June 2004
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A Former National Guardsman on the Coming Draft
A reader writes: “Your talk about an upcoming draft is on the money. I would like to offer another perspective to you. My 8 years in the National Guard and Army Reserves will help illustrate why a draft draws near. “In 1995 I enlisted in the Illinois National Guard. At the time of my enlistment,…
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Why This Blog is Good for Texas
A cosmopolitan reader, who has lived in many liberal parts of the U.S., as well as Europe, writes: “You have accomplished the nigh-impossible in getting me to spend a non-zero amount of time pondering whether I might apply to graduate school in Texas a few years from now. Prior to my time reading your blog,…
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Ignorant Law Professors on the March
One of the embarrassing facts about the Intelligent Design scam is how many law professors are involved in it. Their leader is Philip Johnson, a scholarly mediocrity in his chosen field (criminal law), who found a new raison d’etre by campaigning against Darwin. As mathematician Jeffrey Shallitt puts it in an amusing review of one…
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More on a U.S. Military Draft
Reader Christian Hurt calls to my attention the comments of Senator Hagel (R-NE) in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, often a harbinger of policy initiatives to come (and especially when the author is someone who can make policy!): “The US force structure should match the security and foreign policy commitments required for the next…
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How the U.S. Looks to Canadians
Details here: “I can’t imagine what it would be like to be living in a more insane atmosphere than the one we are. But, to be Paul Krugman, living in NY and writing for the NYTimes, must be very surreal. He’s been one of the few consistently sane voices in the US media and this…
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More Benefits of Cyberspace
A Bournemouth University student is auctioning his virginity on his personal website and has put a reserve of £6,000 on it….He has already received eight firm offers, with the top bid at £6,114.
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More on Stuart Hampshire
A friend at Cambridge has forwarded the London Times obituary, which is not accessible without a subscription outside the UK. As my friend wrote: “As you’ll see, it manages — in a typically British fashion — to be both effusively laudatory and quite derogatory. The remark about Geoffrey Fisher is priceless.” Some excerpts: “The philosopher…
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“A Wonderful Day for Philosophy in Australia”
This e-mail is making the rounds down under: “Please join me in congratulating David Chalmers, who has been awarded a Federation Fellowship with us here in the Philosophy Program at RSSS, ANU [Australian National University]. Paul Griffiths and Philip Pettit were also awarded Federation Fellowships in the current round, Paul at UQ [University of Queensland]…
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More on Justice Thomas’s Opinion in the Pledge of Allegiance Case
Trevor Morrison (Law, Cornell) has written with some extremely interesting and informative remarks about Justice Thomas’s opinion in the Pledge case; he has kindly given me permission to share them: I just read your comments on the Court’s “dodge” in Newdow, and thought I’d write with a follow-up thought. You note that by arguing the…
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An entry for “The Black Book of Capitalism”?
More details here: “Would anyone dare to deny the social and human consequences of the neoliberal globalization imposed on the world? “- If 25 years ago five hundred million people were going hungry, today over 800 million are starving. “-In the poor countries, 150 million children are born underweight, which raises their risks of death…
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Summer must be here, as philosophy blogs continue to proliferate!
The newest is on ethics, courtesy of several young philosophers at two Cal State campuse, Bakersfield and Northridge.
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The U.S. Supreme Court Dodges a Bullet
There has been much anticipation, and trepidation, regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the case from California raising the question of whether it is constitutional to require children pledging allegiance to the flag to also pledge allegiance to “one nation under God.” The “under God” phrase was added during the Cold War for the…
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Draft Faculty Lists for Fall 2004 PGR Survey
UPDATED JUNE 15, 10 AM UPDATED AGAIN AS OF JUNE 10, 10 AM: I am particularly interested in information about faculty, of whatever age, who are on phased retirement. Please e-mail me with information on that score. Thanks. UPDATED AGAIN AS OF JUNE 7, 10 AM: Please note: Departments are invited to add faculty to…
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A Collection of Reagan Memorials
DemocracyNow! has collected a fine set of Reagan memorials for grown-ups, including a number of items that appeared here over the last week.
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More Expansion of Military Spying Power…on U.S. Citizens!
From Newsweek: “Without any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly expand the Pentagon’s ability to gather intelligence inside the United States, including recruiting citizens as informants…. “[T]he new provision, approved in closed session last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee,…
We haven’t discussed this in our department (lower ranked PGR but tend to get highly competitive/very large applicant pool) but…