June 2006
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War Crime (Leiter)
Although the world’s most dangerous war criminals are usually to be found in Washington, D.C. these days, they do have company: [O]ver in Gaza, one appalling act must now eclipse all thoughts of "road maps" or "mutual gestures": on Wednesday, Israeli war planes repeatedly bombed and utterly demolished Gaza’s only power plant. About 700,000 of…
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Reminder: New Guest-Blogger, Jonathan Wolff
Just a reminder that the political philosopher Jonathan Wolff from University College London will be guest-blogging in July and August, joining Professor Nadelhoffer who has kindly kept this blog very stimulating and lively during June. Professors Edmundson, Hellie, Stanley, and Wilson will also put in appearances as their schedules permit, and I should be back…
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Georgetown Faculty Blog
First Chicago, now Georgetown (which includes Mark Tushnet, though he’s departed for Harvard). Is this a trend? If all law schools set one up, and include stat counters, then we cank rank law schools by the number of visits to their blog…which is likely to be as meaningful as ranking by SSRN downloads.
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MIT offer to Roger White
Roger White, the recently tenured philosopher of science and epistemologist at NYU, is entertaining a tenured offer from the department of philosophy at MIT.
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Voting Machines Revisited (Nadelhoffer)
I have already posted recently about the threat that voting machines pose to the democratic process (see here and here). It turns out that things are even worse than I feared (which is saying something given my propensity for pessimism!). See here for details. Apparently,120 security threats have been identified. Here is just a sample…
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Incompetent or Just Reckless and Uncaring? (Nadelhoffer)
The Rockridge Institute has an interesting piece that warns against merely dismissing the Bushies as grossly incompetent. Here is an excerpt: Progressives have fallen into a trap. Emboldened by President Bush’s plummeting approval ratings, progressives increasingly point to Bush’s “failures” and label him and his administration as incompetent. Self-satisfying as this criticism may be, it…
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Alan Weir to become a Chair at Glasgow
The philosopher of logic and mathematics Alan Weir, currently senior lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, has accepted a Professorship at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, to begin in October 2006. This is an excellent appointment for Glasgow, and will help the department recover from the loss of Bob Hale to Sheffield.
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Rounding Error to the Tune of a Trillion Dollars? (Nadelhoffer)
Over at Alternet, Matthew Yglesias–of The American Prospect fame–has an interesting opinion piece concerning yet another Bushie miscalculation that does not get as much press as WMD’s–namely, how costly the war in Iraq would be. Here is a brief excerpt: On September 11, 2001, the United States was hit by devastating terrorist attacks perpetrated by…
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Why We Fight (Nadelhoffer)
If you have yet to see Eugene Jarecki’s documentary film Why We Fight–you should certainly make a point of doing so. I rented the DVD yesterday and was entirely floored by it. It is a very powerful–albeit terrifying–account of what has happened to this country in the wake of our failing to heed Dwight D.…
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Taking a Stand (Nadelhoffer)
Over at TomPaine.com, Col. Ann Wright–who "received the State Department’s Award for Heroism as the acting U.S. ambassador during the rebel takeover of Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1997"–has an interesting opinion piece on Lt. Ehren Watada’s refusal to deploy with his unit to Iraq. Here is an excerpt: For Watada and those other military volunteers…
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W the Constitutional Protector? (Nadelhoffer)
In yet another staggering example of how Orwellian the Bush administration’s reasoning can be, it has now been suggested that the 750 signing statements used by W to "cherry-pick the provisions he likes and exclude the ones he doesn’t like" (R. Senator Arlen Specter)–are actually motivated by his concern for the constitution! The details of…
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Snowjob? (Nadelhoffer)
Apparently, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow thinks the NY Times has incorrectly placed its readers’ "right to know" over other people’s "right to live." The laughable exchange can be found here. Perhaps he should have been questioned by Ben Franklin instead, who surely would have reminded him that, "those who would give up essential…
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Psuedo-Meritocracy? (Nadelhoffer)
Gary Younge has an interesting column in Guardian Unlimited entitled, "America is a Class Act"–where he discusses what he has elsewhere called "royalty my another means" (see here). Given what we witnessed after Hurricane Katrina, you would think class would be one of the defining issues of our time. Instead, Congress has decided they need…
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Pots and Kettles (Nadelhoffer)
Over at truthout, Larry Johnson hits the nail on the head with his latest opinion piece. It is interesting indeed that the very administration under fire for leaking information to the press (think Scooter Libby and Valerie Plame), is now outraged by leaks by the press. Of course, had they not made it clear years…
Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue (Italy) Rationalized and Extended Democracy – The REDemo Project. Foreword by Gilberto Corbellini. Firenze University Press 2023.…