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A lapsed neocon speaks out: The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them.... After the fall of the Soviet Union, various neoconservative authors like Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol and Robert Kagan suggested that the United States would use its margin of power to exert a kind of "benevolent hegemony" over the rest of the world, fixing problems like rogue states with W.M.D., human rights abuses and terrorist threats as they came up. Writing before the Iraq war, Kristol and Kagan considered whether this posture would provoke resistance from the rest of the world, and concluded, "It is precisely because American foreign policy is infused with an unusually high degree of morality that other nations find they have less to fear from its otherwise daunting power." ... We are fighting hot counterinsurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and against the international jihadist movement, wars in which we need to prevail. But "war" is the wrong metaphor for the broader struggle, since wars are fought at full intensity and have clear beginnings and endings. Meeting the jihadist challenge is more of a "long, twilight struggle" whose core is not a military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world.
posted by caddis at 10:43 PM PST - 57 comments

When good samaritans go bad, and find lost property they'd rather keep, they make up excuses like "but now he's been using it for a week and he really loves it and we can't bear to take it from him" and "we had to spend a lot of money to get a charger and a memory card". Stay tuned for vigilante justice.
posted by pivotal at 10:01 PM PST - 131 comments

I am stuck on The Borowitz Report and The Onion when it comes to favorite regularly updated satire on the Internet. I also enjoy the Slate cartoons, the JibJab animated cartoons, and Mark Fiore's flash. There is also the Specious Report, and the very meta SatireSearch. I am sure that I am still missing some good satire. MeFi'ers, where do you go for your satire?
posted by Adamchik at 8:08 PM PST - 37 comments

Buy an ad, and Aric posts a funny photo of himself and your product. Another entry in the "million dollar homepage" series of viral-advertising-as-content sites. [via mefi projects]
posted by brownpau at 7:15 PM PST - 21 comments

The Chittagong ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh disassemble half of the world's supertankers. Shipbreaking, though profitable, is not particularly safe for either the workers in the shipyard or the surrounding environment. It does, however, make for some spectacular pictures. Also, pinpoint the location of the shipyard and explore via satellite with Google Earth.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 3:04 PM PST - 54 comments

"He was someone who acted out our psyches ... He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen... the history of Lon Chaney is the history of unrequited loves. He brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that's grotesque, that the world will turn away from."
A Valentine for Lon Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces. (BugMeNot for the first link; more inside)
posted by matteo at 12:48 PM PST - 14 comments

Back to the Bowery: The End of McGurk's Suicide Hall is a photographic walking tour of the Bowery as it is today. Don't miss The Sunshine Hotel (the last of the flophouses) or the photo of the gen-yoo-ine Bowery rat.
posted by kalimac at 12:28 PM PST - 16 comments

Olympicsfilter: American skier biffs hard. How about the rest of the team? Kwan. Miller. Johnny Weir. But props to Shani Davis, the first African American to win an individual gold, and of course, plucky Norway, currently the medal leader. Among other losers: NBC.
posted by bardic at 11:33 AM PST - 98 comments

"You will be naked within 20 minutes of the kids being in bed…You are to do everything that is requested or expected of you, if you do not, you are considered noncompliant." – from Travis Frey's "Contract of Wifely Expectations" which also includes detailed instructions what panties she can wear, what sex acts she must perform, how often and where she must shave and how she can earn "good behavior days." Frey, 33, of Iowa, has been charged with kidnapping his wife.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:07 AM PST - 345 comments

The top-rated Greek news channel is Alpha TV's. Tonight's second-lead story: outrage and disgust over babycage.net, a quite obvious web hoax that is even listed as one on Open Directory (and which took this Googling non-journalist about 60 seconds to discover). The breathless commentary on this "instance of American self-indulgence"? how this is a first step towards a new Orwellian society --ironic considering they are spreading disinformation through mass-media, just like Mr. Orwell predicted...
posted by costas at 10:59 AM PST - 17 comments

I love beer mats. Those with a low tolerance for slow-loading pages with too many graphics on them - or pages that require horizontal scrolling need not click. Other tegestology pages. I had no idea.
posted by spock at 10:53 AM PST - 6 comments

The Book of Ralph. "A True Graphic Novel On Ralph Reed" written by Doug Monroe from Atlanta's Creative Loafing, drawn by Josh Latta of CuteGirlDemographics, and based entirely on potent quotables from Mr Reed himself.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:55 AM PST - 6 comments

eBay hilarity: "THIS VEHICLE HAS COME TO US VIA AN INSURANCE COMPANY, IT HAS TRAVELLED 32,000 MILES AND IS ONE NOT VERY HAPPY OWNER FROM NEW. MUST TELL STORY:" (via)
posted by NekulturnY at 7:08 AM PST - 40 comments

There is a new question asking website. It is powered by humans via the Mechanical Turk program. Said the Gramophone has a bit of fun with it.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:07 AM PST - 16 comments

NewsFilter: I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
posted by I Love Tacos at 2:08 AM PST - 154 comments

The punkiest Monkey that ever popped from an egg on a mountain top, the one and only Monkey from cult Japanese TV series Monkey Magic, is finally coming back to our TV screens after a 30 year absence. Monkey will be played in the new series by Shingo Katori and even with blonde hair, in the role of Monkey he will no doubt tease the Gods and everyone and, presumably, have some fun while he's at it.
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:20 AM PST - 28 comments