I did not make these to destroy feminism.Duck readers, I have a confession. I bake cupcakes. Thousands of them. I love doing it, I love icing them, I love decorating them and I really like eating them.This is not something that I would typically share with a blog on international politics. Normally I write about things that blow up or try to calmly argue that twitter is not going to stop a war lord. But you see I am compelled. I am compelled to...
When elements of the Republican noise machine decided to call Sandra Fluke a slutty naughty sex fiend for suggesting--in public, no less--that all health-insurance plans ought to cover hormonal birth control... so that women wouldn't suffer from ovarian cysts, here's what I thought: "this is such a bunch of obviously crazystupidinsanemisogynistselfimmolating craziness that it has got to go away soon."But left-ish groups smell a fundraising...
I found this image here. So the US pivot toward Asia is all the rage in foreign policy now. Obama and Secretary Clinton genuinely seem to believe in this, and there good reasons for it. Briefly put, Asia has the money, people, and guns to dramatically impact world politics in a way that no other region can now. But I think the US Asian pivot won’t happen much nonetheless, because: 1) Americans, especially Republicans, don’t care about Asia,...
KONY, WE GON' FIND YOU - as soon as I buy my bracelet!Anyone who has been on Facebook and Twitter over the past 24 hours has probably seen impassioned pleas to watch a high-production video by Invisible Children, an American NGO (whose Board of Directors just happens to be entirely white American males). And anyone who is following many of the IR tweeters out there, you have also probably began to see the backlash.For those of you who do not...
This is cross-posted from the University of Texas website.As the March 6 Super Tuesday Republican primary looms, foreign policy issues understandably are likely to play a marginal role in the decisions of most voters. Since the middle of 2008, Gallup pollshave found that more than 60 percent of voters identified economic issues as the most important problem facing the country. In their February 2012 poll, for example, less than a half a percent...
...How I could just kill a man!Obama said today, or at least I think it was today, that "we have Israel's back." So have we replaced the cowboy swagger bullshit with some urban swagger bullshit? Fo shizzle.In general, I object to any dumbing down of foreign policy, even in the public discourse, and I don't really think Presidents did this before. This seems to be a modern phenomenon. But now, apparently even Obama feels the need to talk in this...
I'm very much looking forward to attending this year's International Studies Association conference in lovely San Diego. This is partly because I can fight a losing struggle against its declared theme for this year:'Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message,” and coined the term “global village.” McLuhan died in 1980, but his insights are even more relevant today. The information environment is...
This is our cat in the bath. He doesn't really do anything funny. He just stands in the bathtub. Then he leaves. That was then (or, to be more precise but still vague, a few months ago). He now usually joins our daughter for her bath time. He also makes sure to come into the shower for a minute or two. And he has started imitating us by testing the temperature of the shower with his paw.So, here's the question: do we own a cat idiot, or is...
The CFR public-relations office certainly thinks they've got a winner in the "attack Iran debate." Here's a video of the recent "live" debate between Colin and Matt on the subject.
<img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('bb5de15d-7c15-4871-a2cc-6763366de6e7'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://lh5.ggpht.com/-W1vOumSW7Og/T1A4_HIYJyI/AAAAAAAAAGk/26F_nfPYPEE/videof869ee43bf33%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" />I guess if you speak a foreign language, you’re a traitorHere were my first, domestic politics thoughts on the GOP...
Why should academics and policymakers prioritize a state's acquistion of "... the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory"? Obviously, this monopoly is fundamental to masking the violence of the state in daily domestic affairs, but what about in areas where that violence cannot be masked under the guise of a neutral, rational-legal state that speaks for the "nation" in the first place? Is a Eurocentric model...
Citizens of Nerd Nation, I invite you to ingest (if you haven't already) this Geek-Hall-of-Fame-Worthy post. Therein, Rod Hilton explains how to properly introduce newcomers to the Star Wars films.There are two obvious choices for watching the Star Wars saga.Release Order – Watch the films in the order they came out, recreating your experience with the films for someone new to them.Episode Order – Watch the films in the order George Lucas...