The German Justice Ministry has outlined a new draft law regulating the circumcision of children in that country, on the heels of a Cologne court’s decision that circumcision of non-consenting minors constituted a human rights violation.The decision, after a four-year-old Muslim boy experienced uncontrollable bleeding following his ritual circumcision, sparked a firestorm, with some child rights activists hailing the decisionand while Muslim...
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Unionizing Adjuncts at Georgetown (Updated, and Again)
UPDATE: the author of the Chronicle article, Peter Schmidt, discussed the issue on the Kojo Namdi show yesterday.The SEIU wants to unionize adjunct professors at Georgetown University. As their card makes clear, this is part of a broader effort to unionize contingent labor at colleges and universities. George Washington's adjuncts unionized in 2006, and won a significant pay raise this August. American University's and Montgomery County's...
Tuesday Morning Linkage
Mikheil Saakashvili's party loses in Georgian election (but wait, writes Liz Fuller, maybe not). Mark Adomanis discusses the implications, as does Simon Tisdall. Ankit Panda on Indo-Japanese relations. Dan Brumberg and Hesham Sallam have authored a new USIP paper on Security Sector Reform (SSR) in Egypt. Justin Gengler: "The Uprising is Over. But What is the Price of Bahrain's Victory?"Stuart D. Goldman argues that the Soviet-Japanese border...
I CAN HAS IR THEORY? 2
More slides from the talk after the fold.
Monday Morning Linkage
Mark Adomanis looks at Moscow's decision to expel USAID. Taylor Fravel analyzes recent Chinese statements on the East China Sea dispute. Zachary Keck worries about the US-ROK alliance. Cyril Almeida on the drone debate in Pakistan (via 3QD).The most recent green-on-blue attack in Afghanistan dissected. David Smock at Registan trashes David Barno's advice on US Afghanistan policy. More from Gunpowder and Lead. Zenpundit riffs on Luttwak's...
Pastiche Fantasy in Song of Ice and Fire
There's much to like about what George R.R. Martin does in his juggernaut of a fantasy franchise: his juggling of a ginormous cast of compelling characters, his willingness to kill and maim those characters in horrible ways, and his relentless critique of the way that high fantasy handles class and gender.I appreciate that there's something barking mad about demanding 'realism' in fricking high fantasy, but medieval Europe was not populated by...
Saturday Afternoon Video
Apologies about the lack of morning linkage today. Things were hectic and I simply forgot. Because it's Doctor Who season....
A Pre-Post-Mortem on Romney’s Defeat
It increasingly looks like Romney is gonna lose. Intratrade now puts that likelihood at 75%. Now it’s my understanding from the American politics subfield, in which I took exactly zero courses in grad school, that the state of the economy is supposed to be the great determiner of American elections. But somehow Romney can’t seem to win despite 8+% unemployment. So I’ll take that as a methodological opening for wild speculation - namely my own -...
Concert of Asia in Crisis
The often maligned aspiration for a "Concert of Asia" appears to be even more unlikely this year as Japan and China trade barbs at the UN and spray water cannons at each other over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. Meanwhile in Southeast Asia, China has succeeded in fracturing the unity of ASEAN ministers over disputed territorial claims in the South China Sea. Even though these conflicts are unlikely to lead to war, the...
Syria and the magic wand
Yesterday’s NYTimes had an op-ed from Michael Doran and Max Boot on five reasons why the U.S. should show some backbone and intervene in Syria now: 1) it will help contain Iran; 2) it will help contain the regional spread of conflict; 3) it will contain the influence of Al Qaeda and other extremists in Syria; 4) it will improve U.S. relations with regional partners; and 5) it will stop the humanitarian crisis.Syria is tragic and complicated and...
How to Survive a Plague
I am putting the finishing touches on a new book manuscript on social movements and market transformations with my co-author Ethan Kapstein. In the process of researching that book which focuses on the global AIDS treatment advocacy movement, we tried to get our hands on any relevant material. We became aware of two important documentaries that have just been released, one is David France’s How to Survive a Plague which captures ACT UP’s...
Podcast No. 10 – Interview with Vincent Pouliot
2012 interview with Vincent Pouliot.