First, the administration explained in a famous advertisement featured during the 2002 Super Bowl that buying drugs abets terrorism.Then, in 2003, Arianna Huffington's "Detroit Project" ran ads claiming that owning an SUV indirectly aids terror; buying lots of gas...
Earlier this week, the British government released data showing that the royal family costs each taxpayer just 61 pence ($1.12) per year. This was down £100,000 from last year, and is almost 60%...
Found in the May 26, 2005 personals section of the New York Review of Books:WOMAN would like to meet men born in 1940, preferably on November 9 or 10.The word "preferably" causes problems, I think,...
Well, the news is a flutter with talk of a new "Asian Invasion". The Chinese state-owned CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corporation) has made an unsolicitated offer for the US-based UNOCAL which...
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 reread and continue to reread. So I'll focus on ones that address John Cole's subsidiary question: "What pieces of fiction [and, I'll add, non-fiction]...
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, they will have to answer for what they have done, but I see a city ringed by fire.“People who worked to look after their families — carpenters,...
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, like really bad suburban sprawl, could be a deal-killer for a particular city.The survey also doesn't allow one to express strong biases against living...
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, Ivo Daalder took issue with Singer's description of American exceptionalism. Suzanne Nossel also responded to Singer's post, taking issue with each of...
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) membership were desirable in itself and b) sufficient pressure could be mounted to deny states membership on this basis.”These are excellent reasons to...
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. Replacing this flawed system with the proposed Human Rights Commission would, in my opinion, make things worse rather than better. It would make it harder...
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 the UN Human Rights Commission. They are more likely to interpret being elected to the Commission as evidence that their human rights abuses are...
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 argument, there is a lot of truth in it. This is because Presidents have tremendous power to dominate the national agenda, relatively immune from...