Monthly Archives: January 2015

Romanticizing Dutch naval hero Admiral De Ruyter? Dutch war and trade successes   The 17th century Anglo-Dutch Wars were a follow-up of the Dutch–Portuguese War (1601–1661), which itself was part of the 80-year Dutch Revolt (1568-1648) against Habsburg rule. This revolt … Continue reading →

African population and development challenges Evidence-based policies     In their introduction to the latest issue of Dounia (the Journal of Strategic Intelligence and International Relations), Jacques Emina and David Shapiro make a case for “integrated, holistic and evidence-based population and social … Continue reading →

Can evidence-based and systemic change be combined? Wisdom is an unattainable ideal   This is so because ideals are abstractions, which means that they are only ideal in as far as we can ignore their context. In practice, we can never … Continue reading →

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,500 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway … Continue reading →