Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Save Those Magical Incantations

  Published: December 27, 2007, 1:53 am

  Tags: 2008 Elections, Eurasian Balkans, Politics, Usa, Bhtv, Bloggingheads Tv, Dana Golstein, Democrats, Eli Lake, Ezra Klein, Gop, Heather Hurlburt, Primary, Republicans, The American Prospect

  As much as Heather Hurlburt talks about the "right incantations" for making security policy a domestic policy issue in the 2008 election primary season, TAP‘ers Dana Goldstein and Ezra Klein just don’t get the full catastrophe of the Iraq War. It’s got little to do with the horserace, espcially the egregious caricatures

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• Intellectual Courage about Pakistan’s (and America’s) Dynastic Politics

  Published: January 4, 2008, 9:19 pm

  Tags: Books Movies Media, Politics, South Asia, Subscriptions, Usa, Benazir Bhutto, Bhtv, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Democratization, George W Bush, Hillary Clinton, Joshua Hammer, Michael Hirsch, Pakistan, Pakistan People S Party, Pervez Musharraf, Ppp

  FP Passport’s Blake Hounshell seems to endorse Matthew Yglesias’ argument that the US has no justification for criticizing the Pakistan People’s Party for anointing former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as its titular leader, because "…the odds of us going Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton

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• Maturing without Losing Innocence

  Published: January 12, 2008, 7:46 am

  Tags: Books Movies Media, Lf Recommended, Religion, Subscriptions, Bhtv, Charlie Rose Show, Fiction, His Dark Materials, Lyra Belacqua, Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife

  I read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy because of an unflattering review of the movie, The Golden Compass. in The Atlantic. What first impressed me about that article was the author’s canny honesty about his role as the original author on a Hollywood movie using an adapted script. In discussing the film, he chose his

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• Keep It Comin’!

  Published: January 10, 2008, 5:50 am

  Tags: 2008 Elections, Books Movies Media, Politics, Bhtv, Charlie Rose, Democrats, Gop, Republicans

  Here are two excellent discussions of the New Hampshire primary. I’m very excited about the fact, that the primaries are not over: Obama did not crown himself and slay Hillary! There’s four viable factors, and then two solid wildcards in both parties. It’s like the NFL moving from three to four divisions. I agree the

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• Could DPRK Be Any Worse?

  Published: January 24, 2008, 7:19 am

  Tags: East Asia, Military, Politics, Usa, Bhtv, Disablement, Dprk, Israel, John Bolton, Korea, Nukes, Prc, Syria

  Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb argues that "nothing possibly could be any worse" in DPRK? I think this is the first bloggingheads TV diavlog that so well captures the humdrum Washington debate between Clintonians and Neo-cons on the DPRK issue right now. Just as in Iraq, no one can think beyond the fall of the government, or to

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• Bob Wright Hearts Bal(t)imoron!

  Published: January 23, 2008, 4:20 am

  Tags: Books Movies Media, Eurasian Balkans, Lf Recommended, Spleen, Baltimoron, Bhtv, Bloggingheads Tv, Bob Wright, Israel

  me this grudging praise from bhTV founder, Bob Wright (not the "blah, blah, blah" part!). Amazingly, I have never read a single book about, taken a single class about, nor ever traveled to, Israel or Palestine. I was accepted to the American University in Cairo, though, when my father, who worked for Westinghouse, was planning for a

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• Those Snotty Brits!

  Published: January 22, 2008, 7:08 am

  Tags: Books Movies Media, Business Economy, Europe, Igos, Lf Recommended, Politics, Southeast Asia, Bhtv, Britain, Burma, Human Rights, Matthew Lee, Myanmar

  There’s little solace for Myanmar, but Inner City Press’s Matthew Lee reports on how Britain’s UN ambassador gets slammed for his moral hypocrisy on "Burma". And, listen to him talk about it (Lee’s enthusiasm is infectious). Later on, Goldberg brings up a simple point, that national interest conflicts with human

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• A Rare Bipartisan Moment

  Published: February 13, 2008, 12:28 am

  Tags: Politics, Usa, Bhtv, Condoleezza Rice, Congress, Daniel W Drezner, Defense, Heather Hurlburt, State

