by Rodger Payne | 7 Feb 2008 |
I don't typically blog about domestic elections at the Duck, preferring to save my analysis and preferences for my personal blog.However, Super Tuesday was a unique political event. No primary election ever had so much at stake -- at least in terms of the number of states and delegates to the national convention.Hillary Clinton was once the odds-on favorite to win the 2008 Democratic nomination. She secured backing from much of the Party...
by Peter | 5 Feb 2008 |
Life imitates art, art imitates life, or the wondrous powers of our own Dan Nexon... The following takes place between 4:00 and 5:00 pm on the day of the California Presidential Primary:You might remember that the plot of Day 1 of 24 was today: The California Presidential Primary, when the first major African-American Presidential candidate stands to win a major victory that will propel him to the White House. In the show, special agent Jack...
by Dan Nexon | 5 Feb 2008 |
Something I forgot to mention in my latest post about the Svalbard threat: the online World Factbook now only ranks defense spending as a percentage of GDP, rather than on a nominal or PPP-adjusted basis.I wonder why they might have made that change....
by Dan Nexon | 5 Feb 2008 |
...taken to egregious extremes by CNN.Unfortunately, the really crazy talk doesn't start until after the video:COOPER: It's interesting. I'm not sure I buy it exactly. But these folks at this company, what do they say, that people vote the way their brain thinks, or they vote the way -- what they say they think?KAYE: In the end, the folks at Lucid, Anderson, say that the brain will actually win out, because people react before they actually...
by Dan Nexon | 5 Feb 2008 |
Henry V did not begin the Hundred Years' War.That is all.
by Peter | 4 Feb 2008 |
My favorite-- the Godfather take-off by Audi. I thought that was pure genius.The other ad I though was pure genius--Obama's spot. Apparently he bought it regionally instead of nationally, so you all might not have seen it, but it was on here in the DC area. Brilliant, I thought--a good ad, and there is no other event that will have so many viewers, so many potential primary voters 2 days before Super-duper Tuesday. Primaries in NY, NJ, Conn,...
by Dan Nexon | 1 Feb 2008 |
Long-term readers will be distressed to learn that the first batch of "doomsday seeds" have arrived in Norway, and will soon be on their way to Svalbard.Despite our best efforts, authorities remain indifferent to the threat posed by Svalbard to world security.Meanwhile, the CIA has scrubbed Svalbard from its proper place among the most militarized territories on the planet.A Svalbard Panzerbjørn Recruitment Poster
by Charli Carpenter | 30 Jan 2008 |
For the past several years, Adriana Lins de Albuquerque and Alicia Cheng have been publishing "Op-Charts" in the January NY Times with a visual representation of deaths in Iraq, with the deaths neatly broken down according to civilian, police, coalition troop, US troop, etc. This year's installment came out earlier this month.Two interesting things about this year's chart.[I always look for it because their use of symbols is a helpful tool in...
by Rodger Payne | 30 Jan 2008 |
I have a longstanding apathy towards State of the Union addresses. If a President says anything important (like declaring states part of an "axis of evil"), then I figure that the text serves just as well. My actions are bipartisan -- I don't watch anyone named Bush give these addresses and I didn't watch Bill Clinton either. And I generally didn't watch Ronald Reagan's efforts. However, there's a case to be made that I should have watched the...
by Peter | 29 Jan 2008 |
A first hand account of my brush with Campaign 2008.Barak Obama gave a big speech at American University today with the Kennedy's to receive the endorsements of Ted, Caroline, and Patrick Kennedy. The speech was announced to the campus community over the weekend, and it instantly cause a palpable buzz of excitement. Thousands converged on our campus to hear the speech.The speech was scheduled for Bender Arena (our gym / all purpose room) at...
by Dan Nexon | 27 Jan 2008 |
Parag Khanna has, in essence, a précis of his forthcoming book in today's New York Times Magazine. The article, entitled, "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony", contends that American hegemony is already over, that we're seeing the emergence of three new "empires"--complete with different imperial styles--centered around the US, the EU, and China. Khanna thinks the US needs to adapt soon to his new great game, in which the "second world's" orientation...
by Charli Carpenter | 25 Jan 2008 |
So this past week I traveled to New York to conduct interviews with representatives of the Holy's See's Permanent Obverver Mission to the United Nations as part of my project into norm contestation among global civil society actors during multilateral treaty negotiations. I found the papal diplomats to be informed, open-minded, friendly and intellectually engaged about human rights and human security. But they didn't at all like the idea that I...