AnalPhilosopher

Somebody explain to me how this helps animals.

Computer, n. 1. A usu. electronic device for storing and processing data (usu. in binary form), according to instructions given to it in a variable program. 2. A black hole into which time itself, and hence the life that passes through it, disappears.

To the Editor:

Anti-abortion activists in South Dakota claim to be concerned about the "800 children aborted" in that state each year, and the State Legislature agrees. Apparently, their concern stops at birth.

According to the Children's Defense Fund, more than 27,000 children live in poverty in South Dakota; 18,000 have no health insurance; and two-thirds of fourth graders perform below grade level in math and reading.

The state's rankings regarding infant mortality, prenatal care and education spending per pupil are abysmal.

Where is the legislation to improve the lives of children already living in South Dakota?

I will never understand legislators who revere the fetus yet ignore the plight of the child once born.

Lori Keys Pender
Seattle, Feb. 23, 2006

Fifty-eight "contributors," 28 days in February, six posts. Can you say "moribund"?

Here.

X in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language. X is the sacred symbol of ten dollars, and in such words as Xmas, Xn, etc., stands for Christ, not, as is popularly supposed, because it represents a cross, but because the corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet is the initial of His name—Χριστός. If it represented a cross it would stand for St. Andrew, who "testified" upon one of that shape. In the algebra of psychology x stands for Woman's mind. Words beginning with X are Grecian and will not be defined in this standard English dictionary.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Philosophy was never a game to Lewis, linguistic or otherwise. It was one of the most important things a human being could do, and one that every human being, in one fashion or another, had to do.

(John Lange, introduction to Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics, by Clarence Irving Lewis [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969], xiv)

I've written that I don't understand the leftist obsession with, and attacks on, Wal-Mart. Brendan Miniter argues that it's not Wal-Mart per se that bothers leftists, but what it represents. Attacking Wal-Mart is the means to the leftist end of expanding the reach of government.

Here.

Here is a new journal of culture and politics. Thanks to Donald Luskin for the link.

In what is probably the broadest sense of the term, to say of something that it has moral rights is only to say that it has moral standing—that it counts from the moral point of view. In this sense, most of us believe that people and animals have rights of some sort, but books and rocks do not. That is to say, we think that people and animals matter, morally speaking, in their own right (unlike books and rocks). Put another way, if something has rights in this broad sense of the term, our treatment of it is not morally irrelevant, nor is it of mere derivative significance (due, perhaps, to possible effects on other things that do count in their own right).

(Shelly Kagan, Normative Ethics, Dimensions of Philosophy Series, ed. Norman Daniels and Keith Lehrer [Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998], 170-1 [italics in original])

2-27-86 I’m on the verge of freedom! I met with George Dunscomb and Denice Shepherd this afternoon to discuss my future with the [law] firm. We’ve agreed that I will work for another two weeks, after which my status will be “of counsel.” The best thing is that our parting will be on good terms. During the discussion, Denice said that she and George have been very happy with my work and are sorry to see me leave. They’re having a hard time finding a replacement for me, but I assured them that when they do, I’ll train him or her. “I feel obligated to you for giving me a chance to practice law,” I said. “It’s just that I have a Ph.D. degree to earn and something has to give.” Imagine: two more weeks. I can already taste the freedom.

The Arizona Wildcat basketball team, which was expected to finish no better than eighth in the ten-team PAC-10 conference [Pacific Athletic Conference], beat the University of Washington tonight and is now 21-7 on the year. The Wildcats won the PAC-10 title and will now go to the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year. Isn’t that something? This year’s team is quite scrappy. I regret not going to see them play at McKale Center. [Lute Olson has coached the Wildcats to 21 consecutive NCAA tournaments. The Cats won the national title in 1997. This year’s team, which has a 17-10 record with only two PAC-10 games to play, may not make it. Lute’s Wildcats have won the PAC-10 title 10 times, beginning in 1986.]

Here.

To the Editor:

American citizens are not a herd of livestock owned by the government, subject to being branded, catalogued and inventoried to suit the convenience of bureaucrats.

If the government finds it inconvenient or inefficient not to have a complete dossier on my identity, health, voting status, wealth, educational accomplishments, social well-being or other personal characteristics, that's just too bad.

I am not its property.

Ed Stokes
Coronado, Calif., Feb. 22, 2006

This is hilarious. Just as Dorothy didn't realize that returning to Kansas was within her power all along, the White House press corps doesn't realize that regaining the respect of the American people is within its power. Reporters must (1) stop being cynical (in the sense of questioning the motives of the president), (2) stop injecting themselves into the stories they cover, and (3) be impartial. If you act like a responsible, fair adult, whose aim is getting the world right rather than making it right, the White House will treat you accordingly; if not, not.

Mummy, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment. He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.

By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said,
Attests to the gods its respect for the dead.
We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint,
Distil him for physic and grind him for paint,
Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame,
And with levity flock to the scene of the shame.
O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:
For respecting the dead what's the limit of time?
Scopas Brune.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

Leftists want the United States to adopt a single-payer health-care system, like Canada's. But Canada's system is a failure. See here. Key passage: "[Canada's] publicly financed health insurance system—frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity—is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine." Leftists value equality more than they value well-being, which is perverse.

What the movement to casual dress may signify is a recession of theatricality as a mode of organizing social interactions, together with a rising cost of time (it takes longer to select, dress in, and undress from formal dress). Especially but not only when worn in the workplace, formal dress is a method of signaling wealth, authority, and other dimensions of hierarchical status. It is "dressing up" to "act" a part in the social game. It is related to charismatic authority and opposed to rational authority. If positions of authority were always assigned on the basis of merit alone, and if the performance of the people occupying those positions were perfectly transparent or perfectly monitored, no one would care how they dressed or how they looked. A person in a position of authority would not have to dress differently from his underlings in order to cement his authority, and no premium would be placed on height or a commanding presence or a distinguished name in choosing leaders. We would then expect a movement to casual dress because formal dress is less comfortable and generally more expensive, especially when time costs are figured in.

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 309 [footnote omitted])

1. The right to speak is a negative right, not a positive right. It entitles its bearer to be free of interference, not to be guaranteed a forum.

2. The right is against government, not private entities or individuals. See here for George Will's column about the whittling away of the right to speak.

3. Although we use the expression "freedom of speech," what we're talking about is a right to speak. Freedom is the absence of constraint. To say that someone is free to do something is to state a fact, not make a judgment. Whether freedom to speak is a good thing—and whether we have a right to it—are debatable issues.

Eavesdrop, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.

A lady with one of her ears applied
To an open keyhole heard, inside,
Two female gossips in converse free—
The subject engaging them was she.
"I think," said one, "and my husband thinks
That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
As soon as no more of it she could hear
The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
"I will not stay," she said, with a pout,
"To hear my character lied about!"
Gopete Sherany.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Politics makes strange bedfellows. United States Senator Barbara Boxer of California (a Democrat) is in bed with Michelle Malkin and many Republican lawmakers on the Dubai ports deal. The Los Angeles Times, which is on the lunatic Left, is in bed with President Bush. Isn't politics great?

Addendum: Did you read Senator Boxer's letter? Isn't it amazing how easily she finds connections between the United Arab Emirates and the attacks of 9-11? She couldn't find any connections between Iraq and 9-11.

I love sports for many reasons. One of the main reasons is that it tests human strength, endurance, and willpower. I love it when the game is on the line. That's when you see who has what it takes to prevail. Some individuals, such as Reggie Jackson and Lance Armstrong, rise to the occasion. Others crack or crumble under the pressure. Bode Miller was expected to win five medals in downhill skiing in this year's Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. He won no medals. As if this weren't bad enough, he acted as though it didn't matter. Apparently, he didn't train properly. Instead, he partied. He said he wanted to have fun and enjoy the experience. I saw part of an interview conducted by Tom Brokaw after yesterday's final event. After listening to Miller, I have no doubt that he cracked under the pressure. He said he preferred being the underdog. Underdogs, by definition, have no pressure. If they win, it's glorious. If they lose, they've lost nothing. Favorites have pressure. They're expected to win and must explain themselves if they do not. Partying was Miller's way of coping with the pressure. It was as if he didn't want to win if he couldn't do so as the underdog. It's too bad he had to act like an asshole during the process. Perhaps he doesn't realize what damage he did to his career and to his reputation during these Olympics. Would you invest in him if you ran a corporation? I wouldn't. I wouldn't want anything to do with someone so undisciplined, shallow, and irresponsible. (Miller has admitted to skiing while drunk, which ought to be a criminal offense.) The bright side is that parents the world over can point to Miller and say to their children, "Don't be like him."

Yeah, right. See here.

I used to be a feminist. I broke free of it. Here is Charlotte Allen's essay about feminist dogmatism in higher education.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "The Torturers Win," by Bob Herbert (column, Feb. 20):

It is hard to express how sad and angry I am, knowing that we the people of this country have condoned and permitted torture in our name.

