But NK has a huge amount of artillery. If attacked, the regime would know they're going down and they would pretty much level Seoul. I recall reading, though I can't source it now, that there's too much NK artillery to take out in a quick strike, even for the US military. So they can't be taken down militarily without huge sacrifices in the South.

These days, the theory is that isn't really true.

I quote:
Barring the use of nuclear weapons or large-scale bombing runs, destroying a city requires an extended campaign of shelling and demolition, the likes of which the world hasn't seen since WWII. When the Chechen capital of Grozny was all-but-destroyed by Russian forces in 1999, it was the result of months of artillery and missile bombardments, as well as air strikes. There's no doubt that North Korea's massive deployment of artillery, and potential deployment of roughly 300 ballistic missiles, could wreak havoc on Seoul and its population. What's clear, however, is that a sudden barrage of shells and missiles would only mark the beginning of a battle for the city, not an apocalyptic fait accomplit.

The Battle for Seoul would be ugly. Lots of people would die. There would be immense losses of human life, and immense financial losses. But Seoul would emerge on the other side; 98% of the North's artillery would be obliterated within 96 hours, and the joint US/South Korean force would smash through the DMZ and conqueror Pyongyang in a matter of days. There would most likely be quite a few high profile losses in Seoul, but the city would survive.

North Korea maintains numerical parity with South Korea, but much of its' equipment is antiquated. The modern US/South Korean forces would achieve air dominance in a matter of hours, and the rest of the North would fold like a house of cards.

Now, obviously, peaceful unification (and regime collapse) would be preferable. No one, particularly the South, wants a war; but these days, it is pretty obvious who would win the war, and Seoul would not be lost.

I do think, however, that the North shelling Seoul would result in the end of the Northern regime. The South Korean street is known for being very temperamental, and a direct attack on Seoul would result in cries for "rivers of blood".

Hear Hear

I would say that the appropriate "scientific" language would be either "Dangerous", or "Mildly Toxic". Perhaps with a caveat of "Life threatening for those with compromised respiratory systems."

I find it hilarious that progressives seem to get hysterical about the CO2 emissions in the US, but give China (and other "poor" nations) a pass on "Clear and Present" danger pollutants.

See; the US shouldn't be emitting CO2, but it is JUST FINE if China emits coal ash, airborne mercury, dioxins. It's a gigantic problem for a nuclear plant in the US to release "heat" into a river or lake, while it is JUST FINE for China to dump PCBs, lead, arsenic, mercury, and hydrocarbons into waterways.

America's liberal economists point to China as a model economy. Except, of course, when someone points out that there are Chinese policies that cost tens of thousands, if not millions of lives a year (mine regulations, pollution regulations, little to no liability for environmental malfeasance). In THOSE situations, its the Free Market to blame, not the benevolent hand of the Chinese dictatorship.

Who are you going to believe? China apologists like Thomas Friedman (and Paul Krugman), or your own lying, cancer-ridden lungs/eyes/pancreas?

You do realize that the sort of pollutants the article discusses have little or nothing to do with GHG emissions, right?

People are really stupid. CO2 may cause the planet to warm up, but it certainly won't kill millions by way of lung cancer and other respiratory aliments.

The US (and the west in general) has done an admirable job of eliminating or reducing air borne pollutants. The US is currently debating the merits of managing non-pollutant emissions, such as CO2, the byproduct of "clean coal", natural gas, and other complete oxidization products.

Downplaying the improvements in Western air quality is extremely dangerous, and one only has to tour some of the various polluted hell-holes in the East to truly understand how important clean air is.

*shrug* Pretty well, actually.

Try Ted [Torrent Episode Downloader] with PS3 Media Server. You get the same shows you watch now. It costs you nothing. All the commercials are edited out. And you can usually watch them within 3-4 hours of their being broadcast.

The only possible alternative that is similar in functionality (shows WITHOUT commercials, not just commercials you fast forward through) is Amazon VOD. That being said, Amazon VOD is only compatible with certain devices, unlike PS3 Media Server, which works with nearly all DLNA devices. Otherwise, I would probably just buy the shows through Amazon VOD. If it only worked on the PS3, natively.

