October 2004
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The Pennsylvania Taliban Has Succeeded…
…where the Texas Taliban failed. What an embarrassment for Pennsylvania, and America.
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“The Big Lie” works…
…Bush supporters are in the grips of breathtaking ignorance about most major issues. UPDATE: I have to give my friend Stuart Benjamin (Law, Duke) credit for posting the results of the above study over at the right-wing Volokh Conspiracy site. But I suspect Stuart’s in-box is now filled with unlovely screeds. ANOTHER UPDATE: For amusement,…
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Fascist Tendencies on the American Right
Here’s another good analysis, with lots of documentation, by David Neiwert (and you can follow the links to his earlier installments). An excerpt: “A real fascist would speak explicitly of rounding up liberals and sending them off to concentration camps. Pseudo-fascists don’t; they offer instead a pale imitation that only hints at such action. And…
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Supreme Court Clerkship Placement, 1991 Term through 2004 Term (2004-05)
I finally got the missing data for the 2002 and 2003 terms, so here is a new listing of the law schools who produced Supreme Court clerks since 1991 through the current (2004-05) term. I’ll transfer this information soon to my law school ranking site. Next to each school name is the total number of…
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What is “Analytic” Philosophy? Thoughts from Fodor
There’s a splendid essay in the London Review of Books by my favorite contemporary Anglophone philosopher taking on some Kripkean orthodoxies, and striking another blow for naturalism. Here’s the conclusion (but you should read the whole thing): “It’s past time to draw the moral, which I take to be that a plethora of claims to…
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Derrida: the Reality is Weirder than the Parodies
John Gardner (Law, Oxford) writes: “The Derrida conference announcement below is much funnier than any of the parodies. I particularly like ‘Aberystwyth Post-International Group was established to provide a forum in which post-positivist approaches to politics could be explored further.’ Do you think post-internationalists are also anti-internationalists? In which case this group could be a…
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Kerry 57%, Bush 43%…
…according to a poll of 400,000 children by the cable TV children’s channel Nickelodean: This poll “‘seems to work as a good barometer of the actual presidential vote because, developmentally, kids between the ages of two and 11 share the same opinions and outlooks as their parents,’ said Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon Television.” Apparently,…
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In Memoriam
Bryce DeWitt (1923-2004) A memorial notice for the distinguished physicist and longtime UT Austin faculty member is here. Best-known for the Wheeler-DeWitt Equation that explains how the wave function of the universe works, Professor DeWitt was one of the researchers who helped make Texas a leading international center for physics.
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M.A. Programs in Philosophy
A student at one of the top terminal M.A. programs in philosophy writes: “Much of the talk about grad school on your blog and on the gourmet site focuses on PhD programs and I just had some thoughts about choosing an MA program- “1) It is important that MA students realize how short the MA…
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Strictly for Austinites: Lorenzo Sadun’s Candidacy for the House
As local (and many other) readers know, Austin was carved in to three congressional districts, as part of the Republican effort to increase its share of the Texas House delegation, and as a special, vindictive effort by our local fascist thug, Tom DeLay from Houston, to oust Lloyd Doggett, one of the most effective liberal…
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“The Appeal of Fascism”
Interesting essay here; an excerpt: “[I]t is fascism’s capacity to make a nuanced oppression seem both nurturing and empowering that makes it so dangerous. It is this nuance of fascism – more than the Big Lie techniques and the brute force fascists also employ – that makes the Bush/Cheney administration and its police and propaganda…
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More Police State Tactics…
…at Bush/Cheney rallies.
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Bush: Timing is Everything
Details here: “I like to remember the little things, those itty-bitty things that really made it special. Those touches of style. The je ne sais quoi of it all. Like choosing Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday to announce his administration would oppose affirmative action in the University of Michigan case, calling it ‘divisive,’ ‘unfair’ and…
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The Coming Election, as seen from Canada
A Canadian who is earning an American law degree, but spending a term at home, writes: “I’m studying law at the University of Toronto for a semester, and have been discussing the election with professors and other students. Not surprisingly, the Torontonians I’ve spoken to (and indeed a sizeable majority of all Canadians) are resolutely…
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Bush Making Us Less Safe, Part 273
Details here: “The Bush administration has consistently ignored or opposed commonsense measures to protect Americans from potentially catastrophic terrorist attacks – an inaction that reflects officials’ aversion to regulating private industry and allegiance to key campaign contributors, a new Public Citizen report shows. “The report, Homeland Unsecured: The Bush Administration’s Hostility to Regulation and Ties…
I never met Alan, sadly, but his work leading the charge in making philosophy of sex “a thing” in contemporary…