Somehow we are able to rationalize and justify in our minds the kind of treatment that Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen seized and shipped to his native Syria by the United States government, has suffered.

How can any of us justify what was done to him? He is no more guilty of a crime than the next person, and yet somehow we need to rationalize or explain this behavior. Just so we don't have to count ourselves as part of this crime.

Unless we try to do something, years from now our children and grandchildren will ask us: How could this happen? Did we try to stop it? Did we speak out against it?

What will we say?

Herb Bardavid
Great Neck, N.Y., Feb. 21, 2006

Here is Matthew Pearl's op-ed column about Harvard University.

I watched the Tour of California on ESPN2 from midnight to one o'clock. Just as I was about to turn the television off, I happened upon the opening scene of a movie. I ended up watching the whole thing. The movie is Big Night (1996). Check it out; you won't be disappointed.

Here.

Addendum: Here is Safire's first sentence:

"Let us make sure no Democrat is left behind," said a Florida campaign organizer in the last midterm election.

Safire should have said "most recent midterm election." One hopes it wasn't the last.

Here is Thomas Friedman's column about the port deal. Key sentence: "The world is drifting dangerously toward a widespread religious and sectarian cleavage—the likes of which we have not seen for a long, long time."

Somebody get this guy a clue.

Here are some of my favorite bloggers (in no particular order):

Dr John J. Ray (Dissecting Leftism)
Steve Rugg (JusTalkin)
Peg Kaplan (what if?)
Jeff Percifield (Beautiful Atrocities)
Ally Eskin (Who Moved My Truth?)
Dr Bill Keezer (Bill's Comments)
Dr Bill Vallicella (Maverick Philosopher)
Michelle Malkin (Michelle Malkin)
Donald L. Luskin (The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid)
Norm Weatherby (Quantum Thought)
Kim du Toit (The Other Side)
Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit)

If you think I'm missing a good blogger, let me know.

Many atrocities of the twentieth century were committed in the name of egalitarianism, targeting people whose success was taken as evidence of their criminality. The kulaks ("bourgeois peasants") were exterminated by Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union; teachers, former landlords, and "rich peasants" were humiliated, tortured, and murdered during China's Cultural Revolution; city dwellers and literate professionals were worked to death or executed during the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Educated and entrepreneurial minorities who have prospered in their adopted regions, such as the Indians in East Africa and Oceania, the Ibos in Nigeria, the Armenians in Turkey, the Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the Jews almost everywhere, have been expelled from their homes or killed in pogroms because their visibly successful members were seen as parasites and exploiters.

(Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature [New York: Viking, 2002], 152 [endnotes omitted])

Here.

Respite, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.

Altgeld upon his incandescent bed
Lay, an attendant demon at his head.

"O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief—
Some respite from the roast, however brief.

"Remember how on earth I pardoned all
Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall."

"Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm
O'er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.

"Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,
Your doom I'll mollify and pains abate.

"Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,
Not even the memory of who you are."

Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;
Heaven trembled as Compassion entered Hell.

"As long, sweet demon, let my respite be
As, governing down here, I'd respite thee."

"As long, poor soul, as any of the pack
You thrust from jail consumed in getting back."

A genial chill affected Altgeld's hide
While they were turning him on t'other side.
Joel Spate Woop.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To the Editor:

John Tierney does note that Gov. James E. Doyle of Wisconsin has a philosophical basis for opposing vouchers, but he characterizes most opponents of vouchers as Democrats beholden to the teachers' unions.

I and many others oppose vouchers not because of our concern for the 15 percent of the Milwaukee students who are lucky enough to get them, but because of our concern for the 85 percent who don't.

When money is siphoned off into the private schools, what happens to the children whose parents don't know or care enough to take advantage of the voucher system?

The only real option is to make all schools better, not stopgap measures like vouchers.

Ian Everhart
Houston, Feb. 22, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Let me get this straight. Because some parents are too dumb or apathetic to "take advantage of the voucher system," nobody should be able to take advantage of it. I can't think of a better example of "dumbing down." Let the dumb people dictate social policy!

Ever heard of a LEGO Difference Engine? Neither had I, until Mark Spahn sent a link. See here.

I was reading this column by Ruben Navarrette, nodding my head in agreement, until I came to this:

Americans love fighting the last battle by beefing up airport security, or indulging their nativist dislike for immigrants by building walls and fences.

Is Navarrette implying that the only possible motive for wanting a wall or a fence between Mexico and the United States is nativism? Surely there are other motives, the most obvious being a desire to limit immigration to those who comply with the law. Americans don't dislike Mexicans; we dislike lawbreaking. Notice the sleight of hand: If you want a wall built, you're a nativist. Compare the leftist claptrap about being a racist if you oppose affirmative-action programs or a homophobe if you oppose homosexual "marriage." Leftists love to impute the worst motives to their opponents. It makes "refuting" them so much easier.

Here is Ronald Dworkin's essay about Judge (now Supreme Court Justice) Samuel Alito. Dworkin's criticism amounts to this: Justice Alito won't interpret the Constitution the way he (Dworkin) would. Who cares? Justice Alito's interpretive approach is widely shared not only by appellate judges, but by lawyers, law professors, and ordinary citizens. It involves ascertaining the original understanding of the Constitution. Dworkin's approach allows—indeed, requires—judges to inject their own values. This is anti-democratic. That's what it comes down to, ultimately: Dworkin doesn't trust the people. He wants an elite caste of (liberal) judges to run the country. He wants an imperial judiciary. Justice Alito thinks judges—who are unelected and unaccountable—should defer to the legislative and executive branches unless there is a clear constitutional provision to the contrary. Justice Alito (damn, that has a nice ring to it) believes in the rule of law. Dworkin believes in rule by philosopher-kings. Thank goodness Dworkin has no power.

There is, however, one field where a clash may come. The third characteristic of a Church noted above was the maintenance of an ethical ideal. The State in its criminal law may be said also to maintain an ethical ideal. What if these ideals diverge and contradiction follows? Any apprehension of such a clash is diminished when it is remembered that the 'maintenance' of the ideal differs greatly in the two cases. The clash would occur if a Church enjoined on its members actions which the State forbade, or forbade actions which the State enjoined. The latter case is improbable as the State's ethical orders are mainly negative. In considering the first alternative we must recall that the criminal law expresses a minimum common standard of external behaviour and must therefore lag behind the accepted level of conduct in any community. The Church, on the other hand, sets a positive standard before its members, and if it is a developed and genuinely spiritual Church an impossibly high standard. The clash would therefore come only when a Church regarded as part of its 'counsels of perfection' an action so far below the general level of the community that the law forbids it. An instance of this may be found in the prosecutions of the Peculiar People, who refuse to summon doctors to their children when they fall ill because they take literally the Epistle of St James both in its silences and in its exhortations. In such a case it is impossible not to ask questions about the religion involved. The clash arises because the religion is primitive. It believes (i) in the literal inspiration of the Bible, (ii) that whatever is not mentioned is prohibited, (iii) that the will of God cannot be achieved through the work of a doctor. This mixture of primitive logic and primitive theology puts the State in an impossible position. ('Suttee'—the suicide of women at the funerals of their husbands—rests on two equally primitive beliefs, that a man must take his chattels with him into the next world, and that a woman is a chattel.) The Peculiar People, however, act morally in breaking the law and must simply receive the consequences as martyrs. For in the last resort religion can always triumph and the religious man remain unsullied. The State cannot compel him to do anything against his religion but can only punish him after he has acted as his religion dictates.

(J. D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 2d ed. [London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967 (1st ed. 1948)], 127-8 [footnotes omitted])

Maybe I'm particularly pessimistic today, but I don't see any prospect for world peace as long as Christians and Muslims live together. The religions are so different, in terms of how they see the relation between the spiritual and the mundane, that the only way for them to coexist peacefully is for them to live apart, with minimal intercourse. Perhaps it would be a better world if nobody were religious, since religion conjures powerful emotions, but that's not likely to happen. The next best thing is religious segregation.

Why do people say "Needless to say"? For example, I often see the following in a scholarly essay: "Needless to say, I alone am responsible for errors." Either (1) it's needless to say that you alone are responsible for errors, in which case it shouldn't be said, or (2) it's not needless to say that you alone are responsible for errors, in which case you're saying something false. Can anyone think of a context in which saying "Needless to say" is appropriate?

Someone has to say it, so I will. It's time for academics to stop saying the following in their scholarly publications:

I thank X, Y, and Z for their assistance in the preparation of this work. None of them is responsible for the errors (if any) that remain.

The first sentence is fine; it expresses gratitude for services rendered. The second sentence serves no purpose. Everyone knows, by now, that only the author of the work is responsible for errors. Do we need to keep saying it?

To the Editor:

Re "President of Harvard Resigns, Ending Stormy 5-Year Tenure" (front page, Feb. 22):

The best president that Harvard ever had was forced to resign by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Lawrence H. Summers was opposed by women who misinterpreted his musings over why women were underrepresented in mathematics and science; he was opposed over his quarrel with Prof. Cornel West, whose penchant for unacademic pursuits made him unfit to stay at Harvard (he is now at Princeton).

