The Six Party Talks on the North Korean nuclear program seemed to come to a positive conclusion the other day, but DPRK official statements afterwards suggest that it might not be the end of this. The clear winner of the talks is North Korea, getting basically what it asked for in the beginning, which was a security guarantee. They're backpedaling on the joint statement now because of some disagreement on the timetable. They want viable alternative energy sources in the form of lightwater reactors before the nuclear program is dismantled. Seems to make sense on a practical level, I guess. I hope a more comprehensive agreement is reached, because it's clear that the instability of the peninsula has had unfavorable consequences on South Korea. Moody's Investor Services is currently considering raising the ROK's rating outlook from stable to positive, and will decide depending upon whether or not the DPRK honors its pledge to end it's nuclear program.US Military deaths reached 1,900 on Tuesday, which just ensures that, at least for the near future, complaining TOO strongly against the validity of going to war in Iraq is off limits to mainstream politicians.
huh.... what's going on in Germany right now? I forget to read up on the elections. Have they settled that yet?
Yankees won today. The Sox won. Cleveland lost. Right now the Yanks are a half game down against both them. I think the Yanks play the Sox for the last three games of the season... wow, that's just going to be wild.
Another huge storm in Florida and the Gulf Coast. Is it a direct result of global warming? Probably not. But global warming does exist. But that's not either here or there. I remember the days after Katrina, I was listening to the radio- 770 AM (WCBS?) I believe- and there was some scientist talking about a machine or project called HARP. Now, this tool doesn't give states the capability (at least not yet) to create hurricanes or storms out of nothing, but they do allow states to direct the path of natural disasters such as those. He was convinced the path of Katrina was manipulated. The suspects, according to him? Russia and China. Russia was an obvious suspect because their capabilities with HARP technology are decades ahead of the US's. His guess was China, thinking that the Chinese wanted the US to fall further behind on their debt - a large chunk of this is held by China. His theory was the China wanted to make the US's debt to them so large, that the US would eventually agree to allow China to absorb Taiwan without interference for a even swap. Now, I obviously think he's wrong about China being the mastermind behind the devestation of Katrina, but his prophecy on Chinese manipulation of US debt is probably not too unbelievable. I guess we'll see.
