in an interview at a Cambridge hotel Friday after he met with scholars at Harvard and Tufts universities, said significant upheaval related to the warming planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’

“People are surprised sometimes,” he added, describing the reaction to his assessment. “You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.”

Good Grief!

 

If I were president……..

I have stated before that I would have, as president, a very distinct stance on using our military. I would add to Teddy Roosevelt’s “walk softly and carry a big stick” line. My addition would be, and when we use that stick, it will be in such devastating fashion that no one will ever think of attacking, or threatening us, or our allies again. I thought of this this morning after reading this at Weasel Zippers

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea threatened the United States on Thursday with a preemptive nuclear strike, raising the level of rhetoric while the U.N. Security Council considers new sanctions against the reclusive country.

North Korea has accused the United States of using military drills inSouth Korea as a launch pad for a nuclear war and has scrapped the armistice with Washington that ended hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea, which has one major ally, neighboring China, threatens the United States and its “puppet”, South Korea, on an almost daily basis.

“Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest,” the North’s foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

Now, I doubt the North Koreans could hit a bull in the ass with a handful of rice, but, this is a direct threat to both our nation and South Korea. So, what would I do in response? Well, North Korea has air bases, naval bases, and other military posts. I would, how should I put this, eliminate the biggest one they had. This would send them a message. That message would be, we erased your largest military post for simply threatening us, think what actually attacking us would cost you?

Is that over the top? Maybe, but, face it, having the biggest stick only matters if everyone else knows you will USE THAT STICK, and North Korea and other enemies do not believe we will use the stick we hold.

Thoughts?

 

Today’s Marxist Moron is Dennis Rodman

Donald Douglas highlights Dennis Rodman and his trip to North Korea, where, of course, he played useful idiot

from Jonathan Kay, at the National Post, “A look inside the monstrous North Korean gulag system that Dennis Rodman will never see“:

Dennis Rodman — former basketball player, pro wrestler, cross-dresser, boyfriend to Madonna, B-movie performer and reality-show star — is man who will play to any audience. That apparently includes North Korea’s government, the world’s last truly totalitarian regime.

This week, Rodman was in Pyongyang shooting hoops with local teenagers, and providing state media with propaganda fodder as he made the tour of communist shrines. It is all part of a vaguely defined “basketball diplomacy” TV project, and Rodman is Tweeting the usual bromides expected of celebrities out of their depth, such as “Looking forward to sitting down with [leader] Kim Jong Un. I love the people of North Korea.”

Rodman’s ignorant inanities (another Tweet declared “Maybe I’ll run into the Gangnam Style dude while I’m here”) are especially insulting to victims of North Korea’s gulags — whom Rodman will never meet or see, and whose very existence is denied by the North Korean regime. Just this week, as Rodman was being led around by his North Korean hosts, a new satellite-imagery analysis released by the Committee of Human Rights in North Korea showed that the regime is expanding its gulag network dramatically, even as it struggles to ward off another round of mass national starvation.

The term “gulag” is thrown around liberally in the post-Soviet era to describe any sort of remote prison facility. But the North Korean gulags are the real Siberian-styled deal: sprawling work camps where political prisoners spend years being tortured and worked to death. Only a few dozen former gulag prisoners have made it out of the country, and it is only thanks to their eyewitness reports that we know anything about life in these medieval prison camps.

Communist nations have done this to many idiots, so Rodman is not alone. He is just too stupid to realize  he is being used. Soert of reminds you of Obama voters doesn’t it? Or people like Donna Brazille, who is supposed to be an expert on matters political. Sadly, Brazille, a BIG supporter of Obamacare, is shocked that her insurance premiums are, well, kinda high. Liberals are naive, and easily led astray it seems. See what feeling and emoting your way through life gets you? It gets you addicted to false promises from the Democratic Party. False promises that hurt, rather than help you.

And, if you ever fail to please your Liberal masters? Well, just ask Bob Woodward how that works out

Yesterday’s big story was the release of Bob Woodward’s email communication with Gene Sperling, the top White House advisor who allegedly threatened Woodward if he continued to challenge the administration on the sequester. It turns out that there’s plenty of room of debate on the nature of the “threat,” but the real story isn’t this or that statement about “you will regret this,” but the fanatic response of the administration’s defenders among the mainstream press corps. It’s like a palace guard, and is truly bizarre. I won’t link epic asshole John Cook at Gawker, but that’s his clown Photoshop, via Memeorandum. But here’s Excitable Andy, FWIW, “Bob Woodward, Demonstrable Liar.” And see Michael Stickings’ perfect encapsulation of partisan hackery in his attack on Woodward’s alleged partisan hackery, “The shameless hackery of Bob Woodward.”

