Funny coincidence. I just blogged about the monarchism in Washington at dailykos.

Long and short in the context of this post, addressing the root causes of Cheneyism requires a really big shakeup in the Washington ruling class.

Posted at January 23, 2008 2:16 PM in response to Cheney Keeps Pushing High Fear Monarchy

What, Larry, is your particular brief with the Rezco stuff? Do you have some special knowledge about this issue? Why bring it up here?

Posted at January 22, 2008 8:24 PM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

That last paragraph should be:

On the other hand, there is no one with foreign policy or security expertise arguing from the liberal-left perspective, although Herbert, Krugman, and Kristof may often talk about foreign policy issues.

Posted at December 28, 2007 8:28 PM in response to Neocon Celeb Scribbler Bill Kristol Gets NY Times Column

I would add Tom Friedman to the list. Although he may not descend from the same intellectual movement, he has basically argued the neocon line since 9/11. He hasn't really rended his garments and torn his hair in embarrassment for arguing that line, and he is complicit in the Iraq disaster. He hasn't earned back his credibility.

On the other hand, there is no one arguing the liberal-left foreign policy line. None of the other writers have FP chops, although they might argue from the left-liberal perspective.

Posted at December 28, 2007 7:55 PM in response to Neocon Celeb Scribbler Bill Kristol Gets NY Times Column

It's strange that you repeat the same objections over and over again, despite precise evidence that you are incorrect. You might want to re-read my comment. I address your points. I often ask my students this: Is there *any* amount of evidence that would convince you you are wrong? If no, then you aren't engaged in science.

And just because you call it ratings abuse doesn't make it so. I have graded down your comments based on the number/outlandishness of the insults in them. Nothing more. If you object to a rating on a specific comment, tell me and I will explain it.

You, on the other hand, are rating down *all* my comments. That's abuse.

Posted at December 4, 2007 10:20 AM in response to On Foreign Insurgents in Iraq

Still no answers!

Posted at December 3, 2007 5:08 PM in response to On Foreign Insurgents in Iraq

Duplicate post.

Posted at December 3, 2007 5:07 PM in response to On Foreign Insurgents in Iraq

It really makes you uncomfortable when you're wrong, doesn't it? You should probably quit while you're behind.

Terrorism is defined on pages 14 and 15.

Not possible in this case with the given data.

Wrong again! When discussing the selection effects you repeatedly raise:

"..It is entirely possible that foreign insurgents who were killed in action or evaded capture are from a different mix of countries than those who were captured. Despite these flaws, this dataset represents the most comprehensive unclassified information currently available on the country of origin of foreign fighters in Iraq...Of course, most countries in the world are not represented among the captured insurgents, and there in information in these observations as well. Defining a universe of countries for the sample is difficult. I present results for two different samples..." (94, 95)

In other words he runs robustness checks.

The capture statistics could be off by an order of magnitude relative to actual "terrorist" activity

It could be off by two, three, and potentially four orders of magnitude and still allow useful and legitimate statistical inferences. You seem to have trouble understanding what a sample is. A sample is a small number of observations drawn from a larger population. 300+ is a rather large sample. But at any rate, it's not the size of the sample that matters but the sample's similarity to the larger population that's the problem to confront in this case. It is confronted in the appendix to chapter 2.

he has no way of measuring or inferring the accuracy of the data

He interviewed the data collectors; the data seem solid. However, if your point is that he has no way of measuring whether the sample looks like the universe of all other terrorists (i.e. that the captured terrorists share characteristics with the terrorists that haven't been captured), that is also incorrect. Krueger checks his conclusions about Iraqi insurgents against a larger dataset compiled in the corrected Patterns of Global Terrorism report, and finds they are consistent. (66-81)

Incidentally, if you don't want low ratings, you should stop posting trollish comments. Now that you've edited your post, I'll regrade it as a marginal comment; I can't grade higher, even though it's fairly responsive and on point, because of the insults.

Posted at December 3, 2007 5:05 PM in response to On Foreign Insurgents in Iraq

You really are a troll then. I should have realized it when you failed to answer even one of the questions I've posed in this thread.

Humph. No more feeding.

Posted at December 2, 2007 4:50 PM in response to On Foreign Insurgents in Iraq

PoliSci majors

Do you know the difference between undergraduates and graduate students? I'm asking that honestly, because you've shown a remarkable lack of knowledge about academic research so far in this thread.

Posted at December 2, 2007 2:53 PM in response to On Foreign Insurgents in Iraq