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May this mass murdering, nuclear material exporting, terrorist supporting freak who turned an entire nation into a Stone Age concentration camp, rot in Hell. And I mean that sincerely.

The son will be as bad if not worse, and South Korea is preparing for possible general unrest in the north. Remember, we have about 30,000 of our troops in SoKo. Let’ send them our prayers.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has died at the age of 69, state-run television has announced.

Mr Kim, who has led the communist nation since the death of his father in 1994, died on a train while visiting an area outside the capital, the announcement said.

He suffered a stroke in 2008 and was absent from public view for months.

His designated successor is believed to be his third son, Kim Jong-un, who is thought to be in his late 20s.

The BBC’s Lucy Williamson in Seoul says Mr Kim’s death will cause huge shock waves across North Korea.

The announcement came in an emotional statement read out on national television.

The announcer, wearing black, said he had died of physical and mental over-work.

South Korea says its military has been put on alert following the announcement and its National Security Council is convening for an emergency meeting, Yonhap news agency reports.

Maynard adds:

Kim Jong-Il has died. What’s next for the Hermit kingdom?

North Korea is a weird place. It would be funny if it weren’t so threatening and tragic. (For example, see the story about the famous “Dancing Eggs” and other bits of high strangeness.)

What did we actually know about Kim Jong Il? Very little. I’ve heard that the CIA ran around to find a copy of a book written by a Japanese man, Kenji Fujimoto, who was supposedly Kim Jong-Il’s personal sushi chef. Oddly, his book doesn’t seem to be widely available in English. If you click to this article in The Atlantic, you’ll see a few strange and interesting anecdotes from the memoir, I Was Kim Jong Il’s Cook. Here’s one:

As I was riding a Jet Ski on a lake near the Chinese border, Kim Jong Il came up next to me and said, “Fujimoto, let’s race. But I want you to take it seriously.”

He gave the signal to start, and I rammed the accelerator as hard as I could. Halfway through I looked at him and realized that I was leading by about half a boat length. For a moment I thought I was making a mistake, but I remembered that he had said he wanted me to take the race seriously, so I crossed the finish line first.

Kim Jong Il said begrudgingly, “You win, Fujimoto.”

At that moment I thought maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to win, and I regretted it a bit. But he had said it was a serious race, so I decided I wasn’t wrong in winning. Until then nobody else had ever won a contest against Kim Jong Il.

A month later he once again challenged me to a race. However, this time at the starting line I was surprised to see that he had traded his old Jet Ski for a much larger one. With a different engine capacity there was no way I could win.

At this time several areas in North Korea were suffering from floods and food shortages. Whether he was aware of this or not, Kim Jong Il certainly seemed to be enjoying his Jet Ski races.

So who takes over North Korea now? The succession may have a profound effect on regional peace. There may be a challenge to the designated heir, if the old war horses don’t want to pass the baton to a kid. And of course the nation, which is a lunatic asylum, is never far from a messy and dangerous collapse. Neither China nor South Korea want to absorb millions of starving zombies who know nothing except that Kim Jong-Il was God; meanwhile opportunists will be scurrying away with nuclear weapons. That’s why the neighbors have always propped up North Korea with aid instead of kicking it to the curb like it deserves. See my earlier post, Whither North Korea?

The new leader, whoever he is, will likely do something soon to demonstrate that he’s a tough guy, and one not to be trifled with. Nothing good will come of this. Get ready for fireworks.