Amateur Hour
I'm rewriting this (again and again).

In the struggle between China and The West [sic] I don't care who wins. I don't know anyone who gives a damn about these things. Artists and stockbrokers, my social circle, are whores: they attach themselves to interesting people- the phrase is Duchamp's- and the men who run the PRC are more interesting than the men who run this country. I'm not afraid of them certainly, renegade nationalism is more of a danger in Moscow or Islamabad than Beijing, but that's not to say I have much respect for those in this country who actively abet censorship. Similarly, if I'm impressed by the struggle in Iran it follows that there are at least a few people there with money or government positions whom I would like or respect whether I would agree with them or not, but all this does is make the Bush Administration's actions in Iraq look even worse.
Juan Cole is right and wrong. Iran won the battle, not the war. The war isn't over. Capitalism will win the war, but not American capitalism.

I wonder what euphemisms and code words will become popular in China thanks to Yahoo? What will be the new slang for 'democracy.' Language under pressure will adapt and those adaptations will be interesting and some beautiful.
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Knud Jensen inherited his father's business as a cheese wholesaler. 12 years later, in 1956, representatives of his biggest client came to him with an offer and a choice: either sell the company to their American employer or they would bypass him and drive him out of business. He sold it, and used the money to found a museum, now the most popular in Denmark. Louisiana

One of the ironies of the Maytag sale is that Haier would have kept jobs in the US in order to expand the American market, while Whirlpool will move the its factories to China.