Robert Kaplan points out the error in the Bush Administration’s thinking in an article titled We Can’t Force Democracy. For the average person who just wants to walk the streets without being brutalized or blown up by criminal gangs, a despotic state that can protect him is more moral and far more useful than a democratic one that cannot. … Globalization and other dynamic forces will continue to rid the world of dictatorships. Political change is nothing we need to force upon people; it’s something that will happen anyway. What we have to work toward — for which peoples with …
Tag: politics
The New McCarthy?
There’s a piece in the Guardian that was recommended to be by my co-worker Jim, but which slipped my mind until I found the link to the article again on Dan Drezner’s page. It’s a piece by Gary Younge titled Silence in Class, and I have to say that judging by the comments on Drezner’s site, I’m not wholly comforted by his own underwhelmed reaction. At the same time, calling it a “New McCarthyism” might be overdoing it a little. Yes, nasty little groups of rightwing students do report on their professors; this is not a surprise. Yes, some professors …
Airborne Ebola a Good Idea? Get This Guy a Straightjacket, Please!
Here’s a link to an article in The Citizen Scientist about a guy named Dr. Pianka. The guy gave a speech about the need to exterminate over two-thirds of humanity… because we’re wrecking the environment and running out of oil. OIL! Worse, the reporter claims he got a standing ovation after saying we could achieve this with purposeful depoyment of airborne Ebola. The nutcase’s website is here. I can’t believe he was allowed to speak, or that people clapped for him. Report via Blogcritics. UPDATE: I stand happily, though ever so slightly sheepishly, corrected by Adam (see comments section below). …
No, he’s very BAD.
Metanoiac has a video up which shows some of the psychotic training practice used on Kim Jong-Il’s Bodyguards. It’s very gaaaaaaaaaaa.
Guess What! The Puppets finally formed a government!!!
Iraqi April Fool’s Day jokes over at Baghdad Burning.
An Hour with Hardeep
Up for an amusing recount of a conversation with an interesting, and somewhat baffling, Indian-American? Muninn’s got it for you. Comment section is interesting; I wonder what my friend Ritu would have to say about it all… via Far Outliers.
The Smithsonian Signs a Deal With Showtime?
This is why your grandkids will know so little of what history was like.
With Tech, Festina Lente
This Chosun Ilbo report describes how Korea is in a hurry “to turn what sounds like science fiction into everyday life.” To me, as someone who knows SF pretty well, this is a little bit of a scary proposition, especially considering other elements of Korean culture. For one thing, Korean netizens came out shockingly in favour of censorship during the blog ban a few summers ago, despite the fact that censorship violates a civil right that people only a generation before were fighting to wrest from the country’s dictators; personal security doesn’t seem to have been enough of a concern …
A Violently Executed Blog
Adam is right. George Will needs to shut the f*ck up instead of trying to convince us global warming is good. Adam rants: People that are able to tell their asses from hot rocks have no difficulty understanding that climate data collection and analysis has improved over the last several decades, and that all of the data we are seeing indicates that things are going to get hotter, faster – and soon. Mosquitos that carry malaria and dengue fever are spreading northward, polar bears are losing habitat, glaciers all over the world are getting smaller, and some pencil-necked twit thinks …
You Gotta Give Respect To This Outfit
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I mean, someone has to fight these ID-fantasists.