Photos show luxury boat with 50m pool and water slides near Kim Jong Un's summer retreat
The 50-meter pool is the detail that gets me. Someone decided a swimming pool on a yacht was the right way to spend a summer. Satellite images turn state secrecy into a spectator sport. We get to watch from orbit while a leader plays on water slides and his people queue for rations.
I think the wildest part is how ordinary the luxury is. Dictators usually go for marble palaces and gold statues. This is just a rich person's toy, parked in one of the most closed-off places on Earth. I'd want to know where the boat came from, who crews it, and whether the pool is freshwater or salt.
The bigger question is what it says about how Kim sees himself. The answer, I suspect, is that he sees himself as someone who deserves a vacation. That's the weird part. The opulence is predictable. The banality of it is what sticks with you. Power, seen from space, looks a lot like a billionaire's weekend.