Not bad... apparently a couple years old now, but timely nonetheless.

-k
cool and merry xmas to everyone at and users of memestreams

YouTube - Charlie Brown Christmas - Performed by the Cast of Scrubs

Decius wrote:

Maybe the real reason we're down there is to send a message to our own dictators that they have a long term job to do and they better not fuck us.

Dictators emerge
the CIA or whomever may pick a particular candidate (one bully amongst an unsavory selection) as a potential dictator but the individual still has to have what it takes and will, by the very nature of being on the initial short list, be inclined to follow their own path. As you have noted before Decius any leader in Iraq won't be tolerated by many Iraqis if they are perceived as an American poodle.
Consequently, despite arms deals and the rather large assumption that American money can build an army and impose any sort of order to suit American tastes in the short or medium term in the context of the chaos America has produced and where America's own military has failed to achieve that same order, over the long term it is likely there will be prolonged conflict and the CIA will fund a number of potential candidates and thereby fuel the fire because none of the candidates are entirely viable from an American viewpoint. The CIA will argue the case for not having all its eggs in one basket, and where the only stability on offer may be Iran centered to which they will clearly prefer ongoing slaughter.

It strikes me as an example of American arrogance and hubris to pretend you can just install a dictator -- the CIA has been playing that game in Central and South America for years and generally made a monumental mess of it.

You mention Pinochet seemingly in the context of a benevolent dictator and as an example of when America got it right -- suffice to say i think that is contentious.
I think many people in the rest of the planet would be rather pleased if the bungling morons [the US government and the CIA] would butt out and leave people to run their own affairs and make their own mistakes. Planet Earth is not America's private domain and quite a few of us object to it being treated as such.
A more multilateral approach is I would argue both in America's and the world's best interests. Yes America is forced to deal with the likes of Iran and North Korea in a world of instability and weapons of mass destruction but that is the land of grown ups where we must all learn to live together. It is not America's destiny, in my view, despite what some Americans appear to think, to be our planet's unilateral policeman. No policemen without representation, I say.

Good policing is ultimately a product of consent. Consent can be achieved though force, which has failed in Iraq, or a combination of force together with perceived moral authority, America didn't win the latter argument in Iraq. In the wider world, well specically in the west, authority is perceived as being derived up from the people through the conduit of elections. In Iraq authority it would seem derives from family, tribe, sect and religion. If the US had followed the Powell doctrine and begun the first phase with a more stable Iraq, avoided the early chaos and looting, then the results of getting rid of Saddam and establishing stability would possibly have paid a moral dividend in the form of winning consent, perceived moral authority and legitimacy.

Regardless lets deal with facts on the ground and leave that to historians. What is the way forward? More dictators? America has rediscovered that an unpleasant stability is perhaps preferrable to an unpleasant chaos however re dictators the sorcerer's apprentice really ought to stop because Mickey Mouse is doing a lousy job. I actually think an Iranian hegemony is actually the preferred option.

RE: Does Iraq need more debate?

Mike the Usurper wrote:

Perhaps it's because the mainstream media are too timid to declare the difference between right and wrong. Imagine if journalism consisted of more than a collage of conflicting talking points. Imagine the difference it would make if more brand-name reporters broke from the bizarre straitjacket of "balance," which equates fairness with putting all disputants on equal epistemological footing, no matter how deceitful or moronic they may be.

There's a market for news that weighs counterclaims and assesses truth value. It just hasn't kept up with demand. No wonder Jon Stewart has such a loyal audience: He has a point of view, and it's rooted in the reality-based — not the ideology-based — world.

Good call from Marty. Less "balance," more "fair," meaning make a damn call.

no i disagree completely
it is for journalists to report points of view not judge
reaity based? whose reality yours or mine or theirs or Bush's etc
u talk about reality or truth as if it is obvious or self evident and not open to debate
if u can say accurately where your idealogy stops and reality begins then u are very wise
u talk about idealogy as if u had none and its just the others who are prisoners of their idealogy
my idealogy tells me - my liberal bias - says let reporters report in as balanced a manner as they can and let we the jury decide

fine let people do opinion pieces
most of what i recommend on memestreams are opinion pieces but we let the lines blur at our peril
i don't want some journalist telling me al Qaeda are a bunch of fascists - i see what they do and i listen to their justifications - i don't need someone to tell me what they are since i am quite capable of making up my own mind
what i want are facts labeled as facts and opinions marked as opinions that gives me the freedom to choose
abandon balance abandon minority opinions abandon contraversial opinions
let the journalists decide and the editors and the men who hire the editors ---- let the news magnates decide let Rupert Murdoch -- it's quite bad enough already -- this is a solution?

