September 2004
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Laura Bush: “Just Say ‘No’ to Science”
Details here. (Thanks to Keith DeRose for the pointer.)
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The Bush Administration’s “War on the Enlightenment,” continued
David Baltimore, President of Cal Tech, has a useful item in the September 24, 2004 issue of Science, which, unfortunately, is not available on-line without a subscription. Here is an excerpt: “[A]s we approach the election, it is important to examine the most critical issues at the interface of science and politics in the determination…
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On Hollywood Movies
My friend, the philosopher Jose Zalabardo at University College London, has some memorably apt comments about movies at his personal web site (click on the upper right box to see them): “Contemporary Hollywood films are the most deplorable cultural phenomenon of our time. The way they trivialise life makes me sad and angry. I don’t…
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The Presidential Non-Debate
This evening the candidates of the Fascist Theocracy Party and the Somewhat-More-Prudent Wing of the Ruling Class Party, George W. Bush and John Kerry, will have what is being called a “debate” at the University of Miami. Except it’s not a debate, since according to the rules: (1) the candidates can’t ask questions of each…
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Tennessee Law Professor Reynolds Wins the Goering Award…
…for his work on his blog site InstaIgnorance. (Scroll down to Friday, September 24 at the link for the details.) Richly deserved.
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First “Intelligent Design,” now “Intelligent Grappling”
Details here: “A Georgia group calling itself Teachers for Equal Time has asked that stickers be placed in all new physics textbooks which note that mutual attraction and relativity are not the only theories available to explain gravity and should not be taken as fact. “Teachers for Equal Time hopes that the addition of the…
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More Shocking Forgeries!
Once again, the blogosphere swings in to action. (Thanks to Ann Bartow for the pointer.)
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DeRose Declines Cornell Offer
Keith DeRose (epistemology, philosophy of language, early modern, philosophy of religion) at Yale University has declined the offer from Cornell. That’s a good break for Yale, at least for the time being. Other suitors may come calling, of course….
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Bill Moyers on Government Secrecy, or ‘America is on the Path to Totalitarianism,’ Part 211
More from the same speech: “[N]ever has there been an administration like the one in power today—so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and, in defiance of the Constitution, from their representatives in Congress. The litany is long: The president’s chief of staff orders a review…
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Bill Moyers on Journalism and Politics; or ‘America is Bonkers,’ Part 372
The full speech is here; an excerpt: “One of the biggest changes in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. How do we fathom and explain the mindset of violent exhibitionists and extremists who blow to smithereens hundreds of children and teachers of Middle School Number One in Beslan, Russia? Or the…
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New MacCarthur Fellows Announced
Here is the list of the 2004 winners of these lucrative but idiosyncratic awards, that are sometimes called, misleadingly, “genius grants.” No philosophers or legal scholars on the list; indeed, the only person I even recognize is Angela Belcher, who used to be a Chemistry professor here before MIT snatched her up last year. In…
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How does an American Law School Graduate Become Eligible to Practice Law in England?
So asks a law student. While I know various American students who have gone off to practice in London, I actually don’t know the answer to this. Comments are open. Insight and links to resources welcome. UPDATE: Bill Burke-White, a lawyer who is currently a lecturer at the Wilson School at Princeton, e-mails the following…
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Student Threatens to Report U of Arizona Professor to FBI for being “Anti-American”
Story and interview here; any Arizona folks know more details about this peculiar incident? As Matthew Smith (Philosophy, Yale)–who called the story to my attention–remarks: “The main concern I have with this is that the student’s threats are the product of a broader campaign to equate dissent – particularly vigorous and public expression of criticisms…
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The coming election fraud in Ohio
The red flags have been raised about Republican efforts to undermine the integrity of the voting in Florida, but it appears Ohio is next. (Could it be that Florida and Ohio are hotly contested swing states? Nah….) Shortly after The New York Times reported that Democrats are registering far more new voters in Ohio than…
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The Moral Case Against the Iraq War
Thanks to Jeff McMahan (Philosophy, Rutgers) for permission to post this essay (Download Iraq_War.doc) on the moral indefensibility of the Iraq war. McMahan (for those outside philosophy) is one of the very best and most incisive moral philosophers writing today about concrete moral and political problems, including, most recently, issues about war and killing in…
Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue (Italy) Rationalized and Extended Democracy – The REDemo Project. Foreword by Gilberto Corbellini. Firenze University Press 2023.…