by Rodger Payne | 7 Sep 2011 |
Dick Cheney's memoir apparently verifies an interesting political point from George W. Bush's memoir. Last November, I noted that the former President claimed that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had approached him in 2006 prior to the congressional elections in order to urge withdrawal of some US troops from Iraq. This might save the Republican majority, argued the Majority Leader, even though McConnell was publicly taking the position that the...
by Megan MacKenzie | 5 Sep 2011 |
In my post last week I talked about the three main arguments against removing the combat exclusion for women: the physical standards argument, the moral argument, and the cohesion hypothesis. My main point was that with increased research on physical standards, the intangibility of the moral argument, and increased evidence that women already are in combat, the cohesion hypothesis remains as the most significant set of arguments against GI...
by Jon Western | 2 Sep 2011 |
Frank Gaffney is calling for a new HUAAC -- actually slightly renamed to House Anti-American Activities Committee...because apparently "un-American" is not tough enough: Earlier this week, he wrote: Absent a fundamental course correction, America will go the way of Europe and others before it, succumbing to an insidious totalitarian doctrine known as Shariah whose purpose, in the words of its prime practitioners — the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) —...
by Charli Carpenter | 2 Sep 2011 | Featured
H/T PhDComics. Hey, there are all kinds of nerds.
by Kate Weaver | 1 Sep 2011 | Featured
Is the IMF growing a pair....? This past week, the Fund's new Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, delivered a rabble-rousing speech in Jackonson Hole, Wyoming in which she called for a mandatory capital increase for European banks, using public funds if needed. I'm not convinced that's going to fly, but I have to say that I admire Lagarde's moxy. Today, Kenneth Rogoff, the Fund's former Chief Economist, published an op-ed in which he...
by Jon Western | 1 Sep 2011 |
OK, OK, OK, I know life is short and some of us need to get a life (I'm not in Seattle by the way), but this is a really cool app from Uppsala: From the iTunes description: "Data on 300 armed conflicts, more than 200 summaries of peace agreements, data on casualties etc, without having access to the Internet." I actually do think this is really cool and I can see real benefits to having this type of data at one's fingertips, but I do wonder how...
by Kate Weaver | 1 Sep 2011 | Featured
In an article last week in the Financial Times on "Sex, Lies, and the Pitfalls of Overblown Statistics," John Kay bluntly wrote: "Always ask yourself the question: where does the data come from?" It's a good question, and one I frequently ask myself when I read yet another story about the hottest craze in the international development aid business today: the Open Data Initiative of the World Bank. Don't get me wrong. I think the World Bank's...
by Jon Western | 31 Aug 2011 |
I have good friends a few miles north of here in Vermont who will be reeling from Hurricane Irene for months. One of my favorite places, Wilmington -- just south of Mount Snow ski resort -- was completely flooded and Route 9, the major road to the town (and all East-West travel in southern Vermont) will be out for weeks. It's going to be a long haul getting back. Despite the devastation, we now hear that House Republicans are holding FEMA...
by Vikash Yadav | 31 Aug 2011 | Featured
Last night PBS' POV program aired the Danish documentary film "Armadillo" (filmed 2009; released 2010) about a Danish-British Forward Operating Base in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.Although much of the documentary portrays standard tropes and follows a time honored narrative arc from a long line of war films, Janus Metz's work sparked debate in Europe because it appeared to depict Danish soldiers "liquidating" wounded Taliban fighters and...
by Megan MacKenzie | 29 Aug 2011 |
As American troops trickle back from Iraq and-eventually- Afghanistan, it seems like the perfect time to examine the lessons learned from the last decade of warfare. One of the policies requiring a review is the combat exclusion for women. Although most positions within the US forces have been opened up to women over the last 50 years, there has been adamant efforts to sustain rules which prohibit women from joining the so-called front lines of...
by Steve Saideman | 29 Aug 2011 |
Happy NATO Day! Okay, this is not an anniversary of anything NATO-esque. But heaps of posts a-twitter about NATO, its members and so on. So, some semi-random shots at some semi-random NATO members and NATO in general.First, France is the best-est ally ever! Lots of people linking to this article. Yes, the Libyan adventure certainly raises France's profile as an active contributor, assertive military and the rest. But to be fair to the...
by Brian Rathbun | 29 Aug 2011 |
Every year political scientists make a remarkable pilgrimage towards a large American city -- Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia. Against all odds they push upstream trying to make a name for themselves. There is only room enough for a dozen or so great names in political science, those whose names will one day adorn a plaque in a graduate student lounge. We speak their name in hushed tones -- Dahl, Skocpol, Waltz. But this does not deter...