Bloggers from the ITT List reflected today on these words of Martin Luther King and the history of racism in public discourse during their lifetimes: “Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For ITT List writers, the resurgence of [...]

Editor’s note: Posting will be light for The Conversationalist this week as Daniel Strauss, the blog editor, has contracted a particularly nasty stomach virus. Things should be back to normal on Tuesday (after the weekend and MLK Day). John Beyrle, the US ambassador to the Russian Federation, delivered a lecture to a full house at [...]

Nuclear Proliferation by: Omeed Firoozgan and Ben Woll   As we celebrate two decades of a unified Germany and the subsequent fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, the issue of nuclear weapons is a topic of intense debate. Proponents of nuclear proliferation maintain its advantages in effectively deterring warfare and defending against enemy threats, if [...]

After Hugo Chavez passed a constitutional referendum removing Venezuelan presidential term limits, he jubilantly declared that “this soldier is a pre-candidate for the presidency, for the period 2013-2019.” So far though, he’s got a long way to go. While Chavez is still the dominant force in Venezuelan politics, 2010 has started poorly for him. The [...]

Over in Massachusetts Republican senatorial candidate Scott Brown recently raised over a million dollars in a single day through the internet. That’s pretty impressive. Okay, scratch that, it’s very impressive. I also think it’s prophetic. While insurgency campaigns are in style today, the reason that they’re at all serious is because of the fundraising ability of the [...]

The NYT ran an article on how the military is “awash in data” from its remote-controlled drones. In short, the aircraft produce more video than can be watched and analyzed. It’s worth noting here that information sans analysis is not intelligence. Drone-camera video of people with guns in the Afghan desert is almost meaningless without some [...]