As N. Korea reportedly prepares to launch a missile...

Some might think of reports of North Korean missile activity as a "Wag the Dog" distraction from bad news in Iraq. But the latest news on North Korea, as reported in today's New York Times, should not be taken lightly.

However, one should also realize that missile preparations don't mean missiles will necessarily launch - at least any time soon. The last time North Korea had the world in a tizzy was August 31, 1998, when it did in fact launch a satellite (on a Taep'o-dong rocket) directly over Japan.

That launch had been predicted, but it was almost a year earlier that "A U.S. military satellite detect[ed] the deployment of a Nodong-1 missile in possible preparation for a test launch," according to the Wisconsin project.

So yes this is serious, but it might be a little while before launch. Hopefully no such event occurs.

UPDATE: The AP says there's only a launch window of one month now that fuel has been loaded. So nevermind that 11-month gap that happened in the 1998 situation, perhaps.

Side note: I was in Japan in August of 1998, on a Marine base, and things did get rather tense after the launch. But I was in southern Japan, so it's not as if a missile passed directly over my head.