The misguided rationality of Kim Jong Il

Shinzo Abe says Kim Jong Il is a "rational" man. Ok, let's analyze two of his major positions, one of which he has recently considered changing:

1. keep his country poor as shit by following a defunct economic plan
2. pursue nuclear weapons

Ok, as for the first one, a command economy obviously doesn't work. Now, that's not to say it's bastardized opposite, neolibtardation (World Bank, IMF, and the Chicago School) works either. I'm not going to get into the development economics here, but in general, protected capitalism with incremental openings and free-trade agreements mixed with MORE money devoted to education than to pensions works (see Asian tigers, esp South Korea) and the headupass (NK, Cuba) and IDBwhore (HIPC) approaches do not work.

But let's focus more on the second one. Consider countries that have nuclear weapons and countries that don't have them:

That's a graph I made recently when I was writing a paper about the escalation into militarized conflict. I used logit to analyze 95 cases where a challenger state threatened a defender state with invasion. The Y-axis shows the probability that war starts and the X-axis shows the ratio of the challenger's military capabilities to the total military power of the two states. So like if it is .5 they are evenly balanced and if it is 1 then the challenger has all the power and the defender has nothing. The blue line shows what happens when the defender state does not have nuclear weapons--the likelihood of dispute escalation rises in proportion to the challenger's relative military strength. If the challenger is much tougher and the defender doesn't have nukes, the challenger will invade. The purple line shows what happens if the defender has nukes. Basically, if you have nukes nothing else matters--YOU WILL NOT GET INVADED.

So yeah, this data has been around for years. I assure you that all of the mad scientist dictators bent on world domination have seen regression results just like this. Pursuing nuclear weapons works. (Ok, it's September 12th, who should we invade? Afghanistan or Pakistan?)

Kim Jong Il recently told the US, China, Japan and South Korea that he was going to lay off the nukes in exchange for some money. His economy is so fucking retarded that he's broke and he can't sustain a dictatorship for much longer, so he's going to sell out the nuke program for some quick cash. Now THAT is irrational.

Even though I hate hippies, I do agree with them that nuclear proliferation is prolly a bad thing for the world. But I'm not talking about what is good or bad, I'm talking about what's rational. If Kim Jong Il had half a brain he'd stick with the nukes and start making the compromises on the economy! Then he could get some cash, continue to pay for the nuke program and the soulless dictatorship of evil, and guarantee that no one fucks with him or his country ever again.

So if you're the leader of a country and whenever you go to the United Nations you get a sneaking suspicion that everyone is talking shit, ask yourself, Do the popular kids think I'm a weasel-fucker? (you know who you are) Now, to be honest only 3 of those pariah states have any chance in hell of getting together the cashmoney to buy or develop some nukes, and only 2 of them ever would. So really, Sudan and Somalia, sorry no one cares about you until you can produce some decent terrorists. Cuba, we all know what's going to happen to you on prom night...and yes, by wearing all that spandex you ARE asking for it.

As for the 3 real contenders, you've got Iran, NK and Venezuela... Yes, Venezuela actually could get their act together and hunt down some nukes, but I GUARANTEE you that they will never do it. (I will save my "Venezuela is NOT a threat and Latin America is NOT turning left" speech for another post) Ok, so Iran and NK you're our only real players. So AhmadRashad and Lil' Kim, I'm sure you already got this memo, but if you were rational you would:

1. invest in education and make some trade alliances to build up your economic base and
2. hit the turbo jets on your nukes programs before the COW fucks you up.

Daschle/Obama: the new Cheney/Bush dyad of evil?

In case any crazy people come here...I just wanted to make clear that everything below was meant as a joke to make fun of wingnuts.

From: Bees!
To: Median Hater
Sent: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 6:59 PM
Subject: you saw this?

"Three years ago, it took a nasty, industrial-strength assault by Karl Rove & Co. to oust Democratic leader Tom Daschle from his Senate seat. But if Republicans thought they had seen the last of the resilient South Dakotan, they were wrong. He's back, this time behind the scenes, as a sort of secret sauce in the surging presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama," writes MSNBC.

"Daschle spent 30 years on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide, House member, senator and ultimately Democratic Senate leader. Now he is providing newcomer Obama with valuable endorsements, staff, fundraising lists and brotherly advice." In addition, Daschle "has carefully maintained his mailing list of 85,000 donors, and he is renting it to only one candidate -- Obama."
Source

From: Median Hater
To: Bees!
Sent: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:47:37
Subject: Re: you saw this?

VP?

From: Bees!
To: Median Hater
Sent: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 2:27 AM
Subject: Re: Re: you saw this?

You are crafty. That's a very interesting idea... have the guy with the long standing connections to the senate be your man in the senate. And spotless record, though not a vote winner himself. But does that last bit keep him off the ticket? Usually you put someone there to advance the package and win you votes in a place where you might be missing a few. With dems that has recently been the south. Does daschle do that? And will the VP choice be more important for what could be America's first black president? All interesting. I'm at the border to china and the line is long. It sucks. China!

From: Median Hater
To: Bees!
Sent: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 4:20 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Re: you saw this?

