| Almost immediately after North Korea provoked | | | | bouquet of wailing regrets. |
| the world by testing a nuclear weapon, the | | | | |
| supplicant said, "We're sorry. Please, pass | | | | "How could we have done such a thing?" the |
| the collection basket." The Dennis The | | | | official North Korean press agency lamented. |
| Menance routine was part of the country's | | | | "Imagine how wrong we were! Forgive us and |
| shaky policy to extract as many donations as | | | | hand over our incentives." |
| possible in its bid to support a lavish | | | | |
| lifestyle for Kim Jong IL without the | | | | Confident of abundant support after the |
| slightest evidence that his country has an | | | | departure of the Chinese dupe, the North |
| economy. | | | | Korean government held a Bordeaux-tilting |
| | | | celebration. It seems on the way to achieving |
| The repentance was ideally timed to flatter | | | | every goal it hoped for as a result of its |
| its largest donor nation, China, which sent a | | | | calculated one-two punch of nuclear |
| nuclear envoy to discuss the upsetting | | | | provocation followed with effusive |
| explosion and, with oriental subtlety, to | | | | repentance. |
| slap his butt for it. Spying the ideal | | | | |
| opportunity to stroke its benefactor, at the | | | | Meanwhile, its citizens are left to wonder, |
| same time it might head off pending | | | | amid the governmental hoopla, Where's the |
| sanctions, North Korea sent him home with a | | | | economy? |