A stunning report from ABC News?

[Hippikos]

There are strong rumors that the NK nukluar test was a complete failure. Just a measily 1 kiloton, this ain't enough to shake The Great Devine Leader's enemies...

Just give the man his bread and butter and fer crissake let's go on with some real serious business.

[headsplice]

Like sodomizing Congressional pages? Schveet! I'm in!

[tw]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

There are strong rumors that the NK nukluar test was a complete failure. Just a measily 1 kiloton, this ain't enough to shake The Great Devine Leader's enemies...

That assumes the purpose was to test a nuclear weapon. Well three months ago, they launched numerous missiles on the same day - 4 July. Were those missiles ready for test the same day - or were they intentionally launched on one particular day? N Korea will repeatedly remind the world that it needs bilateral negotiations to restore what Jimmy Carter created 10 years ago and what radical right wing extremists (ie Rorhbaugh of CA) intentionally destroyed to (due to ignorance) create war.

Does not matter how good or bad that explosion was. It was probably nothing more than spent uranium that also sits at every nuclear reactor in America. They launched numerous missiles on 4 Jul. 3 months later and the world still did not respond. Therefore NK upped the ante - and will only keep upping the ante as long as Condi Rice so fears to even talk.

So this is the question. 3 month ago, how many knew what North Korea was asking for? They were asking for bilateral talks with the US. Did you know that in July? This time Condi Rice proclaims fears of 'one on one' talks - without support from 5 other nations. So now everyone in The Cellar understands what NK wants. But how many knew that demand when it was made three months ago?

Answer to that question would determine if the nuclear test (real or faked) was successful.

[xoxoxoBruce]

If the headlines say NK set off a nuke, then the next day 100% retract it. Much of the world will believe they did set one off. People seem to ignore or suspect retractions, if they see them at all. Strange how that works.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

If the headlines say NK set off a nuke, then the next day 100% retract it. Much of the world will believe they did set one off. People seem to ignore or suspect retractions, if they see them at all. Strange how that works.

First, people want to believe that NK set off nuclear weapons because humans love conflict, drama, and all the things that will get you killed in real life.

Second, for the part about people ignoring retractions, this is the same with the 9/11 conspiracy. I will say upfront that the conspiracy is bullshit but no one even bothered to find out if it was vaible or not. The American people have been trained (brainwashed?) in such a way that we will not accept it. Why does the American government have to get rid of the other side when the American people have already been trained too?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

And now it's all over the place that there are plutonium fission products detectable in air samplings, and that the yield was a fizzle yield approximating 200 tons of TNT.

Spent uranium would be U238, which is difficult to fission. You have to really spray it with neutrons.

Nor is it a case of "fears to talk." It's a recognition that talk will do no good at all, as the North Koreans are under orders from on high to negotiate in bad faith only -- one reason why they are a pariah.

[Undertoad]

Impossible, because tw told us in this post in 2002 that the N Koreans could not be producing plutonium bombs because they were specifically putting the rods which would need to be processed, back into the reactor.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Impossible, because tw told us in this post in 2002 that the N Koreans could not be producing plutonium bombs because they were specifically putting the rods which would need to be processed, back into the reactor.

Months were required to remove those rods so rods can be processed - as was accurately posted. How long has it been? Years. UT takes quotes out of context to intentionally distort. What those with a political agenda do when they assume the lurker / reader is that naïve.

Rod location was known long ago which was why plutonium bombs could not be in production back then – when hype was promoting war fevor. That was long ago. Rod location is no longer known. Another uncertainty created by refusing to negotiate. Extracting plutonium is another and involved process. Has plutonium been extracted? Unknown.

Unknown variables that would be irrelevant had we only done what great nations do. Great nations do not do preemption. Great nations negotiate with intent to solve problems and avert foolish conflict.

Urbane Guerrilla intentionally lies either due to ignorance or for other incendiary reasons. Spent uranium from nuclear reactors is bomb grade material. Previous discussion involved HEU verses a newer technology called LEU.

Relevant is that UG posts a myth. Spent uranium is bomb grade material. There is no "spray it with neutrons". Concept is called critical mass. Compressing a larger lump of spent uranium will create fission. If conventional explosives did not fire properly, then an atomic explosion would be less powerful.

The point remains: George Jr refuses to negotiate and has only excited this problem into potential war. Concept is especially well understood in South Korea. DPRK has demonstrated nuclear fission which would not happen had a 1990s agreement arranged by Jimmy Carter not been intentionally corrupted. Congressman Rohrbaugh of CA is particularly proud of having destroyed that agreement. Even Condi Rice publicly announces fear of bilateral DPRK negotiations only because she says the US cannot negotiate effectively. So America should not even try? We fear bilateral negotiations? US is only a paper tiger? Only a quitter would say that – or someone who wants war.

