Just who is shocked (except the Associated Press reporter)?

From an Associated Press report today on Kim Jong Il's preparations for testing a nuclear weapon:

The meeting was the reclusive leader's first reported appearance in three weeks and the first since Tuesday, when his government shocked the world by announcing plans to test a nuclear device on its way to building an arsenal of atomic weapons.

Let's see, the United States and just about everybody else has known - and warned - that North Korea was on the fast track to the A-Bomb Club for at least eight years now, ever since the "bouffant-haired leader" (that's AP's description too, by the way) declared such to be his intentions.

So the world was "shocked" on Tuesday when he said it was time to test?

The writer is identified as one Hans Greimel, which sounds distinctly European, which if true would explain where the AP is getting its "writing talent" (those are our intentional quote marks). Of course, he might be a graduate from Marquette U. in Wisconsin, for all we know. What he doesn't seem to be is very knowledgeable about history. Recent history. Like in the last decade when the Clinton Administration, on the advice of one Jimmy Carter, gave away the nuclear store in a naive "can't we all just get along" trade-off of technology with Mr. Kim.

The only person who will be shocked when the Exalted Supreme Leader lights the fuse, perhaps as early this weekend, will be Mr. Greimel. Depending on how large the test and how far underground it is - and it may be a surface blast, for all we know - the radioactive fallout could catch the wind and be in Wisconsin a few days later. Good times.

Thus prolonged negotiations and appeasement have brought us to this stage. Soon it will do the same with Iran, producing more "shock" no doubt from the Associated Press.