[Note:  Written the day after North Korea exploded its "device," an Update with new information is now appended at the end.]

The public face of Bush Administration officials regarding North Korea's nuclear test is a mask of utter seriousness, or "grave concern."  Behind the mask, folks are laughing their heads off.  Meanwhile, the world's dumbest nuclear scientists - namely, those in North Korea - are terrified of what Baby Kim will do to them when he finds out the truth.

Essentially, we have a replay of the total fiasco of Baby Kim's headline-garnering missile test launch last July.

North Korea's claim to have successfully conducted a test explosion of a nuclear bomb on Monday (October 8) has resulted in even more public hysteria that its missile tests, and even more private laughter.  The test shows the entire plutonium stockpile of North Korea is worthless:  It's not "weapons grade" so bombs cannot be made ot it.  Here's why.

It is certain that a Russian made anti-aircraft missile fired by Russian armed, trained, and commanded Ukrainian "separatists" shot down Malaysia Air flight MH-17 last week killing all 298 passengers and crew aboard.

Yet even if this was a conscious act perpetrated by the Russian government under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, we already know what is going to happen to Putin in particular and Russia in general. Nothing.

Despite widespread disgust at Russia's involvement in this act of terrorism the odds are that Putin simply toughs it out and moves on. 

The Kremlin's standard strategy will work once again:  1) obfuscate and confuse the truth by spreading several made-up disinformation stories; 2) delay or block any attempt to find out what happened; 3) depend on European (and now American) cowardice in confronting the Kremlin; 4) double down in the face of criticism.

Putin realized from the earliest moments that his thugs in eastern Ukraine, if not his army, were behind this operation. The last wreckage from MH-17 had hardly stopped bouncing when Russian media was reporting two different stories. These were for the consumption of its domestic audience and of subscribers to Ron Paul's newsletters.

Last week, President Obama said that "income inequality" is the major problem that his administration would focus on for the remainder of his term. He proposed increasing the minimum wage as a way to solve this issue.

The president's statement is a perfect example of how politicians misdiagnose problems and then offer solutions that make matters worse.

The real problem is the lack of economic growth, which reduces economic opportunity, particularly for the least skilled. Increasing the minimum wage helps those who actually receive an increase in their wage, but it makes it worse for all of those who lose a job or can't get one because the minimum wage is far above the market clearing rate.

As can be seen in this table, most minimum-wage workers are young people who quickly obtain higher wages as their work skills improve.

The last thing America's Traitor Media would report is that we are winning in Afghanistan.  Yet that's what's happening.  NATO forces - combining US, Canadian, Australian, Polish soldiers plus 1,000 French (!) - have been rolling up the Taliban in a ball over the last several months. 

The "resurgent" Taliban that Democrats like John Kerry claimed today (9/14) are "running amok across entire regions" of Afghanistan are in reality being wiped out.  Victory over them is quite near.

Taliban guerrillas are being killed by the gross - dozens, scores, at a time, hundreds a week.  Over 500 have been killed in one single district (Panjwayi) west of Kandahar (the main city in southern Afghanistan) in the past two weeks alone.  It's being called The Great Taliban Turkey Shoot.

Have you noticed that many government regulations are so complex and vague that it is impossible to know if you are in compliance?

Examples are the 70,000-plus pages of Internal Revenue Service regulations and the reported 30,000-plus pages of Obamacare regulations. Who do you think has a self-interest in all this complexity and vagueness?

The Food and Drug Administration was set up to protect us from consuming bad food or drugs. It has morphed into an agency that keeps potentially beneficial drugs from us, and now is even banning our ability to know what diseases to which we may be prone, and thus, blocking our ability to take potential corrective or preventative action.

The FDA has gone from being a protector to a destroyer of health and liberty.  Other overreaching government regulators are also squeezing liberty out of existence.  Here are some examples.