Yes, the Left says they care about people, until people cross them, or dare to think for themselves.

North Korea Conducts Underground Nuclear Test In Defiance Of Its One Friend, China, And Multiple Foes

World Shaken As North Korea Conducts Underground Nuclear Test In Defiance Of Its One Friend, China, And Multiple Foes – Daily Mail

North Korea today confirmed it had carried out its third and most successful nuclear test yet which triggered an artificial earthquake near the underground explosion site.

The test was an important step toward its goal of building a bomb small enough to be fitted on a missile that could reach United States.

North Korea made clear that the explosion of its third atomic device – which it claimed was smaller than the ones in its previous two tests – was a warning to what it considers a ‘hostile’ United States.

Its actions drew immediate condemnation from Washington, London, the U.N. and others – even its only major ally, China, voiced opposition.

Spreading the news: South Korean news organizations were the first to report that a possible test had taken place

Taking precautions: South Korean army soldiers patrolled the border shortly after North Korea held covert nuclear tests underground

Off the charts: Neighboring countries (like Japan, whose Meteorological Agency’s technology is shown) detected the test due to the seismic activity that it caused

The state news agency said it had used a ‘miniaturised’ and lighter nuclear device, indicating that it had again used plutonium which is more suitable for use as a missile warhead.

Official state media said the test was conducted in a safe manner and is aimed at coping with ‘outrageous’ U.S. hostility that ‘violently’ undermines the North’s peaceful, sovereign rights to launch satellites.

North Korea was punished by U.N. sanctions after a December launch of a rocket that the U.N. and Washington called a cover for a banned missile test. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful satellite launch.

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Location: A Google map images shows the ‘earthquake; was centered at the end of a nuclear test road

‘It was confirmed that the nuclear test that was carried out at a high level in a safe and perfect manner using a miniaturised and lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously did not pose any negative impact on the surrounding ecological environment,’ state news agency KCNA said.

The United States Geological Survey said earlier Tuesday that it had detected a 4.9 magnitude earthquake in North Korea.

The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the possibility of imposing new sanctions on Pyongyang.

North Korea faced sanctions after a December launch of a rocket the U.N. and Washington called a cover for a banned missile test.

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This morning Foreign Secretary William Hague ‘strongly condemned’ the nuclear test calling it a ‘violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.’

Mr Hague said: ‘North Korea’s development of its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities poses a threat to international and regional security. Its repeated provocations only serve to increase regional tension, and hinder the prospects for lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.’

Just before 2am in Washington, D.C., President Obama’s team released a statement condemning the tests.

‘The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and steadfast in our defense commitments to allies in the region,’ he said in a released statement.

A history of tests: The United Nations has formally banned tests by the rogue nation but they have continued to build and perfect their arsenal

‘These provocations do not make North Korea more secure. Far from achieving its stated goal of becoming a strong and prosperous nation, North Korea has instead increasingly isolated and impoverished its people through its ill-advised pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.’

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned North Korea’s test, saying it was a ‘clear and grave violation’ of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The nuclear test is North Korea’s first since leader Kim Jong Un took power in December 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.

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Undeterred: North Korea leader Kim Jong Un has announced that it will carry out more rocket launches

It marks a bold statement for the young leader as he unveils his domestic and foreign policy for a country long estranged from the West.

The test came as China celebrated the lunar new year, potentially increasing embarrassment for Beijing, the North’s sole major economic and diplomatic ally.

‘I think it will be proven to be a self-defeating and self-suffocating blunder on the part of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea),’ an Asian diplomat to the United Nations told Reuters in New York.

‘They have chosen the worst timing to conduct this testing… This will also be an open invitation to the international community to up the ante to corner the DPRK.’

Alert: South Korean police chief Kim Ki-yong held a press conference saying that North Korea had likely made their third formal missile test prompting a 4.9-magnitude earthquake

Too close for comfort: Chen Kuo-chang, a senior technical specialist from Taiwan’s Seismology Center, showed where the nuclear test is believed to have taken place

To the point: Initial reports about the test were speculative but North Korean media later confirmed it

The South Korean Defense Ministry raised its military alert level after the quake and were the first to sound the alarm that a test may have taken place.

