North Korea launches ballistic missile across northern Japan, falls into sea

[Anomalocaris]

But hopefully I could make it painless before it happened

But you might botch it..

[LastPoet]

But hopefully I could make it painless before it happened

So... you are saying you'd rather die than face the horrors of war? Mabe I am misunderstanding.

[LastPoet]

But hopefully I could make it painless before it happened

But you might botch it..

Reminds me of a guy I knew, that tried to kill himself several times and failed.

He ended up dying of natural causes. Ha, little ironies.

[Rev. Rye]

Once again, I suspect China will intervene before anything goes to a full-fledged war, like they have literally every other time they've done this shit, including earlier in the month.

[Edwardo Piet]

But hopefully I could make it painless before it happened

So... you are saying you'd rather die than face the horrors of war? Mabe I am misunderstanding.

Yes apart from the fact that:

But hopefully I could make it painless before it happened

But you might botch it..

He has a point here.

So my next question would be "Would the worst possible botching be worse than what I'd suffer in a nuclear war?"

[Court Jester]

I don't understand why China is allowing NK to provoke the other nations like this... they need to pull back their tiny pet dictator or else they too will get caught up in the crossfire.

They know how to play the game. They wouldn't allow anyone in there unless they knew that they would have control of the outcome. China's a key player around the world if they decide that they want to be. They will deal with north Korea's level of stupid and keep everyone else out. If NK lands a bang stick somewhere and the powers that be step in to over throw them, China will step in and play along just so that they have a hand in the outcome so that it doesn't turn into a threat to them.

[Fireball]

So... you are saying you'd rather die than face the horrors of war? Mabe I am misunderstanding.

Yes apart from the fact that:

But you might botch it..

He has a point here.

So my next question would be "Would the worst possible botching be worse than what I'd suffer in a nuclear war?"

Don't goof it up or get hurt.

Nitrogen Exit Bag

[Edwardo Piet]

Huh? I don't get it. Is that something nitrogen gas would happen in a nuclear war?

[Anomalocaris]

So... you are saying you'd rather die than face the horrors of war? Mabe I am misunderstanding.

Yes apart from the fact that:

But you might botch it..

He has a point here.

So my next question would be "Would the worst possible botching be worse than what I'd suffer in a nuclear war?"

Yes. In a nuclear war you might be painlessly incinerated in a millisecond. People who tried to blow their own brains out have missed and ended up with a deep, ghastly open trench across where their eye balls and sinuses use to be for life.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The only thing the Chinese can do to stop him would be to invade and occupy his country.

Don't you think tighter trade sanctions -- say, not buying any DPRK coal, or not selling it any oil -- would if not stop the regime's shittery at least reduce its brinksmanship?

But If china does that Kim can fire a nuke at Beijing or Shanghai even more easily than he can hit Guam.   China is not going to trade one of its own cities to make it easier for America to uphold its influence in China's own backdoor.   Also the Chinese are pleased North Korea is making a fool of trump just as trump is threatening to tear up the basis of trade between china and the US, and the Chinese are also pleased it is the North Korean people who are bearing the burden of and being impoverished to keep American forces away from Chinese border, and not the Chinese economy and people who have to bear much of that burden.

All good points. No doubt Un is playing one side against the other in these sorts of tantrums.

Their pet dictator gives china all the benefit of tying trump into a geopolitical pretzel without it looking like it is china that is trying to tie American into a geopolitical pretzel.

... which has long been their modus operandi.