Obligatory post o' the day

Overcome with patriotism, we spent the day listening to Lee Greenwood.
But seriously, that North Korean missile volley was unintimidating. The Taepodong-2 lasted 35 seconds. They reportedly fueled it up nearly three weeks ago. Noah Shachtman noted a couple of weeks ago:

The hype kicked into high gear when The New York Times claimed that the Norks "completed fueling a long-range ballistic missile" over the weekend. But the report is getting fishier by the second. The Norks generally rely on a highly corrosive gasoline-kerosene mix for their missile fuel, and an oxidizer containing nitric acid. It's nasty, metal-eating stuff. And once fueled up, the missile has to be launched quickly — two or three days, I've been told — or else the missile is basically ruined.

Is it possible they didn't know this? And on this "may be capable of reaching America" stuff, Josh points out that The NYT got it right today: It might be capable of hitting Alaska -- not that that would be OK -- but it would hardly constitute "a relentless annihilating strike and a nuclear war." Well, it would get them nuked. Cheney wouldn't hesitate.