Thursday, April 02, 2009

Friends and Family are Free of course....

OK...I admit it. I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that North Korean expects to launch a missile launch tomorrow, a missile carrying a "communications satellite."

It really doesn't make much sense that they are doing that, especially when you view the country from space at night. During the night North Korea is completely dark, while its neighbor South Korea is all lit up. That's because of North Korea's low technology. Low as in candles and lanterns are still in use at night.

But such a romantic form of lighting couldn't possibly the choice of people ALL the time, right?

Which is why I thought this quote was so interesting:

For a country that can barely light a city up with antique light bulbs, why do they need satellites? Does anyone think this is a legitimate attempt at taking North Korea into the communications age or 21st century that the rest of the world enjoys? Has Verizon, ATT or Sprint suddenly enjoyed tremendous cell phone sales in that country? Given it is a totalitarian regime, is it really likely Pyongyang is creating a capacity for people within the country to communicate with the outside world?

View entire article here.

So...regardless of this improbably scenario, our President is nevertheless promising not to shoot down this "satellite" missile. This while he is chatting up everyone over in the UK.

Iran shot a similar missile off last month, and actually did perform an electromagnetic pulse test run. North Korea is also interested in this form of warfare.

And Russia? The Russians have made certain some of their military aircraft were designed to withstand the electrodisruption associated with Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP.) They reverted to using older technology to backstop the high tech equipment which is more vulnerable to EMP. Russia is being most helpful in making a lot of the technology available at a substantial price. It is one way to subsidize a flagging economy.

Shoot. I should have been more prepared for this, and made sure I had a couple of people in North Korea added to my "friends and family" are free cell phone plan. It would be so great to at last really have someone to talk with over there.

Maybe they could tell us what is really going on.

And maybe suggest a great place to get Korean bar-be-que to eat by candle light in the future if things don't go as innocently as we hope.

2 comments:

Sayra Adams said...

Ummm that said missile is said to have power to reach "Hawaii or the western United States" Um I live in Northern Idaho.
I have to harden my mind to not go nuts from all the dangers in the world. Seems the government is willing to talk about our exit strategy & actual exit path from Iraq...but won't a shoot down a missle, erm I mean satellite. I think we'd shoot it down. I can only hope.

Alma said...

Jill, thanks for this post. I'm so glad that you take this seriously and care. I live in Can., but we North Americans are so used to feeling like we're always safe. We could be in for some big surprises, but I'm glad that God is in control and knows what all will happen. We can trust Him to take care of us.