Let's start with some more Erik Loomis blogging. Doktor Zoom at Wonkette provides a snarky take on head-on-a-stick gate, while Crooked Timber provides a forum for an interesting debate over the various issues at stake. Both point to an underlying dynamic at work: that this is fairly boilerplate "Professor Punching" as carried out by elements of the Right. Collecting academic heads has been a preferred sport for those elements at least since William F. Buckley redefined "the elite" from "rich people who wield outsized political power" to "people who routinely read things published by...

Some random findings for the day.... Putin's idea of transparency. Look for more private security firms profiting in the post-Benghazi world... Also, the IDF's use of Twitter during its recent operation in Gaza was just the beginning. The Naval Postgraduate School is working on Dynamic Twitter Analysis Network. Isn't the world supposed to end today? If you are reading this tomorrow, this will help explain why. Salman Hameed and Kevin Anderson give a run down of their top 5 end of the world films. They don't have this one, but I think On The Beach (Australian remake) is the most disturbing:...

Michael S. Chase reports on the internal Chinese debate over Beijing's role in international affairs. A new China Security Report from Japan's National Institute of Defense Studies (via Taylor Fravel). Daniel Larison sees Chuck Hagel's potential SecDef appointment as a wakeup call to the GOP about its continued embrace of neo-conservative foreign-policy principles at the expense of realism and what used to be called "establishment internationalism." Robert W. Merry discusses the growing attacks on Hagel for his statements on Israel. Steve Walt describes the developing kerfuffle as "the art...

Good morning... here's your Monday roundup... US & Europe The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that Macedonian officials handed an (innocent) German citizen over to American officials who sodomized and tortured him in the presence of Macedonian officials and on Macedonian soil.  Something to ponder as you watch Zero Dark Thirty. Central/South Asia Afghanistan: The AAN Network's S. Reza Kazemi discusses whether threats of a spillover of armed conflict into Central Asia are being exaggerated by Afghanistan's northern neighbors. Ajai Shukla's Broadsword Blog provides an excellent...

Via Twitter, Elke Larsen explains that France is "The Other Pacific Power." CSIS report on the Sino-Vietnamese maritime dispute: "Trouble Outside the Gulf of Tonkin" (via Taylor Fravel). Phil Davis provides a guide for gaming google scholar. Perhaps one day the counting citations game will collapse under its own weight? William M. Briggs unpacks what regression equations actually mean, and why so many textbooks get them wrong. Via Chris Blattman. Chris Blatmman also passes along Marcella Alsen's cool paper on the TseTse fly and African development. She gave a terrific talk on this at...

 Friday is here. SEMESTER IS OVER. Fresh snow on the Vermont slopes. Three very good things. I'm surprising my wife with this news -- I've already lined up the kids for summer camp. More fodder on Nixon and Kissinger's support for a corrupt Shah. Kind of where we are in Syria.  Not good. I guess this is pretty obvious. Pete Muller has his own short take on events in Cairo. Everything we need to know this month about U.S.-South Korean relations. Although, the the analysis we really want seems to be missing. If you missed the Geminds last night -- spectacular by the way -- there should be...

There are seriously multiple articles on why sex is best on Thursday (don't ask how I got there). So let's riff on that and go through some sex/gender inspired links for the day (a quickie, if you will): The Republican witch hunt of Susan Rice is over as she withdraws her name from consideration for Secretary of State. Pundits are still arguing that she's been criticized for the wrong reasons, while others feel that all the flack she's gotten gives her a 'pass' on policy stances. The Human Security Report Project's recent claim that wartime sexual violence is declining continues to face...

I stayed up too late  last night drinking cheap Scotch and playing Borderlands 2. Then I accidentally snagged the wife's computer -- she's somewhere that has a high of -40° today -- but, thanks to the wonders of multiple-user operating systems and Dropbox, I think I'll get some work today. Anyway.... I know that the point has been made before, but during the 2012 election the opposition party in the United States attacked the President relentlessly for 'cutting Medicare.' A month after the election, though, they're all like "slash Medicare or we'll blow up the economy!" Words fail. Moving on...