Well this time dems have an interesting game in the south if they nominate Obama. First of all, they sweep all black people everywhere except for Carlton Banks and that op-ed black guy who writes for I forget. Even if some black people are hemming and hawing right now about Obama they'll certainly come around in time for elections. And even though lots of black people (like Sharpton and Jackson and T. Morrison) have been pretending the Clintons were the new black for the past 10 years, they're ALL going to drop that shite immediately and get in line if Obama gets the nod. Cuz guess what, you don't make a career out of talking about black people stuff and then NOT portraying a realistic black pres candidate as something that you single-handedly created. So I'm thinking that if he gets the nod we'll see black turnout like ne'r b'fore, which is really fun and will fuck with all of our polit participation theories that frame it all on socio-econ status.

Ok, so what are Obama's weaknesses vis-a-vis dem swing voters and unmobilized voters? Well A) he's toeing the line of being batshit insane (drug use + interracial parents (not to mention real AFRICAN blood that hasn't been watered down by slave owners) + Muslim schooling = SCARY AS SHIT for flyover Americans); B) he might not actually know anything about US federal politics (which doesn't matter to people like me cuz I think all politicians are retards, but does matter to those pesky reliable-type voters who turn out for every single god damn election even though their motorized scooters are slower than GWB at the algonquin round table); C) He's possibly an intellectual (though I'm hoping his power-hungriness trumps his intellectualness...or else he'll become some Gore/PDiddy hybrid object of obscurity); D) He's possibly a terrorist (it says so on his birth certificate).

So yes. Dash answers those four weaknesses and I have no idea about this, but he might be someone who polls high on public opinion surveys that ask southern white folks, "ok, if you were ever going to pull your head out of your ass for a split second and actually vote on something other than gaybortion, who or what qualities might you vote for?" Also, since election time makes fun time for photo montages and weepy-ass stories, Dash's ouster might make for some good journalistic fodder that reminds people that they were living in Crazytown, World for the past 8 years when a guy like Dash gets booted out of the Senate and other fucks get free rides. Plus, Obama is running the riskiest campaign since someone decided the term "Whig" had sex appeal, so it's good if he and Dash get their stories straight way ahead of time. AND, Dash was the one who got the anthrax in 2001 so obviously he's not a terrorist, unless of course he has been planning this whole brilliant scheme to take over the world since long before then.

Actually... Ok, so work with me here... Dash wants to take over the world so he goes undercover for years as an uncontroversial Congressional golden retriever. So THEN during the 90s he contacts both Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein (who are obvs best friends all along). So Dash is like yo, I want to take over the world. So Laden and Saddam finally contact their long-lost lovechild Barack who was just biding time in the slums of Chicago disguised as a black man, waiting for them to find a willing white man to legitimate his climb to the top of US politics. Lad 'n Sad know they can't implant Barack using the Repub party cuz that would be too unbelievable. So they wait. Dash keeps fetching bones, Barack recruits "voters" in Chicago, Laden blows up the Cole for fun, and Hussein starts planning 9-11. They want an assured Obama/Daschle Dem entry into a strengthened executive, so they need to follow on the heels of an administration that will at first only appear to be run by Lennie petting the mouse. Slowly however, it becomes clear that the actual puppeteers are not petting that mouse--they are actually raping and biting the heads off of mice everywhere. In order to find the dreamteam that can seamlessly pull off such a village idiot-to-village mass murderer transition, they call up the House of Saud to cash in some old IOUs. House of Saud works their magic and sets up Bush/Cheney for the millenial election.

Meanwhile, Dash, Bama, Sama and Sein sit back and wait for Bill Clinton to have sex with enough women around the country that the public demands a "family values" retard candidate. Also they mobilize the gays and aborters to unsheathe themselves and appear on primetime, and they readily comply because they hate America. As soon as Bush/Cheney is installed in the White House L'nH do 9-11, and Dash has to send himself anthrax so that he'll never be implicated. In fact, he will look like the politician who is LEAST complicit with terrorism which will help him to soothe fears when he's on the ballot beneathe a candidate who is oh-so terrifying. Barack goes ahead and *doesn't* vote for the war, even though no one asked him anyway.

So all this time Cheney actually has been fighting for the forces of good and he almost succeeded in stopping the plan by getting Dash kicked out of politics. But Cheney didn't see cutey-pie Barack coming...! So yeah, Obama's main strength is that people like me would easily give him our social security numbers and drink his kool-aid... a talent which will more than make up for Dash's triscuit-like sensibility.

Ok, so it's either the first stuff I said or the world dom thing. Either way, I'm voting for Barack. If the Muslims take over and you surrender can you get me on the dontkill list? I'll do the same for you if the Mexicans take over.

From: Bees!
To: Median Hater
Sent: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 4:29 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: you saw this?

Stanley Crouch, he writes for the NY Post

Chainsaw Does It In The Dark In The Park

Wonkette: We’ll take any opportunity to use this TIME photo again, which shows Cheney and his lesser henchmen at the funeral of Don Corleone. Today’s excuse: TIME’s got a big cover feature blockbuster story about how Cheney runs the White House and is an out-of-control hater who kills by night. That was true in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, too — but the news hook is the Libby verdict. TIME calls it “the Cheney verdict,” which is a cute sort of fantasy. Anyway, guess what? Cheney’s Plame/Wilson/Uranium/Iraq War scheme was an “operation inside the White House that has done more harm than good.” You don’t say!

T-Spizzy: Definitely appears that Cheney is taking a whizz with his entourage looking on.

Pelagius: @T-Spizzy: Not just looking on: The guy in the grey suit has to massage Cheney's prostate to help get the flow going.