Does the Death Penalty Really Reduce Crime?

Associated Press reporter Robert Tanner writes an article today stating that evidence strongly supports the conclusion that the death penalty reduces crime. As with most media coverage of controversial issues, there is a paragraph or two in which the other side makes its case. In this instance, the lone voice arguing against the efficacy of the death penalty is Justin Wolfers, a professor at Wharton who just can’t seem to keep his name out of our blog. Tanner does his best to make Wolfers look bad, quoting him as dismissing these studies because they appear in “second-tier journals.”
Given the evidence I’ve examined, I believe that Wolfers is on the right side of this debate. There are recent studies of the death penalty — most bad, but some reasonable — that find it has a deterrent effect on crime. Wolfers and John Donohue published an article in the Stanford Law Review two years ago that decimated most of the research on the subject.
Analyses of data stretching farther back in time, when there were many more executions and thus more opportunities to test the hypothesis, are far less charitable to death penalty advocates. On top of that, as we wrote in Freakonomics, if you do back-of-the-envelope calculations, it becomes clear that no rational criminal should be deterred by the death penalty, since the punishment is too distant and too unlikely to merit much attention. As such, economists who argue that the death penalty works are put in the uncomfortable position of having to argue that criminals are irrationally overreacting when they are deterred by it.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/does-the-death-penalty-really-reduce-crime/?scp=5&sq=death%20penalty&st=cse

Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate

Texas death chamber










For the first time in a generation, the question of whether the death penalty deters murders has captured the attention of scholars in law and economics, setting off an intense new debate about one of the central justifications for capital punishment.





According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.



The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.



The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time — while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates and other factors — and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. One influential study looked at 3,054 counties over two decades.



“I personally am opposed to the death penalty,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. “But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.”



The studies have been the subject of sharp criticism, much of it from legal scholars who say that the theories of economists do not apply to the violent world of crime and punishment. Critics of the studies say they are based on faulty premises, insufficient data and flawed methodologies.



The death penalty “is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors,” John J. Donohue III, a law professor at Yale with a doctorate in economics, and Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in the Stanford Law Review in 2005. “The existing evidence for deterrence,” they concluded, “is surprisingly fragile.”



Gary Becker, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1992 and has followed the debate, said the current empirical evidence was “certainly not decisive” because “we just don’t get enough variation to be confident we have isolated a deterrent effect.”



But, Mr. Becker added, “the evidence of a variety of types — not simply the quantitative evidence — has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses.”



The debate, which first gained significant academic attention two years ago, reprises one from the 1970’s, when early and since largely discredited studies on the deterrent effect of capital punishment were discussed in the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstitute capital punishment in 1976 after a four-year moratorium.



The early studies were inconclusive, Justice Potter Stewart wrote for three justices in the majority in that decision. But he nonetheless concluded that “the death penalty undoubtedly is a significant deterrent.”



The Supreme Court now appears to have once again imposed a moratorium on executions as it considers how to assess the constitutionality of lethal injections. The decision in that case, which is expected next year, will be much narrower than the one in 1976, and the new studies will probably not play any direct role in it.



But the studies have started to reshape the debate over capital punishment and to influence prominent legal scholars.



“The evidence on whether it has a significant deterrent effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one,” said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has frequently taken liberal positions. “I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified.”



Professor Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, a law professor at Harvard, wrote in their own Stanford Law Review article that “the recent evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment seems impressive, especially in light of its ‘apparent power and unanimity,’ ”


quoting a conclusion of a separate overview of the evidence in 2005 by Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford, in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.



“Capital punishment may well save lives,” the two professors continued. “Those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that the failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life.”
To a large extent, the participants in the debate talk past one another because they work in different disciplines.



“You have two parallel universes — economists and others,” said Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment.” Responding to the new studies, he said, “is like learning to waltz with a cloud.”



To economists, it is obvious that if the cost of an activity rises, the amount of the activity will drop.
“To say anything else is to brand yourself an imbecile,” said Professor Wolfers, an author of the Stanford Law Review article criticizing the death penalty studies.
To many economists, then, it follows inexorably that there will be fewer murders as the likelihood of execution rises.
“I am definitely against the death penalty on lots of different grounds,” said Joanna M. Shepherd, a law professor at Emory with a doctorate in economics who wrote or contributed to several studies. “But I do believe that people respond to incentives.”