Dr. Summers was opposed by faculty members who had voted for disinvestment in Israel; he was opposed by those who wanted a weak president rather than a strong president.

A large majority of the students supported him.

Dr. Summers was right in every case and on every issue, and shame on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for forcing him out.

George E. Ehrlich
Philadelphia, Feb. 22, 2006
The writer is a member of the Harvard class of 1949.

Peroration, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

Every now and then, this past summer, I would have a cramp in one of my legs, usually after riding my bike. A couple of friends told me that it's a sign of insufficient potassium, the remedy for which, they assured me, is a banana a day. On 23 August—six months ago—I started eating a banana every day. I haven't missed a day. What could be better than a banana? It comes in its own package; it's sweet and soft; you don't get messy while eating it (as you do while eating an orange); it lasts for several days before going bad; it's nutritious; and, best of all, it looks cool.

Material, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.

Material things I know, or feel, or see;
All else is immaterial to me.
Jamarach Holobom.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

To the Editor:

In my five years of teaching a large university lecture course, I received plenty of rude or presumptuous e-mail from the students. Some of it was truly astonishing, like the messages from students who complained that their final grade was "not acceptable" because it would dash their chances of med school admission.

In part, this occurs because the impersonality of e-mail makes it easier to act rudely. But it also reflects an increasingly consumerist attitude toward education: the students pay to enroll in a university, they expect service, and if they aren't happy with the product (the grade) they receive, they reject it, just as if they were in a restaurant and had to return an overcooked steak.

Stephen J. Hagen
Gainesville, Fla., Feb. 21, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: This letter reminds me of an essay I wrote several years ago. See here.

See here.

Because the academic mind prizes consistency, academic moralists believe that pointing out that a person’s moral beliefs or behaviors are inconsistent can be a powerful agent for moral change. They believe that if you point out to a meat eater that because he considers suffering a bad thing and animals suffer as a result of his diet he is being inconsistent, you may persuade him to become a vegetarian. But behavioral consistency is a weaker ordering principle than logical consistency. To defend a proposition and its negation is a lot more difficult than to tell a story that will make a unity of “inconsistent” behavior or reconcile one’s behavior with an inconsistent belief about how one should behave. The meat eater can distinguish between human and animal suffering; can deny that animals have to suffer in being killed for food (they can be killed painlessly, and since they do not know what is going to be done to them, they do not suffer psychologically in anticipation); can point out that his own consumption of meat is too slight to affect the number of animals killed; can even argue that to put animals on a par, as it were, with human beings could make us less sensitive to human suffering (could, for example, put the annual slaughter of tens of millions of turkeys for Thanksgiving on a level with the Holocaust); can point out that Genesis explicitly invites us to eat meat; or can equivocate, by confining his meat eating to the meat of animals raised and killed humanely, or to road kill, or by adopting the position that the moral philosopher R. M. Hare calls “demi-vegetarianism.” If you want to turn a meat eater, especially a nonacademic one, into a vegetarian, you must get him to love the animals that we raise for food; and you cannot argue a person into love.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 51-2 [italics in original] [footnote omitted])

2-22-86 Saturday. The [spring] semester is more than a third over already, which is one reason why I’m getting so worried about my status with the [law] firm. I haven’t made much progress on any of my seminar papers. But all work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy, they say, so I took the day off and enjoyed myself. David Cortner and I rode our bikes northwest of town to Picacho Peak, where we rested before riding back. The weather was just great: sunny skies, little wind, and a high temperature of seventy-four degrees [Fahrenheit]. I’ve never been to Picacho Peak before, so it was like a vacation for me. I ended up riding 101.1 miles, an all-time record for one day, so let me elaborate on the day’s events.

I left the apartment at 7:06 A.M. and rode approximately ten miles to David’s apartment, near the university. We attached our bikes to a rack on David’s car and drove several miles to the intersection of Ina Road and Interstate 10, where we parked the car at a gas station and set out toward the Tucson Mountains. David had the route laid out, which was fine with me; all I wanted to do was put in some miles and see the sights. We rode over a mountain pass, through the Avra Valley to a small airport, and then to Frontage Road, which, as the name implies, fronts the interstate highway. The riding from there to Picacho Peak was excellent. David, being a novice rider, made a noble attempt to keep up with me, but after a while he decided to pedal at his own pace. I stopped several times to wait for him and occasionally rode along with him. I kept asking if he were all right, if he wanted to turn back, but he said “no.” I didn’t want to be unduly paternalistic about it.

Things got pretty rough for both of us on the way back. David, especially, was showing signs of exhaustion and fatigue. But we made it. David dropped me off at his house and I pedalled to my apartment. By then, however, I noticed that I had ridden some eighty-nine miles. My all-time record for one day was 100.5 miles, set on 23 August 1982, so I decided to go for it. I couldn’t ignore a record when I was that close to it. I pedalled approximately twenty laps around the lot near my apartment in the dark, finally breaking the century mark. People must have thought that I was crazy, out there pedalling furiously in the cold, dark night. (The temperature was down to sixty-three degrees by the time I walked in the door of the apartment, some twelve and three-quarters hours after I left.) But I’m glad that I did. Now I feel that I accomplished something significant this weekend. I’ve ridden eight weeks in a row, am 29.3% of the way to my 1985 mileage record, have ridden 4441.1 miles since I got my first ten-speed bike back in August 1981, and have ridden 3083.9 miles in the past three years—an average of 1027.9 miles per year. Until today, I hadn’t ridden more than 42.2 miles in one day in nearly eight months; but today I went way beyond that.

A friend from graduate school sent a link to this essay by Christina Hoff Sommers.

Today is George Washington's birthday. He was born in 1732 and died in 1799. Every American should read—and take to heart—the wise words of Washington's Farewell Address. See here.

Addendum: Not to make light of the man, but imagine that Washington's name had been George Frankenstein. Our nation's capital would be Frankenstein, D.C. Seattle would be located in the state of Frankenstein. Missouri would be home to Frankenstein University in St Louis. New Hampshire would have Mount Frankenstein. Worst of all, the football team would be the Frankenstein Redskins.

Michelle Malkin is all over the port story. See here.

If you've ever wondered whether having a Ph.D. degree is compatible with detachment from reality, here is your answer. Thank God this woman—who writes like a babbling teenager—is in Canada.

To the Editor:

Harriet Brown is right when she asks us to eat food that tastes good. This approach, used in other cultures (where access to food is not a issue), has not turned their populations into supersized citizens.

But there is one more key required to unlock the positive results Americans are seeking. Enjoy your food, but also enjoy the social experience of eating!

Eat with friends. Don't eat while walking, driving, snowboarding or anything else! Talk to your friends while you eat. Listen to the stories of their lives. If nothing more, the connections you make will be at least as satisfying to your well-being as the food you are eating.

I am betting that there will be a big payoff in terms of health.

This positive social eating experience will keep us satisfied. No need to get happy with mountains of food. Let's eat the food we love, with the people we love.

Robert DiFerdinando
South Burlington, Vt., Feb. 20, 2006

The beef industry will do virtually anything to get you to consume its products. Take a gander at this. Why don't you send Big Meat a message that you don't like being manipulated? Boycott beef. Come to think of it, the beef industry processes its customers—you!—the same way it processes cows. You're a mere means to its ends.

Here.

Let's jazz things up a little. From now on, Wednesday will be "You Supply the Caption" day. I'll link to an image; you supply the caption. Be creative. Be witty. Entertain the blog's readers (and me). Keep it clean, the way Winston Churchill did when he lampooned a critic. Here is this week's image.

By the time this gets posted, the odometer will roll over to 500,000. I never dreamed I'd get there this fast. I started this blog on 5 November 2003, which is just over two years ago. Thank you for visiting. I appreciate your patronage. I write; therefore I am!

Baptism, n. A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is performed with water in two ways—by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling.

But whether the plan of immersion
Is better than simple aspersion
Let those immersed
And those aspersed
Decide by the Authorized Version,
And by matching their agues tertian.
G.J.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here is a cool new blog on animals and the law. I will add it to the blogroll.

Have you ever been put off by something (or someone) but not know why? I finally figured out what bothers me about the Olympic games. They’re predigested. NBC tells its viewers what to think, how to feel, what’s interesting, who’s going to win (and why), and what’s important. It designates certain athletes as stars, goats, or heroes; it dictates the time at which events are shown; it frames issues; it manufactures controversy; and, worst of all, it promotes itself. Yuck.

I wish there were an Olympic equivalent of C-SPAN. Put cameras at the events and let ’em roll. Inform viewers of the times at which events take place. Keep commentary, analysis, and graphics to a minimum. Stop promoting this and manipulating that. Respect the intelligence (and schedules) of your viewers. In short, put the focus on the competition, where it belongs. I’d watch the games if that were the format. As it is, I can’t stand to watch. Am I alone in this? Are others put off by the predigested format?

