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International TV broadcasters have been repeatedly showing tanks trundling through Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square in a demonstration of North Korean national power.

But when Patrick Thornquist, a Chicago teacher visiting the North Korean capital at the end of last week, arrived in the square, he was surprised by what he saw. This iconic square — Pyongyang's political, military and symbolic heart — was full of children rollerblading and shouting with joy.

One of leader Kim Jong Un's contributions to the nation has been building roller-skating parks and promoting entertainment facilities. And Thornquist was struck by the fact that, on watching the news later that day, it was still featuring footage of tanks.

"It was definitely interesting to see tanks on BBC in the hotel, as if that was that day, when we'd been in that square a couple of hours earlier and nothing like that was happening," he says.

"In terms of seeing military on the streets and propaganda, that's the same as I've seen the last few months. A lot of military were doing the construction work that's been going on for a good few months, also tree-planting, which goes on every year," Carr says. "So I didn't really see any military doing anything different from usual."

That view has been backed up by other accounts, notably from an Economist correspondent in Pyongyang who had spotted the buses covered with camouflage nets but concluded that any preparations were "more comical than convincing — like a version of 'Dad's army' in totalitarian drag." http://www.npr.org/2013/04/08/176543508/visitors-to-north-korea-see-no
thing-out-of-the-ordinary]

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"It was definitely interesting to see tanks on BBC in the hotel, as if that was that day, when we'd been in that square a couple of hours earlier and nothing like that was happening," he says.

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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
When you're bluffing, keep on bluffing, and keep raising the stakes higher, hope the other guy will drop out of the pot, and you'll never have to even show your openers.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
Maybe so, NewOld, 'course, it didn't work out for US too well when Saddam kept upping the bluff, either, did it? Maybe these guys don't realize WE'VE got nutcases running things, too...

Hey, ho, let's invade North Korea, too; THAT'LL show 'im!

eeeep...

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Originally posted by AURaptor:


Hee hee. Threats of nuclear attacks are SOOO hi-larious!

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:


Hee hee. Threats of nuclear attacks are SOOO hi-larious!

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Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon Delight!

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Co-chairman of centralpaCPUSA
, Ratioer of NATO, quoted in esteemed media outlet Yahoo News, and twitter's premier Buddhist Communist.

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