Marc | January 12, 2010
CBC just carried a story that Sarah Palin will be joining Fox News as a commentator. I think that her comment that It’s wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news. just about says it all. Needless to say, I will continue my personal classification of Fox News as [...]
Marc | November 26, 2009
I really don’t like rap at all, but one of my ex-students just sent me a link to an incredibly powerful rap video (hat tip to Lindsay Aranoff). The video speaks for itself. Do not watch it if you have a weak stomach.
Marc | November 13, 2009
One of the things that is often forgotten these days is why people fight – not nations, not governments; people. All to often, especially during long conflicts with not actual “fighting” in a homeland, we forget and dismiss the conflicts and blame those who go to do the fighting as being “war mongers” and “myrmidons” [...]
Marc | November 3, 2009
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has just released a briefing on anti-terrorist cartoons in the Saudi Arabian press. As with all humour, it has a cutting edge to it. My favorites, and I’ll admit I have a warped sense of humour, really capture how what Richard Dawkins calls Mind Viruses operate. To view [...]
Marc | October 18, 2009
I normally limit my posts here about music but, given the concert season, I thought I would post a few announcements about upcoming concerts. The first two are in Ottawa, while the second two are national broadcasts which can be heard online.
Marc | September 18, 2009
My friends Adam Elkus and Mark Safranski just released what is one of the more insightful, and scathing, critiques of US “Grand Strategy”. The short article is entitled Theory, Policy, and Strategy: A Conceptual Muddle (abstract | PDF) and focuses on one simple observation: grand strategy for the US is now being driven by operational [...]
Marc | September 16, 2009
I’ve been having an email discussion with my friend Drew about narratives for the past little while. One of the things that bothers me about the general topic, and by this I mean the military use and analysis of narratives, is that it is all to often focused at the wrong “levels”; in milspeak, it [...]
Marc | August 17, 2009
I probably will not have a chance to blog this week since I will be off at the TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference and blogging from there. The posts will be going up over at the Small Wars Journal and SWJ and TRADOC are both hoping for a lively exchange of ideas and questions from the [...]
Marc | August 15, 2009
Yesterday, Friday August 14th, was to have seen a talk given by Lynddie England at the Library of Congress on her new biography Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib and the Photographs That Shocked the World. The talk, however, sparked a very strong reaction from Morris Davis, a veteran and employee of the Library of Congress [...]
Marc | July 10, 2009
Q: Since when are university regents “administrative officials performing functions analogous to those of judges and prosecutors” (quoted here)? A: Since July 7th, 2009.
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