TOP BILLING: The Ultimate Burden Bob Herbert. New York Times. 24 August 2009. Bob Herbert writes a disquieting Jeremiad against the American people for allowing their best men to have their limbs and faces torn off without giving a damn. By far the best opinion editorial I have read this year from the New […]
Obama Addresses Nation as Military Offensive in Yemen BeginsScott Rayman. New York Times. 10 January 2011. WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — American forces unleashed a punishing air attack Sunday against military targets and Al-Qaeda camps inside Yemen, striking at terrorists blamed for the Black Friday attacks that murdered hundreds of Americans across the American Southwest. “The perpetrators […]
Japan has a new ruling party. In a landmark election the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) gained a majority in both houses of the Diet for the first time in its history. Yet the significance of this election has much less to do with the DPJ and much more to do those whom they knocked […]
What stops population growth?Lecture by Hans Rosling. Gapminder Foundation 1 January 2009. An intelligent lecture that uses dynamic graphics to disprove a few population-related myths. Well worth the ten minutes it takes to watch. H/T to Dot Earth.
I am continually fascinated by the greatest anomaly of our times, the Republic of India. In an age dominated by ethnonationalist states, India’s existence is a modern mystery. It is a hundred nations contained in one, a crucible of religions, cultures, and peoples whose history is as old as recorded history itself. That such a […]
TOP BILLING: An Analysis of Mitigation as a Response to Climate ChangeRichard SJ Tol. Copenhagen Consensus Center. 14 August 2009. Climate change costs: Too much is not enough.Katie Mackenzie. FT Energy Source. 14 August 2009. The Copenhagen Consensus Center has published the most important report related to climate change I have seen in a year. […]
Six months ago I wrote a post questioning America’s ability to wage a proper population-centric counterinsurgency. The post noted the structural features of modern democratic institutions that make waging a “Long War” near impossible. I ended this post with a projection for the next year: Can Modern America Wage Counterinsurgency?T. Greer. Scholar’s Stage. 4 March […]
Three days ago I added the American Security Project’s blog, The Flash Point, to my blog roll. I had come across the blog when Mark Sanfranski (“Zenpundit”) highlighted the work of Dr. Bernard Finel, one of the blog’s primary authors, in a recent post on his site. I was intrigued by his work, and found […]
This blog is under construction and redesign, for the moment. I apologize for any ugliness or other obscenities that may appear over the next few weeks.
I apologize to my readers for the recent dearth in posts. My schedule has now cleared up, and over the next few days I shall post a few of the things that have been sitting inside my blogspot workspace for the last while. The appointment of American ambassadors are tricky things. In many ways, the […]