Dan Drezner provides a link to - and discussion of- a new paper on the commercial peace. The paper, written by Columbia's Erik Gartzke, argues that:The transformation of commerce made possible by economic freedom also leads to a transformation in international affairs. Conquest becomes expensive and unprofitable. Wealth in modern economies is much harder to “steal” through force than was the case among agricultural and early industrial...

I agree with Dan that it's a little silly to refer to a FEMA spokesman's comments about the commitment and loyalty of some firefighters as "fascist." Appalling, yes; fascist, no.However, the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in the case of Jose Padilla strikes me as a much better candidate for the "fascist" label, since it basically gives the government carte blanche to detain U.S. citizens on the suspicion of having...

Things I like about OSU:1) Checking books out of the library is like ordering from Amazon. I search a title, author, or somesuch. I select a book. I select "MY OFFICE" as my delivery option. The book shows up in my mailbox in a few days.2) Parking is cheap. The "A" parking pass is less than half what it costs to park at Georgetown.3) I have a bigger office, with a window.Things I don't like about OSU:1) The football team is supposed to win...

Atrios on the latest "it just looks worse and worse" report:The fascist at FEMA:On Monday, the Tribune says, some firefighters began to take off their FEMA-issued T-shirts in protest. A FEMA spokesman responded by questioning the firefighters' willingness to help in a time of need. "I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak told...

Amidst the continuing stories of tragedy and survival emanating from the Gulf Coast, this article in this morning's Washington Post caught my eye: Ursinus College, a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, has turned the higher education clock back by requiring all freshmen to take a required philosophy and literature course that covers what we might think of as the Usual Suspects in the Western Canon: the book of Genesis, Plato, Descartes,...

Dan Drezner writes a post I considered and rejected for the Duck.Today's Washington Post has a story entitled "Chernobyl's Harm Was Far Less Than Predicted, U.N. Report Says." Here's what Dan writes about it:Good news about ChernobylPeter Finn reports in the Washington Post that twenty years after the disaster at Chernobyl, the health effects have been much less than prior estimates would have suggested:The long-term health and environmental...

John Ikenberry has a new post responding to Timothy Garton Ash's comparison between Britain c. 1905 and contemporary America. John goes much further than I have in my own posts on the subject, but his conclusion is similar:The problem with this analogy is that Britain really was overstretched and on the way down, whereas the United States is not. The United States is vastly more powerful than fin de siecle Britain – and its opportunities to...

Riggsveda is horrified by the commentary at Jane Galt:Friday, September 02, 2005Do These People Live On My Planet? From the weblog of the objectivistly-named Jane Galt, here is the worst of American reaction to the New Orleans disaster in a nutshell. Below find samplings of statements that reveal a seemingly bottomless capacity for churlish, selfish, callous, racist cruelty by self-congratulatory blog barnacles who coolly watch the NOLA tragedy...

From John DiIulio's famous memo: [the] remarkably slapdash character of the Office of Homeland Security, with the nine months of arguing that no department was needed, with the sudden, politically timed reversal in June, and with the fact that not even that issue, the most significant reorganization of the federal government since the creation of the Department of Defense, has received more than talking-points-caliber deliberation. This was, in...

Having been dumped by Uzbekistan, is the United States looking to Turkmenistan for a rebound? Curzon and Nathan Hamm interpret recent events differently.Curzon says: "There are precious few totalitarian regimes left in Eurasia, but Turkmenistan is one of them. Eurasianet says the US may be exploring a base deal with Turkmenistan. I really, really hope not."So do I. Is the US really so stupid as to squander whatever gains it got by getting tough...

AFP: Merkel attacks defensive Schroeder in head-to-head German debateReuters (UK): Schroeder edges Merkel on TV, but no knock-out blowPostwar German reconstruction was clearly a success: the Germans still favor defense over offense.