Saying he's "...tired of buying the same horse twice," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other Obama administration officials have pledged to not offer food aid to North Korea as an inducement to sit down for nuclear disarmament talks with Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and the U.S.

    In the past, food aid has been offered on condition that the North Koreans talk, the aid has been delivered, and the North Koreans reneged. It happened 13 times during the Bush and Clinton administrations.

    But not this time, the administration is saying. Talk or go hungry. South Korea has already gotten tough on food aid to their neighbors to the north. Under President Lee Myung-bak's direction, the south in 2007 ended a decade-long run of food shipments, depriving the north of a million tons of food a year, and enough fertilizer to let North Korea grow an additional half-million tons on its own.

    Kim Jong Il, North Korea's "Dear Leader" can never be counted on for a rational reaction, but maybe it'll work if he ponders the idea of his countrymen starving to death. Or maybe not.

    Another question is this: Can we be counted on to withhold food as we watch North Korea's children starving to death?

    We already know the answer to that one.

    There's a story about the situation in yesterday's Washington Post by reporter Blaine Harden. You can read it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/18/AR2009111801532.html

    Privy bags come in from the cold tomorrow at a first-ever in the world/universe museum exhibit in Ephrata, Pa. The outhouse, long a staple of rural and small-town existence was no place for decoration until young women from Lancaster County developed this unique way to demonstrate their needlework skills. Privy bags were intended to hold a supply of paper and the occasional Sears catalog, but many of them never made it out to the back of the house. They looked too nice. Anne Harnish, Lancaster Farming food and family features editor, visited the Theodore R. Sprecher Museum for an advance look at the exhibit, and did a story for the issue due in your mailbox tomorrow.

A Hail Mary for the record books: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/-Trick-or-panic-NAIA-college-completes-the-w?urn=ncaaf,203690