# Kim Jung-un in very serious condition **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 21, 2020, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241 "2020-04-21T02:29:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![mandala](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mandala/32/95_2.png) [@mandala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mandala)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/121 "2020-04-27T11:33:51Z")
The great, all-powerful, all-knowing, son-of-god, infallible dictator could not withstand a cardiac surgery? What an incompetent moron. My 80-year old uncle survived just fine. I think his sister did it. She reduced her fat-ass brother to a carrot, and he’s getting less plump by the day, I assume, unless he has been bumped off already and his organs harvested. What an ignominious end for a man who executed his opponents with anti-aircraft guns! On the positive side, we now get to see his sister, who is a lot easier on the eyes than her fat weirdo brother. It will be interesting to see what sort of feminine tantrums she will throw across the Korean peninsula. ---
**Author:** ![TimfromNapa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TimfromNapa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimfromNapa)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/122 "2020-04-27T21:13:00Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > There are also plenty of pics of Kim Jung Un, his daddy, and his granddaddy all smiley and looking jovial. Who knew they were such amiable chaps? > > I even saw a pic once of Linda Tripp smiling. Imagine that! > > Then why isn’t your screen name [**Baxter**](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/11/a-bakester-was-once-the-proper-word-to-refer-to-a-female-baker/)? If Linda Tripp was smiling, you can bet that she had just farted. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/123 "2020-04-27T21:23:40Z")
Anyone else feeling like this is Schrödinger’s dictator? ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/124 "2020-04-27T21:30:58Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > He’s becoming the new [Franco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalissimo_Francisco_Franco_is_still_dead) I was just thinking this. My generation grew up with Chevy Chase on Weekend Update on “Saturday Night Live,” saying… repeatedly… “This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” …because the poor bugger lingered for what seemed like forever before they were willing to admit he wasn’t coming back, short of bolts in his neck and a lightning bolt… and for what seemed like FOREVER, the news would report that he wasn’t QUITE dead… ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/125 "2020-04-27T22:04:29Z")
Interesting theory. We’ve all seen this asshole in photos with his note taking butt kissers at missile launches. It would be sweet justice if a missile exploded close to his viewing stand. Note that Kim missed the April 15 Day of the Sun celebration. The day after this missile test. Kim also missed the celebrations to mark the founding of the Korean People’s Army. Public appearances he’s never missed before. Maybe Fox has the story right this time? Let’s see if other news agencies run with this story. > **[Gordon Chang on reports Kim Jong Un was wounded during missile test:...](https://www.foxnews.com/media/gordon-chang-reports-kim-jong-un-wounded-missile-test)** > > Foreign affairs expert and Asia analyst Gordon Chang said on “America’s Newsroom” on Monday that “something is wrong” in North Korea, adding that there is reason to believe that South Korea’s claim that Kim Jong Un is “alive and well” is... > [@](#): > > Monday Chang noted that a report, which he said “actually has some circumstantial evidence to support it,” showed that Kim may have been wounded in “an accident on April 14 when North Korea launched a barrage of cruise missiles.” > > “One of the things that’s important about this is that that missile test, which in fact did occur, could not have gone forward if Kim did not authorize it,” Chang said. “Kim has been on site for virtually every missile test in North Korea during his reign.” > > He pointed out that photos of Kim were released at every prior missile test, but that no photos were released of the last test. > > “That’s an indication that something happened on April 14,” Chang said. > > Fox News’ Travis Fedschun and The Associated Press contributed to this report. ---
**Author:** ![galen\_ubal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galen_ubal/32/4440_2.png) [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/126 "2020-04-27T23:02:15Z")
I’ve been having this idea - one I’m not taking terribly seriously. South Korea has all along said that no, he’s fine. Maybe they know that because he’s _in_ South Korea, for some reason. Negotiations? Defection? Me talking completely out of my arse? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/127 "2020-04-27T23:14:28Z")
NPR, one of the most cautious and objective news outlets, has had nothing on this until today, when it ran [this radio story](https://www.npr.org/2020/04/27/846514585/rumors-spread-after-kim-jong-un-misses-his-grandfathers-birthday-celebration) (links to 2:44 audio). The gist of their story is that these are all rumors because no-one knows anything. Reuters, another very well-respected source, only has a story about Trump’s remarks about how he doesn’t believe that Kim is very ill. So this is all 100% speculation at this point, based on his absence from a very important state occasion. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/128 "2020-04-27T23:21:38Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Interesting theory. We’ve all seen this asshole in photos with his note taking butt kissers at missile launches. It would be sweet justice if a missile exploded close to his viewing stand. > > Note that Kim missed the April 15 Day of the Sun celebration. The day after this missile test. Kim also missed the celebrations to mark the founding of the Korean People’s Army. Public appearances he’s never missed before. > > Maybe Fox has the story right this time? Let’s see if other news agencies run with this story. > > [Gordon Chang on reports Kim Jong Un was wounded during missile test: 'Something is wrong' | Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/media/gordon-chang-reports-kim-jong-un-wounded-missile-test) Marshal Nedellin’s experience notwithstanding, it’s not usual for VIPs to observe a rocket launch from a point where it’s possible they can be barbecued. Especially with some of the nasty storable liquids a lot of their big stuff uses in the first stages. But see…they’re evidently planning some sort of mobile missile launch from Sondok Airport in NK, per a bunch of satellite imagery. This twitter timeline has a lot of the links and photos and wonks who’ve come up with that as a possible interpretation: [https://mobile.twitter.com/Rover829/status/1254002543845273602](https://mobile.twitter.com/Rover829/status/1254002543845273602) A true mobile ICBM would be a game changer for them. As it is, assuming they’ve an ICBM vehicle and assuming they have a nuclear warhead sufficiently robust and accurate enough to ride the thing, it still is either based at a fixed location, or if it is mobile, it can’t be moved while fueled. Fuelling them takes time. If the new system were a mobile, solid rocket fueled system—like Russia’s [Topol M-](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-2PM2_Topol-M)–they could be shuttled all over the country, making tracking them and killing them on the ground really, really hard. A Operation Frigate Bird proof-of-concept multistage test against some island or chunk of ocean in the South Pacific space graveyard, would be one hell of a coming out party for Un’s sis. Like they care about the above ground test moratorium… What are we going to do about it? Put them on double secret sanctions? Or, it could be just another flurry of the same kind of short range surface to surface missiles that they’ve fired off when they feel the West isn’t paying enough attention to them. The wilder and wilder theories about what’s going on with Un is pretty funny. Frankly, they need to start getting more lucid and humiliating, if the idea is to goad the North into issuing some proof of life or show the new successor. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/129 "2020-04-27T23:29:04Z")