There are a number of reasons that “all-consuming” jobs are aversive to women. One reason, of course, is children. Seventy or eighty-hour (or even fifty or sixty-hour) work weeks are not compatible with the level of family involvement that many people, but especially many women, desire. Because women, on average, desire greater day-to-day involvement with their children than men do, intense career investment is more costly to them. Despite the fact that surveys find that women are as satisfied with their jobs as men are, they are less satisfied with the number of hours they work, despite the fact that they work shorter hours.

Not only are the psychic costs to women higher for participation in grueling careers, the psychic rewards may be smaller. Because women, on average, attach less value to being at the very top of their profession than men do, the psychic payoff to women from single-minded dedication to (or obsession with) achievement of professional status is often less than for men. That is, women are more likely than men to say, “If that’s what this career requires, it’s not worth it to me.” In academia, a primary measure of status is scholarly productivity. Scores of studies of academic productivity have found that men publish more articles than women do, typically about 50% more (independent of whether they have children). This disparity is obviously not due to women’s inability to publish more but rather to the fact that they choose not to.

Although one might argue that jobs should not be structured to require so many hours, the fact that some people (predominantly men) are willing, even eager, to work such hours, means that competitive pressures to be productive result in many other people working longer hours than they might like even in the absence of a formal requirement. The two most obvious solutions to this problem, if it is a problem, is to break the link between productivity and reward or to prohibit people, even those who are eager to do so, from working long hours. Neither of these courses of action is practical, of course. Even if universities stopped providing tangible rewards for scholarly productivity, the major status reward of scholarship is not in its tangible recognition by one’s employer but by its reception in the scholarly community. As for limiting work hours, that is easy enough to do for factory workers, but not so easy for academics who may do much of their work at home or in otherwise unsupervised settings. Apart from practical concerns, there is, of course, the further question whether either of these responses would be desirable.

(Kingsley R. Browne, “Women in Science: Biological Factors Should Not Be Ignored,” Cardozo Women’s Law Journal 11 [2005]: 509-28, at 524-5 [footnotes omitted])

President, n. 1. The elected head of a republican government. 2. Punching bag.

See here.

If there's a better song than Yes's "Roundabout," I haven't heard it.

Crayfish, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.

In this small fish I take it that human wisdom is admirably figured and symbolized; for whereas the crayfish doth move only backward, and can have only retrospection, seeing naught but the perils already passed, so the wisdom of man doth not enable him to avoid the follies that beset his course, but only to apprehend their nature afterward.—Sir James Merivale.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

Tell us how you really feel, Christopher.

Michelle Malkin linked to this post at Captain's Quarters. It's funny. My favorite image is the one showing a smiling soldier with a tin cup.

Jokes are made about Bill Clinton going back to the White House, but I think it concerns people, and not just Republicans. Does anyone think that if Hillary Clinton were elected president, Bill would remain behind the scenes? Ha! He'd be involved in everything, just as Hillary was during his eight years as president. Perhaps Hillary should divorce him in order to maximize her chances of being elected. But I don't think that would put people at ease, since (1) he doesn't have to be married to her to live in the White House and (2) she could remarry him after being elected (or after being elected a second time). I don't know about you, but the thought of Bill Clinton back in the White House gives me the creeps. It was bad enough when he was busy. Imagine him with lots of time on his hands. I certainly wouldn't want my daughter working as an intern while he was there. Any thoughts?

Michelle also found this site, which allows viewers to take a virtual tour of Bill Gates's palatial home on Lake Washington in Seattle. Isn't it obscene to have so much house? What's the point, other than conspicuous consumption?

I finished my lecture on "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" this morning. During class, as I discussed development assistance, one of the students, Michelle, located this chart on the Internet via her notebook computer. She then e-mailed the link, which I clicked when I got home. What a world! Note that the United States ranks 21st among nations in terms of official development assistance as a percentage of gross national product. Scandinavians are much more generous than Americans are. Indeed, the chart suggests that Americans are stingy. Are we?

To the Editor:

A Feb. 14 news article about the Ohio Board of Education's decision to toss out a mandate to include critical analysis of evolution in biology classes quotes John G. West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute. He says that those opposed to the teaching of intelligent design "don't think they can win in the court of public opinion on the issue."

This reveals the problem with the intelligent design argument: the truths of science are not determined by popular opinion, but by evidence.

If popular opinion determined scientific truths, we would still be teaching that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

Andrew Herod
Athens, Ga., Feb. 15, 2006
The writer is a professor of geography and adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Georgia.

Note from AnalPhilosopher: The professor is confused. What to teach in public schools is a matter of public policy, not a matter of science.

Here are thumbnail (clickable) images from today's stage of the Tour of California.

Marvin Olasky examines the nuclear threat.

My university is growing and improving by the year. Here is one of the signs that one sees as one enters the campus (click to enlarge):

Here is the university's new logo:

I'm about to complete my 17th year as a professor at UTA. Where has the time gone?

Here is a column about my early choice for president in 2008, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Discordance between life and work is more common than otherwise and does not invalidate a person's ideas. But in areas of uncertainty we cast a wide net for evidence of credibility and when we see people advocating practices or beliefs that they themselves would find irksome, or even intolerable, it makes us doubt the soundness of their advocacy.

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 308)

I spend two class periods in my Ethics course lecturing on this essay by Peter Singer. Please read it. Singer appears to be reasoning by analogy. Here is my reconstruction of his argument:

1. The Bugatti case is similar to the famine case in all morally relevant respects.

2. Bob acted wrongly in the Bugatti case.

Therefore,

3. It is wrong not to do what one can to relieve famine.

Many analogical arguments are inductive in nature, but this one is deductive. One cannot consistently accept the premises while rejecting the conclusion. Thus, everyone must either (i) reject the first premise, (ii) reject the second premise, or (iii) accept the conclusion. What do you do?

Here.

Symbolic, adj. Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation of symbols.

They say 'tis conscience feels compunction;
I hold that that's the stomach's function,
For of the sinner I have noted
That when he's sinned he's somewhat bloated,
Or ill some other ghastly fashion
Within that bowel of compassion.
True, I believe the only sinner
Is he that eats a shabby dinner.
You know how Adam with good reason,
For eating apples out of season,
Was "cursed." But that is all symbolic:
The truth is, Adam had the colic.
G.J.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here is a new blog. I will add it to the blogroll.

To the Editor:

We are in a war in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Prisoners are taken during a war by whatever means possible. These prisoners are not entitled to judicial proceedings; they are held until exchanged or repatriated at the conclusion of hostilities. Hostilities continue; witness the death of four American soldiers just recently in Afghanistan.

One other detail seems to have escaped you. It is the United States, not the United Nations, that is at war in Afghanistan. The United Nations is irrelevant in this instance—although it is, to be sure, a noisy, self-serving bystander.

George Paulikas
Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.

Here is Judge Richard A. Posner's post about Google in China.

See here for my interview with law professor Darian M. Ibrahim. Act now and you may be the 30,000th visitor to Animal Ethics!

I may begin by regarding some limited and qualified statement as self-evident, without seeing the truth of the simpler and wider proposition of which the former affirms a part; and yet, when I have been led to accept the latter, I may reasonably regard this as the real first principle, and not the former, of which the limitations and qualifications may then appear accidental and arbitrary. Thus, to take an illustration from the subject of Ethics, with which I am here primarily concerned, I may begin by laying down as a principle that "all pain of human or rational beings is to be avoided"; and then afterwards may be led to enunciate the wider rule that "all pain is to be avoided"; it being made evident to me that the difference of rationality between two species of sentient beings is no ground for establishing a fundamental ethical distinction between their respective pains. In this case I shall ultimately regard the wider rule as the principle, and the narrower as a deduction from it; in spite of my having been led by a process of reasoning from the latter to the former.

(Henry Sidgwick, "The Establishment of Ethical First Principles," Mind 4 [January 1879]: 106-11, at 106-7)

Goose, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: ma[n]y are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "Our Faith in Letting It All Hang Out," by Stanley Fish (Op-Ed, Feb. 12):

Liberalism is not "a withdrawal from morality in any strong, insistent form." It is an expression of core moral values: treating others with equal concern and regard, and celebrating multiple points of view.

Thus, the decision to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad was not the result of liberalism, but a denial of liberalism's central tenet that we consider and respect others' deeply held beliefs.

Moreover, the idea of respect is neither "skin deep" nor condescending, as Mr. Fish suggests. It is as morally grounded as any religious creed. At a time when liberalism is under attack from fundamentalists abroad and at home, we desperately need voices defending liberalism's central moral vision, which is our only hope for peaceful coexistence.

Paul Schiff Berman
West Hartford, Conn., Feb. 13, 2006
The writer is a law professor at the University of Connecticut.

See here.

Here.