You can use Amazon VOD, Hulu, and Netflix through PlayOn, but it kind of sucks. Netflix on the PS3 (the version Sony promotes) is using a Bluray disk, and the interface is terrible. One must click through titles one-by-one, with no way to hold down the "forward" button, or flick a page at a time.

The only issue with PS3 Media Server is that you have to organize the files, because although Ted does a great job of downloading the files, they will end up in a giant pile on your drive with crappy "leet speak" names. There are a few automatic renaming utilities, but these are very kludge.

There is a new (free as in beer) DLNA server called Serviio which fixes that, by automagically downloading program names, and presenting a hierarchical interface to the user. That way, you can keep your TV shows in a big pile, and organize them whenever you want. This combination (TED+SERVIIO) represents truly automatic HD video on demand, sans commercials, of nearly any content you would want. And its free.

That being said, Serviio's transcoding is somewhat buggy, so TV Nirvana isn't quite ready yet. But it's almost there.

The funny thing is that I cannot get service this good from any provider at *any* price. I would be willing to pay quite a premium to get truly ad-free TV. But I want my shows to download automatically (or stream), I want it in HD, and I want it to work with a video game console or TV, eliminating a set-top box that would otherwise take up valuable space.

The ironic thing? I prefer watching TV on my PS3s than on my DirecTV HD-DVRs with nearly every channel.

Well, not to be too snarky, but my browsing profile currently matches what you say, with the added bonus of my constantly browsing the comments on Slashdot with Full/All-Comments on all the time. I've been browsing for about 30 minutes, I have 4 tabs open, and the following Addons: Adobe Contribute, ComEd's Real-Time Prices Toolbar, LastPass, FlashGot, Vuze Remote, and AdBlock.

I also have a Gmail session open, with Voice/Video Chat Enabled. My firefox is currently using 220 MB of Real Memory.

If I close Gmail, that drops another 20 MB.

I consider this machine a little long in the tooth, and I'm still running with 4 GB of ram. I can spare 220 MB for my browsing pleasure.

I'm with the following AC. You may be experiencing these problems. I don't. I would love to help figure out why you experience these problems, but I cannot reproduce them. How can I help fix them, then?

I'm going to spam a post of mine, because there are *so many* morons posting on this story.

Our world has a lot of problems. Pogroms aren't the answer to any of them.

Yes, exactly. Because the road to a more peaceful world runs through murderous purges.

Now that you mention it, I would give Stalin the political label "progressive". I won't go any further, because then I would be feeding a troll.

(The cure to delusions is to give reality a greater appeal, and make the delusions look really bad. And I mean in the minds of the infected. They must have an excuse to keep their self-respect, and get back into a better reality. So we must first and foremost stop all the “threats”. Like the “economic crisis”, the growing poverty, and especially the easy-to-kill fake ones like the way overblown “terrorist threat”, or the whole Obama fear. I say, the primary target should be to shoot Glenn Beck and close down FOX News ASAP. BUT: Let give them a reason, so THEY do it, or it will only get worse. And then go for the “churches”. They are THE professionals since thousands of years, and the feed on it like no other. )

Yes, exactly. Because the road to a more peaceful world runs through murderous purges.

Now that you mention it, I would give Stalin the political label "progressive". I won't go any further, because then I would be feeding a troll.

And HTC is only "making this work" if you ignore the patent lawsuit brought by Apple.

Google isn't leaping to Android's defense. Google is letting "The Partners" handle it. This is in sharp contrast to the patent portfolio HP gets from Palm.

That being said, I love my Pre, and I've converted 10-12 people to the Pre. Beefier hardware, something HP can pump out, will make the experience better.

I also anticipate an HP Slate-style WebOS tablet, which will knock the patents of the iPad. The WebOS ecosystem is much better thought out than the Apple app store.

The Middle East has had more time to modernize than Western Civilization has. They have have no excuse for not being world leaders; the Middle East was at one time the greatest center of learning and science in the world. To say they have not had an opportunity to modernize is bull. They have continued to live in the iron age due to the choices they have made; not a lack of opportunity. And this garbage has persisted even into the current century.

