Missile Envy

The P-I has an article today that explores the panic that the North Korean missile tests of 5, July have struck into area hearts. "I don't think Seattle will be a target," David Cahn stuttered in terror. "America has occupied their country for 50 years. America's policy is the provocation for this sort of thing," Ted Roberts told the paper while impaired by fear . "Even if (the missile) could reach the U.S., it would be wildly inaccurate, and lucky to hit the continent," expert Victoria Samson --obviously lying in order to prevent mass riots and chaos in the region-- imparted.

For our part, it's not so much the credibility of the weapon (although we'll get to that) that fails to threaten us. It's the guy pushing the buttons. Kim Jong-il? C'mon. The guy's said to be a huge fan of Hollywood. That alone settles it. No huge fan of Hollywood is to be feared. You think Putin sits around the Kremlin chuckling at Adam Sandler? No, because he's obviously a badass who has chunks of oligarchs bigger than the EMP in his stool. Of course, if we were in North Korea Kim Jong-il could crush us in some diabolically complex fashion Ala James Bond Ala Austin Powers but we're feeling pretty ok about the miles between North Korea and Seattle. The world got smaller on 9/11, but thankfully it still looks pretty large to a Taepodong-2 missile, which is what we're talking about here.

The range of the Taepodong-2 is disputed. Some say variants of this missile could reach Wisconsin. Some say it would show up in the Aleutians out of breath and ready for a nap. Some even say it would bust a quick U and give Kim Jong-il a knock on the forehead in a comical fashion. The thing is powered by a gasoline and kerosene mixture, after all, which places our idiomatic reliance on "rocket fuel" in extreme jeopardy in terms of future energy drink marketing. Seattlest has had trouble heating coffee to room temperature with kerosene in the past, so we're not sold on its ability to hurl a missile at the Space Needle from the far side of Lake Union much less North Korea to Seattle. Rarely are we accused of rocket science, but it says right here: "Fuel: TM-185 20% Gasoline, 80% Kerosene."

We have one day of missile test apprehension and mental images of Uncle Sam stiff-arming Kim Jong-il little brother style while he takes swipes at us with a wiffle ball bat. South Korea has to put up with this shit 365 which really makes us feel for all the geographic unfortunates of the globe.