Here We Go Again

We really do not need a replay of the 2020 clown show….and yet it looks possible.

As the general election approaches it is looking like the two leaders for the parties are well worn faces….Trump and Biden…..at least for now.

What do the American voter think of this possible match-up?

A new poll, which means nothing bit makes good fodder, tells the tale.

Asked in a new poll to describe their feeling at having their choice in the next presidential election again be Joe Biden or Donald Trump, more respondents picked “exhaustion” than anything else. That option was chosen by 38% of respondents, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll. Fear made a strong showing, too, the Hill reports—by itself, at 29%, or combined with sadness, at 23%. The findings would seem to indicate voters are not looking forward to this.

Some respondents felt positive about such a campaign, just not as many. The prospect of a rerun filled 23% with hope, 8% with pride, and 7% with gratitude. The poll showed Biden with a 4-point lead over Trump and, should he be the Republican nominee, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. On the other hand, fewer than half of self-identified Democrats or those who lean Democratic said they want Biden to be the nominee. The poll reported a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

Oh goody….two old farts butting heads….if this is the election line-up then the American people will see that nothing will change and healing is just a pipe dream.

If you were hoping for some sort of change and progress then you will be sadly disappointed no matter which of the two old farts is actually elected.

Looks like I will keep my record of not voting for a winner since 1976.

As always I weep for this country….and my granddaughter.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Not Syria?

We all know about the conflict in Ukraine, we should the press has been cheer leading the war since the beginning, now that the leaked documents have been scrutinized there was one document that makes me ask questions.

Kiev’s military intelligence agency believed it could carry out attacks on Russian soldiers and Wagner Group forces in Syria, forcing Moscow to redeploy military assets from Ukraine. The story was reported by the Washington Post using documents released by Jack Teixeira.

The Ukrainian defense officials believed they could use Kurdish forces to wage a proxy war against Russia in Syria. According to the Post, the plan never materialized as President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered an end to the planning in December.

It appears that Ukrainian officials engaged in some discussions with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish militia backed by the US. The documents said the Kurdish officials requested training on drones and air defenses. Additionally, the Kurds said they would not attack Russian positions in areas held by the SDF, and requested their role in the operations be kept secret.

…

The document says Zelensky could allow the operations to proceed, but would likely require assistance from the US and Turkey. Ankara may be unwilling to support the covert proxy warfare as it views the SDF as a terrorist organization, and has long protested Washington arming the Syrian Kurds.

Additionally, the operations could inflame the war in Syria. The decade-long war has seen a dip in violence in recent years as Assad and his allies have consolidated control over most of Syria. The US and SDF occupy the eastern third of the country. However, the SDF leadership has shown a willingness to work with Moscow. If Kurdish forces allow themselves to become a proxy force for Kiev, Moscow will likely aggressively target SDF positions in eastern Syria.

(antiwar.com)

Seriously the US would bankroll this operation?

Must we always bankroll these petty wars?

Still waiting for an answer to my original question….what will the US get return on our investment in the Ukraine war?

Why aren’t more questions being asked about this situation?

Just wondering.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

IST News Dump Saturday

Happy Earth Day….hug a tree today.

The weekend begins and the world continues to turn….and it is up to me to give you all the news that was unfit for public consumption.

New sports are popping up everywhere….frizbee football, cornholing, teqball, and then there is pickleball.

Pickleball has gained popularity so much so that courts are expanding everywhere…..but there is a problem with the so-called popularity.

Invented in 1965 by three dads in the Northwest, pickleball has become increasingly popular in recent years. Some cities—like Denver, for example—are struggling to accommodate interest in the sport while also serving the needs of residents who want to play tennis or just enjoy a quiet night at home. Denver’s Channel 7 reported this week that the city’s parks department shut down courts at one park and decided against building new courts at another park, mainly because neighbors say the game is too noisy. This came after the nearby city of Centennial put a moratorium on new courts within 500 feet of a residence. Axios reports that Denver pickleball players aren’t the only enthusiasts struggling to find a place to smack balls around.

The outlet notes faceoffs between tennis players and pickleballers in various cities, including Atlanta and New York. USA Pickleball’s Carl Schmits conceded the sport can be loud enough to bother people who live near courts, but he also expressed suspicion that the tennis community is using noise as a tool to prevent building new courts. Still, pickleball is big in New York City, and a 14-court facility called “CityPickle at Wollman Rink” opened Friday in Central Park, per NBC New York, which has photos of the facilities.