They were validated by a U.N. nuclear test monitoring organisation detected what it called an ‘unusual seismic event’ in North Korea.

Nuclear blasts can create tremors but they are distinct from those caused by natural earthquakes.

The U.S. Geological Survey as well as earthquake monitoring stations in South Korea detected an earthquake just north of a site where North Korea conducted its second nuclear test in 2009, according to the government-funded Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources.

‘There is a high possibility that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test,’ said Chi Heoncheol, an earthquake specialist at the institute.

Mr Chi said a magnitude 3.9 magnitude earthquake and a magnitude 4.5 earthquake were detected in the North’s 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

The United States and its allies have been on edge since North Korea said last month it will conduct its third nuclear test to protest toughened sanctions over a December rocket launch that the U.N. called a cover for a banned missile test.

Burning: Activists from an anti-North Korea civic group burn a North Korea flag in front of banners bearing anti-North Korea messages near the U.S. embassy in central Seoul

Protest: Activists from anti-North Korea civic group chant slogans during a rally against North Korea’s nuclear test near the U.S. embassy in central Seoul

Anger: An activist from an anti-North Korea civic group defaces a North Korea flag depicting North’s leader Kim Jong-un (right) and his wife Ri Sol-ju during a rally

International attention: A passer-by prepares to pick up an extra edition of a Japanese newspaper reporting a nuclear test conducted by North Korea

North Korea’s powerful political faction vowed to continue firing ‘powerful long-range rockets,’ but a statement by state media made no mention of a nuclear test.

North Korea’s powerful National Defense Commission said on January 23 that the United States was its prime target for a nuclear test and long-range rocket launches.

North Korea accuses Washington of leading the push to punish Pyongyang for its December rocket launch.

Last October, a spokesman from the commission told state media that the country had built a missile capable of striking the United States, but did not provide further details.

A missile featured in an April 2012 military parade appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile, but its authenticity has not been verified by foreign experts.

John Everard, who was British ambassador to North Korea at the time of the country’s first nuclear test in 2006, said the latest test could be ‘a lot more serious’.

‘They are claiming that they have now miniaturised a nuclear device,’ he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

‘They have proven that they can launch a long range missile. If you marry a missile and a miniaturised device, so nuclear bomb on top of a missile so you can deliver it to all kinds of places that they couldn’t have reached before.’

He said that it was also possible that the North Koreans had for the first time tested a uranium device, rather than the plutonium devices it had tested previously.

‘Its plutonium stock is limited so therefore the number of bombs they can make is also limited but uranium they have proven they can manufacture,’ he said.

Concern: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, right, talks with President-elect Park Geun-hye during their meeting about North Korea’s nuclear test at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea

Tensions: A researcher looks at radiation detection monitors at the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety in North Korea as the secretive state threatened to carry out measures ‘stronger than a nuclear test’

Threat to world peace? A man walks past a display illustrating the damage a 1MT class nuclear weapon would cause if detonated in Seoul, at the War Memorial Museum of Korea in Seoul on February 5

‘This means that they can manufacture all the bombs that they could want.’

However he said that it could also be the test which finally stretches the patience of North Korea’s key ally, China, to breaking point, prompting it to take action against its neighbour.

‘There is not a lot of love lost between the two countries, however strong the rhetoric on internal friendship might be,’ he said.

‘A lot of people are saying that this is getting ridiculous, that China is getting the runaround from the North Koreans, and that if they test again China really ought to take measures to stop the North Koreans misbehaving.’

North Korea cites the U.S. military threat in the region as a key reason behind its drive to build nuclear weapons.

The two countries fought on opposite sides of the Korean War, which ended after three years with an armistice signed on July 27, 1953, not a peace treaty.

The U.S. stations more than 28,000 troops in South Korea to protect the ally.

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Whatever scientific advancements the North can gain from its third nuclear test, there’s also an important political angle.

Many analysts believe the North uses nuclear and missile tests to win greater concessions in stalled nuclear disarmament-for-aid talks.

‘A third test increases uncertainty about the North’s intentions and calculations,’ Robert Carlin, a former U.S. State Department official who has made dozens of trips to North Korea, said in a Stanford University website posting last year.

The other part of a credible North Korean nuclear deterrent is its missile program. While it has capable short and medium range missiles, it has struggled in tests of technology for long-range missiles needed to carry bombs to the United States.

