Expat in Korea
Expat in Korea's JournalPlateaus are the...
...highest form of flattery.
Cannibals seem nice at first, but they're just buttering you up.
Sorry. I'll just get my coat...
Difference(s) between Skepticism and Denialism
I showed this to a friend and he liked it so much that I thought I'd run it up the flagpole here.
An important distinction between intellectually honest skepticism with regards to scientific claims vs sheer denialism: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2010/05/skepticism-vs-denialism/
"Scepticism is integral to the scientific process, because most claims turn out to be false. Weeding out the few kernels of wheat from the large pile of chaff requires extensive observation, careful experimentation and cautious inference. Science is scepticism and good scientists are sceptical.
Denial is different. It is the automatic gainsaying of a claim regardless of the evidence for it – sometimes even in the teeth of evidence. Denialism is typically driven by ideology or religious belief, where the commitment to the belief takes precedence over the evidence. Belief comes first, reasons for belief follow, and those reasons are winnowed to ensure that the belief survives intact..."
Thoughts welcomed.
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[/IMG][/URL]Quadrantid Meteor, January 2014, S. Korea.
The location is an ancient city wall/fortress on the outskirts of the town where I live, not so different from the Great Wall of China, except smaller scale.
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[/IMG][/URL]Lunar Eclipse in Korea (South, the good one).
Oct. 8. I would've posted them sooner, but I'm new here and just found this group. 90mm telescope and D800E. Each image is 9 stacked exposures. Some people stack dozens or even hundreds, but meh.
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N.Korea Can Build Nuclear Warhead, USFK Chief Claims
Maybe more indirectly related to US domestic security, but a military issue, at least. What's going to happen when/if we become certain that the DPRK has fitted nukes on ICBM's? Then what?
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/10/27/2014102700983.html
N.Korea Can Build Nuclear Warhead, USFK Chief Claims
The commander of the U.S. Forces Korea on Friday claimed North Korea is capable of building a nuclear warhead but admitted that no tests of such a device have taken place.
"I believe they have the capability to miniaturize a device at this point and they have the technology to potentially deliver what they say they have," Gen. Curtis Scarparotti told reporters at the Pentagon.
"We've not seen it tested, and I don't think as a commander we can afford the luxury of believing perhaps they haven't gotten there," he added. "What I'm saying is ... that I think given their technological capabilities, the time that they've been working on this, that they probably have the capabilities to put this together."
Seoul phrased it more carefully. The North's ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons sufficiently to mount them on a missile "seems to have become almost real," a Defense Ministry official here said Sunday.
But until September, the ministry said that the chances were slim that the North has succeeded in making nuclear weapons weighing less than 1 ton.
It is unclear why Scarparotti decided to ramp up the rhetoric, though he may have had in mind his government's attempts to push South Korea into joining the U.S. missile defense program.
Experts here were unconvinced, though some said the general's guess was "reasonable."
◆ Conflicting Claims
Right after the North's third nuclear test in February last year, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency reported to Congress "with moderate confidence" that the North has nuclear weapons that can be delivered by ballistic missiles. "A nuclear weapon that can be delivered by a ballistic missile" means a nuclear weapon weighing less than 1 ton.
If the North has succeeded in reducing the weight of nuclear warhead to less than 1 ton, the most threatening weapons would be Scud and Rodong missiles. The Scud has a range of 300-800 km capable of hitting any target in the Korean Peninsula.
The Rodong has a range of 1,300 km which would allow it to hit Japan. It can only carry warhead weighing about 700 kg, but a shorter range could increase the payload.
"The Korean Peninsula is exposed to clear and present danger if the North succeeds in miniaturizing nuclear warhead to less than 1 ton," a member of a state-funded think tank here said.
◆ U.S. Pressure on Seoul?
But diplomatic sources in Seoul said Scarparotti was exaggerating.
"Seoul and Washington generally share the view that it's still too early for the North to have succeeded in miniaturizing its nuclear warhead," a government source said on condition of anonymity. "It seems that at every opportunity, U.S. regional commanders have talked about this," probably to pressure South Korea to join the U.S. missile defense shield.
A former senior foreign and security official speculated, "Seoul may be looking for justification for the recent agreement to postpone the handover" of full control of South Korean troops.
englishnews@chosun.com / Oct. 27, 2014 10:05 KST
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