Links: The VICE Guide to North Korea

The Iran election protests are still drawing a lot of coverage, even though it's highly unlikely anything would change even if Moussavi was the victor.

Strangely enough, though, there are places that are much less free than Iran. Take North Korea, one of the world's most repressive regimes. China trades with them (partly out of a desire to be able to say "Look, this guy's a lot worse than us!"), but otherwise the place is locked up pretty tight:



(Watch the whole thing here - it's an hour long)

The VICE guide is an interesting look at how thoroughly a government can dominate a people, and how badly a command economy (with complete control over wages, prices, trade, and property) can fail. This is a place that truly deserves the adjective "Orwellian." In fact, I found myself wondering what kind of person I'd be if I grew up in a place like that. Would I value personal freedom? Would I even have any real notion of what personal freedom was? Anyway, the documentary is easily worth your time.