From the monthly archives:

February 2004

Bush Hatred in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ….

February 24, 2004

– Now that Bush has come out decisively in favor of an amendment to the US Constitution that constitutes both an assault on states’ rights and an assault on the moral rights of same-sex couples, I am finally pissed off enough to agitate actively in favor of the election of John Kerry (or whoever) for [...]

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Bias, Blah, Blah

February 23, 2004

– Jim Henley’s meditation on the leftist academic bias controversy is by far the most interesting thing I’ve read on the matter.
By the way, I think that a lot of the leftish academic bloggers are simply in bad faith on this one. They know. But they LOVE things they way they are. They’re at [...]

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Disinfopedia

February 21, 2004

– I just ran across the Disinfopedia. It’s a wiki apparently published by the Center for Media and Democracy, the sort of left wing organization dead sure that there is indeed a vast right wing conspiracy (and of course there is!). Anyway, Disinfopedia collects info on corporate shills, PR firms, think tanks, and other sundry [...]

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Bitter Much?

February 17, 2004

– This is slander!
Want to know Victoria’s Secret? I’ll tell you.
It might be especially interesting to men shopping for Valentine’s Day gifts, like those widely promoted push-up bras. You know them from the ads showing skinny models with spherical breasts that appear to float in skimpy lace cups. With their shoulder straps thin as ribbon [...]

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Coaching Common Sense

February 17, 2004

– In Ed Feser’s interesting but rather overwrought dissertation on the academic left, we get this defense of common sense:
Now where phenomena remote from everyday human experience are concerned — the large-scale structure of spacetime, the microscopic realm of molecules, atoms, and so forth — it is perhaps not surprising that human beings should for [...]

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Libertarian Ideal Theory

February 17, 2004

– I liked Tyler Cowen’s Volokh post on Dan Klein’s theory of “The People’s Romance.” Here’s most of it:
Klein writes from a libertarian point of view, asking why people are so attached to government, even when the record of government in an area is a poor one. He suggests that the desire to be part [...]

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Boobs n’ Beards

February 3, 2004

– What are you looking at? Janet’s feigned expression of horror? Her bizarre nipple accoutrements? Not me! The most interesting thing about this picture is . . . J. Tim’s “beard”! Timberlake is but one data point in my embodied argument that the beard is now the height of fashion. Start yours now or [...]

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Reading is Fundamental; Buying is Holy

February 3, 2004

– Please note some updated books advertised at your bottom right. Though I’ve just cracked it, the new Gibbard seems outstanding. I’m very much on his wavelength. The Adams bio of Gouverneur Morris so far is also excellent. (G. Mo is a stud!) More comprehensive, but therefore less breezy, than the Brookhiser. I’m excited [...]

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Designated Reading

February 3, 2004

– I’m happy to see that my former advisor, Michael Devitt, has made his book, Designation, available on his website. Designation is one of the best works in the philosophy of language published in the 80’s (perhaps the only systematic working through of the Kripke/Donnellan casual theories), yet has been out of print for a [...]

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Denis Dutton Fans Rejoice

February 3, 2004

– Good stuff from the our man at Arts and Letters Daily. A thoughtful discussion of the role of skeptical doubt occurs in Dutton’s review of Jennifer Michael Hecht’s The Great Doubters and Their Legacy From Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson. Besides being eminently sensible, Dutton slips in a few [...]

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Google me This

February 3, 2004

– I’m jacked about the announcement that Google plans to scan everything in the Stanford library published before 1923. That should make a huge chunk of the important (and unimportant) works in philosophy available for free. Go Google!
This is, by the way, what Microsoft is really good for. It puts the fear of Jesus [...]

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