To Your Health, Part 2

[Update:   Mostly dead or slightly alive?  The Daily NK passes along an alleged eyewitness report of a  recent sighting in which Kim seemed relatively healthy.  Once again, I strongly suggest a fresh consignment of whiskey, bacon, and maybe some Italian sausage  as a gesture of, you know, friendship.  Heck, if we can get him to consume enough  of it, we might eventually be able to get some corn into the bellies of his poor  subjects.  If the report is authentic, it’s telling that the Daily NK can even get to those permitted access to His Porcine Majesty.]

Last September,  I passed  along reports that Kim Jong Il’s  radiator was about  plugged up, and that he could barely walk under his own power.  For those of us ardently hoping that he’ll be with Saddam very soon,  this  new  report ought to give us some ghoulish delight:

Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s reclusive leader, has been so unwell that he could not walk more than 30 yards without a rest, western governments have been told.

Diplomats in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, are increasingly convinced that the 65-year-old dictator needs heart surgery to restore his apparently flagging health. He has had to be accompanied by an assistant carrying a chair so that, wherever he goes, he can sit and catch his breath.

Speculation about the state of Kim’s health was heightened when a team of six doctors from the German Heart Institute in Berlin flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, for eight days last month. Kim, who also suffers from diabetes, was believed by diplomats to have been among those on the list for treatment by the combined medical and surgical team. But a spokesman for the German team said they had only treated three labourers, a nurse and a scientist.  [London Daily Telegraph, Sergei Soukhorukov]

Maybe we should make another exception to our “luxury goods” sanctions for bacon.