Georgetown University's debate coach comments (video) on the first presidential debate of 2012. PM's not the only one to respond to John Quiggin's post on the US Navy; Robert Farley also has a lot to say. Jeremy Keenan provides an overview of the Mali civil war at allAfrica. The Syrian civil war continues. Michael Krepon revisits Robert Jervis' The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution.Ryan Evans: "All Politics and Civil War is Local: Helmand's...
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Stuff Political Scientists Like #17: Outside Offers, or Stuff Other Political Scientists Like
Political scientists like to complain about how little they are paid, which tends to be irritating to any number of other groups, most notably anyone who has a job other than that of a political scientist and has to be into the office say, before noon. Part of the reason that political scientists are so poorly compensated for their great contribution to humankind is that they are only rewarded when others from outside their organization value...
Does naval success invalidate the need for navies?
Acting was a big part of Battleship. At Crooked Timber, John Quiggin writes a post that seeks to sink a thousand ships: The trillions of dollars that have been spent on building, maintaining and scrapping fleets since 1945 has yielded almost zero benefits to the nations that have spent this money, in the belief that all respectable countries should have a navy. China’s carrier is an extreme example. About the best that can be said is that a...
Gender, Violence, War, Political Memory
The sailor (George Mendosa) and nurse (Greta Zimmer Friedman) depicted in this iconic photo snapped moments after the announcement that World War II had ended turned out to be complete strangers, and apparently Greta Friedman, the nurse, wasn't kissing back: Mendosa: "It was the moment. You come back from the Pacific, and finally, the war ends,' Mendonsa told CBS. 'The excitement of the war being over, plus I had a few drinks. So when I saw the...
Technical Difficulties with Podcasts? (UPDATED)
I've been getting sporadic reports of problems opening the podcasts, e.g., of people clicking on them from the "podcasts" tab with no result, being unable to force a download to show up as an audio file, and so forth. If you've been having this kind of difficulty would you let me know in comments?Please specify what kind of browser(s), and operating system(s) are involved, and which (if any) workarounds have revolved the problem.UPDATE: I've...
New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Meagan Spooner’s Skylark
Check out the third episode of New Books in Science and Fantasy, in which I interview Meagan Spooner about Skylark.The summary:Lark Ainsley lives within a near-hermetically sealed city located in a world scarred and depleted by magical wars. The Architects, who oversee the City, maintain it by harvesting the non-renewable magical energy found in each of the city’s inhabitants. But something goes wrong on Lark’s “Harvest Day,” and she soon finds...
Turkey, Syria and the Geopolitics of Identity
This is a guest post by Peter S. Henne. Peter is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. He formerly worked as a national security consultant. His research focuses on terrorism and religious conflict; he has also written on the role of faith in US foreign policy. During 2012-2013 he will be a fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. The Syrian shelling of Akcakale--a Turkish village on the Syrian border--and Turkey's...
Bad Metaphors: Journals, Articles, and Pages
As a graduate student at an urban university, I envy this RA's large office. New technologies adapt terms from older tools, even when they're curiously inappropriate. Consider "dashboard," which we use now to refer to an easy display of critical information (as in Google Dashboard) or the control panel of an automobile. Originally, however, a dashboard was (per Wikipedia) "a barrier of wood or leather fixed at the front of a horse-drawn...
Thursday Morning Debate Reactions
I had three immediate reactions to last night's Presidential debate. First, when one side is ecstatic and the other side is talking about how "debates don't matter," that's a pretty good indication of who "won." Second, #bizarro2004 continues, with Mitt Romney playing the role of "John Kerry" and Barack Obama of "George W. Bush." In fairness, though, Romney was less stilted than Kerry and Obama wasn't as bad as Bush was during the first debate...
Wednesday Afternoon Video
Explanation at Wired:Hard to believe, but it’s been 10 years since goofy fun-rockers They Might Be Giants released their first family album, No! To accompany the album’s 10th anniversary reissue, the Giants have recorded a revise of the geography-laden track “Alphabet of Nations” and released an accompanying crowdsourced video to benefit the Global Fund for Children.
Pop Music Brings a Lot More Readers than Social Science: Follow-up on ‘Kangnam Style’
Now THAT is Korean art – the Seokguram Buddha; I’ve been to see it 3 times The Internet has slapped down my arrogance. I told myself I wouldn’t write about k-pop, but that post on ‘Kangnam Style’ drove so much traffic to my site and twitter, that here is a response to all the comments. It’s kinda of depressing how my posts on Asian political economy or what-not get little traffic and a lot of yawns, but K-pop brings huge numbers. It’s like...
Wednesday Morning Linkage
Dan Nexon is not responsible fortoday's links.Dan is traveling today, so it's the Duck of Minerva's version of Assistant Editor's Month (or, perhaps, assistant to the editor's month):Dani Rodrik becomes the Clippy of forensic investigators, as he relates how the Turkish government may have faked evidence against 300 officers on coup-plotting charges: "It looks like you're trying to frame someone for treason. Would you like help with that?"...