It's too bad the creator had to ruin it by opening his mouth. Any 'Art' that makes it's statement with a bunch of words next to it generally isn't art. It's glued together junk that's not aesthetically appealing. This guy actually made something neat and arguably pretty, then made sure we all knew his talents started with, and ended with, this sort of work.

Agreed. Have a great night.

There is no pipeline.

Pipe Dreams - The origin of the "bombing-Afghanistan-for-oil-pipelines" theory.
Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline Still a Dream* - Published on Monday, September 20, 2010

A working pipeline, if it ever gets built, will require a country more stable than Afghanistan is now or will be any time soon. It is too easy to sabotage otherwise, and that would result in billions of dollars down the drain. Nobody is going to risk it.

The US didn't install Saddam. He was a local bully-boy that worked his way up in the Baath socialist/fascist party by native wit and sheer ruthlessness.

Not really, no. From what I understand the hack ended up trashing a large percentage of Sony's computers, led to leaks of emails that were fodder for many news and gossip sites, and stopped the release of a movie that was already being advertised. You don't think those extraordinary events would get coverage otherwise?

I doubt it, no. Getting into an actual shooting war with North Korea wouldn't be a trivial thing. The body count would be huge if for no other reason than the inevitable crippling of the North Korean state would lead to widespread starvation among a population that is already barely making it. But before that happened the capital of South Korea would be flattened by artillery from North Korea. Nobody wants either outcome.

I'm willing to be skeptical, but this doesn't seem to be something contrary to the known behaviors of the North Koreans.

One of the 20th Century's lessons is that the West has not always been firm in confronting evil regimes such as North Korea's.

When it comes to global matters there is no shortage of people that get it wrong when the question involves the US.

Whether I do or don't, have or haven't, I'm pretty sure I can form reasonable opinions and make useful arguments.

* I can't tell you how painful it is to reference Ted Rall, slightly less so for Common Dreams.

Since 2003? Maybe you should look into what countries won oil contracts from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. That would mainly be European and Chinese companies. US companies didn't tend to be interested due to the turmoil. There was also a lot of work to do in bringing Iraq's oil fields back on-line and up to their potential due to the neglect of Saddam's era. Keeping things running was and is a challenge due to attacks by insurgents.

If you think something else was going on you probably have some unreliable "history" there.

Restroom.

Here's some more handy links about this research:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_...

Unfortunately, Latin was not one of the languages they investigated in this research, but I do find it very interesting how Latin, which is one of Spanish's parent languages, is far, far more efficient (in dI/dS terms) than Spanish is, and in fact is probably more efficient and complex than any of its derivatives.

Many people here hold a variety of opinions against me since I don't share their views. I'll take clarity over agreement if agreement means being wrong.

If you don't want to believe the FBI, that's fine. But then you don't really have an informed basis for much else to say unless you examine the evidence yourself, you designate someone else as worthy of trust, or choose to engage in speculation (and are clear that is what it is). If you are going to trust another party in this surely that party of trust isn't going to be North Korea given its track record of not simply lies, but fantastically unlikely lies?

Kim Jong Il Bowls a 300 and Other Great Moments in North Korean Sports

You're post is bullshit. Iraq's long history of aggression, violations of human rights, crimes against humanity, and many other crimes was a part of the discussion prior to the invasion. You're trying to rewrite history but it fails since not everyone has forgotten. The same regime was in power the entire time and it was only going to get worse when Saddam's sons took over.

Iraq actually did posses banned missiles and warheads at the time of the invasion. What it didn't have was the chemical agent filler for the warheads, which some something it would be able to create fairly quickly once it had bribed its way out of sanctions as it was doing. I indicated above what happened to that filler, which was also a violation of various obligations on Iraq.

yes, that is what the parent post said and was specific to use sarcasm tag for people who he knew wouldn't get it to accent the point that ignorant luddits should in principle be against every labour saving innovation that people come up with, not just the most obvious (machines, computers, robots), but everything we do. Everything we invent and innovate is a labour saving device somehow. To stop that would be to give up on the idea of humans changing environment to improve our circumstances. Luddits want to stop progress, be it computers and robots or pesticides and pallets. The parent comment was pointing it out, not complaining about it.

Well then, until you take a plane to South Korea, examine the situation yourself (how will you convince the banks to let you look?), and spend probably a couple of years developing the expertise on how the North Koreans operate to say one way or another you don't have much useful to say on the matter I would guess. Can we rely upon your silence until you have that expertise and direct access to evidence?

So ... are you a Rice Krispies fan, or what?

Solution: a pallet tax. The money from the tax will go to ... well, nevermind where the money goes. We need to tax these job-killing pallets now!

I see. So you will just assume the opposite when a US government law enforcement agencies makes a statements ... in all cases, without proof. (Because you really think you're going to get definitive proof of every statement they make?) I think you might have "jumped the shark" there. And frankly I find it amusing that you are effectively believing North Korea's denials.

As to that "WMD bullshit fiasco" .... (assuming you're talking about Iraq instead of Libya that surrendered its WMDs, or Syria which (supposedly) surrendered its WMDs) ..... can I ask a few clarifying questions?

Did Iraq invade Kuwait and Iran?
Did Iraq attack Saudi Arabia and Israel?
Did Iraq use WMDs against Iran?
Did Iraq threatened to use WMDs against Israel and other countries?
Did Iraq use WMDs to kill large numbers of Kurds?
Is Iraq filled with hundreds of mass graves due to Saddams mass murder?
After the 2003 invasion were illegal long range missiles found in Iraq?
After the 2003 invasion were illegal empty chemical warheads for long range missiles found?
Was Iraq supporting terrorism, such as the Abu Nidal organization, and Palestinian suicide bombers, and many others?
Was Iraq engaged in massive corruption in the Oil for Food program, bribing officials around the world while it diverted money to weapons and building palaces for Saddam?
Was Iraq shooting at Coalition aircraft on a more or less daily basis? (An act of war.)
Were live chemical and biological weapons found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion?
Did Saddam have the Iraqi government act as if it still had hidden chemical weapons to fool Iran since it thought the Western powers wouldn't do anything?

The answer to all of those is "Yes." There were something like 20 causes of action against Iraq, and only 1 of them wasn't found to be true. The only reason it wasn't was because after having fooled UN inspectors for years the Iraqi government secretly dumped its supply of VX nerve gas somewhere in the desert but didn't claim credit for it and still had the government continue to act as if it still had chemical weapons but was hiding them.

Does that help? Or do you still not really understand what was going on?

That works fine for people under their control, but we now live in a global information age in which the opinion of some minor person around the globe could find its way there. They should probably toughen up. Besides, if they want to sling it they need to learn to take it, and both North Korea and China have had plenty of anti-American and anti-Western propaganda over the years, including that aimed specifically at the leaders.

"L'état, c'est moi" in North Korea or China? I thought the Communists did away with royalty. Live and learn I guess.

FTFY (mostly)