February 2019
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A fascinating history of conservative activism on college campuses (Michael Simkovic)
A fascinating, albeit intemperate and sensationalist, perspective on the history of conservative activism on college campuses is available here. The essay discusses strategies such as top-down national campaigns funded by wealthy donors, programming crafted by national organizations staffed by well compensated and experienced political operatives with ties to the Republican party, and executed on particular…
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Dust, “Pull Away/So Many Times,” 1972
We haven't featured this early 70s hard rock outfit in a couple of years; here's the lead track from their second and last album:
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Michelle Wilde Anderson (Stanford) and David Pozen (Columbia) win ALI Early Career Scholars Medal (Michael Simkovic)
A great honor. The announcement appears below:
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On being 97
A video about philosopher Herbert Fingarette, who died last year. For anyone who has had the experience, as I have, of caring for a very elderly parent or relative, it is especially illuminating and moving. (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)
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McDaniel from Syracuse to Notre Dame
Kris McDaniel (metaphysics), Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. That's a real loss for Syracuse, and will further enhance Notre Dame's already strong position in metaphysics.
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On the current situation in Iran
See this and then this.
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What is it like to be a philosopher? Alastair Norcross edition
Here, courtesy of Clifford Sosis as always.
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Diversity blather watch: Stanford edition
Stanford set up a program whose aim was to present diverse viewpoints on various topics but the program was criticized for not being "diverse" in terms of the race and gender of the speakers. But the two kinds of "diversity" are not the same, and the value of the first (call it Millian diversity) has…
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Philosophical papers on Bell’s Theorem available at BJPS…
…to mark the 55th anniversary.
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France punishes tax evasion 100 times more harshly than the U.S. (Michael Simkovic)
A French court recently ordered Swiss Bank UBS to pay a penalty of 4.5 billion Euros (equal to about $5.1 billion U.S. Dollars) for allegedly facilitating tax evasion. The U.S. fined UBS only $780 million for similar charges in 2009 (the equivalent of $890 million in today's dollars). To put this into context, France's GDP…
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The Democratic nominee for 2020
So there were over 800 votes in the poll since yesterday, although some suspicious voting for Gabbard/Bloomberg at one interval, so I'm going to list the top six, since Sherrod Brown was at times in the top five: 1. Bernie Sanders (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices) 2. Elizabeth Warren loses to Bernie Sanders by…
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Kamala Harris’s father (a Marxist economist at Stanford) criticizes his daughter’s identity politics pandering
This is curious, although one can imagine why–since he has an actual world view as opposed to a panache of sound bites and slogans–he would find this stunt so offensive.
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Should law schools be penalized for admitting students from wealthy families who are not motivated to work? (Michael Simkovic)
Scott F. Norberg argues for a law school accreditation standard tied to student employment outcomes. The proposal is interesting, and may have some advantages over a standard tied to bar passage rates, for example because it does not give state bars–who can make the bar exam more or less challenging and have incentives to strengthen…
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Billionaire taxes and innovation (Michael Simkovic)
Some of my thoughts on the ultra-high net worth wealth tax debate, and its implications for innovation and economic growth, are available here. For thoughts on the adminstrability and constitutionality of ultra high net worth taxes, see here.
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An evocative portrait of Soia Mentschikoff…
…at the University of Chicago Alumni Magazine.
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…