The Funny Thing About North Korea...

...is that there is really nothing funny about North Korea.I used to think there was, but earlier this summer I read this book, Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il, and it changed my perspective.They are not funny, they are brutal and ruthless. If I bought into the "we need to protect them" narrative that is often used to justify foreign intervention (I don't, but if I did) North Korea would be first on the list.The people of the PDRK have been systematically repressed for decades. Even if we were to somehow liberate them today if would generations before they could recover. The ruling family is not crazy, there is a logic and rational to everything that is done. It is evil, pure and simple.Read the book, it is like reading a slow train wreck, too horrifying to continue reading, too fascinating to stop.