> [@galen\_ubal](#): > > I’ve been having this idea - one I’m not taking terribly seriously. > South Korea has all along said that no, he’s fine. Maybe they know that because he’s _in_ South Korea, for some reason. Negotiations? Defection? > Me talking completely out of my arse? 😃 I’ve wondered if it’s to cover for some furious negotiations with whoever is going to run things post-Un? Like the plot of The Death of Stalin, but this time, in Korean. I find it difficult to imagine a bunch of old Korean men—those that are left in the Guidance Board after Un’s various baroque ways of killing some of them. Anyway, those guys deciding to follow his sister, no matter how insanely ruthless and cruel she’s been. But if she can’t do it, who will? It’d be amazing—and it won’t happen—if the result was a couple dozen of North Korean old men becoming wealthy landowners in California, and the South being welcomed with open arms and hungry faces to reunite with the North. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/130 "2020-04-28T00:27:09Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Reuters, another very well-respected source, only has a story about Trump’s remarks about how he doesn’t believe that Kim is very ill. Well, that proves it–he’s dead. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/131 "2020-04-28T01:37:09Z")
Both sides have been pursuing reunification, they each even have committees and departments so named! Is it possible that anyone stepping up to fill the void is entering such an intrigue rich, and potentially deadly dangerous game, that no one really wants the job? Maybe reunification is the easier path, as fraught as it must surely be. And maybe if it’s to have any chance, they have to keep this quiet and ‘set the table’, for what they’re going to attempt? Interesting to consider, anyway! ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/132 "2020-04-28T02:10:59Z")
Serious question: if there’s so much speculation about Kim outside North Korea because he’s been MIA and missed an important state occasion, wouldn’t there be (quiet, clandestine) speculation among the people of North Korea? If so, why wouldn’t the NK government make a big show of Kim being hale and hearty (whether he is or not)? Sorry, that’s two questions. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/133 "2020-04-28T02:24:08Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > I’ve wondered if it’s to cover for some furious negotiations with whoever is going to run things post-Un? Like the plot of The Death of Stalin, but this time, in Korean. Upon the death of Stalin, did not an heir apparent take a sub machine gun from a guard and kill his rival? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/134 "2020-04-28T03:26:27Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Upon the death of Stalin, did not an heir apparent take a sub machine gun from a guard and kill his rival? _The Death of Stalin_, while amusing, was not a documentary. The other members of the Central Committee did not execute Beria and burn his body personally. That took place some months after his arrest and trial. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/135 "2020-04-28T12:53:22Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > _The Death of Stalin_, while amusing, was not a documentary. The other members of the Central Committee did not execute Beria and burn his body personally. That took place some months after his arrest and trial. Thanks, Colibri. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2020, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/136 "2020-05-02T04:31:40Z")
> [@](#): > > The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has appeared in public for the first time in almost three weeks, according to state media, following speculation that he had been seriously ill following heart surgery. > > The state news agency KCNA released photographs purportedly showing Kim opening a fertilizer plant in Sunchon, north of the capital Pyongyang. KCNA said Kim, accompanied by other senior officials, including his influential younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, cut a ribbon at a ceremony on Friday. > What appeared to be thousands of people attending the event, many of them wearing face masks, released balloons and “broke into thunderous cheers of ‘hurrah!’ for the Supreme Leader,” the agency said. The images showed Kim smiling and talking to aides, as well as touring the plant. The authenticity of the photos, published on the website of the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, could not be immediately verified. > **[Kim Jong-un reappears in North Korea after weeks of speculation - reports](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/kim-jong-un-reappears-in-north-korea-after-weeks-of-speculation-reports)** > > North Korean state media has released pictures purportedly showing the leader attending the opening of a fertiliser factory ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/137 "2020-05-02T21:54:08Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > [Kim Jong-un reappears in North Korea after weeks of speculation - reports | North Korea | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/kim-jong-un-reappears-in-north-korea-after-weeks-of-speculation-reports) _Weekend at Kim’s_, the sequel to _Weekend at Bernie’s_. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/138 "2020-05-02T22:09:21Z")
Everyone’s favorite wacky semi-undead tyrant! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/139 "2020-05-03T01:24:19Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > _Weekend at Kim’s_, the sequel to _Weekend at Bernie’s_. dammit. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241/140 "2020-05-03T04:49:52Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Everyone’s favorite wacky semi-undead tyrant! I already spilled the beans somewhere nearby: He’s being cloned, that he may bless his people for decades or centuries to come. All hail DPRK advanced biomedical science! Go on, start hailing. Now. If you value your family. What’s _plata o plomo_ in Korean? (I looked it up: 은 또는 납 - eun ttoneun nab.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jung-un-in-very-serious-condition/852241.md?page=8)