it seems the avg Bitcoiner can't bear to hear or even discuss "possible" messy scenarios as Mike is quite rightfully willing to do.  as he should and as all of should and DO.   Brian asked him to explain in detail what he meant so Mike simply explained a possible solution, checkpoints, that could be used if the Chinese hashing power didn't go along with 20MB blocks. 

first off, i don't think it gets that far.  when push comes to shove, everyone will converge to one network to preserve value.  second, since i don't agree with the concept of checkpoints, i would probably go with which chain ISN'T employing them.  anyways, these scenarios are all very theoretical and it doesn't hurt to discuss them as Mike did.  they aren't likely to occur.