RE: Does Iraq need more debate? - Los Angeles Times

NASA, seeking to give the public easy access to its massive trove of images and data about Earth and outer space, has entered into a formal agreement with Google to post material from the agency's many missions on the Internet. As the technology improves and the collaboration grows, officials said, viewers could one day be treated to live video from the moon, Mars and elsewhere.
...
Megan Smith, the company's director of new business development, said many Google employees first got excited about computer technology through NASA, so it is especially meaningful for them to be working with the agency.

NASA Launches Google Collaboration - washingtonpost.com

MILAN (Reuters) - The Italian fashion capital Milan has formally barred ultra-skinny and under-age models ahead of its February catwalk shows, as the fashion world comes under pressure to promote a healthier image.

The agreement signed on Monday between the city and its powerful fashion industry bans models under 16 and those with a body mass index of less than 18.5 from Milan's shows.

Milan bans ultra-skinny models from catwalk - Yahoo! News UK

If you are wondering who these criminal sex offenders that legislators are jumping up and down to defend you from are, you might look no further than this case:

Accordingly, while I am very sympathetic to Wilson's argument regarding the injustice of sentencing this promising young man with good grades and no criminal history to ten years in prison without parole and a lifetime registration as a sexual offender because he engaged in consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old victim only two years his junior, this Court is bound by the Legislature's determination that young persons in Wilson's situation are not entitled to the misdemeanor treatment now accorded to identical behavior under OCGA � 16-6-4 (d) (2).

Yes, thats Georgia. And, God forbid this person might use a website when finally released from prison! Won't somebody please save us from these people!!@

The Volokh Conspiracy - Ten Years in Prison for 17-Year-Old Who Had Consensual Oral Sex with 15-Year-Old:

There are hundreds of children in the trailer camp that is run by FEMA and known as Renaissance Village, but they won’t be having much of a Christmas. They’re trapped here in a demoralizing, overcrowded environment with adults who are mostly broke, jobless and at the end of their emotional tethers. Many of the kids aren’t even going to school.

is this a vision of the future? the first of the climate change refugee camps? who wants to bet against many of these people still being there in 20 years?

Out of Sight - New York Times

Little Britain star Matt Lucas has "married" his long-term partner Kevin McGee in a civil partnership ceremony in London.

hoorah
and one day such reports will say married not "married"

i don't know if Little Britain runs on US cable but if so try and catch it

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Little Britain star Lucas 'weds'

Anyone in the market for a good used machine tool should talk to Noel Dempsey, a dealer in Richmond, Virginia. Noel’s bustling warehouse is full of metal lathes, milling machines, and table saws, and it turns out that most of it is from schools. EBay is awash in such equipment, also from schools. It appears shop class is becoming a thing of the past, as educators prepare students to become “knowledge workers.”
...
I began working as an electrician’s helper at age fourteen, and started a small electrical contracting business after college, in Santa Barbara. In those years I never ceased to take pleasure in the moment, at the end of a job, when I would flip the switch. “And there was light.” It was an experience of agency and competence. The effects of my work were visible for all to see, so my competence was real for others as well; it had a social currency. The well-founded pride of the tradesman is far from the gratuitous “self-esteem” that educators would impart to students, as though by magic.
...
Following graduate school in Chicago, I took a job in a Washington, D.C. think tank. I hated it, so I left and opened a motorcycle repair shop in Richmond.
...
There was more thinking going on in the bike shop than in the think tank.

wonderful wonderful essay which reminded me strongly of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

The New Atlantis - Shop Class as Soulcraft - Matthew B. Crawford

His fingers muscled from almost a century of weaving, Yasujiro Yamaguchi worked the humming loom in his private workshop. Patiently lacing golden threads through a warp of auburn silk, he fashioned a bolt of kimono fabric blooming with an autumn garden in shades of tea green, ginger and plum.

But Yamaguchi, like Japan's signature kimono, is slipping into winter. At 102, he is among the last master weavers of Nishijin, the country's most celebrated kimono district, and his pace has slowed. He rubbed the morning chill from his knuckles, fitted his hunched shoulders deeper inside his indigo jacket and resolutely pushed on.
...
But today, as a result of globalization and rapidly changing demographics, the kimono business has collapsed, its future in question. Sales are expected to sink to an all-time low this year, even as Japan has emerged from recession to experience its longest economic boom since World War II.

The prosperity has come with an altered set of cultural values. This is a country of manga comics and glittering animation. The rising moguls driving the new economy are more likely to buy muscled chrome from one of Tokyo's expanding list of Ferrari dealerships than drop their spoils on Kyoto silk.

As the kimono becomes more museum piece than couture item, what once made it quintessentially Japanese is gradually fading. Market realities have forced kimono makers to eschew expensive Japanese silk. As a result, more than 90 percent of new kimonos and obi made in Japan, including most of those from Nishijin's most venerable textile houses, are now woven from cheaper imported silk.

Twilight for the Kimono - washingtonpost.com