yawn

The biggest story I have been seeing in the papers and on TV in the news is the fact that North Korea may be getting ready to test fire a long range missle, one that could theoretically hit the United States.

yawn

Does anybody on the face of the earth remember what we faced in the seventies and eighties - the period I was growing up?

When Reagan, Thatcher and Capitalism were doing their thing in concert to defeat the Soviet menace, the term that was bandied about was "throw weight", or the amount of nuclear capability each side had. The parties involved would simply total up their nuclear warheads and say to each other, well, we have x, you have y, looks like we are in the lead. Of course, when Reagan came in and accelerated our arms programs, the Russians had no chance to keep up. Their crumbling infrastructure, economy and environment simply could not handle our growing "throw weight". That, in short, is how we won the biggest ideological war ever fought - without firing a single shot.

Remember, the Soviets had thousands of ICBM's, bombers, subs - you name it.

And North Korea has...drum roll please...perhaps one missle that may or may not work well enough to hit the continental US. And, of course, if that one missle were to penetrate US airspace, who is to say they can control it well enough to hit a population center, or that it will make it over all of our ships in the Pacific and our missle defence screen over the contintntal US.

I am supposed to be worried about that after what I went through as a child?

yawn

Read this paper from 1982 and you will see what I am talking about. Now that is something that you could worry about.

True, the dictator of N. Korea is a total wackjob - but are you going to tell me that all of the leaders of Russia were not? Sorry. The Russians today, with far greater resources than the North Koreans can't even shoot off a missle properly.

The Soviets openly talked about ways they could win a nuclear war - and so did the US back in the day. These discussions seeped out onto the radio and TV at times. I still remember hearing about things like that when I was young. And it scared the shit out of me.

Todays media fixation on North Korea with that one probably rusted out piece of junk missle is just another example of why I rarely turn on the radio or TV news anymore. Why the hell should I when this is their top story?

Secretly I hope the test fired missle lands in Japan and then the Japanese can take out the North Koreans. Like they always have wanted to do anyway, since everybody over there hates everybody else.

I can't wait for hurricane season to start. Then I REALLY know not to turn on the TV.