We got a dusting of snow last night; not much, but it's visible on the ground. A lot more of that to come, from what I've been told. It's supposed to warm up over the next few days, though.
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The tensions between North and South Korea haven't cooled down any. The North is still blustering about a possible war, and the South is massing troops in various vulnerable regions. I...don't...think it's going to happen (war), but then, nobody ever believes a war is going to happen until it does. I really don't see what North Korea would gain by it, or what they would even hope to gain by it. A united peninsula under Northern control? That's not going to happen, surely Kim Jong-il is smart enough to know that. North Korea couldn't win a war, not without China's help, and a war with the west doesn't appear to be in China's best interests, either.
But only Pyongyang and Beijing know what is going on in the halls of Pyongyang and Beijing....
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Regarding China, I do have this interesting quote I'd like to share with my readers. I've actually put this on my blog before, but it's been over a year and it may have some relevance here. It's about Japan, not China:
"The history of Japan is an unfinished drama in which three acts have been played. The first...is classical Buddhist Japan (522-1603 A.D.), suddently civilized by China and Korea, refined and softened by religion, and creating the historic masterpieces of Japanese literature and art. The second is feudal and peaceful Japan of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868), isolated and self-contained, seeking no alien territoy and no external trade, content with agriculture and wedded to art and philosophy. The third act is modern Japan, opened up in 1853 by an American fleet, forced by conditions within and without into trade and industry, seeking foreign materials and markets, fighting wars of irrepressible expansion, imitating the imperialistic ardor and methods of the West, and threatening both the ascendancy of the white race and the peace of the world. By every historical precedent the next act will be war."
That was written (by Will Durant) in 1936, five years before Pearl Harbor. It sounds an awful, awful lot like China of 2010.