According to Japanese media, North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range ballistic missile that could reach the United States. So, um... should I panic now, or have dinner first?

NHK said that the missile appeared to be a Taepodong-2, which previous reports have said has a range of more than 6,700 km (4,200 miles), making it capable of hitting the continental United States with a light payload.

NHK, quoting U.S. government officials, said if the missile was a modified version of the Taepodong-2, it could have a range of 15,000 km (9,300 miles), which would cover all of the United States.

Quoting Japanese government sources, Japan's Kyodo news agency also said a launch could be imminent and that the missile was probably a Taepodong-2 but could be the modified version.

U.S. officials have said the North is developing longer-range missiles that could hit the continental United States.

I tend to take Turkey's secularism for granted, as I'm sure many of us do. But I don't think I'm realistic on this and I wonder whether Turkey will continue to be a secular Muslim country or will it become a country ruled by Islamists. Thousands march against Turk judge killing

More than 25,000 people marched on Thursday in defense of secularism in mainly Muslim Turkey, shocked by the killing of a leading judge by a religious gunman.

Angry crowds outside the Ankara mosque where the funeral of slain judge Mustafa Ozbilgin was being held, pushed government ministers on their way inside. And outside the country's top administrative court, bystanders booed Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and called for the government's resignation.

Looks like preparations for civil war in Gaza are intensifying: Rival Palestinian forces parade through Gaza. I'm sure Israel will get blamed for this one too. It's the occupayshon!

Security forces from rival Palestinian factions paraded through the streets of Gaza on Thursday, sometimes within feet of one another, intensifying fears of a showdown between the heavily armed groups.

Bearded young men armed with AK-47s and dressed in military fatigues, part of a new 3,000-strong Hamas-allied force, held ground on many streets, while a bolstered police force loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas paraded nearby.

For residents of Gaza City, there was a mix of confusion and concern, with some unsure exactly which armed men were loyal to which faction, and whether the extra presence would mean greater security or an inevitable showdown between the groups.

Can you blame him for mocking us?

This diplomatic effort with the EU-3, China, and Russia is the stupidest charade in the world. We're now supporting a European effort to hand the mullahs some light-water nuclear reactors. You know, the same kind that Clinton and Carter had so much success handing out to North Korea.

It's like deja-vu all over again, right Yogi?

The best part of this charade is the rigged game we're playing. It amounts to this: "Dear Russia and China. We know you have hundreds of billions of dollars in deals with our worst enemy and you don't like us much, either. We want you to help us destroy your friend, putting all your deals in jeopardy and hurting you and helping ourselves. You can say 'no', and we won't do it, because your opinion about keeping the world secure is just as valid as ours." What kind of a moron, faced with this proposition, would say "yes"?

Apparently, China and Russia are not that kind of moron.

The UN is worse than useless-it's designed to hurt US interests in favor of transnationalism. And I'm not so sure Bush minds that. I think he's a transnationalist at heart.

This is the same Bush who went all the way with the UN in the runup to the Iraq invasion, allowing Saddam, Iran, and Al Qaeda to separately and jointly set up an insurgency that should have been stillborn but is still killing American soldiers today. Bush and his officials, in a fit of naiveté or sheer stupidity, kept spreading the word that this was a crucial credibility test for the UN, and that if it failed it, it would not recover soon. Well, it failed the test of seriousness, and we had to invade against the UN's wishes anyway. And here we are again, doing the same thing, and repeating the same fucking lines about the UN's "endangered credibility!" Fuck me, man, this is absolutely ridiculous. How many bad checks does the UN have to write before we stop accepting their checks?

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's president mocked a package of incentives to suspend uranium enrichment, saying Wednesday they were like giving up gold for chocolate — defiance that appeared certain to complicate U.S. efforts to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

"Do you think you are dealing with a 4-year-old child

Umm, yes, actually. A psychotic, murderous 4-year-old child.

to whom you can give some walnuts and chocolates and get gold from him?" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked derisively.

He spoke before a huge crowd in the city of Arak, the site of a heavy-water reactor that is scheduled for completion by early 2009. Such facilities produce plutonium as a byproduct usable in building nuclear weapons.

