I know it's Springtime and it's supposed to be renewal and flowers and budding trees and things like that, but I'm tired of stuff right now, you know? Among certain other things that happened this week, there is also like this thing with the goofball in Korea who is gonna launch a nuclear missile on his grandfather's birthday or something? It's depressing!

We (as in U.S.) might set fire to the sky over this guy's country because he says he has a nuke missile and he wants to use it, you know? Doesn't this guy know how dangerous We The People are? Look what we did to a country [...]

"We encountered locals at the mass games, film studios, world's deepest underground metro, art schools, and delicious restaurants. This is not a society voluntarily marching in lockstep. Like Iranians and Cubans, they are told one story but increasingly encounter the other viewpoints through media and tourism. Our appreciation of their beautiful cultural offerings reminds them that they are a rich civilization temporarily trapped in an anachronistic state." —"Parag Khanna is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation" and a bizarre shill for the North Korean regime, though I guess they didn't take him to the gulags or execution-planning meetings? (via)

Bill Clinton and the two journalists he rescued from North Korea have returned safely to the United States (adorable photo here). "I am very happy that after this long ordeal, Laura Ling and Euna Lee are now home and reunited with their loved ones," said the former President in a three-line statement that shows how much the world has changed since he held office; ten years ago it would have been a small novel.

SUSPICIOUS PERSON: Hi, I represent a secretive foreign dictatorship with a history of concealment and malfeasance and a desperate need for hard currency to help prop up the regime. I'd like to buy an insurance policy from you, although even the most gullible person would probably be able to predict that we'll manufacture any number of fraudulent claims to obtain gigantic payouts.

INSURANCE INDUSTRY: Sure, sign here!

[Curtain]

Giant lizard attacks! North Korea nuclear tests (and subsequent proliferation)! Continuing turmoil in housing markets and a new "normal" of higher unemployment! Ben Stiller beating Christian Bale at the box office! I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekends, because it looks like TOTAL DISASTER from here on out!

Last weekend, when North Korea's United States Strike Plan was revealed, one city's inclusion had everyone baffled. The list included Washington D.C., Hawaii, Los Angeles and… Austin, Texas.

"No one seems to have any clue about how that last one made it on," Slate wrote. The genius foreign policy analysts at Townhall opined that "The literal answer, and literal target, is South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co.'s Samsung Austin Semiconductor (SAS) manufacturing facility." Less serious reasoning has blamed South By Southwest.

Nope! The real reason Kim Jung-un is targeting Austin for destruction is hipsters. Because of their acts of aggression against North Korea.

"[North Korea's state news agency] reported last week that a family of bears who usually hibernate through the fierce Korean winter had been seen lamenting Kim Jong-il's death. 'The bears, believed to be a mother and cubs, were staying on the road, crying woefully,' it said." [Via]

The breaking news out everywhere now is that Bill Clinton has succeeded in obtaining the release of the two journalists arrested earlier this year for entering into North Korea illegally. Maybe now they should send him to Iran.

Who knew that basically Al Gore and Hillary Clinton would begin World War III together?

One of the links passed around Twitter by China watchers yesterday was a photo gallery of "little warriors playing the game 'Defend the Diaoyu Islands.'" (The Islands being the disputed territory that sparked the nation's recent anti-Japan protests.) Armed with plastic assault rifles and (adorable!) berets, the children completed boot camp-like obstacle courses such as shimmying under razor wire (kidding; just string) while gripping tiny Chinese flags in their mouths (not kidding).

It's been two-and-a-half years since we first wrote about the Red Dawn reboot after coming across an early script. Then, the film's original 2010 release date was postponed; in the interim, the army invading America was [...]

Kim Jong-un, the third son of Kim Jong-il, his second with now-deceased The Respected Mother who is the Most Faithful and Loyal 'Subject' to the Dear Leader Comrade Supreme Commander (and also a former dancer), is said to be real due to a new photo and video! This jarring event takes place as North and South Korea began and then promptly ended super-awkward military talks. What's more: "U.S.-North Korean relations have worsened since President Barack Obama took office."

Former President Bill Clinton landed in Pynogyang this morning in an attempt to secure the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two journalists arrested in March and sentenced to 12 years for illegally crossing into North Korea. While the White House is characterizing the visit as a "solely private mission," both North Korea and the United States benefit from the diplomatic encounter: North Korea gets the recognition it so desperately craves in the eyes of the world-we sent them a former President, and it wasn't Jimmy Carter!-while the United States may finally be able to achieve the journalists' safe return home. Should Clinton succeed in retrieving Ling [...]

Your North Korean succession story explained: The current leader, Kim Jong-il, has three known sons. The eldest, Kim Jong-nam, was once considered the leading candidate to succeed his father, until the Disneyland episode added to rumors that his judgment was less than reliable. Kim Jong-nam is widely reported to have voracious appetites for alcohol and women, and his father apparently grew concerned that North Korea's generals would never accept him, according to a former American intelligence official.