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Opinion: March 4, 2011 buzz: North Korea, Westboro Baptist Church, Mideast oppression

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Will the spirit of protest find its way to North Korea? It’s unlikely, writes Laura Ling in North Korea: A nation in the dark. ‘There’s no need for the government to block threatening websites, because most North Koreans have never used a computer, let alone understand what a URL is,’ she writes. And if they did come across news of the Arab revolution, Ling continues, ‘I question whether the North Korean people would even know what to do with knowledge of protests in the Arab world. Theirs is one of the most isolated societies on the planet, and both absolute reverence for and total fear of Kim run deep.’

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The Westboro Baptist Church, which pickets military funerals claiming that the deaths of service members are divine retribution for America’s toleration of homosexuality, has the right to be vile. Of this, our commenters have a lot to say.

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In Thursday’s Blowback, our recurring feature that gives readers the opportunity to take on Los Angeles Times articles, editorials or Op-Eds, Patrick Connors explained why he took issue with Britain, Italy condemned for Libya ties. The article, he wrote, ‘provides helpful insight into the uproar caused by British and Italian military aid to Libya. However, readers would be well served by further information on how, with our government’s support, U.S. companies have provided military and crowd-control equipment that has propped up authoritarian governments throughout the Middle East.’ Read on: Weapons of Mideast oppression, ‘Made in U.S.A.’

-- Alexandra Le Tellier

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