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| There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs. |
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Truth Stranger Than 'Strangelove' |
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| Topic: Movies |
12:33 pm EDT, Oct 10, 2004 |
"Dr. Strangelove," Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film about nuclear-war plans run amok, is widely heralded as one of the greatest satires in American political or movie history. For its 40th anniversary, Film Forum is screening a new 35 millimeter print for one week, starting on Friday, and Columbia TriStar is releasing a two-disc special-edition DVD next month. One essential point should emerge from all the hoopla: "Strangelove" is far more than a satire. In its own loopy way, the movie is a remarkably fact-based and specific guide to some of the oddest, most secretive chapters of the Cold War. Truth Stranger Than 'Strangelove' |
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| Topic: Society |
12:06 pm EDT, Oct 10, 2004 |
MEMRI's TV monitoring center operates 16 hours per day, overseeing every major Arab channel. The center has the in-house capability to translate, subtitle and distribute the segments from Arab TV in real time to Western news channels across the world, effectively "Bridging the Language Gap Between the Middle East and the West." MEMRI's TV monitoring center focuses on political, cultural, religious, and other developments and debates in the Arab and Muslim world and in Iran. If you go to memri.org, there's a "trailer" for MEMRI TV which includes, among other shockers, a rather intense clip of this little girl -- maybe ten years old -- emphatically calling her people to jihad. Watch it in full screen mode. MEMRI TV |
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The Presidential Candidates' 2nd Debate |
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| Topic: Elections |
11:50 am EDT, Oct 10, 2004 |
Q: President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision and what you did to correct it. A: I have made a lot of decisions and some of them little, like appointments to boards you've never heard of, and some of them big. On the big questions, I'll stand by those decisions because I think they're right. I've made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV. Do you think maybe he was referring to Charles Duelfer? The Presidential Candidates' 2nd Debate |
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| Topic: International Relations |
11:12 am EDT, Oct 10, 2004 |
If Arab citizens were to ask the questions, they would place the accusers -- the West -- in the seat of the accused. The peoples of the Arab and Western worlds must engage in a real dialogue to attain an understanding of the human issues which are of mutual interest to both. The world has suffered enough from stagnant thought and the lack of will resulting from the factional interests of the members of the UN Security Council and General Assembly. Who Hates Who? |
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Voices Of Innovation: Steve Jobs |
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| Topic: Business |
11:00 am EDT, Oct 10, 2004 |
Q: How do you systematize innovation? A: You don't. You hire good people who will challenge each other every day to make the best products possible. That's why you don't see any big posters on the walls around here, stating our mission statement. Our corporate culture is simple. Voices Of Innovation: Steve Jobs |
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| Topic: Society |
7:31 pm EDT, Oct 9, 2004 |
do tank n. A research institute that focuses on actions rather than ideas. The Word Spy - do tank |
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RE: Fukuyama: The Neoconservative Moment |
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| Topic: War on Terrorism |
6:10 pm EDT, Oct 9, 2004 |
Decius wrote:
] His arguments are clear-cut, complete, and free from the
] emotional attacks of typical punditry. I also happen to agree
] with him, mostly, and I don't usually agree with Fukuyama.
]
] His suggestion that we construct a formal federal department
] of nation building is both pragmatic and extremely unsettling. What is it about this suggestion that you find so unsettling? When Nick refers to "think tanks" as an alternative to a federal department, I think this misses the suggestion. What we need is a "do tank", not a "think tank". RE: Fukuyama: The Neoconservative Moment |
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Johns Hopkins Magazine - Fukuyama interview |
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| Topic: International Relations |
6:02 pm EDT, Oct 9, 2004 |
One of the big problems is that we are subject, as a democracy, to momentary enthusiasms for undertaking projects of various sorts. But a lot of times we don't have the staying power to see them through to the end. That comment sums up so much about the United States, even in areas having nothing to do with foreign policy and international affairs. Johns Hopkins Magazine - Fukuyama interview |
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Fukuyama: The Neoconservative Moment |
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| Topic: War on Terrorism |
5:59 pm EDT, Oct 9, 2004 |
Americans have no particular taste or facility for nation-building: we want exit strategies rather than empires. Lurking like an unbidden guest at a dinner party is the reality of what has happened in Iraq since the US invasion: We have been our usual inept and disorganized selves in planning for and carrying out the reconstruction, something that was predictible in advance and should not have surprised anyone familiar with American history. The point here is not who is right, but rather that the prudential case was not nearly as open-and-shut as neoconservatives believe. Krauthammer talks as if the Bush Administration's judgment had been vindicated at every turn, and that any questioning of it can only be the result of base or dishonest motives. Would that this were so. The fact that our judgment was flawed has created an enormous legitimacy problem for us, one that will hurt our interests for a long time to come. The hope that we would be awarded ex post legitimacy was not an unreasonable calculation. It might indeed have materialized had the United States found a large and active WMD program in Iraq after the invasion. BINGO! This is why Bush was unhappy about not finding WMDs. His comment in the debate makes more sense now. The world is different now than it was during the Cold War in ways that will affect our future ability to exert leadership and claim to speak on behalf of the world as a whole. In al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups, we do in fact confront an enemy that hates us for what we are rather than for what we do. Actually, experts would disagree with that characterization of al-Qaeda. Read Imperial Hubris, for example. And now, for the best part: It is inevitable that we will get sucked into large social-engineering projects in the future, and we need to be much better prepared. This means establishing a permanent office with authority and resources appropriate for the job next time around as part of a broader restructuring of the US government's soft-power agencies. Fukuyama: The Neoconservative Moment |
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