Pardon my nuke

North Korea’s Imperial Majesty Kim Jong Il would like you all to know that he regrets that little nuclear event last weekend. But he insisted to the contingent of nunchuck-brandishing Chinese “diplomats” who visited him yesterday in Pyongyang that he didn’t really mean anything by the nuke test.

“Heck, if we’d been serious, you’d know it,” he said. “Portland and Seattle would be toast. Maybe San Diego, too. Our guidance systems still need work.”

Kim said the nuclear detonation wasn’t really intended to be a hostile act directed at anyone in particular. “It was really—what do you call it?—performance art.”

“We regret any inconvenience, or dirty diapers, this has caused anyone,” he added. “We really didn’t do it, and we promise not to do it again. Sorry.”

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan was quick to embrace Kim’s new conciliatory posture. “His word is good enough for me,” Anan said with a straight face. “If Mr. Kim isn’t a man of his word, then I’m not a good judge of character.”

Yet another medical update

Today’s lab results confirm that the Roscoe is not in a life-threatening position with anti-clotting blood levels, if we ever were. That first result was probably a fluke or a lab error, thankfully. By the way, did you know that what they give you to thin your blood is actually rat poison? That’s right. It’s coumadin (or warfarin), which kills rats by causing them to spontaneously bleed to death.

Anyway, our particular levels of rat poison are apparently settling into the safe zone at last without serious side effects. Unless you count the irresistible compulsion to hoard shiny objects and to leave our droppings all over tarnation.