William Pesek argues that the recent surge in corn prices might lead to economic disaster. Alisa Neman Hood on Chinese shale gas. Josh Foust argues that Rosa Brooks gets the key story of the NSS, drones, and the Osh crisis wrong: "Sadly, they did turn into a more serious cleavage. But more than the cleavage resulting in atrocities that the U.S. was unwilling to assist with (the U.S. didn’t even send humanitarian aid for the Uzbek refugees who...
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Outrage Blogging Continues: Aliya Mustafina
Andrew Sullivan's blog has been running a series of reader reactions on the subject of the Olympics and nationalism. A recent entry:Gabby Douglas' gold medal is being hailed all over the place as a first for an African-American gymnast. But I believe it's actually much more than that: Gabby is the first black athlete from anywhere to win the title, and one of very few to compete for it. I'm a good liberal, and all for the term...
Grtfhthamak! Westphalia??! Pzht! Malx-kra.
Charles Hill has a storied and impressive career, successful books to his name, and a prestigious position at Yale University. He's also repeating historical tripe:"The way the world through almost all of history has been ordered is through empires. The empire was the normal unit of rule. So it was the Chinese empire, the Mughal empire, the Persian empire, and the Roman empire, the Mayan empire." What changed this was the Thirty Years War in...
Can We Take Politico Out Back and Shoot it Yet?
Jonathan Martin in the outlet that makes CNN look like The Monkey Cage.The South, like the rest of the country, is a complicated place. It’s at once the heart of the Obama resistance but also a region that is crucial to his reelection hopes. If he loses Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, it’s a virtual certainty that he’ll be a one-term president. Look for no further explanation as to why the Democratic convention is being held in Charlotte,...
Podcast No. 3: Elkus and Atherton on “Grand Blog Tarkin”
Adam Elkus and Kelsey Atherton discuss strategic studies and speculative fiction.
Friday Morning Linkage
I think it highly unlikely that I will ever see anything geekier in my entire life (via PM). Former MSFS student Kristina Wong reports on Secretary Clinton's trip to Africa. USIP has a new paper (PDF) on the ingredients for successful democratic revolts. I suspect at least one of my PhD students will find something objectionable content. Greg Jaffe at the Washington Post reports on debates over US warplanning that treats China as a potential...
Friday Nerd Blogging, Redshirts Continued
Given last week's review of Redshirts, I thought I would provide this Comic-con video (shaky, NSFW graphic in the background) that helps to illustrate the humor behind Scalzi's book. It is a skit written and enacted by Scalzi and a sci-fi friend [ed: Patrick Rothfuss, a 'minor' player in the current SF & Fantasy scene, as pointed out by none other than Steve's better half] : And, yes, the shaky video is an essential part of the post-Comic-con...
Is Feminism Back in Vogue?
SURVEY: Ladies: Do you like having the option of wearing pants, do you enjoy taking time off after giving birth and do you like that people don't freak out if you have to breast feed in public, is voting something you're glad you can do- what about getting a university education, short hair, tampons, female doctors, bras that don't torture, or working in fields like engineering? Gentlemen: Is it nice to know that the women you may date will...
Post-Vacation Blogging
Regular blogging will begin to resume over the next weeks now that I'm back from a family road trip down the eastern seaboard and starting to gear up for the academic year. In the meantime, of possible interest to Duck readers is this terrific exhibit on The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, which we randomly stumbled into one day during a fire drill at the International Spy Museum across the street. Here is one of...
Another Nail in the Battered Coffin of Irony
This must be satire. It isn't? No, it has to be. I mean... seriously?In a post on his Twitter account, Calderón offered his condolences to the victims but then added that the incident showed that “the American Congress must review its mistaken legislation on guns. It’s doing damage to us all.” It was hardly a new theme from Mexico’s lame-duck president. But his latest statement requires an extraordinary amount of gall. During Calderón’s...
Countdown Fail!
I posted this on Facebook some time ago, but not on the Duck. The setting is Edinburgh Castle. Time time is shortly before the firing of the One o'Clock Gun. Skip to about 50 seconds in.
Applying for a PhD in Political Science
I get a lot of emails asking for advice about putting together their graduate-school applications. I also get a lot of emails asking how to "improve" an application to make it "more competitive." I suspect that these emails come to me because I am Director of Admissions in the Government Department, and people assume that part of my job description is "helping them get into graduate school." Nonetheless, because I like to think of myself...