From the monthly archives:

October 2004

Financial Paternalism as Self-Defense

October 19, 2004

I’m intrigued with this line of thought from Arnold Kling in terms of political theory:
I believe that the need for saving has grown tremendously over the past century, primarily because the lifespan has lengthened and more medical care for the elderly is available and desired. I don’t think that as individuals or as public policy [...]

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A.O. Scott’s Blinding Brilliance

October 19, 2004

From the NYT review of “Team America,” speaking of Stone and Parker:
It seems likely, though, that their emphases and omissions reflect a particular point of view.
Do you really think? I had been laboring under the impression that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, like all artists of genius, choose to put things in and leave things [...]

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John Stewart: Dead to Me

October 19, 2004

You know what? I’m just gonna say it: I’m bored bored bored of John Stewart. The Crossfire thing was the final straw, the shark jumping. He’s permanently tainted, and from here on out we can only look forward to the long slide into “Remember when that guy was funny.” Sanctimony is death to satire. The [...]

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Libertarians for Values!

October 19, 2004

Will Baude says:
Matthew Yglesias makes the best bet yet for voting for the nuttier-than-usual libertarian. On the one hand, one could counter that it’s important to teach the libertarians a lesson too; what other people view as a more or less indistinguishable mess of nuttiness actually has much different levels, and the party really needs [...]

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My Firstest Baseball Post Ever

October 19, 2004

Although I cannot claim to be a big big fan of televised sporting type activities, I must say that baseball, when it is not absolutely ennervating and soul killing, can be pretty exciting. However, we must solemnly pray that George Will is not inspired to write a baseball column, which would utterly negate any excitement [...]

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Badnarik or Bust (Inclusive)

October 18, 2004

Matt aptly summarizes below why I’ll be voting for the libertarian cadidate, despite the sisyphean absurdity of voting and the fact that the libertarian candidate is a honking bozo. But why not embrace the absurd, embrace democracy, and run a balls-to-the-wall if-you-have-libertarian-bone-your-goddamn-body-then-vote-for-Michael “Atrophied Felons” Badnarik campaign until the election!
Now, it’s true, I had promised [...]

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The Fly Bottle Cash-for-Content SuperNovember Fundraiser

October 18, 2004

Have I got a deal for you! What would you say if I told you that there was a way to get hot, fresh Fly Bottle content three times a day???!!! After you changed your pants, you’d say, “How, Will? HOW?!” Well, I’ll tell you how: give me money!
That’s right! You know I’m a [...]

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Reality Based Community

October 18, 2004

I, too, am a proud member of the reality-based community!
That said, it strikes me as fairly unlikely that Suskind’s source was really positing a kind of power-based ontological constructivism. Maybe, maybe. I have no doubt that much faith-based nutjobbery is afoot. But some people do have a bad habit of using ‘reality’ in a confusing [...]

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Where Have all the Intellectuals Gone (in Iraq)?

October 18, 2004

Payback for being a Ba’athist? Not being a Ba’athist? Disturbing.
[Link: politicaltheory.info]

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Divided Sympathy

October 15, 2004

Having just completed explaining the role of sympathy in Hume’s moral philosophy to my students at Maryland, I walked out of Francis Scott Key to see an unattractive couple kissing and experienced a dissonant chord of sympathetic reaction. I was happy for them because they were happy and kissy and in love. Yet I was, [...]

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Fodor on Analysis

October 14, 2004

Fodor’s review of Christopher Hughes’s new book on Kripke in LRB is a must-read for practitioners and consumers of analytic philosophy. Straight to the end:
It’s past time to draw the moral, which I take to be that a plethora of claims to the contrary notwithstanding, you can’t escape Quine’s web just by opting for a [...]

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The Trail of the Human Serpent

October 14, 2004

I want to share this passage lovely in both content and form from Louis Menand’s essay “Laurie Anderson’s United States” in his collection of essays American Studies.
. . . most of the songs and stand-up routines Anderson delivered in United States were wan ironic tales about daily life in postindustrial–what we now call the digital–age, [...]

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Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?

October 14, 2004

From Noel Malcolm’s review of Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? by Frank Furedi:
In the old days, according to Furedi, people pursued knowledge for knowledge’s sake and art for art’s sake, because they believed in the Enlightenment ideals of truth and beauty. Recently, however, sinister anti-Enlightenment forces have succeeded in persuading us that knowledge and [...]

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My Suckitude

October 5, 2004

Yes. I suck. I have a blog, but I don’t blog on my blog, which sucks. All apologies.
I returned yesterday from Tucson where I was attending the annual International Society for the New Institutional Economics conference, and enjoying the hospitality and company of Dave Schmidtz.
Let me say this about Tucson: when they say “dry” [...]

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