North Korea set to test nuclear bomb?

ABC News is reporting that "North Korea may be preparing for an underground test of a nuclear bomb". The evidence obtained by U.S. intelligence is circumstantial -- "the unloading of large reels of cable outside P'unggye-yok, an underground facility in northeast North Korea, cables that could "be used in nuclear testing to connect an underground test site to outside observation equipment" -- but there is hardly a doubt that North Korea aspires to be a nuclear power.

But what can be done? Should the U.S. bomb North Korea (as I asked back in June)? Would stronger U.N. sanctions work? Would further six-party talks lead to some sort of diplomatic resolution, perhaps aid in exchange for nuclear disengagement? Should the U.S. sit down and talk to, and negotiate with, North Korea on its own?

Test or no test, the urgency is palpable.

The beacon is fading fast

By Creature

This post was going to be about last throes and how the insurgency in Iraq is stronger than ever. I was going to use my exceptional cutting and pasting skills to quote an anonymous Defense Department official saying: “The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high level.” However, the real story, the real scoop, in this article about things that go boom has been buried way at the end. And it goes something like this:

Yet some outside experts who have recently visited the White House said Bush administration officials were beginning to plan for the possibility that Iraq’s democratically elected government might not survive.

“Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy,” said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.

“Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect,” the expert said, “but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy.” [the bold is all me]

So much for spreading democracy.

So what would be their alternative to democracy? Will the Bushies put Saddam back in power and call their whole Iraqi adventure a wash? I wouldn't put it past them. At a minimum they'll slap a colorful name on their "alternative to democracy" and pray we don't notice. Operation Bring Bremer Back has a nice ring. Or perhaps we will see Exile in Action: Chalabi Takes Control. No matter the name, if were a betting man, I'd lay a bundle down that the administration is holding on for dear life until November. And after November, all bets are off. This ugly picture, is not going to get any prettier anytime soon.

The NYT has more, but remember the real story doesn't begin until you get to the end.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

George Allen is a buffoon

I thought about including Allen in our "dangerous idiot" series, where he would find suitable companionship alongside Pat Robertson, Ann Coulter, James Dobson, John Boehner, James Inhofe, and Sam Brownback (type "dangerous idiot" in the box above and click "Search This Blog" for more), but he seems to be more of a buffoon than anything else.

He may claim that his "macaca" slur was innocuous, as CNN reports here, but there's a pattern of bigotry that seems to run through his life. Whatever his intention here, whatever he meant to say about S.R. Sidarth, a volunteer working for Democrat Jim Webb, Allen's challenger in this year's Virginia Senate race, this incident seems to fit in with that pattern. Macaca, after all, is a genus of monkey (18 macaca species are found in East Asia, one in North Africa). How, given his history, his long history, are we not to assume that Allen was calling Sidarth, a South Asian, a monkey? Unless, of course, Allen was using "macaca" as a slur for North Africans and applying it ignorantly to a South Asian. Or unless he's just stupid.

So is he a buffoon? Yes, it would seem so.

But he's also an idiot (just as the explanation (excuse) being offered in his defence is idiotic.) And his position as a U.S. senator makes him dangerous. As do his aspirations to the Oval Office.

You do the math.