Agreed, and the Iranian experience up until the collapse of the Shah proves it. Up through 1979, Iran was rather "civilized" by Western standards, at least culturally/economically. In many ways similar to China today. It is difficult to imagine now, but there was an alliance between Iran and Israel .

At one point, Syria and Lebanon were both developing briskly. For the most part, the Islamic extremist/militant/political resurgence sprung up with the Iranian Revolution. Since then, each nation in the region has done its damnedest to Islamicize as fast as possible, most likely as a counterweight to their economic failures.

I can speak from family experience, and friend experience, that Iran pre-1979 was culturally very liberal; with public social behavior that would make Westerners' blush. Pre-1979 Iran was the number one customer of AT&T's USA Long Distance minutes, worldwide. The 1973-74 oil embargo had resulted in vast amounts of wealth heading into the Middle East, and many had assumed that in the long run Tehran would be the new banking/financial capital of the world.

Development is not an inevitable force. One merely has to look at the promising states of the third world, such as Vietnam, North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Cuba; many of these places were considered economic miracles at one point.

Then crappy dictators took over, corruption ran rampant, and the rising stars collapsed. Venezuela is on this path now.

Some of these states survive, and turned things around, slowly; like Vietnam, and to some extent Lebanon.

They have have no excuse for not being world leaders; the Middle East was at one time the greatest center of learning and science in the world.
I cannot agree with this statement more. In addition to having advanced societies, the incredible oil wealth of the Middle East was probably the greatest concentration of natural wealth in a given region, ever. That the regimes of these nations have managed to squander these vast, immense, incredible resources is nothing short of criminal. Criminal isn't even the right word for it.

It is *simply* *unimaginable* that gas is about $0.29 in Iran; and that most of it is imported since they no longer have the refinery capacity to manufacturer it. It is *simply* *unimaginable* that it is a common sight to see gallons of fuel splashed into the streets of Tehran, because it is so "value-less" to the consumer. It is *shocking* and *disturbing* that Iran and Syria trade away vast quantities of high-quality, industrial resources to China or Russia for a pile of worthless, outdated weaponry which will inevitably used to oppress their citizens.

These things are a humanitarian tragedy of epic proportions. These nations have truly squandered their wealth. 20-50 years from now, they will have no natural resources left, and will have nothing to show for that massive destruction of wealth; and most of them will endure starvation and poor standards of living between now and then!

There *is* *no* *excuse* for this mismanagement!!!

It is just as meaningless to say that "employees don't pay taxes, corporations do".

No, it isn't. Altering marginal tax rates as significant effects on the composition of the economy. Increase or decreasing corporate tax rates effects consumer prices, while increase or decreasing payroll taxes effects employment rates.

The economy is more complicated than "dollars in/dollars out". When you alter the potentials of any given set of actors, you alter the behavior of that set of actors; usually, the downstream effects tend to be diffuse with minimal impact on macroeconomic behavior. As such, it makes a lot more sense to look at the economy as a series of pools of wealth. Transfers of wealth between actors should be taxed, but at minimal levels in order to minimally disrupt the market. Higher levels are appropriate *only* in situations where the goal is to manipulate behavior, not generate revenue (i.e. consumption taxes on road use are designed to fight congestion, supposedly, rather than to generate revenue). Furthermore, the goal of the tax system should be to subject each transfer of wealth to one tax; not multiple. Finally, non-human entities should be exempt from taxation-- unless the revenue generated never ends up in the hand of a human. This means that the only income that should be taxed is that which is claimed as income by individuals, or that which is subordinated to a financial instrument operated on behalf an individual (or individuals) but is not designed to pay out direct dividends (like trusts, or other long term group holding vehicles).

The current system, with vast numbers of loopholes and high marginal rates simply isn't workable. Most of the reasons that the current system pisses off both market capitalists and progressive liberals is that we have high levels of taxation and regulation, while we exempt the larger corporations and richest individuals from most of this system. Our current system is *the worst* of both worlds; wealth flows to the rich, and the middle class/poor are kept tied up in a system of regulation and taxation.

