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North Korea Travelogue: I have strong reservations about encouraging anyone to travel to North Korea, but I also like reading what visitors have to tell about what they saw there. Ari has published an interesting travelogue, and has since blegged for a link, which he earned in my book by approaching his subject with appropriate skepticism, even if his conclusion don’t all match my own. Don’t miss his “Hotel California” vignette, or his observation that North Korea is whoring off its women to rich Chinese.

What do you suppose happens if one of the women gets pregnant?

If you’re watching the power game, here‘s your link to the birthday celebration at which the birthday boy, Kim Jong Il, was conspicuously absent. Another illustration of how the democratization of journalism often helps to inform us better than the usual suspects tend to do.

AFTERTHOUGHT: For me to wag my finger at Ari for traveling to North Korea would make me a giant among hypocrites, given my own travels in Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and other places with crappy human rights records. Ari’s travelogue is above all else highly interesting, and Ari strove to write it honestly. My apologies if the tone of my first sentence seemed to lecture.