CityPickle plans similar ventures in cities including Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, DC, and Toronto, per Axios. Another sign of the sport’s popularity: Walmart just announced a venture in which it will pay for 125,000 court reservations around the nation for employees and customers, notes Insider. Sign-up is here. Meanwhile, the limitations mentioned in Centennial have caused quite a local controversy, and the Denver Post digs into that. “I will have constant … 10, 12, 16 hours a day of noise,” says one resident who lives near a park. “I will no longer be able to enjoy my deck. We moved to our neighborhood because it is peaceful, because it is quiet.”

Personally I see this ‘sport’ going by the way of once super popular racketball.

AS a dog lover I have often asked the same question….why do smaller dogs live longer than larger ones?

Scientists have for the first time explained why larger dogs have shorter lifespans than smaller dogs—selective breeding for size has made large breeds more susceptible to cancer.

University of Adelaide experts examined the causes of differences in lifespan and death in 164 dog breeds, ranging in size from chihuahuas to Great Danes.

“When we analyzed these data sets, we discovered that larger dogs were more likely to die from cancer at a younger age when compared with smaller dogs,” said Dr. Jack da Silva from the University of Adelaide’s School of Biological Sciences.

“Larger dogs didn’t necessarily age faster than the smaller breeds, but the research did show that as the breed’s average body weight increased, so did the rates of cancer.”

“We believe the relationship between a dog’s body size and their lifespan may be caused by an evolutionary lag in the body’s cancer defenses, which are unable to keep up with the rapid and recent selective breeding of bigger dogs,” he said.

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-dont-larger-dogs-smaller.html

More dog news…..

For anyone who’s ever wondered why a bedside pizza-and-movie-dispensing gadget doesn’t exist, well, you’re apparently still out of luck. But your dog might be sitting pretty: As Axios reports, there’s a new AI-powered device that dispenses treats and “provides all day scheduled and on-demand engagement for your dog with games, behavioral programs, and training.” It’s called Companion, and per PR Newswire, it recently raised $6 million for a grand total of $14 million in capital, and it will start shipping next year.

What it does: Aside from the aforementioned, it looks for “sudden or subtle shifts in your dog’s movement or posture that can indicate pain, anxiety, or stress,” using “AI hardware, machine learning, and best-in-class positive reinforcement techniques,” per Companion. The “curriculum constantly adapts and adds new behavior, training, and health modules over the air as your dog learns.”

From the CEO: John Honchariw says this, per Axios: “We don’t leave our human children alone, but we do leave our fur children alone, and people are anxious about that. … We also want to give our dog something really enriching—and even better if it helps us have better communication with it.”

Honchariw on his own dog: “He loves it, and it’s his all-day play buddy. He eats 100% of his dog food through the device, so for him, it’s like the world’s most advanced food puzzle. And it really helped me because I know he’s doing things and having fun at the same time and learning all the basic obedience commands.”

Like the idea? It’ll set you back a bit with your wallet. The cost: $49 a month.

To help with the FYI….I give some health news.

First the rise in diabetes type-2……

The CDC expects to see a 700% increase in the number of young Americans diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes by 2060. It’s both a national and global problem and, according to new research, poor diet is largely to blame. Researchers from Tufts University created a model based on dietary data from 184 countries and found 70% of Type 2 diabetes diagnoses in 2018, some 14 million cases, could be tied to poor diet—well above the 40% figure previously offered, according to a release. They also found there were 8.6 million more diet-attributable cases in 2018 than in 1990, per CNN. They then looked at 11 dietary factors, ranging from intake of sugary beverages to intake of whole grains. They linked more than 60% of diet-attributable cases to excess intake of unhealthy foods and 39% to inadequate intake of good foods. But three factors stood out overall.

The largest impacts globally, especially for men, younger adults, and urban residents, came from overconsumption of refined rice, wheat, and potatoes, as well as red and processed meat, like bacon, sausage, and salami, per CNN. Insufficient intake of whole grains was another major factor. Consuming too many sugary drinks, including fruit juice, and not enough nuts, seeds, and nonstarchy vegetables were also contributing factors, though not to the same degree as the three foremost ones, per HealthDay News. “These new findings reveal critical areas for national and global focus to improve nutrition and reduce devastating burdens of diabetes,” says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian of Tufts’ School of Nutrition Science and Policy, co-author of the study published Monday in Nature Medicine.

