June 2004
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U.S. General Accounting Office: Iraq Now Worse Off than Before War
Story here: “In a few key areas – electricity, the judicial system and overall security – the Iraq that America handed back to its residents Monday is worse off than before the war began last year, according to calculations in a new General Accounting Office report released Tuesday. “The 105-page report by Congress’ investigative arm…
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U.S. University Faculty Quality–According to the National Research Council
I came across some interesting aggregated data on “faculty quality” across three dozen disciplines from the 1995 study of graduate programs in the U.S. by the National Research Council. That study was based on 92-93 surveys, so it’s now a good decade old. (A new NRC study will begin soon, and will likely be out…
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Good Commentary on the “Enemy Combatant” Decisions
My colleague Sarah Cleveland, an expert on international human rights and foreign affairs law, has a fine, short commentary on the meaning of Monday’s Supreme Court cases here. An excerpt: “The Supreme Court delivered a critical blow Monday to the Bush administration’s claim that the president is above the law. “Since 9-11, the president has…
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Department of Brazen Hypocrisy
Paul Street observes: “President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell have recently gone out on the political limb by denouncing the ‘barbarism’ of the latest terrorist decapitation of an American hostage in the Middle East. “Yes, of course you have to be depraved practically beyond belief to cut off the head…
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The Coming Military Draft
The writing is on the wall. This former National Guardsman–from whom we last heard here–has an analysis of the latest evidence suggesting a draft is imminent.
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Lysenko (or is it Stalin?) would have understood Bush
Anyone who cares about science or knowledge ought to be scared to death by the Bush Administration. UPDATE: More on the general topic from Chris Mooney here and here. Mr. Mooney’s blog provides excellent coverage of these and cognate issues.
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Bush’s Visit to Ireland
This is, in many ways, a funny account of Bush’s disastrous visit to Ireland. Three cheers for the Irish!
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What is Living and What is Dead in Marx?
Originally posted on December 3, 2003. ============ For understandable, if philosophically frivolous, reasons the collapse of the Soviet Union has been taken—especially in popular culture (including popular “intellectual” culture, such as the blogosphere)—as signalling the defeat of Marx qua philosopher. (The mock interview with Marx that was making the rounds of the blogosphere awhile back…
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Teaching evaluations
I like getting teaching evaluations at the end of the term. That they are generally quite positive is surely one reason; but they are also informative, and have helped me improve my teaching over time. My favorite student comment from this past term: “I was concerned about taking your class after viewing your web site…
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What is “experimental philosophy”?
Joshua Knobe (Philosophy, Princeton) has a nice albeit brief account of what may prove to be the most important development in the field in recent years.
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What the “Transfer” [sic] of Power in Iraq Actually Means
Historian Juan Cole: “This entire exercise is a publicity stunt and has almost no substance to it. Gwen Ifill said on US television on Sunday that she had talked to Condaleeza Rice, and that her hope was that when something went wrong in Iraq, the journalists would now grill Allawi about it rather than the…
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When can the government keep an enemy combatant?
This is a helpful chart.
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Hamdi
Hamdi is the U.S. citizen “captured” in Afghanistan; the U.S. government claims he is an “enemy combatant,” while Hamdi maintains that he was, in effect, an innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he demands the right to challenge his detention and his status as an “enemy combatant” in court. Having now…
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More bad journalism
CNN’s headline: “Mixed verdict on the terror war.” Actually, it turns out to be a resounding defeat for the most appalling, fascistic overreaching by a U.S. Administration in at least fifty years. I can’t recall feeling so relieved by a set of Supreme Court decisions as these. Let’s see if the other major media report…
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Padilla Decision is out–and the Supreme Court Punts Again!!! (Update: But the rest of the news is very good indeed! Triumph for the rule of law!)
The full opinion is here. The key bit (p. 2): “Because this Court answers the jurisdictional question in the negative, it does not reach the question whether the President has authority to detain Padilla militarily.” Unbelievable. I can understanding punting on the Pledge case, but how could they do it on this? Still reading…maybe there…
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii