by Dan Nexon | 20 Jun 2005 | Featured
Daniel Starr explains:I'm not happy with the CCP today: it turns out that they've made the Asian bird flu virus resistant to the best antiviral drug we would have relied on to tame the next outbreak of avian-based flu in humans. They ignored the advice of the World Health Organization and had farmers drug their chickens with antivirals instead of vaccinating them. In effect, they evolved the virus strains for drug resistance. Now the antiviral...
by Dan Nexon | 19 Jun 2005 | Featured
I've been tagged by Daniel Drezner. As I understand this process, I am now obligated to describe the "five books I liked enough as a teen/young adult to read again as an adult." If I do not comply, I will suffer the same fate of those who break chain letters and chain email.The problem is that I already suffer from an incurable "Peter Pan" complex (not to be confused with the "Peter Pan Syndrome"). Five books? There are at least a dozen I've...
by Dan Nexon | 19 Jun 2005 | Featured
The situation in Zimbabwe deteriorates even further, with the government pressing ahead with its campaign of mass violence and political cleansing:EVERY morning Father Michael looks out of the window of his Harare parish house and sees an ever larger crowd of homeless families outside. “I feel helpless,” said the Jesuit priest, who was too terrified to give his real name. “I keep telling them my little homilies, that the violent will not win,...
by Dan Nexon | 19 Jun 2005 | Featured
Like Scott, I found my results in the "Which American Cities Best Fit You?" survey a little surpring: American Cities That Best Fit You:80% Chicago75% Philadelphia70% New York City65% Boston45% AtlantaMy real list is NYC; Boston; San Francisco; Washington, DC; Chicago; and Minneapolis.I suppose part of the problem with this survey is that it probably gives the questions equal weight. Thus, for example, it can't know that a particular issue,...
by Bill Petti | 18 Jun 2005 |
Dan posted a while back on the debate over at Democracy Arsenal by members of the Truman National Security Project on what a progressive national security platform would/should look like. He provided a summary-to-date of the discussion, which I shamelessly pilfered for this post:Michael Singer started by posting a series of common principles that he felt had emerged from the Truman National Security Project's annual meeting. At America Abroad,...
by Dan Nexon | 17 Jun 2005 |
The debate on the UN Human Rights Commission continues.Patrick responds to my critique of his post, so now I respond in kind.Patrick’s first set of arguments make two key points. First, the current system doesn’t shame anyone, because odious regimes get to sit on the Commission. Second, that denying states membership on the Commission because of their human-rights records would only provide opportunities for “rhetorical coercion” if “if a)...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 17 Jun 2005 |
Dan raises some important points in his response to my post expressing some skepticism about the Congressional Task Force's recommendation to eliminate the United Nations Human Rights Commission and replace it with a democracies-only Human Rights Council operating outside of UN control. After considering his arguments I remain convinced that the Task Force's proposal is a bad idea, even though the present system is certainly a flawed one....
by Dan Nexon | 17 Jun 2005 |
I've thought about Patrick's post, "The Uses of Hypocrisy", and I've come to the conclusion that I cannot agree with the interesting arguments he puts forth. I share some of his concerns about the proposal for a "Human Rights Council," but I think he gets the effect of having gross abusers of human rights on the UN Human Rights Commission exactly backwards.1. Gross human-rights abusers are unlikely to be "shamed" because of their presence on...
by Rodger Payne | 17 Jun 2005 |
Cross-posted on my blog. The noted political scientist Aaron Wildavsky (now deceased) wrote in 1966 that the U.S. "has one President but two presidencies: one for domestic affairs and the other is concerned with defense and foreign policy." He continued, "Since World War II, presidents have had much greater success in controlling the nation's defense and foreign policies than in dominating its domestic policies."While some challenge Wildavsky's...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 16 Jun 2005 |
The bipartisan Congressional Task Force on the United Nations has released its findings in the form of a report entitled "American Interests and UN Reform." Among the report's many recommendations -- including many with which I completely agree, such as empowering the Secretary-General to replace top UN officials, and the creation of an Independent Oversight Board to audit UN programs -- comes the following dramatic proposal: eliminate the UN...
by Dan Nexon | 16 Jun 2005 |
For reasons that should come as no surprise (the Duck's staff ranges from centrist to leftist), our "international relations" blogroll doesn't get much further to the "right" than Oxblog or Dan Drezner. Most of the blogs we link to lean left.I'd like to change that, so if anyone has any suggestions for conservative international-relations and international-political-economy blogs that we should link to, please let me know. The conditions are:1....
by Bill Petti | 15 Jun 2005 |
[Cross posted at "Discord and Elaboration"]I think Patrick is on to something when he writes that the current dilemma facing the US in Uzbekistan isn't strictly one of security-vs-morality. Of course, one could (and many have) frame the issue in this way. However I think there is another way to look at the issue. I see the problem as strategy-vs-strategy, or more specifically, intrinsic interests-vs-reputational interests. The Defense...