If you believe in unicorns, you can believe the latest fairy tale to emerge from Pyongyang. To celebrate his birthday tomorrow, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un reportedly sent every child in North Korea under the age of 10 a kilogram of candy last week, sparking instant happiness across the hapless nation — wait, what? Here's the report from the AFP today: "North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has sent one kilo (2.2 pounds) of sweets to every child to mark his birthday on Tuesday, carrying on a tradition instigated by his grandfather, state media reported."

And that's the key phrase here: "state media reported." North Korea's news agency is a powerful propaganda machine, to the point of 30 Rock parody. Yes, this would be the same state media that late last year reported that North Koreans had discovered a lair of magical unicorns proving Pyongyang to be the capital city of Ancient Korea. That being said, if Kim Jong-un wasn't really mobilizing a plane to help deliver candy to joyless children, would North Korea really have told us anything?

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Alexander Abad-Santos