Best News I've Heard In A Long Time

I was reading in The Corner and saw this:

The Boeing Company, working with industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, today successfully completed a missile defense flight test that demonstrated the increased operational capability of the nation’s only defense against long-range ballistic missiles.

The test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system began at 1:22 pm when a long-range ballistic missile target lifted off from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska. Seventeen minutes later, military operators launched an interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. After flying into space, the interceptor released its exo-atmospheric kill vehicle, which proceeded to track the target warhead. Due to earlier program accomplishments, several test objectives were accelerated and included in this test.

The test achieved several significant objectives for the first time:

· An operationally configured interceptor was fired from an operational GMD site;

· An operationally configured interceptor tracked a ballistic missile;

· A newly upgraded missile-warning radar at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., provided target data to an in-flight interceptor;

· The mission-control center at the Joint National Integration Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., controlled a live GMD engagement.

Although not a primary objective of the test, the kill vehicle intercepted the warhead and destroyed it. This was the first intercept with an operationally configured interceptor.

That is *awesome*. This is such a huge accomplishment, it should be front page, lead story news. But it won't be.

JASmius adds: But this will:

North Korea has accused the United States of threatening war with its missile defense test. Pyongyang vowed Saturday to strengthen its own self-defense to counter a U.S. attack. ...

Pyongyang's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said in a statement on state radio, the test was "aimed at attacking us and intercepting our missiles."

Note how they equate the two. As if to say, "If you really wanted peace, you'd let our ICBMs destroy you!"

I can no longer tell whether "our" DisLoyal Opposition has gotten as crazy as our enemies, or our enemies have come to recognize the propaganda utility of apeing the demented rhetoric of "our" DisLoyal Opposition. But the above NoKo statement looks as if it could have been plucked verbatim off of DailyKos or the Democrat Underground.

Heck, it probably was. But I'll leave that research to others. I have no desire to spend the rest of the day boiling my eyeballs.

UPDATE: Cap'n Ed makes some Reaganian parallels with the Bush approach to the NoKo's.