Steven Den Beste

North Korea's hand is notably absent in reasonable cards to play, so they have to use what they have, and this one at least has symbolic value capable of scaring the pants off certain people.

But they're also beginning to hint as to what they really want.

Shortly after the announcement, a North Korean envoy to China, cited by Seoul's YTN television, said North Korea would be willing to reverse its decision if the United States and its allies resumed shipments of fuel oil.

...
What they're asking for is that we buy them off, and resume substantial amounts of aid to them without any important concessions by them at all except to tone down the ruckus. Such a deal!

There's no hurry here. Let's be calm and slow and deliberative, OK? Let's spend LOOOTS of time in negotiations and consultation. Let's negotiate and dither and consider carefully what we should do. (Let's be European.)

North Korea doesn't have time. They're trying to manufacture urgency for us because they're in an urgent situation themselves. If we have a bit of patience, they will get more desperate, and if it becomes clear to them that we're not falling for it, they will change tactics, almost certainly in ways which will be better for us. ... I think they may be looking at disaster in no more than weeks. Their vehemence and stridency betrays someone who needs a quick solution. (That's one of the critical differences between North Korea and Iraq: time is on Iraq's side.)

Part of what we're reaping here comes from the fact that in the past this kind of grandstanding by North Korea did indeed result in us buying them off. (That's what the 1994 agreement amounted to.) It's important for us to break with that precedent, not only in regards to our specific situation with North Korea, but also for more global reasons.

Many other nations in the world who are in a position to manufacture crises are watching this closely. If we cave in, it's going to happen again.

Lileks:

You know what I’d like to hear, just once? “As a New Yorker, I remember too well the death and destruction that arrived on our doorstep that day in September. As an American, I worry about regimes who possess both the means to kill innocent citizens and the devilish will to do it. As an artist, I value the freedom I have in a pluralistic, secular democracy, and I realize that these traits are not only rare and worthy of defense, but deserve to be extended to people in other nations. As a student of history, I am impressed by how our military - which has the ability to annihilate cities and nations - has spent billions to develop weapons that destroy a single building. Surely this says as much about us as our crass and extroverted culture; what other nation with our abilities would take such care? Presented with enemies who build weapons factories next to kindergartens, we invent missiles that take the former and spare the latter. This may not mean we are right, but it surely means we are are bound by a notion of decency our opposites lack. As a human being, I mourn the loss of innocent life that will surely attend any war - but I must admit, if we could have prevented 9/11 with a military action that cost a dozen innocent lives, I would have supported it with the reluctance that must attend any act of organized violence. And finally, as a filmmaker who lives in a special kind of isolation, surrounded mostly with affluent like-minded people from the arts community, I must admit that when it comes to foreign affairs and military matters I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

Mark Steyn, are we serious?:

If Saddam had been toppled to the cheers of a grateful populace last spring, among other consequences Yasser would be out of office, the ayatollahs would be packing, the House of Saud would be feeling the squeeze of lower oil prices, Boy Assad would have changed course so fast he might actually merit that invite to tea with the Queen, and the European anti-war movement would not have swollen inexorably in inverse proportion to the amount of actual war.
...
a man like Kim Jong-Il reminds us of the perils of this approach: crazy as he is, it’s unlikely he’d be crying ‘Look at me! Over here, you moronic cowboy!’ if Bush had already killed Saddam and set in motion the remaking of the Middle East. The 13 months since the liberation of Afghanistan allowed Kim to figure that the US isn’t serious.

Dammit.

Governor Gray, How We Hates 'Im
Parapundit quotes:

...this is his normal mode of operation, that is, ignore a problem until it reaches epic proportions, panic, and then screw up the solutions

Ed Koch's resolutions. I like them, though I do like vacationing in Mexico and I do listen to Sound and Spirit.

Jackie Mason and Raoul Felder, Kill Jews, Get Your Own Country:

How can you throw the Arabs out, where would they go?" The answer is if they don't care whom they kill, why are we obligated to care where they go?

(via Bill Quick and read the comments, too.)

Den Beste on Palestinians. There's another one above.

Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler is closest to my opinion. I first lost it on 9-11 when they danced in the streets, and each new bombing just reinforces it.

The truth about ANWR (via Bill Quick)

Afghanistan not so bad, John Bono

Clinton knew about the NorK nukes. Like I'm so surprised.

Will Daschle run? Kevin was wrong, darn it.

Definition of insanity.

Victor Davis Hansen takes on Patty Murray.
Next, fish in a barrel.

The Financial Times got the "Man of the Year" right, unlike that creepy "newsmagazine", TIME.

NY Observer's media mensch of the year. Good guy.

Lileks:

Every time I think I’ve had it I find that there are still a few jots of sympathy left - and by “sympathy” I mean that last weary civilized impulse that makes you stay the hand of your inner beserker. I don’t think I’m alone in this. It doesn’t mean there’s now a vast angry mass advocating for the immolation of those who want to scour the earth clean of Jews. No. But before I didn’t care what happened to the people in the organizations that arrange these attacks. Now I don’t care about what happens to the culture that permits it. Approves of it. Defends it, sanctions it, shelters it, sings it praises, names streets after the men who do it. I’m done. I don’t want to hear the word “but” in any sentence uttered by a PLO / Fatah / Al Aqsa / Hamaz / Hezbollah apologist. I don’t want to hear the phrase “cycle of violence” used outside the context of a gang fight at the Tour De France.

I never want to see Arafat asking for anything anywhere any more. I don’t want to see people on the West Bank cheering as clumsy Scuds lumber over their heads in February, because I know they’ll head to Israeli hospitals when the germs hit them, and I know they’ll be admitted for treatment.

I’m not saying I wish them ill. But the line of people I care about now is very, very long. The apologists and supporters of the bombers can get behind the 100 wounded I never met. The 20 who died. The one who was the child of a father my age. And when it’s their turn to ask for my sympathy, I’ll probably point to the line with 3000 New Yorkers, and kindly request that they head to the back.

Nail bombs in a cafe. Jesus Christ.

Actually, my supply of sympathy ran out when I saw the Palestinians dancing in the street on 9/11. They can go directly to Hell.

Kim duToit's resolution.

Kathy Kinsley on the Fibbies:

A lot of us still remember that one of Ashcroft's first actions after September 11 was to arrest people for dispensing medical marijuana

Yeah, that and deciding Oregonians didn't know what they wanted. Apparently he's never read the 10th Amendment.

Oh, yeah, and the drapes for the statues.

Brian O'Connell:

In a way, we're all on Flight 93. Our defense is in our own hands, as our Constitution always insisted. The government has bigger weapons, yes, but the government is made up of our employees, and when you come down to it, they're just people, as capable as some of them are. There is no magic solution there. This bullshit, tell us soothing stories and tell us that everything will be OK crap that some insist on hearing from our governments is a real danger; don't rock the boat; we don't want to hear bad news. That's for suckers. Everything will not be OK. It's already not OK. 3000 people died on US soil.