But not everyone agrees that potential murderers know enough or can think clearly enough to make rational calculations. And the chances of being caught, convicted, sentenced to death and executed are in any event quite remote. Only about one in 300 homicides results in an execution.
“I honestly think it’s a distraction,” Professor Wolfers said. “The debate here is over whether we kill 60 guys or not. The food stamps program is much more important.”



The studies try to explain changes in the murder rate over time, asking whether the use of the death penalty made a difference. They look at the experiences of states or counties, gauging whether executions at a given time seemed to affect the murder rate that year, the year after or at some other later time. And they try to remove the influence of broader social trends like the crime rate generally, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, economic conditions and demographic changes.



Critics say the larger factors are impossible to disentangle from whatever effects executions may have. They add that the new studies’ conclusions are skewed by data from a few anomalous jurisdictions, notably Texas, and by a failure to distinguish among various kinds of homicide.
There is also a classic economics question lurking in the background, Professor Wolfers said. “Capital punishment is very expensive,” he said, “so if you choose to spend money on capital punishment you are choosing not to spend it somewhere else, like policing.”



A single capital litigation can cost more than $1 million. It is at least possible that devoting that money to crime prevention would prevent more murders than whatever number, if any, an execution would deter.
The recent studies are, some independent observers say, of good quality, given the limitations of the available data.
“These are sophisticated econometricians who know how to do multiple regression analysis at a pretty high level,” Professor Weisberg of Stanford said.



The economics studies are, moreover, typically published in peer-reviewed journals, while critiques tend to appear in law reviews edited by students.
The available data is nevertheless thin, mostly because there are so few executions.



In 2003, for instance, there were more than 16,000 homicides but only 153 death sentences and 65 executions.
“It seems unlikely,” Professor Donohue and Professor Wolfers concluded in their Stanford article, “that any study based only on recent U.S. data can find a reliable link between homicide and execution rates.”



The two professors offered one particularly compelling comparison. Canada has executed no one since 1962. Yet the murder rates in the United States and Canada have moved in close parallel since then, including before, during and after the four-year death penalty moratorium in the United States in the 1970s.



If criminals do not clearly respond to the slim possibility of an execution, another study suggested, they are affected by the kind of existence they will face in their state prison system.
A 2003 paper by Lawrence Katz, Steven D. Levitt and Ellen Shustorovich published in The American Law and Economics Review found a “a strong and robust negative relationship” between prison conditions, as measured by the number of deaths in prison from any cause, and the crime rate. The effect is, the authors say, “quite large: 30-100 violent crimes and a similar number or property crimes” were deterred per prison death.



On the other hand, the authors found, “there simply does not appear to be enough information in the data on capital punishment to reliably estimate a deterrent effect.”
There is a lesson here, according to some scholars.
“Deterrence cannot be achieved with a half-hearted execution program,” Professor Shepherd of Emory wrote in the Michigan Law Review in 2005. She found a deterrent effect in only those states that executed at least nine people between 1977 and 1996.



Professor Wolfers said the answer to the question of whether the death penalty deterred was “not unknowable in the abstract,” given enough data.
“If I was allowed 1,000 executions and 1,000 exonerations, and I was allowed to do it in a random, focused way,” he said, “I could probably give you an answer.”

nytimes

Koreans Share Their Secret for Chicken With a Crunch

WHEN Joe McPherson moved to Seoul in 2002, he thought he was leaving fried chicken behind. “I grew up watching Popeyes training videos,” Mr. McPherson said. His father managed a Popeyes franchise near Atlanta and fried chicken was a constant presence in his life.


“Living in the South, you think you know fried chicken,” he said. But in Seoul, he said, “there is a mom-and-pop chicken place literally on every corner.” Many Asian cooking traditions include deep-fried chicken, but the popular cult of crunchy, spicy, perfectly nongreasy chicken — the apotheosis of the Korean style — is a recent development.

In the New York area, Korean-style fried chicken places have just begun to appear, reproducing the delicate crust, addictive seasoning and moist meat Koreans are devoted to.

“Food in Korea is very trendy,” said Myung J. Chung, an owner of the Manhattan franchise of Bon Chon Chicken, a karaoke-and-chicken lounge that opened in December. “Other trends last two or three years, but fried chicken has lasted for 20 years,” he said.

Platters of fried chicken are a hugely popular bar food in South Korea — like chicken wings in the United States, they are downed with beer or soju, after work or after dinner, rarely eaten as a meal.

