I happened to be walking up 19th Street in downtown DC today in the early afternoon. Numerous media vans were parked along the road, and the sidewalks between F and H Streets were filled with eager reporters and bemused staff, obviously enjoying a long lunch break. A...
Among the books I'm digesting this month as I work on my manuscript is this gem from Thomas Richard Davies - a case study of the transnational disarmament movement in the interwar period. I...
1: A mysterious little Father's Day gift for certain Dads among us. Speculation here.2: Your GoT satirical post of the week. (H/T Steve.)3: No, I haven't read it yet, though this is definitely on my...
A Guest Post by Jonathan Caverley in reply to Dan NexonThe irony of being accused of taking texts in directions their original authors might not have intended by the scholar behind Harry Potter and...
Khal Drogo's earlier lines in Game of Thrones consisted mostly of occasional Dothraki grunts and a few mono-syllables of broken English. Then we arrive at the visceral war speech scene in the latest episode... either Geoffrey Rush has been secretly coaching the horse-lord,* or the directors intentionally downplayed Jason Momoa's talents as an actor to build up to this: *Actually, the coaching is probably done by David Peterson. For more on how you too can curse and threaten in Dothraki, click here or here or follow this. For more on invented languages generally, here is a great summer read.
Charli has been writing about international justice, arguing against ‘myths’ – and comparing the efforts to bring Mladic to justice as opposed to the rush to shoot Osama bin Laden in the face. Others, such as John Feffner at Foriegn Policy in Focus have made similar arguments.I agree and disagree with some of the points being made. However I am concerned that that many of these arguments seem to completely ignore or fail to appreciate the different context of the Mladic and OBL raids. I just don’t think we can pretend these are at all similar situations – even looking beyond “status” issues,...
Lest I be accused of shielding myself from satire.....Political psychologists are a kind of political scientist. Or maybe they are a kind of psychologist. In truth, no one really gets to know them very well. That is because political psychologists think everyone is stupid.Political psychologists think you have never made a good decision in your life. For instance, if 600 people are going to die of a terrible disease and you are given a choice between a health program that will 1) surely kill 400 and save the rest or 2) will have a one third probability of saving 600 people but 2/3 of killing...
After a long hiatus, I am ready to take up a number of the other points raised in the four Disorder of Things posts on my book The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations.II. ethics and politics, which are good things but not scienceAt the end of the first part of my reply I suggested that the "gang of four" interlocutors (Paul, Joe, Nick, and Meera) who commented on the book are quite correct to point out the importance of my professed but not expansively justified position on the irresolvable nature of value controversies to the overall argument, because many of the points that they...