IMPORTant Statistics: The Value of Value-Added Metrics
My regular readers are aware that I am deeply irritated by what I see as a sort of New Orientalism creeping into discourse regarding the rise of East Asia as the center of global...
Author: Nob Akimoto
Sketching Out States in Fantasy: Two Cases from Avlis
As promised here are two cases from Avlis of magic equipped societies. I will begin with a (moderately) short description of each state, then compare the place of magic and its political economy. This...
Baseball…reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again
…or why Major League Baseball and its business model are vastly preferable to the NBA and NFL. It’s fall. And that means it’s the best time of year to be a sports fan. Baseball...
Brennan’s World: Drones and Future Administrations
So hot on the heels of Jason’s thought provoking piece, the Washington Post has an interesting profile of the role played by John Brennan in the Obama Administration’s counter-terrorism policy. Bobby Chesney has an...
So Romney went and tore up his old Foreign Policy Script….
…and decided that in fact he agreed with the President. So my post outlining a case for him is probably no longer valid. C’est la vie.
A Theoretical Case for a Romney Presidency From a Foreign Policy PoV.
Over at Blinded Trials the esteemed Dr. Saunders has a post up about how W. Mitt Romney, much like John McCain before him, has managed to alienate potential voters with his mendacity and pandering to the...
Meanwhile in Asia…
Some tidbits from the past week or so. The Bank of Japan has declared it’s going to miss its 1% inflation goal, with real inflation being stuck somewhere between 0.5 – 0.8% for the...
Consulates are not Embassies and Other Musings on Benghazi…
Because I’m feeling a bit churlish this morning, I’m inclined to go into nitpick mode. First, I’m a bit tired of people using the terms “embassy” and “consulate” as if they’re interchangeable and blithely making...
A Word About Eric Hobsbawm…
Age of Revolution, Age of Capital and Age of Empire are three of the greatest books ever written about the 19th century. I think Brad DeLong has it right when he says: Even though he was...
Liberal Imperialism: Neoconservatism in a Velvet Glove
Whenever I seem to take a break from the mendacity of scholars blogging, I find that some particularly stupid piece of drivel drags me back into the fray. Walter Russell Mead is the lucky...
The Arcana of Political Economy: A Follow-Up
Author’s Note: This post is a follow-up to my original post on the political economy of magic. It’s highly recommended that you read that original post and the discussion thread after. I’m happy to...
The Political Economy of Low-Cost Extradimensional Energy
Reading through Taylor Martin’s excellent blog pointed me in the direction of a Dan Nexon post at the Duck of Minerva. Both Martin and Nexon have interesting takes on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of...
Is Jack Chick doing oppo research on Colleen Lachowicz?
Gaming may be mainstream, but it is evidently weird enough that Maine Republicans are attacking Colleen Lachowicz for being a World of Warcraft player. It’s entirely possible that the site itself is performance art....
Somewhere, Stephen Maturin is smiling…
‘What is Catalan?’ ‘Why, the language of Catalonia – of the islands, of the whole of the Mediterranean coast down to Alicante and beyond. Of Barcelona. Of Lerida. All the richest part of the...
Sketching a National Security State Saner Than Today
As my isolation from the chattering classes continues, I’m inclined to go into hypotheticals and counter-factuals. One such hypothetical I returned to over the past few days is the following: What would a saner...
Something other than debates.
So I’m avoiding political blogging and really politics for the next few days for the sake of my sanity. Lehrer’s utter failure to actually engage some substantial portions of domestic policy (such as say,...
Imperialism in an Age of Terror
John J. Mearsheimer, realist international relations scholar of Israel Lobby infamy, describes the liberal counterpart of neoconservatives as “liberal imperialists.” If neoconservatives are “liberals mugged by reality”, then the liberal imperialists often sound like Rudyard...
The Depressing Reality That is Pakistan.
News connected to Pakistan is a bit like reading a George RR Martin novel. It’s grim. It’s depressing. There’s too many characters that come in and out of nowhere and the narrative never seems...
Resistance is Futile…Our Culture Will Adapt to Service Us…
The release of the recent Life Under Drones report has the League and the blogosphere (See also: Sully’s roundup) as a whole abuzz with the ramifications of drone warfare. I have already made my personal affirmative case for the...
