November 2020
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North Dakota leads the world…
…in recent deaths per capita from COVID. 1 out of every 1,000 residents has died from COVID. Unsurprisingly, North Dakota has done very little in the way of mitigation efforts throughout this catastrophe.
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Tucky Buzzard, “Time Will Be Your Doctor,” 1971
British hard/progressive rock band active in the early 1970s and produced by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones. This is probably their best-known number:
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How in the world does a serious university appoint a serial sexual harasser as Provost?
University of Michigan better do some serious self-scrutiny over this fiasco. And how did he fly under the radar for so long?
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Philosophy (and History) under attack at Western Sydney University
Some background from Western Sydney historian Alison Downham Moore: Today I was invited along with 6 of my history colleagues and 5 of my philosophy colleagues to meetings with our Dean in which we were told that our positions will be affected by a staff-change plan to be implemented by the higher administration of our…
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Philosopher Rebecca Tuvel (Rhodes) talks about virtual sex, race, and gender…
…on the Brain in a Vat podcast.
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Susan Haack exacts her revenge…
…under the guise of an intellectual autobiography. Some of the revenge is amusing, but it does bring to mind the even more extreme "score settling" in Ted Honderich's autobiography. Two things that lept out at me. First, her praise for her own "independence" of mind often reflects a rather parochial conception of philosophy, and can…
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“How academia resembles a drug gang”
Perversely amusing.
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The Governor of California should resign
What a disgrace. It's pretty easy not to have a dinner in a restaurant while people are dying from an infectious disease and you're requiring everyone else to not do this. He should be crucified for this selfish stupidity.
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On Brentano, the teacher
Linguist John Goldsmith (Chicago) comments. ADDENDUM: Two caveats: (1) Professor Goldsmith treats "continental philosophy" as equivalent to 20th-century philosophy in the phenomenological tradition, which is an idiosyncratic usage, even if phenomenology was very important to one strand of philosophy on the European Continent in the 20th-century (it was largely irrelevant to the Marxian traditions in…
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What is wrong with the people in Farmington, Missouri?
Their local public health official received threats because she is trying to implement simple measures to reduce the spread of COVID. It got so bad, she resigned and moved. Farmington is about 75 mile from St. Louis. What is wrong with the people there? I hope to God I never have to set foot in…
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Clearing away some jurisprudential myths
The myth that H.L.A. Hart had a "practice theory" of rules. The myth that the so-called "normativity" of law presents a problem for legal positivism, let alone a special or interesting one. The more recent myth that Hart made any kind of "category mistake" in his account of social rules or the rule of recognition.…
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The “Be Kind” mantra on the “left”
Philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) comments. We encountered related nonsense in philosophy cyberspace a few years back from Jenny Saul & co. at their now defunct blog: as the late John Gardner remarked, "'be nice' is truly the new slogan of the vindictive and intolerant."
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“Benford’s law” and the election results
In right-wing crazy land, one of the "ideas" floating around is that Benford's Law shows that there's something suspicious about the electoral results in Chicago for Biden. This is a nice, patient explanation of why this is all nonsense, as one might have suspected:
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The latest on the Pfizer vaccine…
…from Statnews. Between Pfizer and Moderna's vaccine, it looks like about 6-7% of the U.S. population may get vaccinated before the end of the year, which is better than nothing of course. Hopefully by summer, it will be possible to vaccinate most of the population that wants it (states can mandate vaccinations, and hopefully some…
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Right-wing paramilitary group in US, “Oath Keepers,” says it will not recognize Biden Presidency…
…or the legitmacy of any laws it enacts. This is par for the course for not-so-cryptic fascists and reactionaries, but one concern in this instance is that this organization claims to have members who are currently involved with law enforcement. Most likely these are elected sheriffs in the boondocks, but no one really knows.
Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue (Italy) Rationalized and Extended Democracy – The REDemo Project. Foreword by Gilberto Corbellini. Firenze University Press 2023.…