“Some places have a very thin, crisp skin; some places have more garlicky, sticky sauces; some advertise that they are healthy because they fry in 100 percent olive oil,” said Mr. McPherson, an English teacher, who writes a food blog called zenkimchi.com/FoodJournal.

“Suddenly there will be a long line outside one chicken place, for no apparent reason, and then the next week, it’s somewhere else.”

Even Korea’s corner bars and fast-food chicken chains are preoccupied with the quality, freshness and integrity of their product.

With Korean-style chicken outlets opening recently in New York, New Jersey and California, fried chicken has begun to complete its round-trip flight from the States to Seoul.

“I really think we make it better than the original,” said Young Jin, who opened a friendly little chicken joint called Unidentified Flying Chickens in Jackson Heights last month. “We use fresh, not frozen, chicken, always fried to order, no trans fats, no heat lamps.”

In Korea, chickens are much smaller, so the whole chicken is fried and served, hacked up into bite-size pieces. But the large breasts and thighs of American chickens are a challenge to cook evenly.

According to Mr. Jin and others, that’s why the Korean-style chicken places here serve mostly wings (true connoisseurs can specify either the upper “arm” or the “wing”) and small drumsticks. The chicken is typically seasoned only after it is fried, with either a sweetish garlic-soy glaze or a hotter red-pepper sauce that brings the dish into Buffalo wing territory.

But do not look for blue cheese and celery sticks, or even biscuits and gravy. The typical accompaniment to Korean fried chicken is cubes of pickled radish and plenty of beer or soju; the combination produces an irresistible repetition of salt and spice, cold and hot, briny and sweet, crunchy and tender.

“People — even Americans — say the combination is really addictive,” said Ryan Jhun, Mr. Chung’s brother-in-law and business partner. Mr. Jhun spent a month training with the founder of Bon Chon to master the chain’s frying method, which produces characteristically light and crunchy pieces. Bon Chon, Bon Bon and Unidentified Flying Chickens all base their technique on the one developed by Kyochon, one of the most popular Korean chains. Although none of the chicken fryers interviewed would describe the method in its entirety, its outline is clear. (Warning: partisans of Southern-fried chicken will find much that is blasphemous in the following.)

For crunch, American-style fried chicken relies on a thick, well-seasoned crust, often made even thicker by soaking the chicken pieces beforehand in buttermilk. When that crust is nubbly and evenly browned, and the chicken meat is cooked through, the chicken is sublime. But too often, the flesh is still raw when the crust is cooked, or the skin never cooks all the way through, leaving a flabby layer of skin between the meat and the crust.

Korean-style fried chicken is radically different, reflecting an Asian frying technique that renders out the fat in the skin, transforming it into a thin, crackly and almost transparent crust. (Chinese cooks call this “paper fried chicken.”) The chicken is unseasoned, barely dredged in very fine flour and then dipped into a thin batter before going into the fryer. The oil temperature is a relatively low 350 degrees, and the chicken is cooked in two separate stages.

After 10 minutes, the chicken is removed from the oil, shaken vigorously in a wire strainer and allowed to cool for two minutes. This slows the cooking process, preventing the crust from getting too brown before the meat cooks through. It also shaves off all those crusty nubs and crags that American cooks strive for.

After 10 more minutes in the fryer, the chicken is smooth, compact, golden-brown, and done. Then, it’s served plain (with a small dish of salt and pepper for seasoning) or lightly painted with sauce. When it’s done correctly, the sauce is absorbed into the crust, adding savor without making it soggy.

Last week, I tasted chicken from four different Korean-style spots, and arrived at a rule of thumb that the best chicken had the least sauce (although chicken with no sauce at all was weirdly bland). The chain Cheogajip was more heavy-handed with the sauce than the others, making their chicken too sticky and sweet. But all the other chicken was at least tasty and even delicious, remaining crisp through the day and when reheated the next morning. The sauces at Unidentified Flying Chickens, which Mr. Jin makes from scratch and is still developing, had the most rounded flavors.

Mr. Jin sees his new store, located in a neighborhood that is more Latino than Asian, as the cradle of a multicultural empire devoted to one thing: perfect fried chicken.

“You wouldn’t go to a soft tofu store and expect to find great kalbi,” he said, referring to the grilled, sweet-and-salty short ribs that are another Korean favorite. “When you make only one thing, and you make people wait for 20 minutes to get it, it had better be good.”

