It’s been a big and extremely depressing week for the rights of sexual minorities. Despite some minor victories in Texas and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s veto, anti-gay bills remain on the agenda in many US states. Things continue to get worse in Uganda and Russia. What can be done to help stop the abuse? Unlike many other human rights issues, as former Duck contributor Clifford Bob points out, sexual minority rights promotion is an area...
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Belated Thursday Quick Links
This duck is a bit under water these days. We've reached the mid-semester pre-spring break moment of high activity and low energy (warm weather and SXSW beckon). In the meantime, I've flagged a few stories, a great Economist round-up on the health of the oceans (not good), a post by Chris Bertram on the changing face of blogging (more corporate, less fun), Rosa Brooks tells Sheryl Sandberg to take a hike (lean back, don't lean in), the air...
Political Homophobia in Uganda and a (Very) Belated Apology
In what I suspect is the least auspicious debut ever made by a Duck guest blogger, six months after being welcomed by the Duck team, I'm finally posting. It turns out that starting a new job, prepping a new course, learning how to shovel snow, and attempting to finish a book manuscript all at once is not particularly conducive to being a good guest blogger. I'd like to thank the Duck team for their patience, and for their completely unwarranted...
Cyber Spillover: The Transition from Cyber Incident to Conventional Foreign Policy Dispute
*Post written with my coauthor Ryan Maness. We are currently rounding the corner and almost ready to submit the final version of our Cyber Conflict book. This post represents ongoing research as we fill out unanswered questions in our text. My coauthor and I have dissected the contemporary nature of cyber conflict in many ways, from cataloging all actual cyber incidents and disputes between states, to examining cyber espionage, and finally,...
Cutting arms and tying hands?
Post by Steven Ward and Paul Musgrave The Obama administration’s plans to shrink the U.S. military attracted intense media attention yesterday. The plan is being described as a maneuver to shift the United States’s defense posture away from protracted occupations, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and toward a more conventional deterrence role. It’s easy to exaggerate the scale of the changes to the military budget. In particular, the...
You Think You Have a Facebook Problem? The IDF and Social Media
Dan Levine sent on this great write up of the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) problems with social media. A few highlights: “In 2010, a soldier in the artillery corps posted this status: “Cleaning up Katana and home on Thursday.” Katana is a village in the West Bank. The status revealed the time of the planned raid and the unit involved. The other soldiers in the unit, also apparently glued to their screens, saw the update and, feeling...
Tuesday Morning Links
Will this morning's links betray my grumpiness? I hope not but today's meme that the US and the West are in danger of losing Ukraine drives me a bit crazy. It wasn't in my pocket... was it in yours? Anyhow, the big news out of Washington, DC is about the big defense cuts proposed by SecDef Hagel. Lots of choices being made, including controversial ones like eliminating the A-10s for a plane that is still mostly air (the F-35) and so on. How...
Classroom Activity: Coordination and Collaboration Problems
This fifth activity comes after students are to have listened to lectures about coordination (slides) and collaboration (slides) problems. I led off with a coordination problem that might not have been too difficult to overcome even if I didn't allow them to confer, but was trivially solved given that I did. (If you're wondering, I allowed that precisely because it would allow me to draw a contrast between coordination problems and...
Post-Kristof Monday Links
Good morning Ducks, here are your links from South Asia... (I am not even going to pretend I know what's going on in the Ukraine, Syria, Somalia, or Venezuela. I'll stick to what I sort of know...). Vasundhara Sirnate at The Hindu writes passionately in defence of the offensive. While Indian liberals will (rightfully) continue to be upset at Penguin India's capitulation to the so called "offended" feelings of a small and obscure group of Hindu...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Super-belated version
Why are we late with Friday Nerd Blogging? Because we were too busy celebrating all that is awesome:
Classroom Activity: Comparative Advantage
Editor's note: this post previously appeared on my personal blog. This fourth activity comes after students are to have listened (slides) to a lecture on how states are currently leaving a lot of money lying on the ground by failing to cooperate more fully. The examples I used all concern economic cooperation—specifically, how there'd be a whole lot more stuff to go around if states changed their trade, exchange rate, and immigration...
Thursday Linkage – Ukraine Crisis Edition
I arrived in Geneva yesterday morning to give a couple of talks, and I pulled up Twitter on my phone to see events in the Ukraine exploding. I can't say I fully understand what's going on and the implications. Reflexively, I'm supportive of the protesters and their desire for tighter ties to the European Union. But, as one person said on Twitter, the Ukrainian president may be taking a page from Assad on this one. All I know is that this could...