Last week, I embedded with smart people thinking hard about ethics, armed conflict and emerging technologies. I learned that it's an open questions whether governments can or should move toward fully autonomous systems; I learned philosophers, technicians and lawyers...
...How I could just kill a man!Obama said today, or at least I think it was today, that "we have Israel's back." So have we replaced the cowboy swagger bullshit with some urban swagger bullshit? Fo...
I'm very much looking forward to attending this year's International Studies Association conference in lovely San Diego. This is partly because I can fight a losing struggle against its declared...
In reaction to Charli's provocative February 20 post on the constructivist peace, I left a number of questions in comments. Since more people read the blog than read the comments, I thought it was...
Can't generate sufficient public support for closing Guantanamo on legal and moral grounds? The Washington Post takes another tack -- your taxpayer dollars at work. The UPI picks up the report here and I bet this will make the lead in every local and regional newspaper around the country in the morning. Among the highlights: $683k to upgrade Starbucks and $773k for interior decoration of KFC/Taco Bell. Domestic mobilization on foreign policy issues often requires a blend of interest and value-based arguments. Efforts to link Guantanamo as antithetical to American strategic interests has...
Is this another step in the ongoing "war" between the southwest US and Mexico? or is it, more ominously, a shift to a military approach to the war on terror at home? or is it...well, just Texas?
SupraMap is an on-line tool that traces the mutation and spread of virues around the world. Fascinating.
Since we in the US are thinking of taxes today....A tax on currency transactions was proposed in 1972 by economist James Tobin (hence, it is often referred to as a Tobin tax). Wait, don't roll your eyes at a post on tax and finance! This gets better. Tobin argued that imposing this tax would slow down the speed of financial flows, discourage speculators, and cushion small bankers, which would help them adjust. After multiple financial crises, the idea has been revived--along with a popular campaign featuring a much more catchy label and a YouTube video with Bill Nighy that you really must...
All of five minutes after I posted thoughts from a conference I am currently at , a "response" (in scare quotes because that's a charitable characterization) was posted on American Power called "13 year-old smashes post-colonial feminism". My response here comes little slower (because I value intellectual conversation, and am trying to participate in it both at the conference and in this discussion), but I thought it was important to talk about some of these issues. As I have to wade through the gender-exploitative pictures on the blog to read the text, I think I'll start at the end and work...
I spent the last day and a half at a workshop on epistemology and method that we hosted at the University of Florida. A lot of interesting conversations took place during the workshop, which I felt fortunate to be able to be a part of and hear. Fellow Duck Patrick Jackson was also here. The one(s) that I have selected to talk about (this time) were not the central ones, but intersect themes with a couple of projects I have been working on this week. The first question I am thinking about is emotion (generally, and desire and sensuality specifically) both in global politics and in our...
Just a shout-out to NPR Planet Money for sharing the rock 'n roll reference in the Dodd financial reform proposal, or at least, Dodd's summary of it. A "no escape" clause for companies seeking to evade supervision is called the Hotel California Provison. Yup, it's right there in the text. We assume it's referring to the line about how "you can check out any time you want...but you can never leave." (although "we are all just prisoners here...of our own device" could also work).Glad to know the people fighting the good fight for financial regulatory reform are totally cool folks. Now, whether...