Who could have seen this coming?

I never watched much of the Three Stooges. In addition to the confusion of there actually being about seven of them, the cringeworthy slapstick just never really appealed to me. Too much "hey, you could poke an eye out" humor which had my mother yelling, "Hey, they're gonna poke an eye out!" every time she walked by.

Nevertheless, the way that one of the stooges would capture the attention of another with one hand, and then use the other hand to suddenly slap him upside the head reminds me of North Korean tactics, so I guess there is some utility to the stooges after all.

And that's what I'm reminded of when we see this news about a report that North Korea is in the final stages of restoring its nuclear facilities:

North Korea is in the final stage of restoring its nuclear facilities, a news report said Tuesday, as leader Kim Jong Il expressed a conditional willingness to end Pyongyang's boycott of international nuclear talks.

South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities reached the conclusion after scrutinizing about 10 atomic facilities in North Korea since April when the communist regime vowed to restart its nuclear program in anger over a U.N. rebuke of its long-range rocket launch.

Just so we're clear, this is the slapping-upside-the-head part. This has been happening, of course, while Pyongyang sought one-on-one negotiations with Washington and better relations with Seoul, which it has repeatedly accused of aggression for no longer bending over to receive the Norks.

Really, none of this is new, and you're forgiven for thinking that this post might ben an accidental repeat.

That is all.