Has Kim Jong Il Left the Building?

Rumors are ever swirling that North Korea's crackpot tinpot tyrant Kim Jong Il is dead. Famous for releasing crudely tweaked photos of food stores and functioning lights in order to prove the crumbling Pyongyang is a functioning Shangri-La, the North Koreans are at it again. The PR chicanery is now focused on showing the mysterious 'Dear Leader' woodenly taking in the sights like the roaming gnome of Travelocity as proof he's alive and kicking. The latest baited switch, to be released by (?), is a shot of Mr. Kim standing before an assembled group of military men. The Times of London niftily analyzes shadow angles and the background with the zeal of a moon landing debunker. Something is obviously rotten in more than just Denmark and the photo is a piss poor attempt at subterfuge to be sure. Though like that stolen gnome kind of funny.

You may wonder in a place so lost in time where does one find digital tricksters. As Guy Delisle showed, in his great graphic novel Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, these guys are an animation superpower. So maybe a crafty Simpsons cartoonist snuck a pirated Photoshop 2.0 into "The Land of the Morning Calm." All said, the machinations of North Korea are wildly obtuse. Just where in the hell is KIm Kim Jong Il is anybody's guess. And if he's dead or incapacitated who's the ruling force striding the darkened hallways of the Grand People's Cultural Palace? Could it be the other mysteriously missing world leader, Scottish musician Gerry Rafferty is lending a hand?

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you