A Sampler
Here are places to try Korean-style fried chicken in New York City. Seating is often limited. All chicken is fried to order, so for takeout or delivery, call at least 30 minutes ahead.
BON CHON CHICKEN 314 Fifth Avenue (32nd Street), second floor, (212) 221-2222; and 157-18 Northern Boulevard (157th Street), Queens, (718) 321-3818.
BON BON CHICKEN 98 Chambers Street (Church Street), (212) 227-2375, opening in March.
UNIDENTIFIED FLYING CHICKENS 71-22 Roosevelt Avenue (71st Street), Queens, (718) 205-6662.

My lovely friend's birthday.

Yesterday was my lovely lovely highschool friend Bomi's birthday.
Oh~~~!!!! I forgot it..! It's very happy! (what? )
I was busy so I forgot my friend's birthday. she's supposed to understand. haah
Sorry my friend. Her smile's like angel's.

BULLLLLShitttttt!!!!!

say 'moo'~!
this is the 'HIP! HOP!'

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

bullshit!

I'm crazy

crazy posting

so what?

because I'm crazy

bull's shit is useful

some Japanese woman developed perfume with bullshit

how amazing!

some KHU girl made just bullshit

how natural!!!

Somewhere near "Union Square" in Manhattan

I don't remember exactly. As I remember, that picture taked on street connecting from Union square to East villeage where we stayed. On the way to go to the inn (where we choose to stay), I found the other side of gorgeous N.Y. I mean I saw some young homelesses who were laid down at the street in front of a store(I don't remember it was closed), and heating their freezing body(It was freezing early February), and they looked happy.

As soon as I recognized them, something was came to my mind. That is a music video for a smashing pumpkin's song 'try,try,try'. In that video, they treat a junky homeless couple. I don't know exact meaning of the song and the video, and I'm not a that deligent person to find out that meanings, so I just thought ,after that video, some people can feel happy by their personal meanings; drugs, their dirty freedom, or their pure eros love. And maybe they don't feel happy actually. Maybe they intend they are happy. Maybe they deceive they are happy. I don't know. Whatever.

It was a little shocking because I saw real American young homelesses through my eyes, and I thought they just exist in the movie things before. There were about 4-5 people I remember, and they crouched together thchnically for warming their bodys. I don't know they were addict for drugs. Maybe they are just normal country youngsters who failed to adopt for New York life, because N.Y prices' too high.

The interesting thing was NOBODY did'nt care of them. Even the store's owner(or clerk) did either. Maybe it's quite natural view in N.Y. or America. Maybe many people in the street at that time was too busy, so they couldn't have care, and the store's owner(or clerk) is a very generous person so he(or she) can understand the homelesses.

I don't know why, but they exist.

10/14 : Alien's day ???!!

Right now, there are some rumors around internet site 'naver'. This site has super hyper-powerful affection for Koreans. (basically many of Korean people are under the contol of MEDIA.) Anyway in the web, UFO flied in the upper Gwanghwamun air, 2 days ago October 12th 2008. This unidentified evidences about UFO is lanked as a hot issue for an hours on the internet.

Using this opportunity, some alien society insists that aliens would be appeared October 14th as American time(?), and they advertises themselves. According to them, today, communication with alien is expectated from alien's message, and this message was received at "Galactic Federation of Light"( which is one of alien society) . They consistently refer that aliens are human's friend.



I don't know the alien's. Actually I don't care of it. Maybe it is, but maybe not. I don't know, and humanbeing can't make clear of this issue. Because we not only have clear limitation of ability, but also physical natural limitation. I think, before scientific technology comes enough to make spaceship for flying from a galaxy to blackhole and meet an alien, humankind will extinct first. I also think, we don't have enough resources to make that ridiculusly great spaceship.



I think people have meet an opportunity from this to think about their existence.
Some people say we are from outside of earth.



I don't insist exactly alien's not exist!
Maybe it's alien's dinner time.
Maybe aliens are already surrounded me.
Maybe aliens try connection to human.
So what?
I will pray for God.

YouTube2!!!!!!!!!!!

Waltz No.6 in D flat major 'Minute' Op.64 -Chopin



1. some girl

Valentina Igoshina



2. some man

Daniel Barenboim




3. my comment

The girl's smooth calm melody is like silent wave.
The man's powerful melody is like fish's jumping through the wave.