Arianna Huffington says there are many unanswered questions about the vice president's quail-hunting accident. See here. I wonder whether she had questions about Ted Kennedy's car accident at Chappaquiddick. A woman died in that accident.

Jay Rosen is a professor of journalism at New York University. Here is his column about Vice President Dick Cheney's relation to the press.

It's 27º Fahrenheit in Fort Worth. I grew up in Michigan, where this would be considered mild, but I've lived in Arizona and Texas for the past 22 years. It's frigid! I've had the fireplace roaring all day and have a small heater near my feet as I work at the computer. I hope all the dogs and cats in this area have shelter.

Utilitarians frequently wish to dismiss . . . appeals to our moral consciousness as amounting to an uncritical acceptance of our emotional responses. Obviously they are not that. Our uncritical moral consciousness gives answers which we do not accept as defensible after critical reflection, and it is the judgements which we accept after critical reflection which are being appealed to here. In any case, before the utilitarian starts questioning this appraoch [sic], he would do well to make sure that he himself is secure from similar criticism. It might well be argued that his appeal to the principle of utility itself rests upon an uncritical emotional acceptance of what prima facie appears to be a high-minded moral principle but which, on critical examination, seems to involve grave moral evils.

(H. J. McCloskey, "A Non-Utilitarian Approach to Punishment," in Contemporary Utilitarianism, ed. Michael D. Bayles [Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1968], 239-59, at 243-4 [essay first published in 1965])

Bob Hessen sent a link to this interesting essay. Thanks, Bob!

How many Americans are poor? Alas, conservatives and liberals cannot agree. See here.

Here is a New York Times column about blogging. Blogs are as diverse as their creators. They differ in content, appearance, reliability, and quality. Some blogs are informational; some are argumentative; some are analytical; some are self-indulgent. A blog is just a creative space, like a back yard. Do we expect back yards to be the same?

To the Editor:

Re "Valentine's Day Homework" (column, Feb. 14):

To John Tierney's very helpful "To Do" list for men, may I add a short "Do Not Do" list (author unknown):

Do not yell unless the house is on fire. Never try to win an argument with your spouse. Never go to bed without resolving a major conflict with her.

These simple steps have kept my marriage happy for more than 32 years.

S. Sundar Jayabose
Millwood, N.Y., Feb. 17, 2006

Romance, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, as a domestic horse to the hitching-post, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination—free, lawless, immune to bit and rein. Your novelist is a poor creature, as Carlyle might say—a mere reporter. He may invent his characters and plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not occur, albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie. Why he imposes this hard condition on himself, and "drags at each remove a lengthening chain" of his own forging he can explain in ten thick volumes without illuminating by so much as a candle's ray the black profound of his own ignorance of the matter. There are great novels, for great writers have "laid waste their powers" to write them, but it remains true that far and away the most fascinating fiction that we have is "The Thousand and One Nights."

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

Here.

1. I've read many newspaper columns, blog posts, and news reports about Vice President Dick Cheney's quail-hunting accident. Those who dislike the vice president tend to say such things as "Cheney shot a man." Those who like him—or are indifferent to him—tend to say such things as "Cheney accidentally shot his hunting companion." Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but the former seems calculated to make Cheney seem evil, as if he shot with malice aforethought.

2. One reason the press despises Dick Cheney is that he despises them—and they know it. What's the old saying about not angering those who buy ink by the barrel? It applies here. But Cheney doesn't give a damn what the press thinks of him or says about him. I admire that. Any enemy of the press is a friend of mine.

3. Have you seen the footage of NBC correspondent David Gregory abusing White House spokesman Scott McClellan? Gregory is a punk. I've thought this for many years. There's something creepy and National Enquirerish about him. He thinks he's a star, and he invariably inserts himself into the story. See here.

4. Here is video of Michelle Malkin discussing the Cheney incident.

Christopher Hitchens is a smart man, but in this essay he fails to grasp a simple distinction: between having a right and exercising it. It can be wrong to exercise a right. The State Department spokesman he criticizes was not saying (or implying) that there is no right to publish the Muhammad cartoons. He was saying that the right should not have been exercised, out of respect for the strongly held religious beliefs of Muslims. Some proponents of the First Amendment seem to operate under the "can implies ought" principle: I can (legally) say X; therefore, I ought to say X.

You have to admit: Some of the posts at Democratic Underground are funny. See here and here.

Animal law is one of the fastest-growing areas of law. See here for an essay by law professor Darian Ibrahim on anticruelty statutes.

I find it truly surreal to read academics denying the existence of intelligence. Academics are obsessed with intelligence. They discuss it endlessly in considering student admissions, in hiring faculty and staff, and especially in their gossip about one another. Nor can citizens or policymakers ignore the concept, regardless of their politics. People who say that IQ is meaningless will quickly invoke it when the discussion turns to executing a murderer with an IQ of 64, removing lead paint that lowers a child's IQ by five points, or the presidential qualifications of George W. Bush. In any case, there is now ample evidence that intelligence is a stable property of an individual, that it can be linked to features of the brain (including overall size, amount of gray matter in the frontal lobes, speed of neural conduction, and metabolism of cerebral glucose), that it is partly heritable among individuals, and that it predicts some of the variation in life outcomes such as income and social status.

(Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature [New York: Viking, 2002], 149-50 [italics in original] [endnote omitted])

Here.

Has anyone seen Midnight Cowboy (1969)? I saw the second half of it the other night while channel-surfing. The characters, so far as I could tell, were buddies. Then I read this in today's Dallas Morning News. I racked my brain for any sign that the characters (played by Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman) wanted to have oral or anal intercourse with each other. What is going on? Have we lost the distinction between friend and lover?

Addendum: My Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide (1999) has "racked my brains" rather than "racked my brain." Do I have more than one brain?

To the Editor:

Re "Silence Broken as Cheney Points Only to Himself" (front page, Feb. 16):

Accidents can happen: so my mother always told me, which meant we always tried to be careful in hopes that the consequences of our actions were something we could live with.

I have sympathy for our vice president, who seems to have had a really unfortunate accident that he must now live with.

He notes that he will always be haunted by the memory of his friend falling after being hit by the misplaced birdshot. Haunted, yes. I can imagine that such a scene would be seared into the mind and heart in such a way as to produce more than a few sleepless nights.

Dick Cheney's admission of these feelings seems natural, yet makes it all the more baffling and unconscionable that he and our president would send so many young, beautiful human beings into war, to use weapons to kill other human beings. The haunting memory of killing is something that leaves lifetime scars and worse.

Having avoided the killing fields of the past, Mr. Cheney may now have an inkling that whether caused by an accident or an act of war, violence diminishes us in ways unimagined, yet all too real. When will we ever learn?

(Rev.) Mary E. Westfall
Durham, N.H., Feb. 16, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Does this person's being a minister give her any authority, moral or otherwise? If not, why does she append "(Rev.)" to her name? Is she hoping that readers of The New York Times commit the fallacy of appeal to authority by inferring moral authority from theological authority?

Here is a terrific op-ed column by Robert Wright. As I said some time back, the cartoons of Muhammad should not have been published. Deeply felt religious beliefs ought to be respected. Why is this so complicated? If you wouldn't want your most cherished beliefs mocked—and I assume you don't—then don't mock other people's cherished beliefs.

Bath, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.

The man who taketh a steam bath
He loseth all the skin he hath,
And, for he's boiled a brilliant red,
Thinketh to cleanliness he's wed,
Forgetting that his lungs he's soiling
With dirty vapors of the boiling.
Richard Gwow.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

LL.D. Letters indicating the degree Legumptionorum Doctor, one learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast upon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly ££.d., and conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished for their wealth. At the date of this writing Columbia University is considering the expediency of making another degree for clergymen, in place of the old D.D.—Damnator Diaboli. The new honor will be known as Sanctorum Custus, and written $$c. The name of the Rev. John Satan has been suggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who points out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the advantage of a degree.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

A cold front is moving in. At 3:00 this afternoon, it was 85º Fahrenheit at my house in Fort Worth. It felt like summer. Right now, at 6:56, it's 64.4º. It feels like spring. It's supposed to get down to 40º, which will give us summer, spring, and winter in one day.

Addendum: At 8:56 P.M., it's 53.4º.

Addendum 2: At 10:43 P.M., it's 46.9º.

Ed Feser, my co-blogger at The Conservative Philosopher, has just posted Part 4 of "The Road to Serfdom." See here. He provides links to the first three parts, in case you missed them. By the way, TCP was down for a few days because of a snafu regarding renewal of the site registration. Chris Lansdown of PowerBlogs finally got it straightened out. Everything should be fine from now on. I hope you visit TCP regularly. Bill Vallicella, Ed Feser, and I don't post often, but we do post.

Here.

Peg Kaplan has an interesting post about the mainstream media versus the blogosphere. By the way, Peg has a beautiful blog. I love how she illustrates her posts with little images. That adds a lot to it. I especially like the little farm image she posted.

