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...
by Rodger Payne | 24 Jan 2008 |
Does the press often serve as "government's little helper"?As you might guess, I am still thinking about the apparent failure of the public sphere (or "marketplace of ideas" if you prefer) to work properly during foreign policy crises. Many readers graciously provided interesting and helpful comments on my post from last week. Thank you! For now, however, I continue to explore the academic literature about the alleged timidity of journalists...
by Dan Nexon | 24 Jan 2008 |
Not long ago, Charli posted about Deborah Boucoyannis' provocative Perspectives on Politics article, "The International Wanderings of a Liberal Idea, or Why Liberals Can Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Balance of Power" (PDF). A number of readers and contributors commented on Charli's post and the article. Now, Deborah responds:Note: I've put the original comments she's responding to in blockquotes. Her comments are formatted normally.Yet...
by Peter | 23 Jan 2008 |
It was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this photo on the NYT site. Provocative (or maybe just dark humor), but potentially not that far off the mark.My short take on this is that I don't think its good for the Olmert government and their Gaza policy at all, and its a big win for Hamas. If nothing else, it hands Hamas a major legitimacy claim as the one group who cares about the regular person enough to blow open a wall to Egypt...
by Maia Gemmill | 21 Jan 2008 |
OK, so things are tense between Britain and Russia these days. But this breathless headline from the BBC is really over the top: "Russia warns of nuclear defence".The meat of the article is only a little less hysterical:Russia's military chief of staff has said Moscow is ready to use force, including pre-emptively and with nuclear weapons, to defend itself.Under what conditions would Russia use nuclear weapons?In a speech to a military...
by Charli Carpenter | 18 Jan 2008 |
So my Spring Semester class “Rules of War” has kicked off here at Pitt. I’ve been inspired by the Duck to foreswear Blackboard and get my students blogging (pseudononymously, of course) for their online participation grade. This week’s homework: evaluate whether Lieutenant Ehren Watada’s defense at his court martial last February constituted an accurate interpretation of the international rules derived from just war theory. Facts of the matter:...