North Korea isn’t close to having a nuclear bomb it can use on the United States or its allies

Instead American nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker said in the Stanford web posting, ‘it wants to hold U.S. interests at risk of a nuclear attack to deter us from regime change and to create international leverage and diplomatic maneuvering room.’

The North Korean nuclear program has long been a worry for Washington and Pyongyang’s neighbors.

Condemnation: The American ambassador in South Korea released a statement at the same time as the White House, condemning the test and pointing out that it is a violation of numerous international treaties

North Korea has been steadily enhancing its missile technology for years

A nuclear crisis in the early 1990s was followed by another standoff during the early 2000s during the George W. Bush administration.

Starting in 2003, negotiators from five nations – China, Russia, Japan, the U.S. and South Korea – tried to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs with offers of aid in return.

North Korea walked away from those talks after being punished by the U.N. Security Council for an April 2009 rocket launch.

Its 2006 nuclear test using plutonium produced a puny yield equivalent to one kiloton of TNT – compared with 13-18 kilotons for the Hiroshima bomb – and U.S. intelligence estimates put the 2009 test’s yield at roughly two kilotons.

North Korea is estimated to have enough fissile material for about a dozen plutonium warheads, although estimates vary, and intelligence reports suggest that it has been enriching uranium to supplement that stock and give it a second path to the bomb.

According to estimates from the Institute for Science and International Security from late 2012, North Korea could have enough weapons grade uranium for 21-32 nuclear weapons by 2016 if it used one centrifuge at its Yongbyon nuclear plant to enrich uranium to weapons grade.

Click HERE For Rest Of Story

North Korean Gulags exposed by Google Maps

Gateway Pundit has the story

Thanks to bloggers and the internet, the North Korean regime’s secret prison camps are being exposed.

The Telegraph reported:

Human rights activists are turning to Google Earth to identify the vast network of prison camps that dot the North Korean countryside and hold as many as 200,000 people deemed hostile to the regime.

Rights groups are pushing the United Nations high commissioner for human rights to open an international investigation into Pyongyang’s “deplorable” record on its citizens’ rights, including a system of political prisons that has operated for more than 50 years.

Pyongyang insists that the camps do not exist and are merely foreign propaganda, but the advent of high-resolution, free images from outer space has disproved that claim.

On January 18, the North Korean Economy Watch website announced that a new camp had been identified alongside an existing detention facility in Kaechon, South Pyongan Province.

Using newly provided Google Earth images, analyst Curtis Melvin was able to conclude that the new camp sits alongside Camp 14 and has a perimeter fence that stretches nearly 13 miles.

One Free Korea has more on the prison camps.

It has only taken the UN ten years to suspect “crimes against humanity” in North Korean prison camp.

Oh yes, the UN, or Useless Nations as I call that cesspool of ineptitude and corruption, they could not find their asses with both hands!

Wow! Life is so great in Cuba that people are just dying to get the Hell out of there!

That makes absolutely zero sense right? No, it doesn’t. So, why is the Left still painting Cuba as a Utopia? One of our Blogs of the Month, Sentry Journal wants to know.

If we listen to useful idiots like Sean Penn and Michael Moore, Cuba is a wonderful land of prosperity, freedom and free health care. However, someone neglected to tell the Cuban people who continue, for some unknown reasonfreedom, to escape this paradise on Earth.

For example, in 2008, 18 Cuban Soccer players came to Tampa for an Olympic qualifying match. However, only 11 ended up returning…

(Reuters) – Cuba’s Olympic football team took to the field with only 10 men on Thursday after up to seven of their players defected.

Five members of the communist state’s under-23 team defected after their Olympic qualifying game against the United States, a 1-1 draw, in Tampa on Tuesday.

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A further two players, both reported to have defected, were absent from the line-up against Honduras on Thursday.

With one player already suspended following a red card, Cuba coach Raul Gonzalez had only ten players available to him and his team began the match with a one-man disadvantage and no substitutes.

Um, you mean they weren’t willing to return to the worker’s paradise? How very strange.

Of course, thousands of Cubans flee yearly, mostly to the US, but let’s ignore that, because Michel Moore was allowed to film some “Potemkin hospitals” for one of his mockumentaries.

