Big news today, and big news expected tomorrow. Maybe I’ll finally get into the swing of updating again.

First of all, big news today. On the bad side, a notoriously uncooperative nation has successfully (fully) detonated an atomic weapon. On the good side, it didn’t happen on my birthday this time.

Overall, not a good thing. That nation is unstable – some say that the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il has already died. North Korea has been astonishingly aggressive lately, although this could simply be an attempt to bolster the diplomatic strength of the state – a bargaining chip. Still, this is a serious problem on several levels.

The obvious problem is another nuclear state. Personally, I’m not comfortable with anyone having the capability to level entire cities. And honestly, I’m not comfortable with any nation – even my own – having the capability to destroy the entire planet. It’s just one of those things I would rather not have in anyone’s hands, you know?

Of course, I doubt North Korea would be stupid enough to actually use any. If nuclear missiles start flying into Seoul, we’ll kind of know who did it. Ever since this has started, I’d be simply flabbergasted if the US hasn’t kept at least a couple Trident submarines stationed around North Korea. I’m no expert on this, but I’d expect that it would take less than one hour for the United States alone to obliterate every single square inch of North Korea into a barren wasteland so completely annihilated that the moon would be teeming with life in comparison.

So that brings us to the second problem: North Korea selling the warheads. They’d certainly have motivation to do so. They could blame any other nation – for instance, Iran – for the deal. They are in desperate need of money and food. Actually, they’re in desperate need of pretty much everything, including (and especially) leadership.

Maybe things would be better if they didn’t insist on a proportionally insane military to threaten a country that was more than 30 times as wealthy as itself. These dictatorships just never seem to be able to create any economic success – at least, not for anyone other than the dictator and his favored elite. Enter irrelevant yet fascinating discussion about whether or not wealth is a requirement for democracy, a la Przeworski.

There also is a sinister tinfoil-hat third problem: while an ambitious North Korea could blame other countries for any suddenly-nuclear terrorist factions, this uncertainty works both ways. Any other nuclear-capable nation could use North Korea as a scapegoat for their own horrific actions. If a nuke goes off in China, some faction in Tibet must have done it through North Korea. If something explodes in Pakistan, it must be Al-Qaeda via North Korea.

Of course, the chance that US Intelligence (read: our spies and assassins) are working their best to sabotage North Korea hovers around 100%, and I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a quick bombing run on any nuclear reactors. North Korea must know that it would woefully lose any attempt to invade South Korea – the real question is, would they try regardless?

Up for discussion tomorrow: the Proposition 8 appeal results in California. Also, the budgetary problems in California on Thursday.