North Korean Weapons Tests

There have been recent reports of missile tests in North Korea. Most of those reports are inaccurate and it’s important to report to you what’s going on because it’s not clarified in the news.
The Norks have tested rocket-assisted artillery (tube artillery, not rocket artillery) rounds that have a significant range. They are designed to threaten South Korea, not breach the ongoing talks with the US. Best guess is that it’s a multi-barrel artillery/rocket system, designed to saturate an area well beyond that traditionally reached by artillery.
Context and Precedence: For more than 50 years Nork arms developers have tinkered with and improved long-range field artillery and multiple-round rocket launchers (MRLs). The identifications of the 170-mm Koksan gun and the 240-mm MRL were milestones 30 years ago because North Korea had finally developed artillery systems that could attack Seoul from North Korea. 
Kim Jong Un has supported continued improvements in large caliber and advanced conventional artillery. Since 2015, the Allies identified the 300-mm MRLs which have a range of 200km (120 miles). These are large caliber rockets that resemble ballistic missiles in appearance. KCNA published photos of the system in 2016.
In the past year on several occasions North Korea has tested long-range guided artillery rockets. The latest test firing apparently was one of these systems, possibly an improved version of the 300-mm MRL. The flight data indicates the new rocket can travel 35 miles farther than rockets tested earlier. Kim’s statement indicates this system will become standardized in the four army corps, based along and north of the Demilitarized Zone.

Mail Bag

A Ghandi Moment:

Kle – Well, you can’t blame the guy for wanting out of South Bend, and he’s a politician so he sure isn’t interested in a job that involves work.
It’s a good thing he has no chance in hell of winning; just think how disappointed he’d be once he got to D.C and found out it’s an even worse dump than where he is now.

The Butt Guy might have to move from Indiana if he wants to win a statewide office, and the little fella is clearly ambitious. I’m with you 1000%. Most politicians don’t want to do any work. But they can hire lackies. The gofers have the benefit of being fall guys when things go sideways. Sometimes (think of Scooter Libby in the Bush White House – G. Gordon Liddy in the Nixon White House) they end up taking one for the team and going to prison instead of their master.

As an aside and for the historical record, I had a boss once who tried to throw me under the bus like that. As you’d expect, I had an ‘insurance policy’… so I didn’t get to see the underside of a burning bus. Life can be a wicked game.

Fredd – your characterization of The Butt Guy as a montebank is spot on. But every Dem candidate with the exception of two of them (Delaney and Tulsi) are montebanks, rapscallions, ne-er-do-wells, miscreants, scumbags, whack jobs, moon bats, and I could go on but I won’t.

None of them (again, with two exceptions) live up to Ghandi’s standards. Of course, quite a few Republicans have a lot of explaining to do to Mahatma as well.Reply
Tulsi has a bigger set than any of the other fools on stage. Delaney has his head and heart in the right place – as far as a Democrat can – but he’s not ready to be commander-in-chief and leader of the free world. 
Marianne Williams (new age witch) comes across as credible when compared to the likes of DiBlasio and Beto, which is quite something. 
LSP – Do you remember how Beto was going to sweep to power? 

He still has $80 million in his Texas war chest and mama still has $500 million in her purse. He’ll keep hanging around like an old sock with holes in it that just never quite gets thrown into the trash. He can buy friends in Texas. And what can he do with his time if he decides to opt out of politics? Yes, he could be a sideshow attraction in a circus, or possibly an evangelist with his own traveling tent, but both of those involve a modicum of work (see Fredd above). Maybe a job commentating at CNN?

Who is this Marianne Williams? Some run of the mill suburban witch?

She’s a friend of Oprah, who launched her writing career by spotlighting her new age witchcraft philosophy. Based on what I’ve read, she has a larger following than the Butt Guy, Beto or DiBlasio. She may be the most likable of the Democrats on the stage, which isn’t saying much. Most of the Dems would need to tie a pork chop around their neck to make their dog lick them.

Mid-Week Considerations:

John – Be careful burning the pine. Around here they don’t even sell it. I’ve been told it The high sap content of pine wood makes it dangerous. When the sap is burned, it creates tarry smoke that can coat the inside of a fireplace, causing a possible fire hazard. The buildup of deposits left on your chimney is called creosote and it is deposited through wood smoke.

You’re 100% correct. As Kle remarked, I do burn cedar and oak. I have a little pine from trees that I need(ed) to chop down on the property and will blend that in with the hotter burning cedar/oak.  Last winter, I may have had a fire in the fireplace 15 days. It wasn’t a daily event, but I didn’t have much wood to burn. At my place, it augments propane. This winter I’ll be better prepared…I hope. Last winter was a monster.

DRJIM – I’m thinking that the ROE under President Trump will be much more realistic than they would have been under HRH Mao Bama, or (shudder..) Hillary.

I suspect that President Trump is more of a challenge than the Supreme Leader faced in the past. Barack rolled on his back and pissed on his belly. Hillary – well, we agree on that. I’ve often said that a Hillary presidency would have ended up leading to revolution and nobody wants that.

The 2016 voting map by county is very instructive of where the nation is with all this. And I think that President Trump will win by a larger margin in 2020. What happens after the Trump Years is concerning. But until that day, the Imams need to mind their P’s and Q’s.

Ed – You discuss wood and show that picture….

It’s summer. Protect what matters from the blazing sun.

Jim – Iran may be getting results they weren’t bargaining for. Trump isn’t Obama. It appears the Brits are getting serious as well. 
A new book? I’ll have to keep an eye out for that.

To do it right, you need to write every day and that discipline eludes me at the moment, but I’m chopping it out as best I can. I write, then I self edit and remove a significant portion of what I wrote, then I write. Whether it turns into a book that you all can tolerate reading is another thing. Some of characters from White Powder, older now, make cameos (Walter Kennedy for one). Though the plot is completely different and the book is set primarily in the present day.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

5 COMMENTS

  2. I live near Tahoe and heat my home with wood primarily. Since the majority of local Sierra wood is pine, either ponderosa or lodgepole, that is what I burn. I do buy some hardwood from the Kali Central valley but it costs twice as much so I seldom get more than a cord at a time….and save it for the coldest times of the winter. Burning pine is not a problem….IF you are religious about cleaning your chimney. Something I do EVERY year and in colder years twice a year.

  4. That county by county election map is fun, but it's dangerous because it's too simplistic. I think the "prism" map is more useful and realistic.
    blueshift.io/election-2016-county-map.html

    Discussion here:
    metrocosm.com/election-2016-map-3d/

  5. Those playful Norks. Someone said Korea was the land that God forgot. I don't if that's true but the Detroit's up there and the dems chose it.

Comments are closed.