by Dan Nexon | 10 May 2012 |
Some years ago I finally got around to reading Goodrick-Clarke's The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology. Reading Goodrick-Clarke's description of various forms of esotericism and mysticism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and specifically Blavatsky's Theosophy movement, drove home the degree to which H.P. Lovecraft's writings -- and, by extension, basically all modern horror --...
by Robert Kelly | 9 May 2012 | Featured
<img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('000902d5-7b3b-4c9c-b77d-2a0f6080ed33'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://lh4.ggpht.com/-xHchAHKaTKA/T6nywRxtfXI/AAAAAAAAALg/2rX2oBbeHk4/video6cf4c2596412%25255B7%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" />Greatest Movie Line Ever on Academia: “How the Social Scientists Brought Our World to the Brink of Chaos” Hah!If academia’s...
by Dan Nexon | 8 May 2012 |
Despite Adam Elkus's prodding, I avoided participating in the first-round beat down of Paul J. Saunders supremely stupid essay, "Giving Realists a Bad Name." That's okay, because Daniel Larison, Dan Drezner, and others piled on.Saunders's subsequent response to Drezner does make a very good point: just because you are a realist doesn't mean you don't have to care about "values." Realism writ large is not logically equivalent to Meineke's...
by Charli Carpenter | 8 May 2012 | Featured
I am concluding a semester-long experiment in incorporating a theory/policy writing simulation of sorts into my doctoral level "Human Security" seminar. This struck me as important both because my own doctoral training left me unprepared for writing for practitioners, and because the divergent socialization of academic professionals into scholarly versus non-scholarly writing has been cited as a key impediment to successful communication with...
by Steve Saideman | 8 May 2012 |
I guess I should not be surprised at this news that the Pentagon did not cooperate with Marvel Studios to make The Avengers movie (h/t to Jacob Levy for pointing this piece out to me). After all, immediately after seeing the movie, I enumerated the many principal-agent problems illustrated in the movie, and the military abhors P-A problems. It turns out that the Pentagon found unrealistic not the part about the Norse Gods, the large green...
by Cliff Bob | 7 May 2012 |
Another Sunday, another military puff-piece from the NY Times. Yesterday's issue promoted the idea that America is threatened by a drug trafficker-terrorist network emanating from Central America. The source of this idea is--no surprise--the U.S. military, our fearmongers in chief. But the Times unquestioningly reported their statements as front page news, as part of a longer article about the new Central American wars such propaganda is...
by Rodger Payne | 5 May 2012 |
The Heartland Institute, a conservative think-tank well-known for its skepticism about climate change, placed the above digital billboard for 24 hours along the Eisenhower Expressway in Chicago this past week. For $200, they bought a lot of publicity.Apparently, though now cancelled, the planned ad campaign was going to place similar billboards with the same message bearing photos of Osama bin laden, Charles Manson, and Fidel Castro.Subtle,...
by Cliff Bob | 4 May 2012 | Featured
My new book, The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics, has recently been published by Cambridge University Press. It is available on Kindle for $12.10, Nook for $14.74, and as a paperback for $21.59. For a free chapter, chapter excerpts, contents, and more please visit my website. The Global Right Wing explores the vibrant world of conservative activism. It examines how America's National Rifle Association (NRA), its...
by Charli Carpenter | 4 May 2012 |
I was shocked, shocked to learn that Bloggingheads.tv advertised my discussion with Rob Farley over gender and race in Foreign Policy / Game of Thrones by promoting only the clip where I discussed "nudity":Since that clip was not much more than a throwaway comment in a wide-ranging discussion, yet in fact touched on one of the most, er, much-trumpeted aspects of the show so far, I thought I'd take the time to expound a little bit since after...
Herman Von Rompuy is going to steal your sovereignty.Also, Christmas.There is something refreshing in British newspapers. Empires come and empires go, but tabloids are one of life's constants. So with the Express, which has discovered "EU Plot To Scrap Britain": The new bureaucrat, who would not be directly elected by voters, is set to get sweeping control over the entire EU and force member countries into ever-greater political and economic...
by Steve Saideman | 3 May 2012 |
An academic friend of mine and of other Duck folks, Patricia Weitsman, has gone through hell over the past two years. Today is the the anniversary of her "re-birth" as last year on May 3rd she had a bone marrow transplant. This was to fight Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a precursor to Leukemia. Just in the past year, she has gone through:treatment, transplant, broken ankle, multiple pulmonary embolisms in both lungs, residual host cells in the...
by Dan Nexon | 3 May 2012 |
Moscow is once again expressing displeasure with US and NATO missile defense plans.Russia says it is prepared to use "destructive force pre-emptively" if the US goes ahead with controversial plans for a missile defence system based in Central Europe. The warning came after the Russian defence minister said talks on missile defence were nearing a dead end. Moscow fears that missile interceptors would be a threat to Russia's security.But the US...