North Korea Launches Missiles, Americans BBQ

(Keywords & tags: politics, North Korea, diplomacy, Kim Jong Il and Bush both want you freaked out over missiles)

I'll be damned, Krazy Kim had a big missile after all. Didn't work worth a damn, though. According to CNN, the two stage Taepong-2 missile lasted about 40 seconds before it failed and crashed back to Earth.

In all, CNN reports that, the Taepong-2 included, North Korea launched six missiles on the fourth. PDRK can't feed its people, but it can afford to fire six missiles in a tantrum to draw attention away from Iran's nuclear ambitions. What a waste of oxygen Kim Jong Il is.

I wasn't able to keep real close tabs on what was happening throughout the day, but CNN tells us that the big missile crashed about 200 miles short of Japan in the Sea of Japan. The last I'd heard, two missiles hit short of Japan's northernmost island of Hokaido, between the japanese island and Siberia. Whether this included the two stage failure doesn't seem to be clear. And I can't find any info on where the other ones went.

Japan, not surprisingly, is pissed. A Japanese foreign ministry press official, Akira Chiba, told CNN that Japan was studying "stern measures". Japan provides food aid to North Korea.

As I said, I didn't follow things. Neither did anyone else I spent the day with. My sister's birthday is on the fifth, so we had a sort of double-duty celebration at my mother's house. We heard about it and, conservative, liberal, or middle of the road, no one really gave a damn.

Judging by the reaction of my little sample, Kim's attempt to freak us all out failed miserably.

Now all we have to worry about is Bush's attempt to freak us all.

--Wisco