We're not on a 17 day vacation, not us. We have meetings and calls! Now where did that golf ball go?...Trump cont.

[MicrowaveSpy]

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Pain

Oh, Pain, that's terrible! I can only imagine how very torn I'd feel in your position. & for you!

Read on a Portuguese newspaper:

China to be neutral if NK attacks the US.
But it will retaliate if the US and SK strike first. I hope it's meant to dissuade Trump from launching a pre-emptive strike.

We don't know what else is going on, Lweji. Maybe there have been phone calls etc?

The Trumps and the Kims are both nuclear families, in the Chernobyl sense of the term.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/11/donald-trump-kim-jong-un-nuclear-family

The China stance was published as an editorial in Global Times, an English language state newspaper.

DH is adamant it's still only willy waving

A lot of people are losing their confidence in this very position. And I mean very smart people!

I work in lower-to-middle management for one of these ominous global corporations turning around tens of billions a year (yeah, I know, but the work's fun and my colleagues are ace). There's a tangible feeling of unease among the people who matter. You can tell by the fact that e-mails are starting to come from our bosses, referencing global risk assessment in vague terms and without going into specifics, which we then make a tad vaguer yet and send to our own staff. You can tell by the fact that certain important people book the isolated meeting rooms at the far end of the corridor. You can tell because the jokes being made invariably turn to end of the world scenarios and because people who are usually social smokers cluster outside puffing away between meetings.

That's not to say we're all expecting the nuclear apocalypse shortly, but we're worried about our assets. And the reason we're worried is because we don't trust the stability of the system.

The whole vibe of things reminds me of 2008 when I was working at the head office of an international hotel chain. The tension was tangible just before things really went tits up. This feels alarmingly similar.

Is it unethical to have dreamy fantasies of lone wolves on a grassy knoll?

Lweji, x-post. Strange times indeed when the Chinese are arguably the stabilising force in geopolitics! Very smart position to take, actually. I hope the Orange Menace heeds the warning it includes!

Pain, Oh I'm so sorry! I don't know what I'd do if DH came out with that. Try to take a deep breath and back away for a moment. Was it the heat of the moment? Maybe he'll have second thoughts once he's calmed down.

How could he have hid his pro-Trump feelings up til now? I'm not being snotty here, but do you think he's having some sort of MH issue or crisis?

On other fronts: As far as Donnie and nukes, I looked it up. The Sec of Def has to be confirmed by the Senate. So although Scrotus could fire Mattis for refusing a direct order to approve the nukes, any appointee to replace him would have to first be confirmed. I'm not seeing any exceptions to the Senate confirmation rule. So there is a bit of a 'fail-safe'.

But the 'issue' isn't Scrotus wanting to push the button, I truly believe he's all 'willy-wiggle and no balls'. The real danger is that Scrotus will push KJU too far. You don't tease a rabid dog. You just don't. And that's what Scrotus doesn't 'get'. He's used to being able to bully, bluster, and threaten. After all, what the worst that can happen when you're doing that within your own 'business empire'? He simply doesn't realize that you can't play that as the leader of a nation.

Locked and loaded, indeed. I wish I was locked and loaded. (Not really Secret Service if you're listening)

If I were Kim I would be reigning it in a bit!

Another prescient old tweet -

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Polls are starting to look really bad for Obama. Looks like he'll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don't put it past him!
3:30 pm · 17 Oct 2012

I do wonder what conversations are being had in North Korea.

Meanwhile, on the Guardian's comment section, someone has found the perfect way of phrasing a very good piece of political analysis in situation appropriate terms ...

Jonathan Freedland is not optimistic.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/11/trump-nuclear-threat-deep-state-fantasy-north-korea?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

De lurk to post that Freedland is good on Channel 4 news right now.

I think this whole situation should concentrate the minds of some in the US.

More and more of the GOP will start to think it's time to switch to pence. Who may be a dick but will likely confine it to within his own borders.

I wonder what Putin is saying publically?

See, I figure he's strategizing thusly; Scrotus sees how popular Obama was (and still is). Scrotus then reads the tweets he made in the past criticizing Obama (i.e. "Looks like he'll have to start a war etc') and he sees that Obama stayed popular. So he figures he'll just do what he accused Obama of doing (because his accusations are 'alternative facts' which equal 'truth'), ergo he must start a war. Then he'll be popular like Obama.

Makes sense to me no one but a maniac.

He's used to yelling at people and/or firing them.

Sorry. Should have added:

And now he has someone with whom that approach doesn't work.

Delurking to say thank you for posting the link to the JF guardian article NorthWest. I asked him the question whether he thought someone was in place (e.g. Kelly) to stop the button being pressed, when he was on the MN web chat, but he sidestepped the question. Now we have his answer, and it's not encouraging

Last time he bombed something his ratings went up.
And 9/11 allowed Bush to stay on to a 2nd term.

Of course the difference is that 9/11 really was an attack and Bush did behave presidentially even if his later Iraq invasion wasn't really warranted.

I'm not particularly worried, but let's just say that my degree of confidence that all will be well is more or less similar to the confidence I had Hillary was going to win. I was worried about flukes then and I am worried about flukes now.

Don't Google 'nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents' then, Lweji. For your peace of mind.

Oh, I live on the margin of a river, downstream of an old, apparently not very stable, nuclear station. We are at the mercy of the bloody Spanish (nothing personal).

OTOH, for the whole of next week, my main worry, hopefully, will be UV radiation only.