Lots more at the link. To me it boils down like this. The Left is incapable of seeing past their idealism, this is why they can ignore reality. The deepest held desire of the Left is to have the State care for everyone, meet every need, and soothe every problem life throws at us. This, of course, is absolute  madness. Not only has no state ever existed, but those nations that have embraced such ideals have devolved into totalitarian regimes. Rather than becoming utopias, nations like North Korea, Cuba, Cambodia and the Soviet Union became hells where all liberty was crushed and where tens upon tens of millions were imprisoned, tortured, starved, and butchered. Yet, the Left still  refuses to see. 

They are so addicted to their idealistic view of the world that they are unable to accept historical lessons

North Korean Attempt To Launch Rocket Fails Miserably (Videos)

North Korean Attempt To Launch Rocket Fails Miserably – The Blaze

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North Korea’s slow march toward becoming a nuclear power suffered a humiliating setback today when the Communist dictatorship attempted to launch an Unha 3 rocket into space as a demonstration of its power. The rocket lasted about as long as your average five year old’s toy rocket before “falling to pieces,” according to these select reports aggregated by the tech site Gizmodo:

Update 3: ABC news reports the rocket launch has “failed,” according to unnamed US officials.[...]

Update 10: CNN relays Japan’s report that the rocket flew for “about a minute” before falling to pieces.[...]

Update 11: This image is currently being broadcast on North Korean state television, which is a pretty accurate representation of today’s grand failure.

The schadenfreude involved is too delicious to pass up. However, this passage from a CNN story reinforces how deadly serious the entire enterprise appeared to be right up to the point where it became a complete failure:

Defying warnings from the international community, North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Friday, but it appears to have broken apart before escaping the earth’s atmosphere, officials said.

No element of the rocket reached space, said a U.S. official, who based that conclusion on data collected by the United States from its first few moments aloft.[...]

“This was supposed to be associated with (Kim Jong Un’s) ascension to power. So for this thing to fail … is incredibly embarrassing,” said Victor Cha, former director of Asian affairs for the U.S. National Security Council and now a Georgetown University professor.

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Update:

WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. officials say a rocket launched by North Korea failed moments after being fired, but the Obama administration still described the launch as a “provocative action” that threatens regional security. It said it has lost confidence in Pyongyang and would carry out its threat to halt a planned delivery of food aid to the communist country.

In a statement, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the actions of the North Korean regime were further isolating it from the international community.

“While this action is not surprising, given North Korea’s pattern of aggressive behavior, any missile activity by North Korea is of concern to the international community,” Carney said.

His statement came after the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command said the first stage of the North Korean rocket fell to the Yellow Sea and that the remaining stages failed.

North Korea had said for weeks it would launch a satellite over the East China Sea. The North says its satellite launch is not prohibited, and is, part of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the regime’s founder, the late Kim Il Sung. It claims it was a peaceful mission to place a satellite in space.

The U.S. and much of the rest of the world, however, consider it a test of a long-range missile.

An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive developments, said the planned delivery of food aid to North Korea depended on monitoring agreements with Pyongyang that would ensure the assistance would reach the people of North Korea, not the elites and the military. The official said the U.S. now has no confidence those agreements can be implemented.

The U.N. Security Council, where the United States is currently serving in the rotating presidency, would meet on Friday morning to discuss the North Korean action, an official said.

But the U.S. is not expected to seek an additional Security Council resolution against North Korea. Another administration official said existing sanctions resolutions against North Korea are adequate and said their enforcement could be “ratcheted up.”

The administration believes U.S. sanctions against North Korea, particularly on its ability to obtain advanced electronics for guidance systems, have restricted its proliferation activities..

“North Korea’s long-standing development of missiles and pursuit of nuclear weapons have not brought it security – and never will,” Carney said in his statement. “North Korea will only show strength and find security by abiding by international law, living up to its obligations, and by working to feed its citizens, to educate its children and to win the trust of its neighbors.”

The North Korean action promptly injected itself into U.S. politics, with the Republican’s likely presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, accusing the Obama administration of “incompetence” that he said emboldened North Korea to launch the rocket.

“Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food-aid deal that proved to be as naïve as it was short-lived,” Romney said.

The launch erases gains the Obama administration had claimed in nudging the North Koreans back to international disarmament talks and leaves the problem of an unpredictable nuclear-equipped North Korea little changed from where Obama found it when he took office. Obama had hoped to use food aid to spur true negotiations and has few other means to draw North Korean to the bargaining table without embarrassing concessions.

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Insanity as defined by our government. DHS, IRS told to monitor Tea Party, ignore OWS

Chris Wysocki has the details, which, ought to surprise us, but, given the actions of this administration, likely will not

The Department of Homeland Security “struggled” to avoid monitoring any #Occupy groups, for fear they might tread on someone’s civil rights.