The greatest number of diet-attributable cases came from Central Asia and central and Eastern Europe, particularly Poland and Russia, where potatoes and red and processed meats make up a large part of diets. There were also high numbers of cases in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly Colombia and Mexico, where sugary drinks and processed meat are widely consumed, but whole grains aren’t, researchers said. “Left unchecked and with incidence only projected to rise, Type 2 diabetes will continue to impact population health, economic productivity, [and] health care system capacity, and drive heath inequities worldwide,” says lead study author Meghan O’Hearn, a former PhD student at Tufts, per HealthDay.

Of course the older we get the longer we want to live….follow these rules and see…..(but before any drastic changes consult your medical professional)….

The study, published Monday, April 10, in Circulation, found people with higher scores for cardiovascular health lived up to nine years longer on average than those with the lowest scores. The scores measure adherence to a set of lifestyle behaviors and health factors developed by the American Heart Association known as Life’s Essential 8.

These measures encourage not using tobacco products, being physically active, eating a healthy diet, getting the right amount of sleep, managing weight and controlling blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol levels. A prior study found adults with greater adherence to these metrics lived longer without chronic disease than those with lower scores.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-people-heart-health-metrics-years.html

Live Long And Prosper….

There is your weekend news dump…I hope you find info that helps….

Enjoy your Saturday….Be Well….Be Safe….

The Long Peace

The war ended in1945 with the defeat of the axis powers…..and Europe entered into an age of reconstruction and a long peace(?).

Then there is Asia.

Japan surrendered after the US dropped 2 nukes on their homeland….unfortunately Asia did not have the same reaction to the end of the war.

Violence erupted everywhere….China, Vietnam, Indonesia so on and so on….But why was there little peace in the Far East?

And yes this is one of those historical perspectives that I have become famous for throwing at my readers.

Decolonisation is one reason for the eruption of violence across the Asian continent. The outbreak of civil wars from the ruins of the Second World War was another historical phenomenon that contributed to the instability of the region, as local actors sought to take advantage of the changes in the balance of power on the ground to build new postcolonial states to their liking. Ho Chi Minh and his Communist Party may have defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu, but they also attacked non-communist nationalists who had rejected their right to rule an independent – communist – Vietnam. If the communists dominated their Vietnamese adversaries during the First Indochina War, in Indonesia a series of violent civil clashes saw the non-communist Republicans led by Sukarno vanquish their communist competitors. The Chinese civil war is another example that Spector analyses: civil and national wars of liberation continued across Asia beyond 1945, something that Europe did not encounter (with the important exception of Greece).

The Cold War did much to spread violence across the Asian continent. The key moment was the victory of the Chinese communists over the nationalists in 1949, prompting American efforts to contain the potential Sino-Soviet threat to the region. Contesting ideologies were part of the problem. So were security concerns. The spectre of the Japanese march across the Pacific in 1941-42 was never far from American minds. But the same was true for Mao, who feared the possibility of another hostile invasion coming from the sea. Spector deftly shows how, between 1950 and 1954, the Americans and the Chinese clashed directly in Korea and indirectly in Vietnam, entangling their struggles for ideological influence and national security with the civil and colonial wars that had been brewing across the continent for years.

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/review/fight

Some of the problems the US is having in Asia these days can be traced back to the end of World War 2…..

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Sanctions–Ineffective At Best

I have made my opinions on sanctions to my readers….these do little to turn the course of international relations….take Cuba, Iran, China, etc etc….of all our sanctions have we changed anything?

Now with Ukraine and Russia going at it like oversexed hogs….sanctions are once again in the news….and in the news….

But is the world behind our efforts to make change?

Not really.

Looks like the US will have to threaten the world to get them to play along…..

The White House plans to send a clear message to its European partners in the economic war against Russia, “you are either with us or against us.” Two US Treasury officials will visit European and Central Asian partners next month to demand all sanctions on Russia be implemented.

Treasury officials Liz Rosenberg and Brian Nelson will meet with leaders of financial institutions in Switzerland, Italy and Germany. The AP reports the officials will have a simple message, “1. Continue to provide Moscow with material support or 2. Keep doing business with countries that represent 50 percent of the global economy.”

