revmike

when they think about how costly and difficult it would be, they quickly reconsider

If I had to guess, the best scenario for everyone in the region would be for the regime in Pyongyang to be replaced by one interested in following the Chinese model. If the regime was actually willing to pursue a policy of engagement with the rest of the world and economic modernization, there would be plenty of foreign aide available to get them started and the society could gradually be opened up.

The nearest point of reference was the plane that hit the Empire State Building in the 1940s. Before the towers collapsed news programs were mentioning that incident.

The towers would have stood, too, if the planes didn't have a fairly full load of fuel. The burning fuel was enough to weaken the steel.

I always get annoyed with conspiracy theorists that complain that steel doesn't melt at the temperature that the fuel burned at. It doesn't need to melt. As an analogy, take two sticks of butter, one from the freezer and one from the refrigerator. Both are solid, neither is melted. How much weight can the refrigerated butter support? How much weight can the freezer butter support?

My wife was driving into downtown Brooklyn from Long Island. She called me from her cell. She was stuck in traffic on the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway - a highway that runs generally near the Brooklyn/Queens side of the East River. It is elevated through many stretches and offers a very clear view of the Manhattan skyline.) She could see smoke billowing out of one of the towers, and asked me if I knew what was going on. There wasn't a lot of information yet. Reports were coming in that a plane had crashed into the tower, but no one was reporting what kind of plane with any certainty, and people were still hoping it was a horrible accident. As she was on the phone with me she said "OH MY GOD. THERE IS ANOTHER PLANE. IT'S NOT TURNING! IT ISN'T TURNING!" Then the phone went dead.

It took about 20 minutes for the cell system to stabilize again so that I was able to get through to her. She decided to head into downtown Brooklyn. One of her coworker's husband was a steamfitter working on the construction of the federal courthouse in downtown Brooklyn, and she was going to pick him up. She couldn't get to him, but thousands upon thousands of refugees were streaming across the Brooklyn Bridge into downtown Brooklyn. The people with cars in Brooklyn were spontaneously organizing to evacuate the refugees. My wife found four strangers that needed to get out to Jamaica and loaded them into her car, then they all drove out Atlantic Avenue. One of her passengers was diabetic and was experiencing low blood sugar, so everyone went through pockets and purses to find candy for her.