UT posts rhetoric taken out of context; years have since passed. UG posts a myth that spent Uranium from conventional plants is not bomb grade material. Apparently both assume other readers here have no technical knowledge and therefore can be manipulated using Rush Limbaugh logic.

Don't be fodder for manipulation by half truths. Appreciate the long term danger created by ‘big dic’ reasoning. Time remains to avert conflict. But America needs an intelligent president and Congressman. That means Cellar dwellers must be informed so as to not fall for myths and spin posted here by UG and UT.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Trying to make implosion spheres out of impure metal? That seems what you're implying, and it sounds like a great way not to arrive at the yield you want. You really want to do it with plutonium, with an enthusiastic (and rather short half-life -- 3 to 5 years) neutron emitter nestled within at the center of a few plutonium-metal shells. I'd have to hunt around to come up with the transuranic metal they used for these "pits." (I believe this method of spark-plugging nuclear weapons is long obsolete -- too tricky to maintain and it irradiated the bomb innards a lot.) Plutonium critical mass is a 32-lb sphere IIRC, which object is about the size of a grapefruit at room temp. An implosion squeeze mashes this down to about half that diameter, for greater efficiency in catching neutrons and thus very much speeding the chain reaction. This is even more efficiently done if the critical mass is made of two or more nested hollow spheres, allowing the plutonium to accelerate before being compressed into a critical mass -- it allows a fission reaction from what is a subcritical mass at ordinary temperature and pressure.

"Time remains to avert conflict?" Sorry, the conflict's already on, and has been going for at least two years. Avert, quotha.

[Undertoad]

"This same administration that previously advocated military attacks on China now cuts off all oil to Korea. What are they suppose to do. Give up and cry? The smart politician uses the unprocessed plutonium rods as bargining chips AND fires up a nuclear reactor to create electricity. Nothing extraordinary here."

-- tw, 12/30/2002

Just admit you were wrong. It's easy!

The relevant NYT story is here: North Korean Fuel Identified as Plutonium

The long-time Cellar reader may be surprised who used the biggest big dic tactics... and how successful they were.

Politically, the results of the test may revive last week’s finger-pointing about who is more responsible for the Korean test: Bill Clinton or President Bush.

As president, Mr. Clinton negotiated a deal that froze the production and weaponization of North Korea’s plutonium, but intelligence agencies later determined that North Korea began its secret uranium program under his watch. The plutonium that North Korea exploded was produced, according to intelligence estimates, either during the administration of the first President Bush or after 2003, when the North Koreans threw out international inspectors and began reprocessing spent nuclear fuel the inspectors had kept under seal.

Unlike the Clinton administration in 1994, the current Bush administration chose not to threaten to destroy North Korea’s fuel and nuclear reprocessing facilities if they tried to make weapons.

That threat in 1994 — which was ultimately resolved with an agreement to freeze the weapons program — was made by William J. Perry, who was the defense secretary then. In an interview on Monday, Mr. Perry said: “There was a brief window to catch this plutonium before it was made into bomb fuel. It’s gone. It’s out of the barn now.”

[Happy Monkey]

Wait... How does this:

As president, Mr. Clinton negotiated a deal that froze the production and weaponization of North Korea’s plutonium, but intelligence agencies later determined that North Korea began its secret uranium program under his watch.

go with this:

The plutonium that North Korea exploded was produced, according to intelligence estimates, either during the administration of the first President Bush or after 2003, when the North Koreans threw out international inspectors and began reprocessing spent nuclear fuel the inspectors had kept under seal.

[Undertoad]

The secret uranium program, probably not completed, was not the source of the material used to screw up this test.

[Happy Monkey]

Huh. It seems like there should be some sort of separation or explanation between those sentences.

[Undertoad]

Well you're more interested in assessing blame between Presidents, while I'm more interested in assessing the errors of tw.

[Happy Monkey]

Actually I was more interested in figuring out what they were trying to say there, since it seemed unclear to me. Though the subject of the paragraph is presidential blame, so you're correct to that extent.

Here's the timeline I now read from the paragraph:

Bush 1 - NK starts plutonium refining
Clinton - Clinton gets them to stop with the plutonium. NK secretly starts uranium research instead. No success (though there's no way to know how close they may have gotten).
Bush 2 - NK kicks out inspectors, switches back to plutonium, and has at least a partial success.