That made me laugh out loud. And then, depressed. Well played, Impy, well played.

I wish. If every world leader did that, we could eliminate war overnight.

I don't think that's quite what I suggested in my post; no question that North Korea's army is no joke, but I do think that South Korea with the US backing them would be able to take North Korea, if China decides to sit out hostilities.

Indeed. But I think there have been signs of a shift in Chinese support for NK. The UN vote today on sanctions is one of those signs; the news was reporting that some of the terms were negotiated between the US and China. There have been other hints in the last few months. I think either two things are happening; either China is getting nervous and starting to cut NK loose, or NK is sabre-rattling in public and working like hell for a de-escalation of tensions in the back room, and they're trying to do it in such a way that everyone saves face. I'm hoping for the latter, but suspect it's more likely the former.

If China can line up its army in the Himalayas and wash India out to sea in a tidal wave of piss, they can keep a flood of refugees from crossing into their territory. If things get bad enough, you might even see the North Koreans caught between the hammer of the US forces on one side and the anvil of the Chinese forces on the other. Not likely, but possible.

Well I think my reference to purchasing power indicates pretty clearly which version of "need" I was thinking of. As Slick Willy says, "It's the economy, stupid." Wen Jiabo's (sp?) parting speech made it pretty clear that internal economics is a priority in China. As to your other two points, I think that you have a point, but there have been signs lately that Beijing is getting tired of North Korea and their shit. The resolution that is going through the UN today is I think probably going to be unopposed by China, which is a first. Part of the reason North Korea is doing so much sabre rattling is that in recent months the Chinese have been sending signals that they may not be willing to support a nuclear-capable North Korea any more than the US or Japan or any other of the local players. The scales are tilting, quietly, which is what has North Korea's knickers in a knot. I'd be very surprised if, underneath all the bluster from Pyongyang, North Korean diplomats aren't working around the clock to find a face-saving way of de-escalating tensions with the US.

That would be an atrocity and a war crime. The US doesn't do bad things like that, does it? Does it?

Actually, they are at war. There's a cease-fire in place, there's no fighting to speak of, but the Korean war hasn't actually ended.

Only as long as it takes to convince China that they need our purchasing power more than they need to protect the twerps in Pyongyang.

And it costs half the price per capita of US healthcare.

And you can do it all in Emacs.

Ha. In my CS program, the weed-out course wasn't pseudo-assembly (which was really introduction to the grammar of computer languages), but Combinatorics and Optimization. This lawyer is here to tell you that it was a very effective course for weeding out the unready.

Peak Oil and energy prices aren't a problem, or rather they're a solution to a bigger problem. What we need most right now is oil prices high enough to discourage consumers and companies from pulling more oil up from the ground and burning it. The world is burning, and we need to stop subsidizing oil (one of the reasons why solar is doing better in Germany than the US; oil's more expensive there), start making companies and consumers pay the real costs of carbon emissions, and put government and the markets to work lowering the price of the alternatives.

Personally, I'm gonna wait until the console is released before I decide to buy it or not.

Not likely. Of course they did lose track of the church he was buried under the first time....