synchronicity

"Like hitting a bullet with a bullet."
- On the unlikely possibility of intercepting a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile, which travels at 11,000 mph

inherited family philosophy

"If I lose, destroy the world."
- Kim Jong-un

on comfort

"The mind is different before you go to the washroom, and after you come out."
- Korean proverb

Three generations of punishment

"The internment camps operate under a 'guilt-by-association' system (yeon-jwa-je), which means that extended family members of the accused – for up to three generations – are also punished. This punishment-by-lineage system exploits the significance of familial bonds and personal sacrifice within Korean culture, and empowers Kim Jong Il’s regime to persecute by birthright and to exert discipline and control through fear of such persecution."

- North Korea Now

Image source here.

38th parallel

Image source here.

An earlier reference to North Korea here.

hammer & sickle

Nikita Khrushchev [1894-1971], banging his shoe, hated putting things in writing because he couldn't spell.

"Communism was an impractical mishmash of ideas, imposed by squabbling zealots that promised much, delivered little and cost millions of lives. It is striking that 36 countries at one time or another adopted this system and that five—Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam and the biggest of them all, China—still pay lip service to it."

- Economist Magazine, July 4th 2009