Some people think that words can be combined to no ill effect. Compare "S is a gentleman" with "S is a gentle man." Big difference!

To the Editor:

Re "Handling of Accident Creates Tension Between White House Staffs" (Political Memo, Feb. 15):

Once again, this administration's arrogance and total disregard for the fourth estate has blown up in its face.

I thought that when President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney took over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they were going to restore honor and dignity to the White House.

Well, there is nothing honorable about relying on a female ranch owner to tell the media your mistake, and there is no dignity in letting the president's spokesman take the heat from the media.

Instead of staging a taped interview on the conservative and Bush-friendly Fox News, why doesn't the vice president issue a live public apology?

Shouldn't Mr. Cheney at least face the public and apologize for nearly killing a man? Just a thought.

Scott Henry
Watertown, Mass., Feb. 15, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Apologies are made to those one has wronged. The only person even arguably wronged in this incident is Harry Whittington. Presumably, Vice President Cheney has apologized to him, or will. Also, what role is played by the word "female" in this letter?

Is Dick Cheney on the way out as vice president? See here for Peggy Noonan's column.

Here.

Brian Leiter never met a thug he didn't like. See here.

Highway, n. A public road that sometimes serves as a parking lot.

I don’t know of any profession more in love with itself than journalism. Police officers and lawyers are protective, but journalists are positively self-absorbed. Let a journalist be killed or injured while covering a story. Every other journalist in the world will write about it—and it will be on the front page. Let a journalist be abused by a politician or athlete. Every other journalist on the beat will come to his or her defense by ganging up on the culprit. Hell hath no fury like a journalist scorned. What we’re seeing in the case of Vice President Dick Cheney is journalistic petulance, with an admixture of spite. The White House press corps wasn’t told immediately about the hunting accident, so it must punish the president. The good news is that Americans know how journalists operate. It’s why journalists are held in such low regard.

Christmas is a religious holiday for believing Christians, but it is also a national holiday, and also a secular holiday for children, for all shoppers and retailers, and for most atheists (they are shoppers, and some of them are even children). So salient is the secular dimension that it requires rather a special effort to remind people of the religious significance of Christmas. The Ten Commandments are similarly multifaceted. They are a set of religious commands for believing Christians and Jews, a set of moral imperatives (thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not bear false witness, etc.) as binding on the nonbeliever as on the believer, a literary rendition of moral duties, a Hollywood spectacular, a milestone of Western intellectual history, and to the cynical, a set of clichés and anachronisms (such as do not covet thy neighbor's cattle) and pathetic overstatements of duties. Most of the Commandments are not explicitly religious, and those that are get the least attention—who has been worrying lately about graven images, or even about taking the Lord's name in vain?

(Richard A. Posner, "The Supreme Court, 2004 Term—Foreword: A Political Court," Harvard Law Review 119 [November 2005]: 31-102, at 101 [footnote omitted])

Here is James Q. Wilson's column about war.

Here.

To the Editor:

"With Charm and Enticements, Army Is Drawing Hispanic Recruits, and Criticism" (news article, Feb. 9) points out that "recruiting Latinos has become one of the Army's top priorities," noting correctly some of the high-pressure tactics that recruiters use to target low-income youth in minority communities.

Indeed, the Defense Department's Joint Advertising and Marketing Research and Studies (Jamrs) office has developed special approaches for this campaign.

According to a PowerPoint presentation that the New York Civil Liberties Union downloaded from the Jamrs Web site last year, Latinos are culturally "hard wired differently": they are "emotional" and not "intellectual"; "intuitive" instead of "analytical"; and "visionary" rather than "accuracy-driven."

These slides were used to train Defense Department representatives at a Jamrs employee conference. Recruiting campaigns are based on these stereotypes.

It is bad enough that recruiters are using subterfuge and violating the privacy rights of high school students whose names are provided to the military and who are repeatedly accosted in school and at home. We now know that the military is using gross and insulting racial and ethnic stereotypes in the drive to fill quotas.

Jeffrey E. Fogel
New York, Feb. 9, 2006
The writer is senior staff attorney, New York Civil Liberties Union.

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Is Fogel implying that Hispanics are too dumb to know that they're being pressured or tricked into enlisting? Is he implying that Hispanics are less patriotic than other Americans? How's that for stereotyping?

I had a good time lecturing last night to the Dallas Philosopher's Forum, which meets, inexplicably, in Farmers Branch. I'd like to thank Andrew Laska for inviting me. I'd also like to thank the 20 or so guests for putting up with my pedantry. The question-and-answer period after the lecture was particularly enjoyable, since it gave me a chance to interact with the guests. Here I am at the lectern (click to enlarge):

My camera must have been set wrong, because all five images Andrew made came out either dark or blurry. By the way, a podium is what you stand on. A lectern is what holds your papers. (See what I mean about pedantry?)

Here.

Kemo Sabe:

For your consideration.

If westerns like Unforgiven or The Wild Bunch have a particular appeal in showing the end of an era, I suggest they also portray the end of masculine men with all their warts and cruelties . . . and honor. A certain bond manly men had with America is shown coming to an end with the coup de grace being Brokeback Mountain.

Will

Inscription, n. Something written on another thing. Inscriptions are of many kinds, but mostly memorial, intended to commemorate the fame of some illustrious person and hand down to distant ages the record of his services and virtues. To this class of inscriptions belongs the name of John Smith, penciled on the Washington monument. Following are examples of memorial inscriptions on tombstones: (See EPITAPH.)

"In the sky my soul is found,
And my body in the ground.
By and by my body'll rise
To my spirit in the skies,
Soaring up to Heaven's gate.
1878."

"Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree. Cut down May 9th, 1862, aged 27 yrs. 4 mos. and 12 ds. Indigenous."

"Affliction sore long time she boar,
Phisicians was in vain,
Till Deth released the dear deceased
And left her a remain.
Gone to join Ananias in the regions of bliss."

"The clay that rests beneath this stone
As Silas Wood was widely known.
Now, lying here, I ask what good
It was to me to be S. Wood.
O Man, let not ambition trouble you,
Is the advice of Silas W."

"Richard Haymon, of Heaven. Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had the dust brushed off him Oct. 3, 1874."

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

[T]he philosopher as such can say little on the detail of political problems. Such principles as he may elicit from the facts may be applied in new circumstances, but it requires practical experience and historical knowledge as well as philosophical insight to apply them.

(J. D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 2d ed. [London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967 (1st ed. 1948)], 126)

Here.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter in Accident on a Texas Ranch" (front page, Feb. 13):

It's shameful that nearly 24 hours passed before Americans were informed that their vice president had shot a man.

Hunting accident or not, an incident of this magnitude, where the vice president seriously injured another man, is of vital importance to the nation. Thanks to the press in Corpus Christi, Tex., the public was eventually informed, in spite of the secretive vice president and his ultra-secret staff.

All life is precious. Whether sacrificed in an accident or on the battlefield, the public has the right to know.

Americans also have the right to know the level of carelessness of their vice president and the manner in which he shields himself from public scrutiny to conceal his recklessness. This is further testament to the dismal judgment of America's second-in-command.

Linda Milazzo
West Hills, Calif., Feb. 13, 2006

Prehistoric, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.

He lived in a period prehistoric,
When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.
Born later, when Clio, celestial recorder,
Set down great events in succession and order,
He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous
In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.
Orpheus Bowen.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

I still haven't made this list, but I keep hoping. To be considered an idiot by the folks who run this idiotic site would be the highest compliment a person could receive.

Here is an interesting column by Michael Barone (a graduate of Yale Law School) about the presidency. I think much of the animosity by the Left toward President Bush stems from the Clinton impeachment. It made many people seethe with resentment, which they are now directing against our current president. For them, it's payback. My advice to the Left: Get over it. Until you do, you'll be powerless. Americans want leadership, not anger. They want to look forward, not backward.

Sidgwick had a great deal of respect for common sense morality. He refers to it as “a marvellous product of nature, the result of long centuries of growth.” At the same time, Sidgwick was sufficiently skeptical of his own primary method of testing the truth of moral theories—which was, as we shall see, based on the alleged self-evidence of certain ethical axioms—to realize that it was fallible. Accordingly, he looked to common sense morality as a safeguard against error. If an apparently self-evident moral principle has consequences at odds with common sense morality, this should be a warning to us that we may be mistaken in our intuition of self-evidence.

(Peter Singer, “Sidgwick and Reflective Equilibrium,” The Monist 58 [July 1974]: 490-517, at 507-8)

2-13-86 I conducted my fourth DUI [Driving Under the Influence (of alcohol)] trial today. The client, Tom B., is a nervous fellow, but he was well-dressed and serious throughout the affair. The result? Guilty. Tom refused to submit to an intoxilyzer test at the time of his arrest, so there was only one criminal charge. I was disappointed, as I always am when my clients are found guilty, but I have no regrets. There’s nothing that I would have done differently, in retrospect. Tom, however, was devastated. He kept talking about injustice and about appealing the jury verdict, although all he faces is a fine, probation, and the [Tucson] City Court driving program. It’s his first offense, so there’s no jail time. Here are some comments on the day’s events.

