no subject

I woke up mysteriously in the middle of the night last night, depressed and upset. I know what it was about, or at least what it was hanging on (misleading one-word summary: loneliness), but I don't know where it came from - the past couple of weeks I've been feeling especially happy, energetic, productive, and optimistic. Maybe it was just leftover emotional weirdness from a dream I can't remember, or something.

In any case, the mood passed in half an hour or an hour, but I couldn't get back to sleep again for about 4½ hours. So I'm not at my most functional today. :-)

North Korea

An interesting UPI news analysis on Kim Jong-Il's motives in provoking and embarrassing the US. (Capsule summary: Because he's afraid Bush's "axis of evil" rhetoric isn't just idle posturing and he wants to get the US resigned to a nuclear-armed North Korea while it still has its hands full in Iraq.) My favourite quote:

[T]he very gung-ho policy against Saddam that administration super-hawks and their media chorus have for so long claimed is essential to deter Third World rogue state dictators has instead encouraged one of the worst of them -- Kim -- to be far more aggressive, unpredictable and dangerous than he ever was before.