For Whom The Bell Tolls...Poem by John Donne

Good evening! Grandpoppy went to bed early tonight. I have been watching the news off and on all day.

North Korea has launched another missile with a range trajectory measured at 2300 miles, flying over Japan and falling into the Pacific Ocean. Today, is the second test missile launched within the last 30 days.

August 29th., 2017 a Hwasong-12 missile was launched and flew over Hokkaido, Japan, ultimately landing the ocean.

September 3., 2017 North Korea successfully tested a hydrogen bomb registering a magnitude of a 6.3 tremor on the Richter scale.

I question why Kim Jong Un had authorized another test missile launched today? Was he throwing a temper tantrum? Kim's intentions were to scare Japan, after threatening to "sink" Japan, following the approval of U.N. censure and sanctions.

Kim may simply be using the international bully's handbook to terrorize and intimidate everyone on the school playground, believing he has successfully scared his playmates closest to him, so that he may never have to actually fight anyone.

Kim's immature and egotistically maniacal behavior, is the only method of control he can implement to maintain his pubescent dominance over his peers. Kim Jong Un has spent years employing bluffs to manipulate his neighbors. He can't go full bore, launching a nuclear tipped ICBM, without risking his own life, the demise of his hermit kingdom and catapulting the world into a nuclear showdown that he will ultimately lose...and he knows it.

So, how will all of this bluff and bluster work out between Kim Jong Un and his enemies?

In 1947, an international consortium of researchers, from the University of Chicago, called the "Chicago Atomic Scientists", who worked on the "Manhattan Project", began publishing a newsletter and then a magazine called the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists". This year is the first time the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock has reached 2 1/2 minutes till midnight.

                                               
                              "Good Night, Shalom and Sweet Dreams!"

                                              "Boner Appertite!"

Timeline:

IT IS TWO AND A HALF MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

2017: For the last two years, the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock stayed set at three minutes before the hour, the closest it had been to midnight since the early 1980s. In its two most recent annual announcements on the Clock, the Science and Security Board warned: “The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.” In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater, the need for action more urgent. It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms. Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way.  See the full statement from the Science and Security Board on the 2017 time of the Doomsday Clock.

1st. page excerpt from full 18 page statement reads:

To: Leaders and citizens of the world Re: It is 30 seconds closer to midnight Date: January 26, 2017 Over the course of 2016, the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change. The United States and Russia—which together possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons—remained at odds in a variety of theaters, from Syria to Ukraine to the borders of NATO; both countries continued wide-ranging modernizations of their nuclear forces, and serious arms control negotiations were nowhere to be seen. North Korea conducted its fourth and fifth underground nuclear tests and gave every indication it would continue to develop nuclear weapons delivery capabilities. Threats of nuclear warfare hung in the background as Pakistan and India faced each other warily across the Line of Control in Kashmir after militants attacked two Indian army bases. The climate change outlook was somewhat less dismal—but only somewhat. In the wake of the landmark Paris climate accord, the nations of the world have taken some actions to combat climate change, and global carbon dioxide emissions were essentially flat in 2016, compared to the previous year. Still, they have not yet started to decrease; It is two and a half minutes to midnight the world continues to warm. Keeping future temperatures at less-than-catastrophic levels requires reductions in greenhouse gas emissions far beyond those agreed to in Paris—yet little appetite for additional cuts was in evidence at the November climate conference in Marrakech. This already-threatening world situation was the backdrop for a rise in strident nationalism worldwide in 2016, including in a US presidential campaign during which the eventual victor, Donald Trump, made disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons and expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board takes a broad and international view of existential threats to humanity, focusing on long-term trends. Because of that perspective, the statements of a single person—particularly one not yet in office—have not historically influenced the board’s decision on the setting of the Doomsday Clock. But wavering public confidence in the democratic institutions required to deal with major world threats do affect the board’s decisions. And this year, events surrounding the US presidential campaign—including cyber offensives and deception campaigns apparently directed by the Russian government and aimed at disrupting the US election—have brought American democracy and Russian intentions into question and thereby The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board takes a broad and international view of existential threats to humanity, focusing on long-term trends.

                                                                                                                                                                               This is where the brightest minds of our time, predict we are headed.