(1) I reached the [law] office early, at seven o’clock. After meeting briefly with Tom to review the case and discuss strategy, I went to City Court to talk to the prosecutor (Chris Straub) and the judge (Karen Adam). We took care of voir dire questions and jury instructions and proceeded to pick a jury. (2) My cross-examination of Officer Sharon Delpino was long and intensive. She apparently had Tom write the alphabet on the hood of her police car while the engine was running, so I grilled her long and hard on the fairness of that procedure. At one point she appeared as though she were going to break into tears. That wasn’t my intention, of course, and it may even have backfired, if the jurors thought that I was browbeating her. (3) The jury was out for one and a half hours. Usually this signals acquittal for a defendant, but it was not to be. I still haven’t talked to a juror following one of my trials, so I have no idea what caused the lengthy deliberation. Tom was also found responsible by Judge Adam of speeding.

After the verdict had been rendered and the jury excused, Judge Adam commented on the trial. “I loved your closing argument,” she said to me. “It’s obvious that you teach; your argument was logical and structured. In fact, I’ve found that teachers do well in the law.” Chris then jumped in with more praise, perhaps to cheer me up. “Your cross-examination of Delpino was excellent—logical, step by step. You just drove her to the conclusion that you wanted. She had no place to go.” Judge Adam then shook her head affirmatively and said that she agreed. All this was very flattering, of course, and I blushed. But when I turned to look at Tom, all the fun and games dissipated. Tom sat there at the defense table with his head down, wondering what had happened. I then excused myself and left the courtroom. All told, I was away from my apartment for thirteen hours today. I arrived home at 7:30 P.M.

The mail brought solicitations for money from all three of the universities I attended: The University of Michigan-Flint (A.B.), Wayne State University (M.A., J.D.), and The University of Arizona (M.A., Ph.D.). If they stopped wasting so much money soliciting money, they'd have lots of money.

Omen, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

See here.

To the Editor:

I agree wholeheartedly with "Guy Walks Into a Bar," by Nicholas Kulish (The City Life, editorial, Feb. 5). Bars are no place for children, because of the drinking, the ability of the parents to drive home safely afterward, and the content of the conversations. Why should adults have to monitor what they say because of the presence of children, where no child should be?

The same goes for movie theaters. I have had plenty of film experiences spoiled by the presence of young children and babies. It's hard to keep in the mood with a 2-year-old asking questions in the next seat, and harder still to follow a plot line with a 6-month-old howling in the row behind. Not only are these children being exposed to situations that are not age-compatible, but they are often scared by the soundtracks.

Theaters should enforce the age limitations, or at the very least, charge full price for each body in the theater, whether seated or lap carried. Keep children's prices for children's movies.

Liz Amsden
Los Angeles, Feb. 6, 2006

Here is Tom Graffagnino's latest poem.

I lecture tomorrow at the Dallas Philosopher's Forum. If you're in the vicinity, stop by.

Will Nehs sent a link to this essay by Kenneth Minogue.

Here.

Here.

Here is a Frenchman's letter to the American Left. (Thanks to Noel Anderson for the link.)

Yesterday I asked for the basis of leftist distrust of President Bush. Today I got my answer. Or did I? I still don't see any basis for distrust. The president is doing the best he can to protect Americans. The war in Iraq is one battle in the war on terror. It had multiple aims, not just the aim of preventing Saddam Hussein from using weapons of mass destruction. The New York Times simply doesn't like President Bush's methods (or his style). Speaking of cherry-picking, isn't that what the Times does every day? Its goal, transparent to all but rabid leftists, is to embarrass and weaken President Bush. It cherry-picks the news to serve those purposes. The Times's slogan should be changed to "All the news that's fit to bash."

Charities know that the way to get people to give money for the feeding of starving children is to publish a picture of a starving child, seeking thereby to trigger feelings of sympathy, rather than to talk about a moral duty. (Probably most Americans would be offended to be told, other than by their own religious advisors, that it was their duty to support the needy.)

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 34 [italics in original])

Ghoul, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place. In 1640 Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightened it away with the sign of the cross. He describes it as gifted with many heads and an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more than one place at a time. The good man was coming away from dinner at the time and explains that if he had not been "heavy with eating" he would have seized the demon at all hazards. Atholston relates that a ghoul was caught by some sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury and ducked in a horsepond. (He appears to think that so distinguished a criminal should have been ducked in a tank of rose-water.) The water turned at once to blood "and so contynues unto ys daye." The pond has since been bled with a ditch. As late as the beginning of the fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place. Twenty armed men with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem, had transformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To the Editor:

Many women today think they can have full-time jobs and raise children and do everything else. They are fooling themselves. It's a myth, and women were unrealistic to think this was ever a possibility.

In this respect, men are smarter and realize that this isn't possible. They also make a choice—to be stay-at-home dads or work—and most still choose to work. They aren't rallying around a myth, saying, "It's not fair."

As women, we can't have it all, but we have come far enough to be able to make choices. The majority of us will choose whom to marry. Will we choose lazy husbands and forever complain or husbands who understand that marriage is a partnership where everyone takes a turn at emptying the dishwasher? I am glad I had the choice to choose the latter.

Christine Dye
Cedar Grove, N.J., Feb. 8, 2006

Here.

Stanley Fish is a law professor at Florida International University, which is odd, since he has no legal credentials. Here is his New York Times op-ed column on the cartoon war.

Herbert Lionel Adolphus (H. L. A.) Hart (1907-1992) was the greatest philosopher of law of the 20th century. Here is a review, by Harvard professor Frederick Schauer, of a new biography of Hart. Here is Hart's chef d'oeuvre.

Here.

As usual, Shelbie ran ahead of me this morning during our ramble. Two kids had entered the woods ahead of us and she wanted to check up on them. As I neared the woods she had entered, she bolted out about 40 yards away from me—on the path we made during our twice-daily walks. I knew right away that she had panicked and was heading for home. She must have thought I was ahead of her rather than behind her. I yelled, but to no avail. She was a tan blur against the brown weeds of the meadow. My only worry, as I headed for home, was that she would not look while crossing the street and be struck by a vehicle. To my surprise, she stopped when she reached the street. She looked around, noticed me about 100 yards away, and sprinted back. I wanted to yell at her for not paying attention, but in a way she did the right thing. We completed our walk. Shelbie's behavior seemed programmed, like a computer. Once the panic program starting running (pun intended), there was no stopping it.

Watch this video of law professor Glenn Reynolds (a.k.a. InstaPundit).

Apart from cognitive differences, the sexes also differ in temperament and personality. On most measures of direct competitiveness, for example, males score higher than females. Competition tends to be a more positive experience for males, and adding a competitive element to a task increases the intrinsic motivation of males but does not do so for females. The perception that an academic program is competitive tends to result in improved performance by males but decreased performance by females. Relatedly, males also engage more than females in dominance behaviors—that is, behaviors intended to achieve or maintain a position of high relative status—in order to obtain power, influence, or resources.

The sexes also vary in risk preference, with males exhibiting a greater preference for both physical and nonphysical risks. Indeed, sex is the variable most predictive of the extent of participation in high-risk recreation. Men are also disproportionately represented in physically risky employment, as reflected in the fact that over 90% of all workplace deaths in the U.S. are males. Commenting on their study of female executives, Margaret Hennig and Anne Jardim observed that “men see risk as loss or gain; winning or losing; danger or opportunity,” while “women see risk as entirely negative. It is loss, danger, injury, ruin, hurt.”

Females also tend to exhibit more nurturing behavior than males, both inside and outside the family. The greater female interest in infants—present from childhood—increases at puberty. The more social orientation of females is reflected in a consistently found sex difference in “object versus person” orientation, with females tending to be more “person-oriented” and males tending to be more “object-oriented.”

(Kingsley R. Browne, “Women in Science: Biological Factors Should Not Be Ignored,” Cardozo Women’s Law Journal 11 [2005]: 509-28, at 515-6 [footnotes omitted])

See here. Note that I've had four visitors from Mongolia. (Roll your mouse over the map for details.)

Today is my silver anniversary. It's been 25 years since I consumed red meat. See here. No cow, pig, sheep, or deer has suffered or died on my account.

Why is academia so biased toward leftism? No reasonable person can deny that this is the case; the only question is why. There may be (and probably are) several explanatory factors. I’ve written before that leftism is feminine and rightism masculine. See the work of Carol Gilligan and others. It’s no surprise to me that women are attracted to academia, since it’s a safe, secure place with little competitiveness compared to, say, commerce. I believe a certain type of male is attracted to academia: one who is effeminate (by which I mean sensitive, articulate, and unaggressive).

