Since part of my job is to uncover bugs in software, it should stand to reason that I would find bugs in other non-digital situations: it’s hard to turn off your detection circuitry. Saw a news article and found a new bug in the world today:

MSNBC: North Korea claims it has nuclear weapons.

It’s not that they have them. It’s the logic that they’re using to justify that they have them, primarily that they fear aggression by the United States.

Riiiiiiight.

Some of the finer points of the article remind us that North Korea threw out UN inspectors over two years ago. Yep. Refused to disclose the location of fuel rods that they’ve since “weaponized” and used them for bomb grade plutonium. That’s a willful act, two times over: once to do it and once to hide that you’re doing it.

Then they’ve spent some time shooting rockets into the Sea of Japan, just for “testing” purposes. That means they could easily hit China. South Korean, Japan, even India. Could they hit Hawaii? Not with the missiles they tested a few years ago, but who knows now. Either way, that’s not an act of defense; that’s an act of aggression.

And then there’s the fact that if the US wanted to threaten North Korea, wouldn’t we march over the 38th parallel and fight a conventional war? Given the current administrations actions all over the world, doesn’t it stand to reason that we’d go in with “normal army” rather than nuking them from a far? *shrug*

The kicker is that they’ve now announced – with the same proclamation that they do in fact are armed with a nuclear arsenal – is that North Korea is now pulling out of the six way disarmament talks. Lemme get this part straight: you’re worried about getting attacked, you’ve taunted your neighbors by shooting rockets all over the area, you’ve proclaimed that you’ve got a “Gadget” and now you’re pulling out of peace talks because of it?

The question I have is what the hell does China think about all of this, seeing as they’re the biggest ally that North Korea has. Russian has officially saddened but I don’t think they’re sort of “lets see what happens” (which was the hallmark of the Clinton years). Japan and South Korean have to change their skivvies by this point. We’re sort of saying “Um, we were making progress, we aren’t going to attack you, so what’s up?” China is pretty much silent on the matter.

I don’t know what’s scarier: the fact that there’s a new nuclear power in an unstable regime or the fact that China isn’t saying a word about it.

[And yes, the Clinton comment was there for a reason. This mess started in 1993, when North Korean started to refuse inspectors and withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. If that wasn’t enough, we went ahead and helped build their reactors in 1995…]