Mosaic features selections from daily TV news programs produced by national broadcasters throughout the Middle East. The news reports are presented unedited and translated, when necessary, into English.

Some of the broadcasters are state controlled and others are private networks, often affiliated with political factions. These news reports are regularly watched by 280 million people in 22 countries all over the Middle East.

Link TV - Mosaic

% Night comes around, and the kids sit around the fire.

Terri: I'm so hungry I could eat at Arby's!
Lisa: Oh my gosh!
Nelson: That *is* hungry.
Lisa: *Really* hungry...

-- "Das Bus"

Das Bus | Episode 5F11 | The Simpsons

"pasting feathers together, hoping for a duck"

Oh, oh, Michiko!

'Fiasco', by Thomas E. Ricks

CIA.gov is now encrypted, except for our Electronic Reading Room, to assure visitor confidentiality.

Hrm ...

Mrs. Krabappel invites Abe to come up front and "give someone else a chance to interrupt" over Bart's protests. "About time, knothead," Abe grumbles.

The storyteller comes in front of the class, and urges everybody to shut up.

Abe: Now, my story begins in 19-dickety-two. We had to say "dickety" 'cause that Kaiser had stolen our word "twenty". I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles...

[children laughing]
Martin: "Dickety"? Highly dubious!
Abe: What're you cackling at, fatty? Too much pie, that's your problem!
[children laughing]
Abe: Now, I'd like to digress from my prepared remarks to discuss how I invented the terlet.
Mrs.K: "Terlet"? Hah!
[children laughing]
Abe: Stop your snickerin'! I spent three years on that terlet!

-- The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"

CIA.gov changes its address

US policy-makers, war-fighters, and law-enforcers now operate in a real-time worldwide decision and implementation environment. The rapidly changing circumstances in which they operate take on lives of their own, which are difficult or impossible to anticipate or predict. The only way to meet the continuously unpredictable challenges ahead of us is to match them with continuously unpredictable changes of our own. We must transform the Intelligence Community into a community that dynamically reinvents itself by continuously learning and adapting as the national security environment changes.

Recent theoretical developments in the philosophy of science that matured in the 1990's, collectively known as Complexity Theory, suggest changes the community should make to meet this challenge. These changes include allowing our officers more autonomy in the context of improved tradecraft and information sharing. In addition, several new technologies will facilitate this transformation. Two examples are self-organizing knowledge websites, known as Wikis, and information sharing websites known as Blogs. Allowing Intelligence Officers and our non-intelligence National Security colleagues access to these technologies on SIPRNet, will provide a critical mass to begin the transformation.

The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community

CTO of the Center for Mission Innovation at CIA presents these slides today, 18 July, at the NSF's Collaborative Expedition Workshop, where "Participants will explore opportunities for multi-disciplinary and community-based collaboration around national challenges."

The briefing is also available in a PowerPoint version.

Wikis and Blogs for Intelligence

A quote:

"Two penguins are standing on an ice floe. The first penguin says, you look like you're wearing a tuxedo. The second penguin says, what makes you think I'm not?"

From the NYT review:

If it sometimes seems to be on the verge of falling apart, that's the point. The film is, partly, a protest against the smooth, standardized, bottom-line culture represented by the Axeman, and a defiant celebration of imperfection, improvisation and accident.

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Back in 1947, the 27-year-old John Paul Stevens was Justice Wiley Rutledge's clerk, so LCDR Swift, Hamdan's defense lawyer, was consulting Rutledge's dissent in Yamashita for clues.

Swift read me stirring words from Rutledge's opinion:

"The immutable rights of the individual, including those secured by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, belong not alone to the members of those nations that excel on the battlefield or that subscribe to the democratic ideology. They belong to every person in the world, victor or vanquished, whatever may be his race, color or beliefs. They rise above any status of belligerency or outlawry."

Swift paused and then added, "I think tomorrow's going to be a good day."

And of course it was.

We were told that after 9/11, everything had changed -- or that nothing had changed. Now that our fear will be tempered by hope, the real conversation can begin.

A Check Against Fear

It's not a scene! It's not, I tell you. Not not not!

The tribute videos appear to be part of an attempt by al-Qaida's leadership to tout their connection to al-Zarqawi, who emerged as a hero among Islamic extremists with his dramatic attacks in Iraq and even stole the spotlight from bin Laden and al-Zawahri.

Bin Laden's mention of "instructions" to al-Zarqawi could be aimed to show the al-Qaida in Iraq leader was under his command.

Bin Laden Hails Slain Al-Zarqawi As 'Lion'

Like smokers seeking a cure from their deadly habits, city politicians and economic development officials have a long history of grasping at fads to solve their persistent problems and rebuild middle class cities.

Today, a new fad is bewitching urbanists and pols alike. Known as the "creativity craze," it promotes the notion that "young creatives" can drive an urban revival.

...

The "creative solution" pointedly avoids such hurdles [good schools, good zoning policies, a city not beholden to unions], suggesting that the key to urban resurgence lies in attracting the diverse, the tolerant, and the gay. Having such a population is well and good, but unlikely by itself to produce a revival, let alone a diversified economy.

This is an urban strategy for a frictionless universe.
Why do supposedly serious people embrace such ideas?

...

San Francisco, according to economist David Friedman, has actually lost employment at a rate comparable to that of the Great Depression. It is increasingly a city without a real private-sector economy.

These folks (and this organization appears to be Hillary's baby) clearly have an agenda of their own, but the criticism of Florida is not without some merit, even if they have oversimplified his thesis. As Florida points out:

The US should not be worried about losing out on the low-cost, low-skilled end of the global labor market; it should be worried about other countries slowly chipping away at its ability to grow, attract, and retain top creative talent.

When I asked a group of my students whether they would prefer to work in good, high-paying jobs in a machine tool factory or lower-paying temporary jobs in a hair salon, they overwhelmingly chose the latter.

Going back to David Friedman for a moment:

Professor Friedman is also a longtime member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, where he is known as Duke Cariadoc of the Bow. He also founded the largest and longest-running SCA event, the Pennsic War.

His comment about SF job loss:

Since late 2000, Bay Area employment has plummeted by as much as 18%, a near-Depression rate of decline. Yet, the region is remarkably devoid of pro-growth sentiment. Few of its elected officials display even a passing interest in job creation. Meanwhile, the rest of the state has been doing markedly better.

It should be noted that this article is nearly three years old now, and the data is surely even older. Besides, the statistic and the Depression reference are misleading, particularly in the way Kotkin and Siegel use it. It suggests people are out of work and homel... [ Read More (0.5k in body) ]

Too Much Froth