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Kim Jong-Il took over North Korea when his father Kim Il-Sung (or "Great Leader" as he was known) died in 1994.  Naturally, like most modern countries, the ruling of North Korea is passed from father to son.

International Il-ness: When one thinks of North Korea's international relations, the biggest issue facing them is that they have officially been at war with South Korea since 1950.  Therefore, tensions between the two countries naturally take up a lot of Dear Leader's time when he's not golfing or watching movies. This year's big event for Kim was North Korea's attempted to launch the infamous "Taepodong-2" missile (the much-anticipated sequel to the Nodong-1).  The official reason for this launch was to put a satellite into space, but because of North Korea's general unpredictibility Japan was still quite nervous until stage 1 of this missile landed in the sea of Japan.  The rest of the missile then promptly landed in the Pacific Ocean.  North Korea naturally claimed success, saying that the satellite was orbiting and transmitting data and the "Song of General Kim Il-sung" and "Song of General Kim Jong-il".

Kim is quite proud of his Taepodong-2 missile, but possibly he is compensating for something.

This missile launch comes after two successful North Korean nuclear tests within the last three years. Naturally, the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" decided to talk trash about this incident, possibly angering internet-expert Kim when he read their blog post.  As for the 2009 underground nuke test, these sassy scientists are quoted as saying "That's a lot of energy, much larger than the 2006 North Korean test, but [at only 4 kilotons] it still falls FAR short of an expected 12-20 kiloton yield of a crude Hiroshima-style device."  Yeah, you tell him what's up.  I'll be in the next state.

Kim most likely suffers from poor self image as a result of respected scientists, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and South Korea making fun of him constantly, even demeaning his atomic bombs as "just not that great." Still 4 kilotons is the equivalent of 4000 tons or 80,000 pounds of TNT.  We at pinkomenace.com are happy not to be affiliated with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.