Internal Documents Show the Department of Homeland Security Tried Pretty Hard Not to Monitor Occupy Wall Street

The Department of Homeland Security struggled to avoid monitoring or suppressing the Occupy Wall Street movement last year, despite being bombarded with requests from various federal agencies for intelligence on the protests, according to documents released via the Freedom of Information Act.

The documents show that officials in DHS’s offices of Intelligence Analysis and Civil Rights and Civil Liberties were keenly aware of the legal and constitutional issues raised by federal agencies monitoring political protesters, and sought to tamp down the appetite for intelligence on the Occupy protesters from their colleagues in DHS and other federal agencies that rely on DHS bulletins and intelligence.

Treat the Occupods with kid gloves! But when it comes to the Tea Party, DHS felt no such cumpunction. Nosirree, if you’re talking about dangerous right-wing extremists, DHS puts the Tea Party at the top of their list.

Because people who read the Constitution are a threat to the people who trample on the Constitution.

And if the DHS scrutiny wasn’t enough, the IRS is making sure us Tea Partyers get the message.

The American Center for Law and Justice has reported that the IRS is targeting the nonprofit tax status of Tea Party and liberty groups across the nation.

The IRS questionnaires are quite detailed containing pages of multi-step questions. The organizations have been given two weeks to complete the query. This short deadline would be tough for any organization, let alone all-volunteer groups.

Most of the questions are pointed and obnoxious, but fairly standard by IRS standards: Explain fundraising, explain outreach, explain volunteers, explain your relationship with another group.

Some of the questions are baffling and don’t identify anything of redeeming social value, meaning they seem geared to utilize organizational resources instead of supporting or refuting a tax status.

Examples of these include requests to provide a hard copy printout of web pages, list all issues of importance to the group, and outline any training completed by or presented to the organization in question.

Even better, the IRS is asking for information on the families of Tea Party members. Why? Is this North Korea where our children pose a threat to the regime?

How fitting of the Obama administration. Ignore protests marked by violence, threats, rapes, and filled with anarchists, Communists,and other scum. But the Tea Party? Those very peaceful, concerned citizens? You better watch those folks. Of course, this is just more of the same from Team Obama isn’t it? Ideology drives everything they do it seems. Free passes to union thugs, radicals,and Leftist agitators. But for those “bitter clingers”? Those people are considered extremists, and painted as dangerous,and all because they dare disagree with the Leftist agenda of Team Obama.

Like I said, this should surprise us, but, sadly, it does not

The Hell that is Stalinism

Josef Stalin was a deeply evil bastard. History tells us of his evil deeds, the slaughtering, imprisonment, and persecution of tens of millions of Russians is one of the darkest chapters in history. Stalinism, is the worst form of Comminism, the most brutal, draconian, version of Totalinarianism imagineable. Sadly, no tragically, Stalinism did not die with Stalin in 1953. Mao, another murderous bastard killed even more innocents in China than Stalin did in the USSR. Today, only one Stalinsit state exists. That is North Korea.Complete with Gulags and human suffering on a scale we cannot fathom.

Doug Powers has the details on the latest crimes being committed by North Korea’s new leader.

I know I tend to joke around a bit and have some snarky fun here, but when Kim Jong Il died and I wrote that North Koreans had better weep uncontrollably “or get sent to a labor camp,” I wasn’t kidding. And of course now it sounds like that is indeed the case:

North Korean authorities are punishing mourners who failed to exhibit sincere sadness and despair after the death of Kim Jong Il on Dec. 17, the Daily NK reported Wednesday.

The online North Korean newspaper, which is published by opponents of the governing regime, said a source in North Hamkyung Province revealed the information. The source told the paper “authorities are handing down at least six months in a labor-training camp to anybody who didn’t participate in the organized gatherings during the mourning period, or who did participate but didn’t cry and didn’t seem genuine,” according to the Daily NK.

Like I said, those of us who have been blessed to live in the West cannot fathom such atrocities. But they are real none the less. remember those suffering in North Korea the next time some Lefty praises Communism.

This is why I will never ever visit New Moscow, er New York

Simply pit, because of Mayor Nanny Bloomberg and his fanatical hatred of liberty and self-defense.

