Last week, reports surfaced that North Korea’s evil, bouffanted leader Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke after the Dear Leader was noticeably absent from Korea’s Thanksgiving holiday ceremonies. Since then, wild rumors about the fate of the leader have been flung like poo from the fingers of a pack of hellbent monkeys.

Rumors have abounded ranging from Kim Jong Il being seriously ill for months to his having already died in 2003. South Korean spies claim that he is still alive but may be paralysed. North Korean officials have denied that anything happened to Beloved Leader Kim, but let’s be honest: They haven’t proven themselves the most reliable sources in the past.

“Though the dog barks, the procession moves on!”

The incident highlights just how little we know about the country called (pffft!) the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Kim himself. That is, of course, outside of what we have of his writing–who could forget Kim’s classic “Let Us Prepare Ourselves to Be Soldiers Unfailingly Faithful to the Party in the Field (sic) of Art and Literature”, his sad and touching “Look After the People in a Responsible Manner as a Mother Would Do With Her Children,” or this, his unforgettable poem (which he supposedly wrote at age 10!), “The Embrace of My Motherland”:

Moran Hill is afire with a red glow
The Taedong is arched with a rainbow.
How beautiful this motherland
In whose embrace I’ve grown up!

Azaleas smile sweetly in spring
Larks warble high up on the wing,
As warm and tender as the vernal sun
Is the land that has brought me up.

The sun rises on the sea bouyant,
The land glows under the sun radiant,
Stars twinkle with nocturnal grace,
In my father the General’s embrace.

What gentle and magnanimous soul wrote these words? How kind, how generous–like a mother’s embrace. But just who exactly is Kim Jong Il? It’s easy to say what he isn’t–namely, anything his government says he is. For this week’s Top 5, I’ve collected some of my favorite North Korean fake “facts” propagated about Kim Jong Il. I’ve accompanied each fake fact with real songs actually written by Kim Jong Il, which are available on North Korea’s official website! Let Us Begin the Top 5 List In a Manner Which Will Contribute to the Prosperity of the Party Like a Mother Would Her Child!

05. Golfing prowess

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Kim Jong Il, who besides being North Korea’s Dear Leader is also the Supreme Commander of its Revolutionary Forces, was a star runner, swimmer, horse-rider, chessman and bridge player as a youth (as any good party member knows). But his greatest sports ability is no doubt lies on the green. According to North Korean news media, Kim Jong Il is a scratch golfer, having scored 38 under par in his very first try at the game. Critics, however, say this is attributable to the lax standards of the North Korean Golfing Association’s clown mouth regulations.

04. Incredible childhood development

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We’re all Forrest Gumps compared to Kim Jong Il’s rate of childhood development. According to official North Korean biographies of the Dear Leader, Kim learned to walk by the age of 3 weeks, talk by 8 weeks, and he wrote his first manifesto on the future of the Korean people by the age of 2 years.

Wow! I didn’t write my first manifesto until 4th grade (”Let Us Act More Like Michaelangelos and Be Chilled Out to the Max, and Let Us Act Less Like Leonardos and Be Uptight”). Surely by now the Beloved Leader has evolved into some sort of intellectually advanced being who communicates by putting his fingers to his temples and speaking into people’s thoughts.

“Let’s extensively raise goats in all families!”

03. Incredibly prolific literary and musical output

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Kim Jong Il, who among his many titles counts his role as Chairman of North Korea’s National Defense Commission, has composed many things of beauty in his life, such as the transcendent poem I posted above. But perhaps his greatest artistic achievement is outlined in his official biography:

“In 1964 he graduated from the Kim Sung Il University where legend has it he wrote 1,500 books, all of which are stored in the state’s library. It is also said that he wrote six operas, all of which are better then any in the history of music.”

“Better than anything in the history of music”? Oh please, great North Korean government, why do you tease us so and not release Kim’s official discography! There are only three books by Kim available on Amazon.com! The North Korean people, despite suffering through some of the worst human rights indignities in the history of the modern world, can take solace in one thing: They have heard the voices of angels singing.

02. Inventive mind

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At this point you’re probably thinking, “Surely there couldn’t be any other extraordinary accomplishments of Kim’s to count off–he is, after all, a man, is he not? Even Mozart had to sleep!” Ladies and germs, I am just gettin’ started. Despite what you’ve been told, the North Korean government has stated that it was the Dear Leader who invented the microwave oven, the radial tire and the hologram (all apparently before he reached the age of 6, as these are technologies that appeared in the mid-1940s just after Kim’s birth).

My theory is that what really happened was that he traveled into the future, learned the secrets of alien technology, and traveled back in time and crash landed in Area 51. After being contained under deep secrecy at the facility for several years, he escaped on his way to back to the Motherland to share the secrets he had learned, but not before stopping in a certain town called Hill Valley, California to play lead guitar with a band called Marvin Berry and the Starlighters at a school dance. It’s about as plausible.

“Do not forget the US imperialist wolves!”

01. Birth

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Yes folks: Kim Jong Il (who, if you didn’t know, is also General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea) was born under near messianic circumstances. If official reports are to be believed, the Dear Leader was born on the top of Mount Baekdu. When he was born, two rainbows split the clouds, and a new star appeared in the sky that made the Korean peninsula’s nighttime visibility brighter. Some sources even say that at the moment of Kim’s birth, a monster appeared out of the ocean and sang the Korean national anthem.

All I have to say is, North Korea’s Propagand Minister must have a blast at work.

“Prevention and more prevention. Let’s fully establish a veterinary system for the prevention of epidemics!”

That’s it for the Top 5. If you’re jonesin’ for more Jong, I strongly recommend that you check out Dear Leader Video, the F*** U.S.A. Video and the following clip from a North Korean soap opera: