North Korea Fires on South Korea

Hillary warned against those potential 3 AM phone calls. Given the recent discovery of a secret uranium enrichment facility, as well as rising tensions between the North and South, this news is most disturbing:

South Korea says it has returned fire after North Korea fired around 200 artillery shells onto one of its border islands, reportedly killing one marine.

The South's military was placed on its highest non-wartime alert after the shells landed on Yeonpyeong island.

North Korea has not yet commented on the incident, in which three marines and two civilians were also injured.

Correspondents say this is one of the most serious since the Korean War ended without a peace treaty in 1953.

There have been occasional cross-border clashes since, but the latest incident comes at a time of rising regional tension.

North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-il is believed to be ill and trying to engineer the succession of his youngest son. And on Saturday, North Korea showed off what it claimed was a new uranium enrichment facility - potentially giving it a second route to a nuclear weapon.

Predictably, the markets don't like what they're seeing here.

Since this story is developing, I will embed a twitter widget that should update with news as it becomes available. Stay tuned:



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Iran and North Korea are two wild and crazy states

Via Memeorandum

Mona Charen seems a bit less than impressed with the latest efforts of the Obama administration to solve the world problems through warm and fuzzy euphamisms. Iran and North Korea are no longer "rogue states," by wave of the magic dictionary they are now "outliers." I think calling them those "wild and crazy states" might have been a bit more fun and likely just as appropriate as "outliers:"

"Outlier has no negative connotations at all. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as "One whose domicile is distant from his or her place of business." The Macintosh computer dictionary adds a secondary connotation of exclusion from a group. So to employ the label "outliers" for nations that are, by any civilized measure, criminal is pusillanimous. No doubt the leadership in Iran has also noticed that an administration that softens its words has also modified its proposed sanctions. Whereas once Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of "crippling" sanctions, she has now climbed down to "sanctions that bite." Can annoying sanctions be far behind?"


Mona Charen seems perplexed why the administration found "rogue" inappropriate.  It must have been in deference to Sarah Palin because we all know how respectful this administration is of her.  Perhaps they were afraid Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would think he was being mocked the way Palin is by the administration.  Who knows what they're thinking or if they're even thinking at all.  One thing is clear, you get special treatment from this group if you are an enemy, friends and private citizens - not so much:

The administration does not like to use hurtful words to our enemies. Our friends are another matter. Compare the treatment Great Britain, Honduras, and Israel have received with the walking on eggshells approach to our foes. Early on, the administration jettisoned the term "Global War on Terror" in favor of a catch phrase only a bureaucrat could have coined -- "overseas contingency operations." The word "terrorism" was similarly airbrushed from official language. Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano prefers the term "man-caused disasters" because "it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear ..." A more anodyne term has now surfaced from a number of officials -- "countering violent extremism."

 Charen is just getting wound up.  From there out it is a fisking extraordinaire so read the rest.  Keep in mind this administration has absolutely no problem referring to citizens as "teabaggers."  Don't we get a warm and fuzzy name too?