Rosenberg and Nelson will provide their European counterparts with intelligence on alleged sanctions evaders. If those countries fail to crack down on those still doing business with Russia, then Washington is threatening to issue “penalties.” It is unclear how far the Joe Biden administration is willing to punish NATO allies for violating sanctions.

The policy echoes President George W. Bush’s doctrine that countries must either actively align with Washington in its Middle East wars, or else be judged as working “with the terrorists.”

(antiwar.com)

Is sanctions a type of siege warfare?

In the distant past, the one place that people could escape a marauding army was behind the walls of a castle. Though this usually protected them from any immediate danger, it created problems of its own. While under siege and waiting for outside help or for the attackers to leave in frustration, those behind the walls could ultimately run out of food and even potable water, which would lead either to surrender or a slow, terrible death.

Although they’re never portrayed as such, in our own time, a form of siege warfare is applied to whole countries, usually poorer ones, through the misuse of sanctions.

There are innumerable forms of sanctions: opprobrium, boycotts, embargoes, denial of service, travel bans, export bans, divestment, asset seizures, blockades, censure, and much more.

…

We have often been told that sanctions like those used against Iraq will eventually lead to the overthrow of governments Western powers don’t like. History doesn’t bear this out. If anything, in countries as diverse as North Korea, Iran and Cuba, sanctions appear to have had the opposite effect, becoming a useful tool for rallying these populations behind their leaders. Just as Russian war crimes are making it more likely to increase Ukrainian resolute resistance, sanctions that hurt average Russians will tend to make them more loyal to Putin and less likely to resist him.

Sanctions as Siege Warfare

Let’s be honest….sanctions are at best…. ineffective.

Now we have the war in Ukraine and as predictable sanctions are our most publicized tactic….(besides the massive amount of monetary support that no one wants to talk about)

Joe Biden’s administration keeps boasting about how successful international sanctions have been in punishing Russia for invading Ukraine. But that boast is increasingly hollow, both with respect to the extent of international unity and the success of the sanctions. Instead of being a success story, the U.S.-led sanctions campaign against Russia is fast becoming another example of a chronically failed tactic.

The administration’s propaganda about widespread global support relies primarily on 2 resolutions condemning the invasion that the UN General Assembly approved, one in March 2022 and the other in February 2023. However, both resolutions were purely symbolic, toothless measures. They did not commit member states to take any action. Nevertheless, more than one-fifth of the UN members, including such key players as China, South Africa, and India, defied Washington’s pressure and cast negative votes or abstentions.

A more graphic and substantive indication of the unwillingness of countries not already in Washington’s geopolitical orbit to join the crusade against Moscow is their refusal to impose economic sanctions. Except for the NATO bloc and long-standing U.S. security dependents in East Asia, the global map is nearly devoid of countries that have adopted punitive measures. Such absence of support throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America is especially striking.

Economic Sanctions Are Simultaneously Ineffective and Cruel

There is nothing now or in the past that illustrates just how effective sanctions are to try and control the situation…..

Hint: They are far from effective.

And yet they will most likely be more sanctions in the news as the conflict drags on.

Typical War Department waste of time.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

World War Two Behind The Scenes

I like history but most people deplore the thought of remembering anything they do not understand.

There are many things about this war that few know anything about….basically because because they do not want to know they had rather believe the lopsided stories they have been told.

About the only thing anyone can recall is that ill-fated statement by Chamberlain (a post for another day)

Me? I like to look beyond the popular crap and do a deeper dive.

So were there any efforts to avoid World War 2….beyond that famous statement by Chamberlain…..( I know there will be inevitable condemnation of Chamberlain’s efforts…please don’t)

There are many military historians who are familiar with the battlefield history of World War Two but few know much about the diplomatic history of the war when it comes to peace initiatives, long suppressed by liberal establishment historians, to terminate the war, in many cases years before it ended in actual history, or even prevent it from happening at all. Americans have been indoctrinated to believe since grade school that the war could not have been averted and that our only mistake was not invading and crushing Nazi Germany in its cradle when it was still military inferior and in the process of rebuilding its armed forces following the crushing disarmament constraints of the Treaty of Versailles.

According to the dominant historical narrative, Hitler could not be trusted to keep any of his agreements so any negotiated peace settlement would only delay the inevitable. The only problem with this accepted historical narrative of the war is that none of it is true. These peace offers, which have been largely covered up and/or erased from the annals of history, serve to convincingly rebut the myth that Hitler, an evil dictator who mass murdered five to six million Jews, was undeterrable and unappeasable. They provide convincing evidence that World War Two was, in fact, neither a necessary nor inevitable war to stop a dictator who was bent on nothing less than world conquest as Americans have been taught to believe.

