DoD Secretary Gates (a fellow WM alum) has proposed the Minerva initiative: the funding of social scientists and other professional researchers to work on such problems as China and Iraq. It is named for the Roman goddess of wisdom and just war. I think the idea is fantastic, but I’ve also been pushing for the inclusion of anthropology in IR for years.
In that spirit of reading outside one’s knowledge base, here are some (mostly) non-Africa-related articles I enjoyed this past week.
- Virginia Postrel at the Atlantic offers a ‘new theory of the leisure class‘.
- Andrew Sullivan has a peek at the places we’ll live when the polar ice caps melt and Kevin Costner gets the last laugh. I personally think it looks a bit like a roller-coaster ride.
- siphoning off a few thoughts discusses John Worrall (2002) discussing randomized clinical trials. Some of Dani Rodrik’s thoughts on the utility of randomized studies are here.
- Ronald Bailey looks at the overlap between morality and economics at reason.
- Global Integrity Commons has an interesting piece on how shopping habits can affect credit ratings.
- Some good advice on how to give (and receive) advice.
- Kristof advises ‘books, not bombs‘ for dealing with the growing Iraqi diaspora in a NY Times op-ed.
- Perhaps Iraq could benefit from something similar to Friends of African Village Libraries, a site
devoted to thoughts about books, reading, and libraries relevant to Africa by Michael Kevane, co-Director of Friends of African Village Libraries, a small 501(c)(3) non-profit devoted to helping village and small community libraries in Africa.
He is also apparently an economist at Santa Clara University. The Meaningfulness of Little Things points out a post on libraries being the key to building a local economic base.
And George Will gets the last word on Obama’s “libertarian paternalism”.
