While most of the world focuses on the megatonnage of his nukes, Manolo has noticed another serious Kim Jong Il excess: the extreme height of his high heels.

Yet while this was being ignored by most threat analysts, a lot of attention was being paid to the high heels worn by Michael Jackson. (Yesterday, Drudge linked this Daily Mail story which has disappeared now that Jackson denies it, but there are pictures elsewhere.)

I'm not quite sure how to analyze this apparent double standard. But isn't Kim Jong Il more important now than Michael Jackson? Aren't his high heels at least as worthy of MSM attention than the apparently denied high heels of a Western entertainer?

Or is the rule that high heels are OK for nuclear-armed tyrants, because the latter can inflict more damage than androgynous celebrities? (If that's the rule, isn't it de facto nuclear blackmail?)

Maybe the lesson is that Michael Jackson should never be trusted with the bomb.