However, the most glaring historical misconception of the war by far, which has since been used to justify numerous wars including an indefinite, unnecessary, destabilizing and incredibly dangerous prolongation of America’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, was that it was Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler with the Munich Agreement that caused the outbreak of World War Two and therefore the chief lesson of the war is that we must never accommodate our adversaries or else they will be emboldened to invade other countries and perhaps start another world war. In fact, it was not the British policy of accommodating Nazi Germany that caused the outbreak of World War Two but rather it was Chamberlain’s decision to abruptly abandon it and issue an ill-considered British military guarantee against a German invasion that Hitler had never previously considered, in view of the fact that Hitler had spent the previous five years trying to cultivate Poland as an ally against the USSR, that resulted in the outbreak of the war.

https://dpyne.substack.com/p/lost-opportunities-for-peace-the

There is always more to any war than what lopsided history has taught…..this includes all wars….including the most recent one that all have very strong opinions about as a bit deluded that they are)

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is Ukraine A Stalemate?

Probably not. (Semantics)

More like an impasse.

Impasse: a predicament affording no obvious escape.

That is my thought….no matter how much equipment and money that is poured into Ukraine this situation will only be settled by negotiations….the only thing a prolonged war accomplishes is more death and destruction.

But stalemate is liberally used in this case….

But stalemate often involves large and bloody battles. The Battles of the Somme, Verdun, and Passchendaele took place in conditions of stalemate. Hundreds of thousands were killed in those battles that moved the front lines a little, but not much. And stalemates can ultimately be broken, as the one in World War I eventually was. One side or the other can lose its will. One side or the other can gain a new ally (like the US in World War I). One side or the other can gain a technological advantage, although that’s less common (and was less important in World War I than the entry of the US). One side or the other can just be ground down and collapse (like Russia in 1917). Many things can happen in the context of a huge amount of fighting and dying, all in conditions of stalemate. That is the most likely course of action we see in Ukraine right now.

Our assessment that the Russian campaign has culminated and that conditions of stalemate are emerging rests on our assessments, laid out carefully in many fully documented reports published on our website (not just maps) and increasingly validated by reports from various Western intelligence communities, that the Russians do not have the capability to bring a lot of fresh effective combat power to the fight in a short period of time. The kinds of mobilizations the Russians are engaging in will generate renewed fighting power in months at the earliest. Unless something remarkable happens to break the stalemate now settling in, the stalemate is likely to last for months. Hence our assessment and our forecast.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/what-stalemate-means-ukraine-and-why-it-matters

All sides seem to want this conflict to go on and on…..so how may this situation be resolved….

Ukraine’s war reaches the one-year mark with no immediate end in sight. Both sides want to carry on fighting, and any negotiated peace looks a long way off. So how might the war end? Here are five scenarios to consider.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/24/how-might-the-ukraine-war-end

Then there is the BS about the tanks and planes will change the direction of the conflict….not gonna happen.

Western and NATO countries promised to send modern weaponry to Ukraine. As U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin put it, the intent was to support Ukraine for as long as it takes to drive Russia out. As signs indicate a Ukrainian spring offensive may soon launch, many Western military analysts claim that a sufficient amount of Western armor could turn things around for Ukraine. A careful analysis reveals such optimism may be misplaced.

Bad News: NATO Tanks, Planes, and Artillery Unlikely to Win Ukraine War

All that is left now in Eastern Ukraine is to start digging the trenches….(a WW1 reference in case you are confused….which you probably are….)

How will this end?

And the war drags on….and on….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden And Diplomacy

About two years and counting until our next theater we call a general election……how has our dynamite president done? (Diplomatically speaking)

To begin with Biden has a crappy diplomatic agenda….at best it is a yawn especially since one of his political promises was to put diplomacy at the forefront of his administration…..that was an idle promise like most of his campaign promises.

Here is a good look at Biden’s lack of diplomacy….

