Captain's Quarters jumps on the New York Times for blaming the Administration for stalled talks with the Norks. Amazingly, the see the NK counterfeiting operation as unrelated and seemingly unimportant, even at $100million per year:

The fake $100 bills are of such high quality it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the real thing. U.S. officials contend the regime of Kim Jong Il has manufactured and put into circulation tens of millions of these counterfeit bills, labeled supernotes, around the world.

These charges are backed up by the U.S. secret service, which says it has made a connection between the highly deceptive counterfeit notes and North Korea.

"Our investigation has revealed that the supernote continues to be produced and distributed from sources operating out of North Korea," said Michael Merritt, from the U.S. Secret Service.

The crux is: any failure of negotiations is Bush's fault, even if the other side has no interest in good faith negotiations.

Some in Congress want to reward the Nork's bad behavior with more talks and concessions.

You think the Norks are rational? Read this article first. They even rip off the Chinese when they deliver supplies.

Meanwhile, North Korean officials engage in even more bizarre behavior. For example, food and fuel supplies sent to North Korea have been halted, not to force North Korea to stop missile tests or participate in peace talks, but to return the Chinese trains the aid was carried in on. In the last few weeks, the North Koreans have just kept the trains, sending the Chinese crews back across the border. North Korea just ignores Chinese demands that the trains be returned, and insists that the trains are part of the aid program. It's no secret that North Korean railroad stock is falling apart, after decades of poor maintenance and not much new equipment. Stealing Chinese trains is a typical loony-tune North Korean solution to the problem. If the North Koreans appear to make no sense, that's because they don't. Put simply, when their unworkable economic policies don't work, the North Koreans just conjure up new, and equally unworkable, plans. The Chinese have tried to talk the North Koreans out of these pointless fantasies, and for their trouble they have their trains stolen. How do you negotiate under these conditions? No one knows.

Meanwhile, they are threatening more missile tests: "And NBC News, citing unnamed U.S. officials, said preparations seemed to be under way for a second Taepodong test, but the weapon was not yet at the launch pad." The Spook expects this one to fail too, since the design is flawed. The UN moves to act:

The United Nations Security Council, outraged at this week’s missile tests by a nuclear-capable North Korea, takes up debate today on a resolution to sanction that nation’s dictator with “one minute of time-out for each missile launched.”

According to a draft resolution being circulated by the Russian ambassador to the U.N., the time-out sanction would mean that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il would have to “sit still in a comfortable chair with his hands on his knees, and could not speak to anyone for a full seven minutes, unless he has to go to the bathroom, or get a drink, or if he gets a bellyache, at which point the U.N. would be compelled to provide humanitarian aide.”

Is it satire? With the UN, it is damned hard to decide.

Update: Amazing stat of the day: "At just 3% of its gross national product, South Korea's defense budget alone is larger than North Korea's entire economy." It is lucky for North Korea that artillerty shells to attack Seoul are cheap. The link also has pointers to information on NK.

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