Eventhough those are same music composed by same chopin, but those two things have quite different emotions.
In my personal, the man's powful performance is better.
Anyway I don't know either persons.


4. chatting
I like this Chopin's music. This called as 'Puppy Walz'. It's enough to jump around for puppys with cheerful melody. But it's not light. It has deeply sympathetic eternal inner world.
Chopin makes puppy dance anyway.

YouTube!!!!!!!!!!!

[Familyguy] Electricman




Catchy~!!!
ihihihihihihihihihihi~!!
i am electric man!!
OJ simpson is not guilty
Yes / what the hell!
decoysssss!!
But I don't know. Why Electronic man??





[Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade] A Dog on the $25,000 Pyramid




bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark
bark barrk barrrrrrrrrk barrrrrk bark bark barrrrk
bark bark barrrk

'Yes all the things are bullshit!!?'
I can't catch exactly director's intention.
I don't understand. why blender?
But.... It's FUNNY~ anyway ;-))))) hahahahah~!

A song festival

Today, a song festival is held.
There's a special guest MCmong, and the M.C. for that event is 'Wang Bi-ho'.






1. MCmong ;Who is one of pop star in Korea.

MCmong's real name is Shin Dong-hyun. He is Korean pop star, singing kind of hip-hop.

He made his debut in 1999 as a member of 'people crew'. At that time he wasn't really popular, but the thing made him popular is a sitcom 'NON STOP4'.

He intended to get a population with just his music at first, but actually T.V. show program made he as a real popular musician. In Korea, it's very natural situation, so many musicians have much complaint of it.

Nowadays mcmong is in very popular TV show '1night 2days'. In this show, there are 6 guys, and mcmong is one of them. They go on a journey into the rural in every 2 weeks with less money, and the happening during the journey is broadcating.

Anyway he is very funny guy, and it's the first time mainstream star vistited our shcool festival, as far as I remember. ( maybe I think it's the first time that i take care of school festival event.)

2. Wang Bi-ho ; Who is one of famous comedian in Koeran.

'Wang bi ho' is an abbreviation word, means 'very NOT favorable impressing person'. When he act a comedy in front of people, he has a concept. For this concept, he give much blames to famous people like Lee Hyori. Because of this, he wears rediculus outfits. That is very contradictory. Using this paradox, he make crowds laugh. He wears rediculus outfits, ready to get lots of blame, and he throw blames to the out of world. His this strategic attack is shocked to people. So he is now very famous as one of a mischievous comedian.





This is his nomal appearance. His real name is Yoon Hyungbin. He always had worried about his comedy, because he has somewhat ordinary appearance or charisma, when we are concerning he is a comedian. So he deciciced to make up and appeal. Fortunately it was succeeded.

Actually he has good sense of humor. It turned out clearly at the festival, and the sense is more bright in front of real people, not camera. He seems to have an ability make an atmostphere exciting. Because at the sing festival, very awful singer sung very awful song and danced very awfully, but Wang Biho made the atmostphere funny. Another reason is, when he criticizes famous stars's private things, he never humiliate to them.

I love him. In my personal, he would try criticize more governmen's rediculus policies or evil netizn's bad habbits .

City of god

Actually it's been quite long time I saw this movie.

Anyway I was very impressed after the movie.

The reason is.... well I don't know.. but just it is too dramatic, strange, dynamic, brutal, weird, araising curiosity but real. (what I remember)

Anyway it was very shocking.

At the first time, the title of the movie appealed to me. Wow, 'what the hell(can I use these words? I can't find some alternative words) is it look like the beautiful city belongs to GOD', I wondered. After seen the movie, I realized the title's emphasising meaning, and because of this incinsistancy i had been getting attracted to that movie. Actually the movie 's suggesting the real-life in the slum of Rio De Janeiro, so it's far from my expectation; city of GOD.

After seen this movie, I thought I have to be provoked with a lot of serious thinkings about society. So I tried. I don't remember exactally, I might think the power's principle,it's not about compassion for the poor people's life, about governent's obligation or so. The interesting thing that I thought was every society has common part.

-incompletion-

The very first scene comes with few boy's running.

news scrap

Kim rumours provide a wake-up call

By Becky Branford
BBC News


The absence of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, from celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the country's founding triggered a frenzy of speculation.