Stephen Walt is underwhelmed by the Biden administration’s diplomatic performance to date:

I raise this issue because the Biden administration took office vowing to put diplomacy at the center of U.S. foreign policy, yet it has relatively few diplomatic achievements to show for its first two-plus years. On the plus side, US allies are far more comfortable with Biden and Blinken than they were with former President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and they’ve been willing to forgive some of the administration’s early blunders (such as the unnecessary snub of the French during the AUKUS submarine deal in 2021). But apart from improved optics, the administration’s diplomatic record is unimpressive.

The Biden administration wanted the public to see the “return” of diplomacy one of the major differences between them and the Trump administration, but in practice Walt is right that they haven’t delivered very much on that score. It’s true that the administration has done well in coordinating with European and other allies in providing assistance to Ukraine, but this has been a bit like pushing on an open door. The US has not had to do much arm-twisting or persuading to convince allied governments to get on board with supporting the war effort, since they have all been willing to do this at least to some degree. When it comes to getting fence-sitting countries on board, there has been much less success. Almost everywhere else, the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts have either foundered or haven’t even begun.

Walt mentions ineffective or non-existent diplomacy in the Middle East, and he also notes that diplomacy has been notably lacking in US dealings with China over the last two years. The reflexive decision to cancel Blinken’s visit to Beijing over the balloon incident looks even worse now than it did at the time. Instead of taking the incident in stride and pressing ahead with diplomatic contacts, as a confident administration would do, the administration overreacted and sabotaged its own effort to begin repairing relations. The fear of appearing weak in the eyes of domestic hawkish critics has been the administration’s real weakness, and it keeps tripping them up.

…

Other states can see that US diplomats always take a distant second place to the military, and it is mainly through the military that the US deals with much of the rest of the world. US diplomacy is like a plant that is so starved of sunlight because it is trying to grow up in the shadow of a giant tree. As long as the military wields such outsized influence in Congress and commands so many more resources, there is little chance that diplomacy can flourish.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

I was not a supporter of Biden in 2020 for I am old enough to know what a corporate democrat he truly is…..so my expectations were low for is diplomatic presidency….more people should pay more attention to what these criminals promise for they seldom care through on them.

Since the Clinton years the US has had one foreign policy–WAR….and it has only progressively gotten worse.

It is easier to destroy than search for solutions….plus it is a lot more profitable.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

North Korea Expands Scope

While the world is paranoid over China and Russia North Korea keeps expanding its capabilities…..nukes, long-range missiles and now its own spy satellite…..

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country has completed the development of its first military spy satellite and ordered officials to go ahead with its launch as planned, state media reported Wednesday. During his visit to the North’s aerospace agency Tuesday, Kim stressed it’s crucial to acquire a space-based surveillance system to cope with what he called serious security threats posed by “the most hostile rhetoric and explicit action” by the United States and South Korea this year, the Korean Central News Agency said. North Korea has said its ongoing torrid run of weapons tests, including its first test-launch of a solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the US mainland last week, are a response to joint military exercises between the United States and its regional allies South Korea and Japan, the AP reports.

At the National Aerospace Development Administration, Kim said military reconnaissance was essential for North Korea to effectively use its methods of war deterrence, according to KCNA. Kim said “the military reconnaissance satellite No. 1” had been built as of April and ordered efforts to speed up final preparations for its launch at a planned date that he didn’t disclose. He said North Korea must launch several satellites to firmly establish an intelligence-gathering capability, KCNA said. Kim also accused the US and South Korea of expanding their hostile military campaigns in the name of bolstering their alliance. He accused the US of transforming South Korea into “an advanced base for aggression” by deploying strategic assets like aircraft carriers and nuclear-capable bombers.

A spy satellite is among an array of high-tech weapons Kim has been developing. The others are a solid-propellant ICBM, a nuclear-power submarine, a hypersonic missile and a multi-warhead missile. North Korea has conducted tests of such weapons, but it is not clear how close they are to operational. North Korea’s previous missile and rocket tests have demonstrated the country has a capacity to send satellites into space. But many experts question whether North Korea has sophisticated cameras to use on a spy satellite, because photos it has released from previous test launches were low-resolution imagery.

Instead of worrying about China and Russia maybe more attention should be paid to the situation and the possibilities around North Korea.

Just a thought.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Month: April 2023

Here We Go Again

Why Not Syria?

IST News Dump Saturday

The Long Peace

Sanctions–Ineffective At Best

World War Two Behind The Scenes

Is Ukraine A Stalemate?

Biden And Diplomacy

North Korea Expands Scope