World Politics Question #9

There was a question #8, about whether the current financial crisis was a security issue, but I forgot to post that question here. Sorry.

Anyway, on to this week's conundrum: near the end of class Athkor suggested something like "because of the infinite meanings of the term 'security,' it is impossible for a country to ever be fully secure, because no country can possibly prepare for threats that it can't imagine or hasn't considered." I'm paraphrasing, but I think this grabs the heart of it. If not, Athkor, feel free to post a reply to this post correcting my memory of the statement. In any event, this is what I'd like us to wrestle with this week: because of the ambiguity of the term "security," can any country ever be fully secure?

The Global Vote Project

Apropos our class discussions about who should be able to vote for the President of the United States, this project seems relevant and intriguing:

http://www.globalvoteproject.org/

Something to ponder.

World Politics Question #7

Yesterday's in-class simulation concluded with the President -- me -- giving a political analysis of whose interest group I probably would have sided with, based largely on campaign contributions. But this does not answer the question of who won the debate on argumentative grounds, so that's your question for this week: which team had the best case? (Note: you need not say that it was your team that had the best case.)

Also, if you didn't receive the pdf of the essay assignment that I e-mailed to everyone yesterday, please let me know ASAP.

Existence is random

I find this hysterical:


Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

YMMV. I, however, was falling off my chair laughing.