November 2004
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Ignorance, Scientific Illiteracy and the Presidential Election
This recent poll data is striking, offering scant comfort to Democrats (whose ranks are also swelled by the hordes of the ignorant) and sheer horror to friends of the Enlightenment: 55% of Americans believe, falsely, that God created humans in their present form. While 67% of Bush voters believe that, so do 47% of Kerry…
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From the Mail Bag
Since I occasionally print the stray abusive e-mail I still sometimes get (I think I’ve largely purged the readership of the juvenile and ressentiment-filled right-wingers who send such missives), I suppose I am entitled to print an especially nice one, this from a graduate student in Florida: I applaud your efforts to defy all things…
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Citations to Political Science Profs in Law Reviews
Keith Whittington, a well-known public law scholar in the Politics Department at Princeton, has prepared an interesting study of the frequency of citation to political science professors who study law and courts. The study confirms that law professors pay relatively scant attention to the quite interesting work on law that goes on in Political Science…
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It Could Happen Here
The final installment of David Neiwert’s well-crafted and chilling account of fascist tendencies in modern America.
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Thus Spoke Nietzsche
"The vanity of others offends our taste only when it offends our vanity." —Beyond Good and Evil, sec. 176. "What is noble? What does the word ‘noble’ still mean to us today? What betrays, what allows one to recognize the noble human being, under this heavy, overcast sky of the beginning rule of the plebs…
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Disclaimer Stickers for Science Textbooks…
…are available here. (By the way, the first one was really proposed in Georgia!) These should come in handy as the United States sinks further in to the dark night of ignorance. (Thanks to Doug Barnes for the pointer.) UPDATE: Professor Daniel Ray from Eastern Michigan University notes some complications posed by the recommended stickers:…
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Demolishing Gertrude Himmelfarb
Gertrude Himmelfarb is a conservative historian who is reasonably prominent in the United States because of her politics, not the quality of her historical scholarship. (Isn’t it ironic that the champions of merit and high standards are overwhelmingly represented by intellectuals whose work fails to meet those standards? Remember Allan Bloom?) The political theorist Alan…
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Only those on the Left are reasonable…
…according to this article about the growing number of new, overtly religious law schools (such as Regent, Ava Maria, St. Thomas in Minnesota, and Liberty): "The prevailing orthodoxy at the elite law schools is an extreme rationalism that draws a strong distinction between faith and reason," said Bruce W. Green, Liberty’s dean. The claim that…
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Web Stat Counter Finally Operational
My web stat counter is now on the new site (see the bottom left of the links list), though it hasn’t of course counted the first 3 weeks here. According to Typepad, here’s what the first three weeks at the new site brought in terms of readership: Total number of hits: 93707 Average per day:…
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Problems Accessing This Site?
I’ve heard from two readers who have had some difficulties accessing this site from certain browsers, but not others: the site appears, but there is no text. Sometimes hitting the reload button suffices to restore the text. If you have encountered a problem, would you e-mail me and let me know what kind of browser…
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Summary of Specialty Rankings for All Canadian Departments
Richard Zach (Philosophy, Calgary) has compiled all the data here based on the new PGR.
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The Right-Wing Attack on the Universities is Going Mainstream
The telltale sign that right-wing mischief is going mainstream is when The New York Times starts reporting on it as though it is something other than right-wing mischief. The Orwellian "Academic Freedom Bill of Rights" (whose aim is to destroy academic freedom, by substituting political criteria for academic hiring)–about which we’ve taken note previously–is now…
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Canadian Involvement in the Iraq War
Details here; an excerpt: Canada has long denied any role in the US war. However, General Dynamics, the US "defense" contractor, recently announced a deal with Canada’s SNC Technologies Inc. as part of a multinational consortium of small-caliber ammunition producers. Their purpose is to supply between 300 million-500 million more bullets to occupation forces per…
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Four Major (Part-Time) Appointments for USD Law
The University of San Diego School of Law has made four quarter-time appointments of leading scholars from the University of California at San Diego (which does not have a law school): Richard Arneson (political philosophy), David Brink (moral, political, & legal philosophy), Matthew McCubbins (positive political theory), and Michelle White (law & economics).
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Ohio Election Irregularities Still Put Election in Doubt
Details here; an excerpt: [T]estimony has revealed a widespread and concerted effort on the part of Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to deny primarily African-American and young voters the right to cast their ballots within a reasonable time. By depriving precincts of adequate numbers of functioning voting machines, Blackwell created waits of three to…
I respond to this report here https://jasonstanleyantifascist.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophical-muddle-that