[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Father-son bonding in North Korea (click to view)
Date: June 8, 2010
So the North Koreans have been sabre-rattling a lot more than usual as of late. In response to the recent release of South Korean government report which definitively concluded that the North had indeed torpedoed a Southern warship back in March, the Kim Jong Il regime has been making all sorts of crazy/scary statements. "War may break out any moment!" they said last week, for instance.

Veteran Pyongyang-watchers have cautioned us to not take any of this too seriously, saying it's just an odd tableau of North Korean internal politics playing out on the global stage. Kim Jong Il is ailing, and apparently the way successor candidates are expected to prove themselves fit for the North Korean presidency is to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. Kim wants his son to take over, so the regime is now pretending that lil' Kim Jr. ordered the South Korean attack, and is thus directly responsible for the presently frightened state of the international community. Kim Jong himself was on the receiving end of a similar propaganda effort shortly before he came to power in the mid-90's, except he was credited with blowing up a South Korean airliner.

It would be nice if Kim Jong Il could just get on with it, and die or whatever already, rather than subject the world to more of his deadly family drama.

Here's a good summary of the situation from FOX.

[Psudo]

It's amusing that North Korea keeps up the formality of a parliament. Who do they think they're fooling?

Family tree: Sung and Suk begat Il, who then married Sook and begat Um. Remember that oriental names put the family name first.

[GreenTiger]

It would be nice if Kim Il Sung to drop dead. The only problem is that most of his leadership needs to die with him so that his people can get out from under this brutal life he and his father provided.

[Quantum_Wizard]

In case someone hasn't seen it, the (North) Korean Central News Agency also publishes news translated to English (and Spanish) on the Net. The site is here:

http://www.kcna.co.jp

The writing style feels very alien, if one is used to Western media. Some writings are quite hilarious.