Once again an American has been thrown in prison for exercising his constitutional rights in Mayor for Life Michael Bloomberg’s authoritarian fiefdom of New York City:

Fred Vankirk, 59, of Columbus, was slapped with handcuffs at about 11 a.m. Saturday after cops found two .357 Magnum pistols and a .45 semiautomatic in his room at the Radisson Hotel on Lexington Avenue near East 48th Street, police sources said.

Vankirk has no criminal history. He has a permit in Ohio, and brought the guns for protection, which anyone who has been to New York City will understand.

The punishment will be as draconian as if it were North Korea or Cuba that he mistook for a place where the US Constitution applies.

He was charged with three counts of second-degree gun possession and [is] being held on $50,000 bond, court papers show. Each count carries a potential sentence of five to 15 years, to be served concurrently if a conviction results.

Other recent victims of NYC’s hyperaggressive war on liberty include former Marine Ryan Jerome, medical student Meredith Graves, and Tea Party Patriots cofounder Mark Meckler. It is doubtful that commonsense prosecutorial discretion will be applied.

The Founders would likely tar and feather Bloomberg, and rightfully so, he is a boil on the ass of America!

Ya know, I completely forgot to share my thoughts on the passing of……….

That rotten waste of human skin, Kim Jong Il. But, I suppose I should say something right? Maybe YA-FREAKING-HOO sums it up best! Now, if only Castro, and Chavez and the leaders of Hamas, and Hezbollah will follow suit, I will really be doing the Happy Dance

Just One More Good Reason To Disband The United Nations

North Korea Assumes Presidency Of U.N. Arms Control Conference – Daily Caller

In the latest ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ news from the United Nations, North Korea assumed the presidency of the Conference on Disarmament Tuesday.

“Bare months after the U.N. finally suspended Libya’s Col. Muammar Qaddafi from its Human Rights Council, North Korea wins the propaganda coup of heading the world’s disarmament agency,” the executive director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer said in a statement protesting the move. “It’s asking the fox to guard the chickens, and damages the U.N.’s credibility.”

According to the U.N. summary of the meeting, North Korea’s So Se Pyong addressed the 65-member arms control forum, saying that “he was very much committed to the Conference and during his presidency he welcomed any sort of constructive proposals that strengthened the work and credibility of the body.”

Neuer said that though North Korea’s new role as head of the conference, which reports to the U.N. General Assembly, would likely be justified by the U.N. by saying it was the result of a an “automatic rotation,” such an excuse was not sufficient.

“While the U.N. will likely defend North Korea’s appointment as simply an automatic rotation,” he said, “no system should tolerate such a fundamental conflict of interests. It’s common sense that a disarmament body should not be headed by the world’s arch-villain on illegal weapons and nuclear proliferation, notorious for exporting missiles and nuclear know-how to fellow rogue regimes around the globe.”

The United Nations Security Council has repeatedly passed resolutions condemning North Korea and imposed sanctions on the country for its nuclear and missile tests in recent years. In 2010, the Security Council issued a presidential statement that “deplored” an attack by North Korea on a South Korean ship.

Earlier this month, for the second time in two years, the U.S. Navy also intercepted a North Korean vessel suspected of carrying missile parts destined for Burma. According to U.S. intelligence, the brutal North Korean regime also aided Syria in its covert nuclear program before and after Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.

Though the Conference on Disarmament is not formally part of the U.N., the organizations are closely tied. The director-general of the U.N. Office at Geneva is the secretary-general of the conference and the U.N. secretary general’s personal representative to the conference.

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The promises of Marxism are so sweet, but the fruit, ah the fruit is like venom

Image via Wikipedia

The Right Scoop has video of what life in North Korea, a Stalinist Hell-hole is like

Odd isn’t it? The Left in America proudly drape many of their lurches towards Communism as being “for the children”. And the video shows children, sweet, innocent children starving, caked in filth, begging for even a scrap of food. This, my friends is where Marxism, and all its bastards Isms, Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Communism, Leninism, Socialism lead.

ABC News exposes the evil that is Marxism

Footage shot inside North Korea and obtained by the ABC has revealed the extent of chronic food shortages and malnutrition inside the secretive state.

The video is some of the most revealing footage ever smuggled out of the impoverished North Korean state.

Shot over several months by an undercover North Korean journalist, the harrowing footage shows images of filthy, homeless and orphaned children begging for food and soldiers demanding bribes.

The footage also shows North Koreans labouring on a private railway track for the dictator’s son and heir near the capital Pyongyang.

Strolling up to the site supervisor, the man with the hidden camera asks what is going on.