The fundamental truth is that overcomplicated systems are designed to help the "biggest" players. Did you ever get into a game, as a kid, that involved the other kids changing the rules constantly? "Oh, on your third turn, if you roll a 4, you don't actually get to move 4; you pay the other players X, and move backwards 2. You didn't know that? Your problem".

Well, that's the game the U.S. industrial fascist/corporatist system uses. And the rules change as different political parties sweep into power, and different big corporations end up as winners and losers. Today, the financial sector and big auto/big labor are the winners. Yesterday, it was petrochemicals and military contractors. Given the current political situation, I'm guess that health insurers and the agricultural sector are the next big winners.

Aren't you all tired of this? Don't you see that one of the benefits of a simpler, and flatter (but not necessarily totally flat) tax code is that these entities won't be able to game the system as much?

It exhausts me that people on board like Slashdot fight over whether the guy making $270,000 a year should pay on a higher marginal rate than the guy making $50,000, but neither really cares about the business shoveling money out of the Treasury at rate of $10 million a day (I'm looking at you, AIG) , because the "big guys always win". Everyone between the poor and the mid-upper class can pay less for government services if the top 10%'s playing field is leveled. Get a flat 10-15% out of everyone, and there will be plenty of government income. A $13 trillion economy should be able to function with a $1.6 trillion federal government and an additional $1 trillion in state/local governments. And that leaves you plenty of money to spare to build a "last-resort" welfare network to insure that the streets aren't full of polio victims or starving children.

You'll never fix society by implementing more Bush-like tax cuts, or by raising the marginal tax rates/brackets. Scrap the IRS code, rethink the revenue structure, and start over. There is far, far, far too much kruft in the current system to fix.

The reconciliation package is not law, yet.

The senate bill is. I'm skeptical that the senate wants to conduct the several more weeks of debate it will take to turn the reconciliation package into law.

*shrug* . I'm not sure why people think the reconciliation package will be the final law on the issue.

Am I the only one in this world that sees the un-sustainable direction this country is going?

No, but the American people are learning (again, as they have short memories) that elections do indeed have consequences. The tea parties, and the general disdain for congress, are a reflection on the knowledge that we, The People, goofed royally when we elected Obama.

Neither Clinton nor McCain would have put us into the situation we are currently in. The economy is in a state of ongoing malaise, unemployement is projected to be high for the foreseeable future, but Congress and the President have been on a health care death-march for over a year.

And their "solution" to the budget deficits? The VAT. And their "solution" to the unemployment that will result from the VAT? No problem, we'll spend more on stimulus!

There's a reason November is setting up to be a congressional blood-letting. And if unemployment doesn't improve dramatically by 2012, we will have a landslide Republican victory. Regardless of who rules the legislature, the executive is the one who pays when the economy is poor.

The silver lining in all this is that if we get a landslide Republican victory in 2012, health care, taxes, and a huge number of other policies will be revoked. Reconciliation, the "Slaughter Rule", and a variety of other legislative tricks will be kosher. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and the Republican members of the Senate's "Gang of 16" have given up on bipartisanship.

To truly turn health care into a free market, you would have to create a system that is much more callous than almost anyone would be willing to tolerate. But, I guess if you're a free market thinker, every problem looks like a nail.

Eh?

Most Republicans were willing to allow subsidies for some individuals to purchase insurance on the private market. There are even some libertarians that hold this view.

McCain's health care tax credit was one of these proposals.

Free market solutions aren't always "the wild west" version of an given issue. Sometimes they mean utilizing market forces through incentives, tax and fiscal policies, in lieu of attempting to fiat outcomes. The reason for this is that market based solutions tend to work better (and cheaper) than fiat solutions.

You can't fiat and end to poverty, and I would argue that you can't fiat a functioning health care system. You setup conditions that allow the market to do it for you, and you provide incentives to help the impoverished.

*shrug* Time will tell, though. I can't imagine people will be happy with Obamacare in the near future, particularly if it kicks off a double-dip recession when the top tax brackets go to an effective 65-70%.