Robert Kelly used to blog here before he made the big-time on the BBC, so here's a salute via Friday nerd-blogging. BEAUTIFUL pic.twitter.com/EQo7JJJ8gW — Lindsey B (@lindseybieda) March 17, 2017
I was trying to find a good Star Wars-Valentine's Day mash up and failed. And then I thought, what would Brian Boitano do? [NFSW-words] Old oldie but a goodie. Enjoy the games and enjoy the excuse...
I came across this news story which underscored to me the challenges that the Chinese government has in confronting their air quality problem, what I previously likened to rapidly turning a...
The following is a guest post by Joel R. Pruce, a post-doctoral fellow in human rights studies at the University of Dayton. The transnational movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)...
 How are pieces of research like eggs? Well, I was having a fun conversation with a grad student of mine while we were dining in the aftermath of a workshop on failed states, and I was suggesting a potential research strategy. The point I was trying to make is that you don't want to waste your research. At first, I was using bullets--but given our topics, violence, and given that bullets do not degrade over time, eggs made more sense.The basic idea is that when you do research, you don't always use everything you learn for a particular piece. Indeed, one of Saideman's rules of...
I am not a nerd. I have tried to make this abundantly clear. So what if I just watched 12 episodes of Battlestar Galactica in the last week? That doesn’t PROVE anything. But I haven’t always been a fan of period pieces and pro football. My anti-nerdishness in high school expressed itself much differently – I was a metalhead. Not one of those poofy-haired spandex-pants-wearing metalheads. If you wore a Poison shirt to school, I’d have shunned you. A Warrant shirt and I’d have kicked you in the balls. Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Black Sabbath – those were my bands. I had the mullet to...
Last week I posted the trailer. Yesterday, Volkswagen released its much awaited sequel to its "Vader Kid" Super Bowl Commercial from last year. The original: Which do readers think is funnier? Personally I think the "The Bark Side" wins. NPR considers what this ad strategy tells us about the future of marketing.
When he isn't comparing himself to Ronald Reagan (whose withdrawal of troops from Lebanon, arms control negotiations with Gorbachev, nuclear abolitionist visions and moderation on immigration, and general sunny persona suggest they aren't politically identical), Newt Gingrich says things like this:I would say that the most dangerous thing — which, by the way, Barack Obama just did — the Iranians are practicing closing the Strait of Hormuz, actively taunting us, so he cancels a military exercise with the Israelis so as not to be provocative?"Dictatorships respond to strength, they don’t...
<img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('1759f7b8-ce85-4d85-9908-1a05a3241644'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://lh3.ggpht.com/-IrEqvmmoxzk/TyDGRf8xCMI/AAAAAAAAADY/cyi1nmr4GXw/video3d19848df746%25255B9%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" />The robot special effects are pretty funnyPart one is here, where I noted how teaching IR in Asia taught me how to stop worrying and love American empire, and that American social science’ monolinguism is actually a highly responsible research technique. Here are a few...
The Economist lead story this week on China's Paradox of Prosperity offers some fascinating fodder for a lecture on constructivism: "In this issue we launch a weekly section devoted to China. It is the first time since we began our detailed coverage of the United States in 1942 that we have singled out a country in this way. The principal reason is that China is now an economic superpower and is fast becoming a military force capable of unsettling America."What strikes me about this paragraph is the factual assertion that China is now a superpower. Perhaps I've been reading too much of Dan...
Among the assigned readings for my new doctoral seminar in Human Security this week are a number of pieces from last year's International Studies Review Theory v. Practice Symposium. There are numerous fascinating pieces here, including Dan Drezner's case study on the evolution of "smart sanctions," Roland Paris' discussion of "fragile states" as a case study in epistemic agenda-setting, and Kittikhoun and Weiss' debunking "The Myth of Scholarly Irrelevance for the U.N."In particular, a quote from Jentleson and Ratner's contribution jumped out at me:"The profession-based incentive structure...
Part one of my response to Obama’s 2012 State of the Union is here.3. The foreign policy section was weaker and more militaristic than usual. The opening bit about the Iraq war making us ‘safer and more respected around the world’ was jaw-dropping. I guess this really is a campaign speech outreach to the right, because I can’t believe any of the president’s 2008 voters actually buy that line. Does anyone believe that anymore, except for the right-wing think-tank set or something? Wow. Didn’t we vote for Obama because of exactly the kind of Bushian American hubris that can read an...