Signaling the difficulties ahead, a high-level, six-nation meeting on Iran was postponed Wednesday, reflecting differences between the United States and its allies on one side, and the Chinese and Russians on the other.

The London meeting of senior officials from the five permanent Security Council members and Germany was to have been held Friday, but was postponed to Tuesday at the earliest, diplomats told The Associated Press.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the session was postponed because "we're trying to put together a package that would include incentives on one side and penalties."

"I don't think there is a full agreement on exactly what would cormpise the package," he said. "This is complex, multilateral diplomacy. It takes a little bit of time."

China and Russia have opposed bringing Iran's case to a vote in the
U.N. Security Council, where the United States, Britain and France have pressed for sanctions.

Only a day earlier, European nations said they might add a light-water reactor to a package of incentives meant to persuade Tehran to permanently give up enrichment.

But Ahmadinejad heaped scorn on the offer in the nationally televised speech Wednesday.

"They say they want to offer us incentives," he said. "We tell them: keep the incentives as a gift for yourself. We have no hope of anything good from you."

His defiance was met with shouts of, "We love you Ahmadinejad!" from the crowd.

Ehud Olmert was recently telling Israelis (but now seems to have stopped) that he's going to spend his four days in Washington next week asking Bush for $12-ish billion to help Israel pay for the "convergence" plan. That's the latest fancy name for Israel's ongoing surrender to Palestinian terrorism.

Call it "Land for Nothing." It's about as wise a strategy as the Underpants Gnomes' business plan, and has the added benefit of being more honest than the now-defunct "Land for Peace".

The $12 billion Olmert wants comes on top of $2 billion that the US promised for the Gaza disengagement, which comes to about $200,000 for each Israeli man, woman and child who was evicted by Sharon and Olmert from Gaza. It seems a rather steep price, considering how poorly many Gaza evacuees are faring; how much of the money made its way to the affected people? On that scale, the proposed $12 billion request would pay for making 60,000 Jews' homes Judenrein. Great.

The delicious thing is that the State Department's Stephen Hadley, one of Condi Rice's right-hand-men, was recently insisting to an American Jewish audience that Bush and Olmert will not discuss Olmert's "convergence" plan. This appears to be part of a concerted and frantic White House effort to head off any requests for money at the pass before Olmert even gets here. For domestic political reasons, Bush's advisors calculate that he can't afford to ask Congress for the money to fund the "final solution" for Israel that they, in large part, conceived! (Not to deny a certain recent Israeli talent for self-destructive strategies).

In fact, that $2 billion mentioned above to help Israel pay for the Gaza withdrawal? Israel hasn't seen a dime of it yet, it's all empty promises and negotiations. If Uncle Sugar ever does cough up, I don't think much of it will go to the people who lost their homes, either. Recent history is telling: the State's dealings with the evacuees are carried out in bad faith.

They're inconvenient people. Inconvenient people who have a nasty habit of rallying the population to their cause against the Israeli and international elites, creating embarrassing scenes on TV, and worst of all, they're religious Jews, and therefore basically scum according to the secular leftists who run Israeli government today.

How I wish Bush and Olmert were planning on discussing serious problems like Iran, instead of non-pressing ones like "how can we kick more Jews out of their homes?" More:

On Monday, the White House said in a statement that Bush would meet with Olmert on May 23 and that Bush "looks forward to discussing with the prime minister the strong bilateral relationship between the United States and Israel as well as a wide range of regional and international issues."

The visit will be Olmert's first trip overseas since his centrist Kadima party won the March 28 general elections.

Earlier, Olmert said that the aim of his meeting with Bush would be to secure international support for more pullouts from the West Bank, including financial assistance.

Olmert has vowed to set Israel's final borders by 2010 and that the convergence plan will be his government's priority, under which Israel will quit isolated settlements in the West Bank but keep bigger ones with or without the Palestinians' agreement.

To secure more international support for more pullouts. Wow. Why am I reminded of Bumfights? "I'll give you a stale donut to pull your own teeth with a pair of pliers." Olmert: "OK."