10 February 2005 @ 11:28PM >> In 1994, the government of North Korea promised the Clinton Administration that its nuclear program would be shut down. In 2002, North Korea admitted that it had restarted its nuclear program in direct violation of that agreement.

Why did this diplomatic effort fail? Well, for one, it presumed that North Korea could be trusted to keep its promises. And that’s often the trouble with diplomatic attempts to rein in totalitarian regimes. Such agreements are based purely on the hope that you can trust the word of a tyrant. Going back through history, how many tyrants have proven themselves to be trustworthy?

Thanks to the Clinton Administration, North Korea had eight years to advance its nuclear program in secret. If they hadn’t been naive enough to believe that Kim Jung Il could be trusted, perhaps North Korea’s nuclear program could have been stopped before it was too late. Now it is too late; North Korea has nuclear weapons, and it appears likely that they’ve had nukes for several years now. That greatly constrains our options in dealing with North Korea.

Keep this in mind next time the members of the Cult of Diplomacy try to convince you that all the world’s problems can be solved with talk. Sometimes, they can’t. Sometimes, the dangerous developments in the world can only be stopped by action.

10 February 2005 @ 6:20PM >> A professor from the Miami University (of Ohio) recently sent a rather nasty e-mail that illustrates quite well the environment that many students face on campus.

Check out the e-mail over at AcademicBias.com.

10 February 2005 >> The Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet sponsors an annual set of awards for “outstanding achievement in the use of the Internet as a political tool.” One of the categories is for “Best Political Web Video.”

Because I’ve noticed several other sites campaigning for web awards of various types, I will follow their lead and shamelessly point out the award nomination page while submitting for your consideration Pin the Tale on the Donkeys.

If you decide to submit a nomination, you’ll notice that the nomination form is a little confusing, and you won’t be able to provide all of the information requested. I’d suggest leaving fields blank if you don’t know what to put there. You can indicate your selection(s) in the comment box. I trust these guys a little more to figure out voter intent than I would if they were, say, the Palm Beach County Board of Elections.