Seventeen Years of Solitude

After seventeen years of absolute power, the Dear Leader of the People’s Paradise — whose joyful subjects ate bark and grass and were glad to get it — has died.

I have no idea what will happen in North Korea after Kim Jong-Il. Reading the entrails of that godforsaken animal is more than I can do.

Here’s the report from The Los Angeles Times:

North Korea Says Leader Kim Jong Il Has Died

REPORTING FROM SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the mercurial strongman extolled at home as the “Dear Leader” and reviled abroad as a tyrant, has died at 69, North Korean media reported Monday.

Kim’s death was announced by state television from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. No cause of death was reported, but Kim was believed to have suffered in recent years from diabetes and heart disease.

The diminutive leader was believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but nonetheless appeared in numerous photos released by state media as he toured state facilities and in recent months embarked on rare trips outside North Korea — to China and Russia.

In September 2010, Kim announced that his foreign-educated third son, Kim Jong Eun, would succeed him as the regime’s third leader since its emergence more than a half century ago.

Kim, who came to power in 1994 upon the death of his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, led one of the world’s most enduring dictatorships, a repressive regime that has long defied predictions of its demise. Against the odds, it survived into the 21st century while its people went hungry and its allies drifted away to pursue globalization and reform...

As Vlad says, “Kim Jong Ill is no longer Ill. He is now dead.”