Bizarre Trip of a Lifetime ('extreme' American travlers go to N. Korea)

LA Times ^ | November 11, 2005 | By Bruce Wallace, Times Staff Writer

[Simmy2.5]

PYONGYANG, North Korea — Monty Anderson got word that the trip was on two weeks after rushing home to California from Ukraine for emergency open-heart surgery. He didn't ask his doctor if it was OK to take another trip so soon. He told him he was going.

Eighty-year-old Joan Youmans heard about it when she picked up her phone messages after a trip to Indonesia. She canceled a few doctors' appointments and booked immediately.

When Joe Walker learned the trip was a go, he said he "just gave them my credit card number and told them to fill in the amount." Cost him seven grand, he figures.

Such is the allure of North Korea to the "extreme traveler."

Opportunities for American tourists to visit the secretive state that makes no secret of its loathing for the U.S. are mighty tough to come by. A North Korean visa for an American is like round-the-clock electricity here in the North Korean capital: not impossible, but rare enough to be appreciated when it unexpectedly arrives.

[Lauretij2]

http://www.simonbone.com/myohyang.html

that guy's stories are nice as well. Interesting stuff. I'd kinda like to visit it, just to see how freaky it really is.

[proud American in Canada]

They're crazy, rooskie.

Exactly.

Desperation + nuclear weapons = not good.

[Cboldt]

-bump-
to an outstanding find and post

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #10 Thanks for your Korean-style ping! :)

[SaltyJoe]

The depraved morals of one man makes him a threat to surrounding people. He lacks compunction to stop his own restless desires and seeks to dominate the will of those around him. It's a criminal intelligence that drives his motives to satiate his ever-changing lusts and greed.

When a society falls victim to such a state, their entire populace "lives" (if you can call it living) to serve the whims of one untamed radical. Russians suffered under just such a fate because of two neurotic tyrants. One was external (Adolf Hitler), and the other internal (Stalin). Nations and ideologs were tragically under the spell of these wicked men and such characters were indeed a threat to the entire world. Though hardly the scale of Nazi German or Stalinist Soviet Union, modern weaponry makes the North Korean Regime a determined enemy of the global community. If the DPRK isn't pushing illegal weapons, they're smuggling drugs, or pimping some other petty crime for quick cash and strategic advantage.

[A Russian]

> They're crazy, rooskie.
I know that, pindos, they are crazy and hungry.
It's not an easy thing to make a nuclear bomb, especially if you haven't got food. Or were the Rosenbergs gassed for nothing? :)

And again a MDW scare.

(Sigh)

[A Russian]

Sorry, electrocuted. :)

[Darksheare]

So you're saying that terrorists attack people in the name of All-ha because they're hungry?

Now that is just intellectually dishonest.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1520691/posts
"Contrary to ongoing reports by mainstream media outlets, WMDs have been found in Iraq, so reports New York Times best-selling author Richard Miniter in his new book, Disinformation.

Consider these shocking facts:

• Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium

• Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons

• Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas

• Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs

• Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin "



”In March, 2003, when U.S. tanks rolled into Iraq, 500 tons of yellow cake uranium was found at the Iraqi nuclear research center of al-Tuwaitha. This included 1.8 tons of partly enriched uranium. On June 23, 2004, the U.S. military, working with the U.S. Department of Energy removed this material to the US where is held at an unnamed Department of Energy facility."
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?a8dda1f1-9129-4329-a588-b566a2882f8a

500 tons of uranium in Iraqq, got that?

[A Russian]

> So you're saying that terrorists attack people in the
> name of All-ha because they're hungry?
I am not. I am saying that North Korea lacks the resources needed to make a nuclear bomb.
As to other illegal activities like petty crime -- nobody, even the USA, is innocent. E.g., the close relationship between CIA and drugdealers is not a secret.

Concerning the list of materials you posted: I will google later. Perhaps there is another version of this story.

[A Russian]

> • Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
> ...
> 500 tons of yellow cake uranium
In fact, 500 metric tonnes of UNenriched uranium and 1.8 tonnes of purified (that is, NOT enriched) uranium dioxide AKA yellowcake.
Unenriched uranium is used to make armour and armour-piercers.
On what yellowcake is, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake. Nothing rare or suitable for a nuclear bomb.

> was found
It wasn't found because it wasn't hidden. In fact, the uranium was feared stolen after American invasion and resulting looting, but later found (most of it).
It was lying there since 1992, sealed by IAEA.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3009082.stm.

So much for now. I'll search for other fakes later.
Although "Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas" and "1,000 radioactive materials" already sound stupid.

[Darksheare]

LOL, you think it was faked?
You are an idiot.

[Darksheare]

"In fact, the uranium was feared stolen after American invasion and resulting looting, but later found (most of it).
It was lying there since 1992, sealed by IAEA"

Oh, but Hans Blix stated that there wasn't any in Iraq at all.
Now which is it?

[Darksheare]

Yes, you did say that terrorists attack people because they're hungry.
"It's not an easy thing to make a nuclear bomb, especially if you haven't got food." -post 26

You are a liar.

[Darksheare]

"Although "Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas".."

And you would be an idiot.
Been waiting for you to troll your way back here.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1159525/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1144627/posts

" The "mainstream" media has been tiptoeing around the discovery of a 155-mm mortar shell containing Sarin gas in Iraq, the contents of which have been confirmed. The shell was used as part of an improvised explosive device (IED) on a road near the Baghdad International Airport, and exploded as it was being disarmed.

The shell contained three liters of Sarin -- nearly a gallon. It was a type of shell designed to mix chemical components during flight, which was why the explosion didn't kill anyone (though two soldiers were treated for exposure). Three liters of Sarin is enough, if the components are mixed properly, to realistically kill hundreds, and potentially thousands. A concentration of 100 milligrams of Sarin per cubic meter of air is enough to constitute a lethal dose for half the people breathing it within one minute."

Get lost troll, don't come back.

[Dashing Dasher]

I see that Dark has a new friend.

Play nice, my dear amusing friend. Call me for the clean-up....


;-)

[Sam's Army]

bookmark

[toddlintown]

From post #26..."I know that, pindos"

"pindos" looks suspiciously similar to a Lithuanian word.

The word? My wife has one and I don't. Sounds like an insult to me.

[A Russian]

'Pindos' is a slang term for American, just as 'Rusky' for Russian; insulting to the same degree. It ultimately origins from the name of mountain system in Greece.

[A Russian]

OK, orc, I'm back.

Well, if there was a roadside bomb filled with poisonous gas, it was stupid of the guerrillas to plant it. They could have killed several soldiers with good old explosive. But they preferred to make three of them sick. Inefficient.
Well, it was Iraqis' stupidity, not the journalist's.
I don't understand, though, what it has got to do with Saddam. The gas was obviously smuggled into the country or made there after the Americans overthrew Hussein and turned Iraq into a lair of terrorists.

'1,000 radioactive materials' (sorts? tons?) still remains a meaningless stupidity.