And the Rest of It

Quickly now...


If the US had a real leader and South Korea had the mandu to strike back whenever North Korea sinks a ship or attacks an island, Kim Fatty III would not make such a threat:

North Korea said on Thursday it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test that would target the United States, dramatically stepping up its threats against a country it called its "sworn enemy".

The announcement by the country's top military body came a day after the U.N. Security Council agreed to a U.S.-backed resolution to censure and sanction North Korea for a rocket launch in December that breached U.N. rules.

North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

"We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire and the high-level nuclear test we will carry out are targeted at the United States," North Korea's National Defence Commission said, according to state news agency KCNA.

North Korea is believed by South Korea and other observers to be "technically ready" for a third nuclear test, and the decision to go ahead rests with leader Kim Jong-un, who pressed ahead with the December rocket launch in defiance of the U.N. sanctions.

The UN is like molasses on a newly waxed and polished rosewood floor. It's the last thing you want and has never helped sort things out on the Korean Peninsula.

The next time North Korea acts up, punish China and Russia.


Related:  

Among the most repressive countries in the world, North Korea holds as many as 200,000 people in the vast gulag system known as the kwan-li-so. Under the guilt-by-association system established during the dictatorship of Kim Il Sung more than 50 years ago, real and imagined dissenters and as many as three generations of their relatives are punished to eliminate “the seeds” of bad families. Those imprisoned have almost no hope for release, and it is nearly impossible to escape the camps, meaning these people are almost guaranteed to die as prisoners. Over the past few decades, hundreds of thousands have perished, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates. 
 
But for the first time in recent memory, there is reason to hope that the world might finally take notice. In a clarion call for action, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navanethem Pillay, last week urged the establishment of an independent international inquiry into the mass-atrocity crimes taking place in North Korea. 

(Sidebar: what is this inquiry going to tell us that we don't already know? What is going to be done about it?)

In the gulag, prisoners are subjected to backbreaking labor, torture, sexual violence and severe malnutrition. Men, women and children are forced to labor in dangerous work environments for up to 16 hours per day. They are given meager rations of corn gruel for food and often eat rats or pick through animal waste for survival. Even though illnesses such as pneumonia and tuberculosis run rampant in the camps, no medical treatment is available. Instead, prisoners are forced to work while sick, and those who are no longer physically able to work are sent to sanatoriums to die. Those who do not abide by the stringent camp rules are tortured or executed. The gulag is a systematic and organized network of concentration camps whose ultimate purpose is to starve and work its prisoners to death. The world also has yet to know the fate of numerous Japanese, South Korean and other foreign nationals abducted by North Korea over the past several decades. 

(With thanks)


Keep it classy, Chief Double Dipping Double Chin.


(Merci)


Have them pay their "fair share" now before their grandchildren and great grandchildren pay off their debt!

A measure to extend the U.S. debt limit for nearly four months moved closer on Tuesday to a vote and the White House said the president would sign the bill if it cleared Congress, easing uncertainty that could have threatened the U.S. economy.

The debt limit "suspension," which would allow the government to borrow money until May 19, is due to come to a vote in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Wednesday without amendments. 

House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas said he believed the measure would achieve "near unanimous support" from the House Republican caucus, which would guarantee its passage. 

And:

"For me, this is not just a matter of policy. It's personal," said a verklempt Hillary Clinton choking back the tears at Wednesday's Benghazi hearing. "I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews. I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, and the wives left alone to raise their children."

Hillary may well have been sincere, but with the Clintons you never know. 

These people are repugnant.


(Gracias)



And now, the octo-pizza. Eight arms of deliciousness.