It would make no difference, the hierarchy would just create another Dear Leader. North Korea is not monolithic because one family is all powerful, they're monolithic because their governmental structure is all powerful and it will continually promote somebody to be at the tip of the monolith until a major war destroys the governmental structure. The one family just stops them from having a horrific series of coups and civil wars to sort out who the person at the top will be. The North Koreans are always posturing in an aggressive way because if they ever actually go to war they will be defeated in the end and the monolith will go away. They have themselves and everybody else by the balls.
Omfg That is AWESOME. I am so going to Photoshop that one when I get a chance. Edit: hah, too late, that's already been shopped
Ugh. I'm so disappointed. Honestly, that ruined my weekend. The medals running down the sleeves and the pant leg was an awesome touch! Still, if this is the real photo, it's not far off.
And in other news.... College student named Otto tries to rip off hotel sign; sentenced to 15 years turning big rocks into small rocks. Anonymous sources tell CNN that this is a make-up call for every *M*A*S*H* episode after Henry Blake died. On the bright side, when the kid gets out, he'll be 36 years old, ripped, and he'll have learned how to live on about twelve cents worth of fermented cabbage a day. My favorite part of the story involves the attempts by Bill Richardson to negotiate Otto's release. The ever-humble public servant traveled to North Korea, met with a couple dudes, and about a cup of coffee later, the trial was wrapped up and the kid was off to North Korea summer camp for bad little boys. It's just reassuring that when we identify incompetence, it remains reliably incompetent. That simplifies things. God speed, Otto.
Interesting read. Life in a North Korean Labor Camp: 'No Thinking ... Just Fear' That's pretty rough, but I'm unimpressed by the work regimen. Not your grandfather's gulag.
26 here and can't for the life of me understand the reasoning behind going to NK and then trying to steal something ... or leave a bible behind its fucking stupid
For embarrassing the United States by showing himself to be a prissy, sobbing, whiny, little bitch, he should have to do the entire stretch. It'll take all of fifteen years to rebuild him into an Amnesty International hero figure. I'm still giving thought to his line about how he "never should have let (himself) be manipulated by the United States administration." It's oddly worded enough to suggest some North Korean dude with a large stick wrote it for him. But he delivers it with such pathetic gusto. Trying to think what might be worse than 15 years in a North Korean labor camp. It's open for discussion.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3497017/The-worst-mistake-life-caught- $10,000 to go North Korea, steal a sign, and leave North Korea with said sign... Great job Otto.
BTW - Bernie Sanders is missing out on a YUUUUUGE opportunity. That crazy old geezer should be on a plane right now for North Korea asking for a meeting with Kim Jong Un. He can sit across from him and say, "Look, I'm an aspiring communist dictator myself - uhh, excuse me, democratic aspiring communist dictator. Things are going to get a lot better for you if I'm in the White House turning millyunaires and billyunaires into hundredaires. How about you let this pampered little creep fly home with me, I'll tell the world how reasonable you backward goobers are, I'll look the other way whilst you keep firing off rockets into the ocean and testing nuclear junk, and we'll call it a day, hmmm?" Instant foreign policy chops in the Democratic community.
I'd consider 15 years in a NK labor camp as a legit training period to grow his vagina back into a cock.
"Kim Jaaawwwwwnng! Think about thuh oppatunities! It'll take my boys 3 months tuh turn yuh Reddit page into the official Nawth Kuhrean infuhmation ministry chaptuh in thuh US! We'll have postuhs of you smiling at nucleah warheads at thuh grocery checkouts, right next to Kim Kawdashun's wanted postah. It'll be epic!"
"I entirely beg you"? Who talks like that?! And, Otto, I beg to differ. Stealing that sign wasn't the worst mistake of your life. Allowing yourself to be memorialized forever on the interwebz as a crying, sniveling, tenderfooted pussy - THAT was the worst mistake of your life. So far. Asking the Korean prison food server if he has any sriracha, that'll move the bar a bit further. Sorry ahead of time for the beat-down.