North Korea conducts nuclear test

[The Beatles]

Sorry to post FOX news link, but:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218699,00.html

There are, of course, dissenting opinions:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=199795&cid=16360789
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=199795&cid=16360515

In other news, Microsoft proven to have funded SCO to some hundred million dollars:
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/10/08/1714234.shtml

[Freenhult]

Good for them. Now they have brough stability to the region. Hooray I say.

[Kraken]

U.S. proposals obtained by AP for sanctions against North Korea include a trade ban on military and luxury items, the power to inspect all cargo, and freezing assets connected with Pyongyang's weapons programs...

possible Second Blast detected: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20554779-23109,00.html

[Gen. Volkov]

That was a joke, wasn't it Freen? Cause if it isn't, I'd have to point out certain key things that you are missing. A nuclear armed N. Korea is most definitely NOT a stabilizing influence. It just gives them an even bigger bully stick. But they won't start a war, cause they know that even if they have nukes, we have far more, and much better methods of delivery. It would be a death sentence for them. But it already would have been a death sentence for them to start a war, so having nukes doesn't change that. It is in no way a stabilizing influence for them to have nukes. Don't believe me? Look at Pakistan and India. Sure they aren't fighting, but I don't call MAD stability.

On the topic... it's probably real. The US has no viable reason to confirm it other than it being real, and every reason to deny it, except that other people also detected it, so I say it's real, and N. Korea just proved that they have nuclear weapons. But it really doesn't mean much, they can't afford to engage in an arms race, and they are not going to attack anyone. It's just another diplomatic tool for them. I'm not scared of a nuclear armed N. Korea, I'm scared of a nuclear armed Iran.

[Arthus]

they claim to only want them to prevent the U.S from attacking them, and to tell the truth, the U.S. is probably far more hesitant to attack now that North Korea has nukes. Stabilizing force, not really, but still, its true, they want attack cause the U.S. have enough nukes to blow up the enite planet 6 times over so nuking N.K. is a piece of cake.

[Gen. Volkov]

We were never going to attack them in the first place. It would have been a disaster. The last time we fought a war there it was because of North Korean aggression. Nowadays they'd be just as unlikely to attack us as we would be to attack them. It's just a tool for international bullying.

We can't blow up the planet, just remove the crust 6 times over.

[The Beatles]

Actually, the US has incentive to pretend a blast did happen. Well, at least one faction in it does. Consider that this bears out Bush's "Axis of Evil" theory wonderfully and keeps the populace in fear. We've already had bollocks from the White House and Downing Street on WMDs: I'm not believing this until independent and reliable sources confirm it, hopefully a neutrino detector (AFAIK there's one in Japan).

[Gen. Volkov]

Neutrino detectors are temperamental, and would be hard pressed to catch the ones released by the blast anyway, given it's size. The best we can hope for is radioactivity measurements or seismometers. South Korea first picked it up, and it's been confirmed not just by the US as a nuclear blast signature. And really, I don't think a nuclear test makes N. Korea scare people anymore than one that said it had nuclear weapons. It's just confirmation of what was already pretty much known. There were doubters, me among them, but the only thing I doubted was whether they had actually built one yet, not that they didn't have the capability to easily do so, so it was already as if they had them. If you have nuclear material, building the bomb is not that difficult, and we know they had the necessary nuclear material. So I don't think there's any real reason to doubt it. The US knows what a underground blast signature looks like, having conducted hundreds of them.

[Freenhult]

That was a joke, wasn't it Freen? Cause if it isn't, I'd have to point out certain key things that you are missing. A nuclear armed N. Korea is most definitely NOT a stabilizing influence. It just gives them an even bigger bully stick. But they won't start a war, cause they know that even if they have nukes, we have far more, and much better methods of delivery. It would be a death sentence for them. But it already would have been a death sentence for them to start a war, so having nukes doesn't change that. It is in no way a stabilizing influence for them to have nukes. Don't believe me? Look at Pakistan and India. Sure they aren't fighting, but I don't call MAD stability.

...Thats so sad Volkov... I'm hurt.

Them having nukes is very destabilzing. I suspect that if more of these occur, that S. Korea or even Japan would try to stop it. China, who knows. Last thing they want it a Nuclear War in the East Asia Region.

[Kraken]

Actually, the US has incentive to pretend a blast did happen. Well, at least one faction in it does. Consider that this bears out Bush's "Axis of Evil" theory wonderfully and keeps the populace in fear. We've already had bollocks from the White House and Downing Street on WMDs: I'm not believing this until independent and reliable sources confirm it, hopefully a neutrino detector (AFAIK there's one in Japan).

Beatles, its comments like that that shows your lack of knowledge of what is real.
in case you didnt know, MORE THAN THE USA IS RESPONDING ABOUT THIS AND MORE THAN THE USA REPORTED IT.
your a real moron sometimes....


anyways:

GERTZ: U.S. doubts Korean test was nuclear; Readings fall short of atomic explosion... MORE...

U.S. intelligence agencies say, based on preliminary indications, that North Korea did not produce its first nuclear blast yesterday, WASHINGTON TIMES star reporter Bill Gertz is set to report in Tuesday editions.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that seismic readings show that the conventional high explosives used to create a chain reaction in a plutonium-based device went off, but that the blast's readings were shy of a typical nuclear detonation.

'There was a seismic event that registered about 4 on the Richter scale, but it still isn't clear if it was a nuclear test. You can get that kind of seismic reading from high explosives.'

The underground explosion, which Pyongyang dubbed a historic nuclear test, is thought to have been the equivalent of several hundred tons of TNT, far short of the several thousand tons of TNT, or kilotons, that are signs of a nuclear blast, the official said. Developing...

this is from http://www.drudgereport.com

[The Beatles]

Problem is, Kraken, that a. there's no consensus between the press statements US government agencies have been releasing, b. it is a fact that nobody yet knows whether it was nuclear -- that takes time to confirm.

[Freenhult]

That is true. Although, it would appear that something really big did blow up though. The USGS has already released their information on the earthquake that occured over there. The blast was about 6 miles down...

[Gen. Volkov]

*laughs*, sorry Freen.

6 miles deep in the earth??? That was no nuclear blast. Humans have never drilled that far into the ground anywhere ever. Initial readings said it was not natural, but if it was that far down, it was probably just a weird earthquake.

[The Beatles]

We have, but just once:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole

[Gen. Volkov]

I was aware of that hole, but I thought it was shallower. Anyway, there's no way the Koreans drilled six miles into the planet's crust to plant a nuclear device.