Dive into the archives.
- All It Takes is One Why
Anyone familiar with Socrates knows his favorite question was why. Those who regularly converse and argue with others, especially about political topics, knows a strategically placed “why” can halt your opponent in his tracks. This simple, yet crucial question is asked far too rarely by both individuals inside and outside the government. Arab Media Shack, [...]
- Impolitical science
Last week’s Economist featured three articles detailing how domestic politics has held America back in the space race. The punditocracy maintains that we may be headed into a Cold War 2, and the issue for those interested in science is whether or not the US will champion scientific research and science education as it did [...]
- “Suddenly, all hell breaks loose.”
On the introduction of Younghusband I’ve been looking through the back-issue episodes of TED and have been fascinated by this speech by Spencer Wells on human evolution and our common origins. The talk is brief and broad. It begins with a talk about our common ancestors, and then discussions the first anthropologists that [...]
- Afro Ninja: The Movie!
Mark Hicks is an award-winning Hollywood stunt man. One day in 2004, jet-lagged and exhausted, he was auditioning for a Nike commercial and unsuccessfully backflipped. Next week the video was up on the Internet and inadvertently became one of the most popular viral comedy clips—and this was in the days before youtube.
The viral [...]
- To Punish or Rehabilitate Russia?
Many saw the SCO as an organization that may one day rival NATO. Regardless of whether that assessment was accurate, more evidence against it has come in the form of China and the SCO’s recent joint statement from Tajikistan in which it calls for Georgia’s territorial integrity to be respected. While the language was clearly [...]
- Contemplating Georgia, Part 4: Scrutinizing the Russian Military
The Russian invasion of Georgia saw Moscow’s troops steamroll over Tbilisi’s soldiers with ease. But the end result of the invasion was never truly in doubt considering the relative size and strength of Russia compared to Georgia. And in fact, a joint analysis in Reuters by military analysts Aydar Buribaev (in Moscow), James [...]
- The biggest threats
You have heard Al Gore carp on about the climate crisis, and his lofty call that: “We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization.” Without the environment, the argument goes, we won’t be around to worry about all that other stuff.
The problem with big picture threats like climate change [...]
- Country report: Niue
The tiny island state of Niue lies in the Polynesian South Pacific (see guest blogger Phil Howison’s breakdown of Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia) and has a population of less than 1,700. Though sovereign since 1974, Niue’s foreign affairs and national defense are managed by New Zealand. Nevertheless, Niue established diplomatic relations with China last December. [...]
- Summer Olympics 2016
The 2008 Olympics have ended, and the race to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games is heating up. Earlier this year seven cities were shortlisted to host the games. In June, four candidate cities were chosen for the shortlist on when a complete “bid score” was issued to aid the decision-making process. [...]