“This rail line is a present from Kim Jong-il to comrade Kim Jong-un,” he is told.

The well-fed Kim Jong-un could soon be ruling over a nation of starving, impoverished serfs.

The video shows young children caked in filth begging in markets, pleading for scraps from compatriots who have nothing to give.

“I am eight,” says one boy. “My father died and my mother left me. I sleep outdoors.”

Many of the children are orphans; their parents victims of starvation or the gulag.

But markets do exist – private markets that stock bags of rice, pork, and corn. The state no longer has any rations to hand out.

But the state wants its share of this embryonic capitalism.

In the footage, a party official is demanding a stallholder make a donation of rice to the army.

“My business is not good,” complains the stallholder.

“Shut up,” replies the official. “Don’t offer excuses.”

It is clear that the all-powerful army – once quarantined from food shortages and famine – is starting to go hungry.

“Everybody is weak,” says one young North Korean soldier. “Within my troop of 100 comrades, half of them are malnourished,” he said.

Jiro Ishimaru is the man who trained the undercover reporter to use the hidden camera.

“This footage is important because it shows that Kim Jong-il’s regime is growing weak,” he said.

“It used to put the military first, but now it can’t even supply food to its soldiers. Rice is being sold in markets but they are starving. This is the most significant thing in this video.”

Meanwhile, in South Korea, where the people have freedoms, there are no such horrific scenes of suffering, or starvation are there. Yet, the Left still cries out for “Social Justice” which is nothing more than a nice name for Marxism. If the Left were right, it would be South Korea that was in despair, while North Korea, a Communist nation that has been praised by useful idiots like Jimmy Carter and Ted Turner, would be flourishing.

The Left ignores the numerous historic examples of the sheer Hell that Communism visits upon people unfortunate enough to live under its boot. They never admit the insanity of embracing the demented teachings of Marx. At most, they will say that the problem with Communism, is that it has just “never been done correctly”. To embrace such hogwash is not only intellectually bankrupt, it is the ultimate form of moral retardation.

And the Marxist Moron of the Day is…………

Image via Wikipedia

Thomas Friedman, for his undying devotion to the tenets of Central Planning, er, Marxism. Steve at Motor City Times has the low down

Remember this chestnut by the NY Times very own Thomas L. Friedman extolling communist China’s central planning?

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

Enlightened, wind power, boosting gasoline prices, top down, one-party autocracy, great advantages . Got it.

There is one small problem with all this. Even with all that enlightened single party, autocratic focus on green energy and central planning, China is experiencing widespread power shortages:

Some folks never learn do they?

Jimmy Carter, a Marxist Moron for the ages!

Image via Wikipedia

My goodness Jimmy Carter is really is the ultimate in moral retardation isn’t he? Only he would travel to a Stalinist regime, where gulags still exist, a country so bad that it’s people try to escape to Communist China, and bash America!

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Thursday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il wants direct talks with South Korea’s leader — an offer unlikely to be accepted until Pyongyang takes responsibility for violence that killed 50 South Koreans last year.

Carter didn’t address the case of Jun Young Su, a Korean-American being held in North Korea, reportedly on charges of carrying out missionary activity. He had said earlier he would not raise the case, though the former president flew to North Korea last year to free another American jailed in Pyongyang.Carter started Thursday‘s news conference by offering condolences for those killed in last year’s attacks, an apparent nod to criticism that he had glossed over the deaths in past dealings with the North.

But he also likely angered many in Seoul and Washington by criticizing their food aid policies.

Carter said that for the United States and South Korea “to deliberately withhold food aid to the North Korean people because of political or military issues not related is really indeed a human rights violation.”

.
This useless bastard will believe absolutely anything a brutal dictator tells him. Talk about a useful idiot!

North Korea Nears Completion Of EMP Bomb

North Korea Nears Completion Of EMP Bomb – Conservative Underground

The North is believed to be nearing completion of an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if exploded 25 miles above ground would cause irreversible damage to electrical and electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, radio and radar, experts say.

“We assume they are at a considerably substantial level of development,” Park Chang-kyu of the Agency for Defense Development said at a briefing to the parliament Monday.
snip

The current attempts to interfere with GPS transmissions are coming from atop a modified truck-mounted Russian device.

Pyongyang reportedly imported the GPS jamming system from Russia in early 2000 and has since developed two kinds of a modified version. It has also in recent years handed out sales catalogs of them to nations in the Middle East, according to South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo.

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