UGLY STUFF – AT 10:30 A.M. ET:  North Korea doesn't bother with diplomatic niceties.  Jerks at work.  From London's Telegraph:   

North Korea called President Barack Obama "a monkey" and blamed the US on Saturday for shutting down its internet services amid the hacking row over The Interview.

North Korea has denied involvement in a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures but has expressed fury over the comedy depicting an assassination of its leader Kim Jong-un. After Sony Pictures initially called off the release in a decision criticised by Obama, the movie has opened this week.

On Saturday, the North's powerful National Defence Commission, the country's top governing body led by Kim, said that Obama was behind the release of The Interview. It described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary.

"Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest," an unidentified spokesman at the commission's policy department said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

He also accused Washington for intermittent outages of North Korean websites this week, after the US had promised to respond to the Sony hack.

The official, who asked to be named only as

There was no immediate reaction from the White House on Saturday.

COMMENT:  The North Korean behavior, including a racist slur, is to a degree the result of years of American appeasement.  We tried to stop their nuclear program through "negotiation," and, when that failed, there was no serious punishment.  No matter what North Korea does, including the sinking of a South Korean warship several years ago, they only get a slap on the wrist.  They have contempt for us, for weakness always breeds contempt.

I wonder what answer we will give their latest statement.  Don't hold your breath.

December 27,  2014