  Heather Hurlburt and Daniel W. Drezner agree on how to increase funding for the State Department. Yet, it's a little too expansive. Hopefully, a Democratic Congress can fund Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's transformational diplomacy without just giving State what Defense gets now, and still giving Defense more. It's all a matter of

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• What America Would Lose with Obama

  Published: May 2, 2008, 7:41 am

  Tags: 2008 Elections, Academia, Books Movies Media, Lf Recommended, Politics, Religion, Barack Obama, Bhtv, Democrats, Jeremiah Wright

  I've watched coverage of Senator Obama's relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright pinching my nose. Perhaps, as Ross Douthat argued in another diavlog, the MSM's coverage and performances, showcasing a midrange between platform wonkery and character, are as good as Americans can expect. Yet, I'm still dismayed. I expected more honesty about

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• The Old-Time Foreign Policy Analysis

  Published: May 5, 2008, 7:46 pm

  Tags: Books Movies Media, Military, Politics, Usa, Africa, Bhtv, Bosnia, China, George W Bush, Iran, Iraq War, Matthew Yglesias, Neocons, Prc, Reihan Salam, Us Foreign Policy

  fast-talking, book-plugging bhTV diavlog—old school! Instead of taking American capabilities and interests first, both go through a shopping list of "problems". It's a recipe for over-extension. There might be this underhanded attempt to backdoor multilateralism, by saying, "Hey, we can't do it all!" But, there's

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• Energy Revolution

  Published: May 19, 2008, 6:38 am

  Tags: Academia, Books Movies Media, Energy, Environment, Lf Recommended, Bhtv, Jared Diamond, John Horgan, Thomas Homer Dixon

  Based on what I heard on bhTV, I need to reconsider him. Like his interlocutor, John Horgan, I also associated Homer-Dixon with Jared Diamond, and others on the bhTV have confessed, that Homer-Dixon bummed them out-a feeling Diamond can invoke, too. That is, until one reads in Guns, Germs, and Steel Diamond's pro-market approach, or comparing

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• My Anti-Religion Epiphany

  Published: May 25, 2008, 12:13 am

  Tags: Academia, Books Movies Media, Lf Recommended, Religion, Science, Bhtv, Deficit Reduction Model Of Science Communication, John Wilkins, Pz Myers

  After undergoing the process of doing my own statistical research for grad school in IR, John Wilkins I have to say is dead-on when he talks about the shortcomings of the "deficit reduction model of science communication" (which I can't find with quick googling right now). Practice, either to be a citizen or a scientist, leads to a

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• Anarcho-Capitalists versus Anarcho-Socialists

  Published: May 26, 2008, 6:16 am

  Tags: Books Movies Media, Business Economy, Globalization, Lf Recommended, Aaron Swartz, Bhtv, Privacy, Will Wilkinson

  This is one of those diavlogs that hits where you live. Are you trusting enough to leave privacy to anonymity (anarcho-capitalism), or do you prefer government regulation (anarcho-socialism)? From whence does the greatest threat come, the Feds, or Google? Living in ROK, I think I'm uneasy about leaving the answer to these questions to custom,

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• Again, with the Jefferson Worship!

  Published: June 2, 2008, 8:18 am

  Tags: Academia, Books Movies Media, Politics, Subscriptions, Usa, Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, Benjamin Franklin, Bhtv, Emancipation, Henry Clay, John Marshall, Slavery, Thomas Jefferson

  of responding to this bhTV diavlog that really irked me. Somewhat similarly, when you look back at the record of Abraham Lincoln he said and believed a lot of stuff that would count as unforgivably racist were you to say or believe it today. But he lived in the middle of the nineteenth century and his views were clearly progressive ones

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• McCain's New Message Fuehrer

  Published: June 5, 2008, 1:14 am

  Tags: 2008 Elections, Books Movies Media, Politics, Amanda Marcotte, Bhtv, John Edwards, John Mccain, Michael Goldfarb

  polarizing appearances on bhTV, where he excels at a most infuriating brand of optimizing obfuscation expressed with a fratboy's privileged sense of toughness. Putting Goldfarb where he can massage language, and hopefully not have to offer facts, is an invitation to a mud wrestling match, not walking across the aisles.  McCain's campaign

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