War Policy, Public Support, and the Media by William M. Darley is another of the papers that Vodkapundit recommended from Parameters.
It makes a convincing case that media portrayal of warfare has much less effect than conventional wisdom would suggest and the firm leadership and decisive action are far more influential on public opinion. [...]
David Ignatius has written an interesting op-ed on what he calls Our Worsening Terrorism Problem.:
Here’s where the fundamental contradiction in Bush’s strategy becomes clear. If Iraq has shown anything, it is that there’s no easy equation between democratic government and success in containing terrorism. In the short run, prying the lid off a tightly controlled [...]
James P. Pinkerton writes in Newsday about decreasing tolerance in the U.S. for casualties.:
During the Civil War, Union forces lost 360,000 men, out of a population of 22 million. Which is to say, almost 2 percent of the entire Northern population was killed in four years. Yet President Abraham Lincoln hung on to his support [...]
Yahoo! News:
After nearly a decade of court battles, scientists plan to begin studying the 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man next week.
A team of scientists plans to examine the bones at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum in Seattle beginning July 6, according to their attorney, Alan Schneider.
Four Northwest Indian tribes had opposed the study, [...]
Vodkapundit lists The Five Greatest Concept Albums Ever, Period. I am not sure I agree with all his choices, but this one I definetely endorse:
The Wall
Pink Floyd’s 1979 magnum opus needs no introduction. If you’re like me, however, and you define rock’n’roll by loudness and youthful defiance, then this two-disc collection is the loudest, [...]
Runing for the Right points us at this The San Diego Union-Tribune article defending Tom Cruise and his statements about antidepresants:
Instead, Cruise kicked off a debate over a subject that a lot of people don’t feel comfortable discussing: whether Americans are too quick to turn to prescription drugs and whether their doctors are too quick [...]
I finished reading Rescuing the Law of War: A Way Forward in an Era of Global Terrorism by Michael H. Hoffman, one of the articles I mentioned in this post.
It is on whether we should consider captured terrorists Prisoners of War or judge them by the civil justice system. Not surprisingly, the answer [...]
Tom Friedman writes in The New York Times about how Ireland achieved economic success:
And change Ireland did. In a quite unusual development, the government, the main trade unions, farmers and industrialists came together and agreed on a program of fiscal austerity, slashing corporate taxes to 12.5 percent, far below the rest of Europe, moderating wages [...]
Victor at The Dead Parrot Society provides some interesting evidence that many people don’t understand how social security works, including those who are conducting polls on public understanding of how social security works.
Having worked for a survey data collection company in the past, I can testify that polling organizations often do not have a very [...]
