The cult is both fascinating and horrifying (as well as being a huge diversion of scarce resources), but the central question today lies elsewhere: is Kim Jong Il a rational leader with whom the west can do business, or a loose missile (perhaps, after Pyongyang's nuclear test, an unguided bomb), to be neutralised before he destroys himself and possibly the world?
There is, for example, an unsubstantiated rumour running around that the MoD is cheerfully letting loose cruise missiles which have a millennium bug problem, looking forward to replacing them with problem-free missiles next year, at the Treasury's expense.Third, the Treasury points out, it is the MoD's own fault that it has nothing in the kitty to contribute to war costs.
Competition for space sim fans will come, however, from Eve Valkyrie - a new game set in the Eve universe but which puts players in the cockpit of a spaceship and gives them the chance to let loose with missiles and lasers against other people.
Mr Aso backed Mr Abe in pushing for international sanctions against North Korea after it loosed off missiles in July.
(Make sure the unit is securely locked; accidents or sudden stops can turn loose objects into missiles).
"Get over there and get them before they can have a chance to turn those missiles loose on us over here".
Still, no public evidence has surfaced, beyond these echoing news reports, of shoulder-fired SA-24 missiles loose in Libya, as Stingers were in southwest Asia after the United States provided them to anti-Soviet Afghan fighters, decades back.
The two Pentagon programs concentrates offense (all those arsenal planes can let loose with their missiles on a small set of hapless defenses) and disperses for defense (aircraft are now all over, not just concentrated near targets in combat zones). .
North Korea's provocation by loosing off ballistic missiles on July 5th did no favours for Mr Fukuda's doveish line on foreign policy, says Koichi Kato, a Fukuda supporter who himself led a (disastrous) challenge to the party establishment back in 2000.
The F-8 model has a broken wheel, and one of its Sidewinder missiles is loose.
