The Czar is right. The nuclear genie’s long out of the bottle and is far less fetching than Barbara Eden. The Czar politely mentions the past difficulties between Burma and the DPRK. If the Volgi’s memory serves, these include the fact the Norks blew up a bunch of South Korean government officials in Rangoon during a conference one time. (Hey, look, I’m right.)

In terms of the Kim Mafia’s rapprochement with the SLORC goons, I can’t say I’m shocked and more than that the officially godless Commies of Pyŏngyang coöperate very happily with the theocratic Shi‘ite regime in Tehrân or that Mao & Deng’s China’s in bed with the Sunni fundamentalists of the Sudan. Outlaws have common interests. (Heck, even those who are merely held in distaste by the international community can work together as evinced by the substantial Israeli-South African military coöperation in the 1980s.)

One of the leading interests of what we used to call rogue states (which became “states of concern” and are now, if memory serves, “friends we haven’t met”) is to get nukes so no one—read Team America, World Police—can come in and depose you à la Ṣaddâm.

Plus, the Norks, like the proverbial French whore, will sell anyone anything.

Diæreses and ligatures are free this week.

Photo: What, you thought we’d talk about outlaws and not work in Doc Holliday (PBUH)?

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.