- oil and Kurdistan
- after Raqqa, Iraq’s army turns on Kurdistan
- “There has been a common and unfortunate tendency among many analysts and policy makers to underestimate the strength of Iraqi nationalism”
- separatist movements in Europe don’t actually want independence
- GREAT topic, but poor methodology, poor theory, poor use of data, and bad faith
- meh (try this book review instead)
- Law without the State [pdf]
Al-Monitor
BC’s weekend reads
- Barry has a book review of Nietzsche’s political thought in the Los Angeles Review of Books!
- (check out Barry’s 2014 NOL post on Nietzsche’s contributions to the liberty canon)
- a good analysis on the Arab cold war between 2 sets of American allies
- a great analysis on the Kurds, the Yazidis, and Turkey
- the Zanzibar-North Sea swap
- walruses, the Arctic, and science
Worth a gander
- good update on the mayhem in the Middle East
- as good as that update is, though: Iraq, Saudi Arabia to reopen border crossings after 27 years
- great read on Russia’s Far East and Russia’s travel writing genre
- in Russia, Lutheranism (Protestantism) is considered a “traditional” religion (h/t NEO)
- how social is reason?
BC’s weekend reads
- the Kurdish bourgeoisie is against separatism (kinda, sorta)
- Qatar waives visas for 80 nationalities amid Gulf boycott
- doesn’t Pakistan already suck? Isn’t that why this is happening in the first place?
- “Similar moves are open to someone living in Pakistan. But those are different contexts than France or the US.“
- I read this twice, very carefully, but am unconvinced (the use of stats is amateurish)
- “The music was acid house, the drug: Ecstasy.“
- The Plastic Pink Flamingo, in America [pdf]
BC’s weekend reads
- heads roll at top of Turkey’s military in latest purge | Turkey’s 16th of April referendum will pave the way for authoritarianism
- great piece on Macron’s recent economic policies | French expatriates and foreign Francophiles
- Italy will be the EU’s third power once the UK leaves | the uniqueness of Italian internal divergence
- attempts to shut down free speech will no longer be tolerated, at least at Claremont McKenna | when is speech violence?
- cool science stuff is gonna happen soon | what makes it science?
BC’s weekend reads
- Who’s who in Hamburg’s G20 protests
- “But, if Marxism is not inevitable, it is nothing. Ronald Reagan, with his abiding fear that the Evil Empire would spread without intervention, was, in this sense, a much better Marxist than David Roediger could ever hope to be.“
- It’s business as usual between Turkey and the EU
- “So far there is not much sign of the fresh dawn that IS’s downfall should bring.“
- Hell Makes the News
BC’s weekend reads
- Cairo’s Chinatown
- Informational post on Turkish grand strategy
- Free speech for me, but not for thee (SPLC edition)
- Experts and the gold standard and, really, a big key to continued economic development
- A bunch of new earth-like planets have been found. The Long Space Age (peep the dates)
BC’s weekend reads
- “‘It’s true you have better hair than I do,’ Trump said matter-of-factly. ‘But I get more pussy than you do.’ Click.“
- “French elites have convinced themselves that their social supremacy rests not on their economic might but on their common decency.”
- “Chelsea Clinton seems to have a more crippling want: fashionability—of the sort embraced by philanthropic high society.”
- Iran’s Guardian Council announces presidential candidate list
Notes On Liberty 