December 2011 – The Quantitative Peace

Ron Paul Foreign Policy Ad

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Michael Flynn — 3 Comments ↓

I haven't seen this until this morning, but this is a video put out by a PAC supporting Ron Paul's campaign. I don't suspect the content of the video will sit well with many conservatives who like to think of the presence of US military forces as at best largely beneficial to the host state, and at worst, mostly benign. In spite of the pressures to cut budgets and downsize government, I think the Republican party is still largely composed of people that take a very militaristic view of American foreign policy and how we should conduct ourselves on the Continue reading Ron Paul Foreign Policy Ad→

Big Week

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Michael Flynn — No Comments ↓

So it's been a busy semester with all of the dissertating, job applicating, researchitating, and paper writing. As I've mentioned before, blogging has (unfortunately) taken a bit of a back seat to all of this. I can't say that it hasn't been worth it, though, as this has been a rewarding semester insofar as the work that I've been focusing on is concerned. However, some big events have occurred over the past week and I feel compelled to at least say a little something about them. More after the jump…

2010 CIRI Human Rights Data Project Report

Posted on December 15, 2011 by K. Chad Clay — 3 Comments ↓

The CIRI Human Rights Data Project, of which I am a part, released its 2010 data last weekend. A report pointing out interesting patterns can be viewed over at the CIRI Blog. One interesting bit: The CIRI Index of Physical Integrity Rights measures a government’s overall level of respect for four rights: torture, extrajudicial killing, political imprisonment, disappearance. The index ranges from 0 (no respect for any of these four rights) to 8 (full respect for all four of these rights). In 2008-2009, the world saw an overall average increase in these rights of .047. However, a reversal of this Continue reading 2010 CIRI Human Rights Data Project Report→

Links from the Weekend

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Michael A. Allen — No Comments ↓

Peer Review of the Internet – “It will enable sentence-level critique of written words combined with a sophisticated yet easy-to-use model of community peer-review. It will work as an overlay on top of any stable content, including news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation and regulations, software code and more-without requiring participation of the underlying site.” h/t – orgtheory South Korea launches an online “Unification Channel” to educate younger generations about the dangers of reunification. What 7 billion people look like Graphic Dispatches from a Recent College Grad Still Living in a College Town – Gift prices for Continue reading Links from the Weekend→