Wednesday, July 05, 2006

We're Thinking Of Bringing Wile E Coyote In On The Next Launch

We wrote once before about the North Korean's threat to launch a missile aimed at the Pacific Ocean and how we really didn't think activating our inoperable missile defense shield was the best way to scare them into converting to Christianity and accepting baseball as the national pastime.

Well, now they've gone and launched that missile, and a bunch more it seems, and it turns out we didn't need our unworkable missile defense shield after all because the North Koreans missed their target. All 64,000,000 square miles of it.

US and regional officials said Wednesday the first set of missiles, including five short- and medium-range models as well as the Taepodong-2 which failed shortly after launch, splashed down in the Sea of Japan. "In retrospect we should have been suspicious of parts that came from eBay." A spokesperson for the North Korean government said.

The test launches by the Stalinist state triggered a flurry of diplomatic initiatives, headlined by a meeting of the powerful 15-member UN Security Council to discuss the crisis. "Well, these guys barely got the missiles off the ground," a UN aide said. "So I don't know if crisis is the right word, but still, they have such a nice buffet at the Security Council cafeteria we couldn't pass up the opportunity. Try the chipotle chicken. It's to die for."

In the first comment from North Korea, foreign ministry official Ri Pyong Dok reportedly said the launches were an issue of national sovereignty. "Look, we don't play soccer, we don't ski, and we can't play tennis because peasants keep planting corn on the courts. You got to give us something, you know?"

China, considered to exert the greatest influence on North Korea, issued a subdued reaction calling on "relevant sides" to "remain calm and exercise restraint. "We are seriously concerned about the incident that has already happened," Beijing's foreign ministry said in a statement on its website. "We find it is easier to be concerned about things that have already happened than to worry about what might happen. It's a zen thing, you westerners wouldn't understand."

The US said it was going on the diplomatic counter-offensive and condemned the missile tests as "provocative acts," even though they posed no immediate threat. "Hey. Iraq wasn't a threat either and look what we did to them. Just saying North Korea," said a State Department spokesperson.

South Korea threatened to stop shipments of rice and other humanitarian aid to its impoverished northern neighbor, and put its military on high alert. "Somebody told us they were making rocket fuel out of fermented rice," explained an aide to Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon. "Oh wait, that's saki. No wonder the missile went sideways."

The US missile defense system based in California, Alaska and onboard US Navy ships had been on high alert in anticipation of the Taepodong-2 test and was ready to shoot down any missile if it threatened US territory. "We're about as close to shooting down one of their missiles as they are to hitting the Pacific," said a Pentagon spokesman who requested anonymity.

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