13.10.06

The Death of Solemnity [updated]

Josh is a good friend. He has started a death watch on my blog. Well, he can put that death watch right back where it came from. At least until a week or so from today, when I get around to blogging again.

Not that this very short post will do much to quell the rising tide of voices crying out in despair as my priorities shift away from blogging (Josh is right about that bit). For now I will merely initiate a moratorium on solemn promises, whether blogging related or not.

Anyway, here's what makes me blog tonight: ever since the "nuclear" test a few days ago in North Korea, I have been hoping that it turns out to have been a bluff - a great big pile of conventional explosives in a hole. First of all, this is much funnier than North Korea actually having nuclear weapons. Second, it's also much better for pretty much everyone other than Kim Jong-Il and his cronies.

The day of the test, there was evidence of either a bluff or simple incompetence on the part of the North Korean nuclear scientists: the explosion was unexpectedly small. Today, CNN reports that there is no radiological evidence for a nuclear explosion.

This is also consistent with either a bluff or incompetence. While I hope for the former, one of these two hypotheses is looking more and more likely.

Update: Now the CNN report linked above says they did find radioactive material flying around above Korea. Oh well. I suppose it's still possible that it was a dirty bomb (i.e., still a bluff), but this wouldn't be as funny as a radation-free bluff. It's nice to know that the evidence still points to incompetence, though.

2 comments:

Joshua said...

Glad to see you're still alive. :-)

By the way, they've updated your story on CNN. They now say they have some evidence of radiation, but it's not conclusive.

noahpoah said...

Yeah, it couldn't have been more than 30 minutes or so between my original post and when I noticed that the story had changed. Oh well.

It's nice to be alive, even if the Kim dynasty has da bomb.