Korea has quit nuclear talks and said it is going back to building some more nukes.

Iran has rebuffed American threats to stop its own nuclear programs.

Both countries are definitly not fond of America.

Your thoughts?

FUCK.

I could go on for pages, but that sums it up pretty well.

Well, all the more need for an effective "star wars" system....

boom
nukes are fun

We were developing a missile defense system, but it violated some international treaties so we stopped (to the best of my knowledge).

I would love to see the people who stopped that program after people who hate us have nukes.

Which is why I dislike most politics, because they hinder scientific advancement such as a missile defense system and stem cell research.

We were developing a missile defense system, but it got canceled bc a) it was expensive as hell and b) we didnt have the tech at the time. we may currently have the tech, but even a halfway effective one is better than nothing.

For the treaties, i believe that, since they were signed w ith a now-defunct nation that they ought to be null and void.

As far as politics, i agree, to a point. this is for another thread, but as far as stem cells go, that more morality than political.

Why would Iran (in particular) launch a missle at us? There are dozens of terrorist groups that would be more than willing to smuggle a nuke onto US soil and then blow it up. Much more untraceable than shooting a missile. Iran's government may be "bad", but they're not suicidal, and launching a missle at us would end them, as we would retaliate with our nuclear weapons (which we have a lot more than 1). If Iran would lob a missile, they'd send it to Israel, whom we probably couldn't protect with our hypothetical shield.

North Korea's actions would be completely unpredictable, I think.

true, the shield would be impotent against smuggled missiles, thats for customs (as though theyre extremely effective) but at least it would cause second thoughts to N. korea, china, russia (if they reprise to communism) etc....

In addition, Iran may have nuclear tech, but they don't have long-range ICBM tech.

They don't call rocket science "rocket science" for nothing, you know.

quite true... but the russians have a tendancy to sell tech to the highest bidder (a la china, iraq, etc)

Actually "rocket science" is supposed to be really easy, it's "rocket mechanics" or something like that that's supposed to be hard.

I think the connotation is slightly outdated but refers to the large amount of math that woould go into such a science, and the general idea that most people are not good at math.

rockets are easy, its making them go where you want them to thats the hard part...

I think North Korea is just making nukes to scare everyone, I think the situation is as long as no one fucks with them, they won't fuck with anyone else, which is why I pray dubya won't try to do anything. Let them build their nukes and stockpile them, maybe they'll blow themselves up.

not a bad idea.... course, then that would thwart the "axis of evil analogy", but hey, eliminating one asshole dictator is better than none, right? and we ALL know how trustworthy n. korea is.... try the 50's. since then weve had troops there to make sure they didnt do anything TOO expansionist, so i cant say id trust them with nukes. we cant stop them, only try to limit the weaponary they end up with (i.e. no ICBMs, just tactical stuff)