KIM JONG'S LONG DONG SCARES NO WONG
In yet another attempt to hog the international limelight, North Korea are poised to launch their third long-range missile in 13 years. In fairness, that's more missiles that Kate Bush albums over the same period, but it's not exactly a prolific arms development strategy. The Taepodong 2 succeeds the Taepodong 1, which when last fired in 1998 failed to deliver a satellite into orbit.

Although the world community is having a snit at the presumptuous nature of Kim Jong Il's latest display of "my dick's bigger than yours," when considered as part of a global threat, his ballistic missile program is suffering from erectile dysfunction. Here's a country with an estimated GDP of $40 billion and the following glowing economy as supplied by the CIA Fact Book:

North Korea, one of the world's most centrally planned and isolated economies, faces desperate economic conditions. Industrial capital stock is nearly beyond repair as a result of years of underinvestment and shortages of spare parts. Industrial and power output have declined in parallel. Despite an increased harvest in 2005 because of more stable weather conditions, fertilizer assistance from South Korea, and an extraordinary mobilization of the population to help with agricultural production, the nation has suffered its 11th year of food shortages because of on-going systemic problems, including a lack of arable land, collective farming practices, and chronic shortages of tractors and fuel. Massive international food aid deliveries have allowed the people of North Korea to escape mass starvation since famine threatened in 1995, but the population continues to suffer from prolonged malnutrition and poor living conditions. Large-scale military spending eats up resources needed for investment and civilian consumption.

For "military spending," feel free to include "Taepodong 2." Now, bearing in mind the tragic nature of the economy, and the fact that this is a test missile that has taken some 6 years to build, and the spectacular non-success of the earlier version (that tumbled into the sea somewhere off Japan), how scary is the threat? Maybe the missile could reach Alaska; maybe it could carry a nuclear warhead; maybe the are 200 more of them hidden away somewhere pointing at many different targets across Asia. But that's a lot of maybe's.

I, for one, would actually like them to shoot their load now because the resulting detumescence might shut them up for a while. Unless there's been a spectacular and secret upturn in the economy, the next test should be sometime in 2012 - by which time Kim Jong Il may have been hit by a bus; or at least a decent hair stylist.

It's also worth mentioning that the launch is being delayed because of bad weather. According to CNN, "Analysts say clouds and storms would make it difficult for North Korea to track a missile once in flight, decreasing the likelihood of a launch."

Great. A missile so good that if it's a bit cloudy, nobody knows where the fuck it is! So much for the North Korean airspace tracking technology. Hey, even a blind man in a Cesna can land in fog at La Guardia. It seems like the North Korean version of an "autopilot" is a monkey called Skip strapped into the nose cone.

So while the impotent potentate of North Korea stamps his feet and kicks the side of the playpen, the rest of the grown ups would be better served by ignoring the tantrum and focusing on real issues - like Iran, Iraq, and Palestine?