Mario Loyola has an excellent essay on the state of North Korea. Therein, he writes that American foreign policy really fails to understand China and her attitudes to North Korea.

When the George W. Bush administration first came into office, it was determined to solve the problem of North Korea and its nuclear-weapons program once and for all, rather than punt it into the next administration. It concluded that one positive step would be to involve China in the situation by convincing it that the North Korea nuclear crisis was China’s problem too. But what Americans have always had trouble understanding is that China sees North Korea as principally its problem, more than anybody else’s. And what the Bush administration failed to appreciate was that China’s changing perception of North Korea would now be the central plot-driver in this final act of the North Korean tragedy.

Ahem. Of course, Gormogon readers read this back in May, did they not?

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.