Several analysts suggested he had died, others that he was incapacitated.
The conclusion reached by South Korea's intelligence service on Wednesday was that he had suffered a stroke, but was still capable of running the country.
Some say all this speculation about Mr Kim's health was an overreaction.
But many others have pointed out that the rumours raise a very important point - one day Mr Kim will die or become unable to govern; does the world have a plan for what to do then?



Stroke

There have been repeated suspicions that Mr Kim suffers a serious illness - bolstered by the impression that he has seemed weak and overweight in his last few appearances in public. Given the stakes involved(what this means?), you would think that the US, South Korea and other regional partners had some type of agreed upon plan. Nope

Victor Cha
Former North Korea adviser to President Bush

Along with a stroke, South Korean intelligence sources suggest he also suffers from diabetes and heart disease.

North Korea has coped with the death of a leader once before - in 1994, when Great Leader Kim Il-sung died.

But analysts say that was different. When Kim Jong-il took over from his father, he had long been groomed as a successor.

This time, "the children are young and with no obvious experience in terms of managing anything", Hazel Smith, North Korea specialist at Warwick University, told the BBC's Today programme. None has been officially recognised as a successor.



Power-sharing

Amid the vacuum, there have been reports of an embryonic power struggle within the North Korean elite.

It is dominated by three main groups: the Kim family, the Korean Workers' Party and the armed forces.

Lee Chung-min, professor of international relations at Seoul's prestigious Yonsei University, says any new figurehead would probably be nominated by the army but "would immediately have to share power with the family and party".

"Such an unstable three-legged stool," he said, "won't last long".



There have been big changes in North Korea in the 14 years since Kim Il-sung passed away.

A devastating famine and economic collapse have - to an extent - loosened the government's suffocating hold on its people, particularly in cities and in border regions. Private economic activity has blossomed as state provision has failed.




Army struggle

But there are tensions within the army over whether to continue with such reforms, according to Professor Smith.

"There are elements in the military [who] want to see modernisation and more contact with foreigners, because they can see ways of making money and rebuilding the military," she said.
There are also splits in North Korea's powerful military

"But there are also parts of this huge military who want to go back to the old nationalist project. It looks like it's going to be those different points of view within the military who will be battling it out for the future of North Korea."

For Leonid Petrov, North Korea historian at Australian National University, this tug of war over reforms is key to how North Koreans will respond to the demise of Kim Jong-il.

He says the population was badly traumatised by the death of Kim Il-sung - partly because of the personality cult which surrounded him, but partly also because it heralded a period of intense isolation and impoverishment in which more than a million people may have died.

Dr Petrov suggests any internal candidate able to preserve short-term stability would probably be more conservative than Kim Jong-il.

But he warns against any such candidate attempting to roll back the economic reforms that have allowed North Koreans a little more room to make an independent living.

Small protests have been reported in areas where local officials have attempted to rein in private trading - and such protests could snowball( = can get bigger ? ).

That could be a central factor in how durable any successor regime proves to be.




External planning

It is, of course, difficult to assess what preparations have been made in Washington, Beijing and Seoul for a succession crisis in North Korea, because governments do not often reveal details of their contingency planning.

But the picture painted by analysts is a gloomy one.

While South Korea is certain to have spent decades planning for this eventuality, Dr Petrov points out that they face the serious problems of a lack of a plausible opposition to the North Korean regime and no convincing candidate for leader either inside or outside the country.

In Washington there are accusations of lack of planning over North Korea from people as senior as Victor Cha, former North Korea adviser to President Bush.

In an article in June, he wrote: "Given the stakes involved, you would think that the US, South Korea and other regional partners had some type of agreed upon plan. Nope."





Spillover

He cautioned that a "quiet discussion among concerned governments about how to deal with potential North Korean instability" was needed "before the next rumour turns out to be true".

The impact of what happens inside North Korea's borders is not confined to North Korea.

The country may possess nuclear weapons.

Failing social provision within North Korea has already sent thousands of humanitarian refugees streaming beyond the country's borders - mainly into north-eastern China. A leadership crisis could turn this stream into a flood.

Sitting between China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, North Korea is situated in a place of extreme geopolitical importance.

