North Korea rocket update

Sunday morning at 11:30 or so, North Korea supposedly launched their "satellite". Kim Jong Il called it a success. "The satellite is rotating normally in its orbit.'' Everyone else called it a failure. 

"The remaining stages, along with the payload itself, landed in the Pacific Ocean"...North Korea’s public portrayal of the event as a complete success was similar in its celebratory tone to the happy note it struck in 1998 after having failed to loft a satellite into orbit.

North Korea's communist regime painting its failure as success? No surprise there. 

Not only does Kim Jong Il call failure success, the DPRK's "Dear Leader" calls other people's success his own. My sister told me a while ago about a documentary she saw on NK, where they allowed an American eye surgeon into the country to perform corrective surgery on a couple dozen blind NK citizens. As the bandages were removed after the successful surgery, every patient ran, past the surgeon who had restored their eyesight, to bow down to the picture of Kim Jong Il that hung on the wall.

I'm sure there would be stories galore about this kind of egregious man-worship, if North Koreans were actually allowed access to information outside of the DPRK's propaganda machine. 

In related news, Lisa's friend Cassidy is coming to visit on Friday, so we'll spend the weekend in Seoul. First on the schedule: DMZ (de-militarized zone) tour.