Don't know what happened to this the first time I tried to post it. I clicked on Post and it disappeared.

Interesting column from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. I love the opening line:

Let's say Kim Jong Il is nuts, a thousand times crazier than Michael Jackson, and that he's got nukes. That, in a nutshell, is what the Bush Doctrine is all about: the fact that we won't be around for long if we just let things roll along until the craziest people on the planet get their hands on weapons that can level Manhattan in a minute.



I bring this up because there's a photo on my desk from The Associated Press that shows nine babies all lined up in a row on the floor, smack up against each other. A single blanket is stretched across all nine, with just their heads sticking out. Picture nine grapefruits on the floor, lined up at the top of a blanket, with crying faces. "Three is the loneliest number," says the caption under the photo. "North Korean triplets snuggle up for a life on an orphanage floor."

The Herald Sun, Australia's largest-selling daily, tells the story behind the photo: "All triplets in North Korea are being forcibly removed from parents after their birth and dumped in bleak orphanages. The policy is carried out on the orders of Stalinist dictator Kim Jong Il, who has an irrational belief that a triplet could one day topple his regime."

And so, what it looks like is that these little triple threats are all going to be raised in government-run orphanages —- obedience factories —- where their development can be molded in such a way that they'll never think about things like regime change.