Even if Kim Jong-il is still alive and well, these rumours of his ill health may prove to be a useful wake-up call.














phew :)

I..

really want to post more. and it would beautiful and of creativity with devotion.
wow...
Unfortunely,I can't take my times or efforts with efficiency yet.
I feel I have lots of things for development myself, especially about planning schdule or efficiency or so.
YES. This is me. I can accept right this statue of mine. But important thing is the effort and result for development.
wow..wow... someday.. soon... as soon as possible... in the course of time.... after the TOEIC ends.... 꺅~~!!!^^[shout]

You khow what?

Praise makes a whale dance.
That's true.

MY INCOMPLET VIEW OF INCOMPLET LIFE

Who am I? Where am I from, and where am I going to?
Actually it doesn't have certain answer, even if I consume whole of my heart and desire for it. I have just one certain couclusion, that is I'm just living in GIVEN-LIFE, even though I've tried to solve this life of mine consistantly for a long time. As a matter of fact, in the past, I usually tried to solve my faced situation of that time through the past situation, like cause and effect. Doing these, someday I recognized that the present is not only the past time's problem, it's more about the future's. Yes, that's right. I realized the present is in the middle of the future.


Present is not a moment. It can't be cutted by knife, but it's like flowing water. Because the moment is very temporary and instant thing, it has the start and end, but present doesn't. It occurs somthing's happening consistantly after by every moment, as far as I have life. Because present is the composed of much moment's combination. In other words, present is not an instant point, but flowing whole time.


That means we don't have to stick to something's effect or result. Because these things blong to instant moment things. For example, when I broke a wine glass, I could never use that glass ever. Another example, when I bought a luxury fancy bag, it has gone old slowly, in the end it would throw away to the trash can like trash someday. Like these, the past which has broken can't change and can't come to me again as an opportunity. And even though I made the good result, the result is just a istant state ultimately.



I'm not a pessimist. I'm a one of a optimist rather. Nevertheless the reason why I look like a some kind of pessimist is I consider it is very bad way for our healthy life to love too much temporary present things. To look present too much is same as to look past time too much. And to look past time too much can cause we are trapped in the manerism vally easily. What I really want to say is we have to look forwrd to the future. We don't need to wast of our time to look past and to regret.


"ENJOY YOUR LIFE!". This words' real meaning is "ENJOY YOUR FREEDOM FROM THE PRESENT RESULT!", I think. The real enjoying is not the happiness with present's result that already had come. That's the happiness with a hope for the future.

to my excuse...

my wibro has broke down.
yes i know it's miserable.
but this is my excuse.

I realized...

I realized that almost of geniuses enjoy efforts.
That is the difference.

4TH

I really want to play musical instruments very very holy holy well.
But I really don't want to practice for it. It takes too much effort to make it for me. I'm lazy.
YES. Effort is very very holy valuable and beautiful. A fool with effort is better a genius without effort. Yes, I know. But actually I want I was a genius without effort from the origine. But I'm not. So I feel impatience. Arrrrrk....... I'm in a destiny to make effort in the every situation for the every thing. But I'm lazy. I don't like to effort. I'm not a type of hardworking person. But my greed isn't measured the end. It makes a dilemma. It causes all kinds of stresses.
I want to treat well for all the things in the world with skill. I have to effort, as far as I'm in the situation to acheive some goal, because I'm not a genius. I
-incompletion-

3rd

PLEASNAT NIGHT.
I FEEL THE BEAUTIFUL WORDS IN MY EYES LIKE TWINKLING STARS.
I FEEL YOUR WARM HEART COVER ME LIKE WOOL.
I AM A LITTLE SHEPHERD GIRL, AND I'M ABOUT TO DELIVER A LITTLE LAMB.
I AM HAPPY. THANK YOU.
BECAUSE I HAVE THE BEST NOBLE GOAL OF MY LIFE, AND IT IS THE BEST FROM THE WHOLTHE WORLD.

2nd

It's not easy to blog twice of a week as ENGLISH USING. First, I don't spend much time websurfing. I'm senior grade who don't have big achivement like many others, so that I worried about future great more than others. Second, I'm not really good at using English, especially writing, in these time. ?I'm not accustomed right now. Because of that, it' takes more time than others when I writing.

But I decided to be more aggresive. I think this posting activity can help me pretty much, once I accept it and try harder with enthusiasm. The issues of upper is not the problem even. Spend more time. Don't worry. Try to be accustomed. No gain, no pain. And the last one is not caused by the single reason, it's more of my temper. I am a winner, because I know the problems and the proper solution of these, and even the importance of acting. Victory me~!