The testable hypothesis is this: Male academics have lower levels of testosterone, on average, than men generally. Once ensconced in the academy, to which he is attracted because of its safety and security, the man becomes even more like his female colleagues, since doing so is in his long-term interest both as a scholar and as a colleague. There is also the well-known fact that men subscribe to feminism (or express sympathy for feminist ideals) in order to maximize their reproductive potential. When you add it all up, you get a feminized academy. It consists of aggressive women and effeminate men. They think alike, act alike, feel alike, and share the same basic values. Perhaps there has been research conducted on this issue. If so, and if you’re aware of it, please bring it to my attention.

See here.

I’m curious as to what my readers think about the Olympics. As you probably know, the Winter Olympics began yesterday in Turin, Italy. Today is the first day of events. When I was a kid, I watched every minute I could of both the Winter and the Summer Olympics. The athletes were gods to me, and I was too young to know about, or to be bothered by, such things as nationalism, commercialism, and sentimentalism. During my 20s and 30s, I was most troubled by the nationalism of the games. It seemed stupid and pointless to divide athletes into countries, at least in those sports in which one competed against other individuals. Who cares if X is Norwegian! He’s an athlete, trying to beat other athletes, and that’s all that matters.

I’m no longer bothered by nationalism, perhaps because I now view it as a force for good rather than bad in world affairs. (Try to imagine a world government. It would be a totalitarian nightmare.) What bothers me now are commercialism and sentimentalism. I realize that there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, and that to view the games, one must pay in one way or another. Still, I resent being taken to commercials every couple of minutes. I put up with commercials for baseball games and other television programs, but all that shows is that some things are worse (to me) than putting up with commercials. What do I mean by sentimentalism? I mean the pathetic attempts to personalize the athletes. Every athlete has overcome tremendous obstacles to reach the games. Often, instead of showing us the action on the ice or snow, we’re forced to watch little documentaries with sappy music. I’m sorry, but I don’t give a damn about the obstacles these people have overcome and I don’t want to meet their families. I want to see world-class athletic performance. Show me the action!

I also resent having to wade through figure skating and hockey to get to the events I want to watch, such as speed skating and downhill skiing. Figure skating is not a sport, okay? It has no business being in the Olympics. Hockey is a sport, but not one worth taking seriously (except by Canadians). In the Summer Olympics, I have to wade through gymnastics and basketball to get to track-and-field events. Same problem. I wish I could go directly to the events in which I’m interested and skip the boring stuff. The network that broadcasts the games probably thinks I’ll put up with the bad stuff to watch the good stuff. Nope. I skip all of it.

How much of the disagreement between the Left and the Right over President Bush (or the Bush administration) comes down to trust? The Left seems not to trust the president, while the Right does. I have no fear whatsoever of being spied on by the federal government. I trust President Bush not to abuse his powers by trying to dig up dirt on citizens. I believe that his intentions are pure: He wants to protect Americans from an avowed enemy. Leftists seem to think that President Bush is out to get them. They imply—and sometimes say—that he is trying to gain power at the expense of (1) other branches of the federal government, (2) state governments, and (3) individuals. What else could explain the labels “imperial presidency” and “unitary executive”? Trust mustn’t be blind, obviously, but neither should distrust. I’ve been watching President Bush closely since he was governor of my state. I’ve seen nothing to suggest that he’s untrustworthy, or that he has ulterior motives, or that he’s a dishonorable person or public servant. What does the Left see that I don’t? What is the basis of their distrust?

Cross, n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity, but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been believed to be identical with the crux ansata of the ancient phallic worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that, to the rites of primitive peoples. We have to-day the White Cross as a symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent neutrality in war. Having in mind the former, the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape smites the lyre to the effect following:

"Be good, be good!" the sisterhood
Cry out in holy chorus,
And, to dissuade from sin, parade
Their various charms before us.

But why, O why, has ne'er an eye
Seen her of winsome manner
And youthful grace and pretty face
Flaunting the White Cross banner?

Now where's the need of speech and screed
To better our behaving?
A simpler plan for saving man
(But, first, is he worth saving?)

Is, dears, when he declines to flee
From bad thoughts that beset him,
Ignores the Law as 't were a straw,
And wants to sin—don't let him.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

To the Editor:

I have never been more outraged at my government than I am right now.

Since 2001, the Bush administration has taken every opportunity to use fear as a political tool. It has painted its opponents as naïve, weak-kneed traitors.

It has done everything it could to suggest that disaster would befall our country if President Bush were not kept in power.

Disaster did befall one of our greatest cities last August. And now we know that the White House saw it coming and did nothing.

Thousands of innocent Americans survived that disastrous storm, but could not survive the incompetence of a government run by people who do not believe that government can be a force for good.

This administration is not to be trusted. Not ever.

Mark Eshelman
Madison, N.J., Feb. 10, 2006

It was bound to happen. Wikipedia, the open-source encyclopedia, is being abused. See here for a New York Times editorial on the subject. There are two types of abuse. The first is making someone look better than he or she is. The second is making someone look worse than he or she is. By the way, I notice that Brian Leiter has a glowing Wikipedia entry. It appears to have been written by Pablo Stafforini ("Sir Paul"), one of Leiter's leftist sycophants. It reads like something Leiter, a well-known braggart, would have written—and perhaps he had something to do with it. Someone should bring the entry in line with reality by pointing out the many cases in which Leiter has abused others.

Here is Ann Coulter's latest column. Her literary style might be called "righteous sarcasm." But it would be a mistake to mistake her flippant tone for lack of intelligence. She is obviously very bright. Perhaps that's why leftists such as Brian Leiter hate her. She can run intellectual circles around them—and they know it. If you can't outwit 'em, abuse 'em.

Winter is passing quickly at Fort Clatsop. In a little over a month, when spring arrives, the Corps of Discovery will abandon the fort and paddle up the Columbia River on its homeward journey. Today's journal entries provide a glimpse of life at the fort and at the saltworks, where sea water is kept boiling 24 hours a day. Alexander Willard cut his knee with his tomahawk, but managed to make it back to the fort. He reported that two of the men at the saltworks, George Gibson and William Bratton, were ill. Gibson was so sick that he couldn't get up, much less walk on his own. The following day, Lewis and Clark sent a party for him. Lewis was the Corps' physician. By the way, Willard lived until 1865. He probably carried the tomahawk scar for the rest of his life. Can't you see him showing it to his grandchildren? And yes, he almost certainly had grandchildren, since he fathered 12 children after marrying in 1807. Gibson died in 1809. Bratton, who would later have a serious back ailment, died in 1841.

Here is David Corn's post about Iran. Speaking of lunatics, has anyone seen Lawrence O'Donnell lately? I haven't heard a peep from him since he went berserk while questioning John O'Neill of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Banishment couldn't have happened to a nicer man.

Be honest. You've been wondering where the current Supreme Court justices were born. My Wikipedia research, which took all of five minutes, discloses the following birthplaces:

John Roberts: Buffalo, New York
Anthony Kennedy: Sacramento, California
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Brooklyn, New York
Stephen Breyer: San Francisco, California
John Paul Stevens: Chicago, Illinois
Antonin Scalia: Trenton, New Jersey
David Souter: Melrose, Massachusetts
Samuel Alito: Trenton, New Jersey
Clarence Thomas: Pin Point, Georgia

That's five Northeasterners, two Westerners, a Midwesterner, and a Southerner. Go back to what you were doing.

Addendum: Now you're wondering why I entitled this post "Texana." It's because the inspiration for this post was Sandra Day O'Connor. The other day, I learned (to my surprise) that she was born in Texas. The late William Rehnquist was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I just returned from a lecture by Martha Nussbaum (a classicist) entitled “Radical Evil in Liberal Democracies.” I don’t know why she comes to UTA, but she’s been here at least three times in the past few years. The lecture was interesting, but I didn’t detect any argument. It was more like, “Here is how I wish things were.” I’m glad things aren’t the way she wishes they were. In fact, Nussbaum’s world is a nightmare of diversity (all kinds), cosmopolitanism, open sexuality, wealth redistribution, and tolerance of those who are intolerant. Her ideal world is a commune. Isn’t it interesting how two highly educated, equally informed people can look upon the same situation and evaluate it differently? This is why politics is important. My goal is to keep people like Nussbaum from getting power, for she would use it to implement her vision and values, which I find horrific. As long as she is lecturing to fellow travelers—and the audience was definitely traveling with her this afternoon—she won’t make any difference.

Addendum: Here is an essay by Nussbaum on some of the topics she discussed today.

Here.

To the Editor:

David Brooks brilliantly describes the fundamental clash of two very different civilizations and the philosophical cleavage of East and West. Unfortunately, his column does not note that this gap has been worsened by our tragic involvement in Iraq.

Unless we resolve to put an end to our involvement, we can be assured that the two civilizations will drift further and further apart, with people everywhere in perpetual danger.

Samuel J. Landau
New York, Feb. 9, 2006

Here.

Minor, adj. Less objectionable.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

2-9-86 Brrr! Machine that I am when it comes to riding, I was not deterred by today’s high temperature of fifty degrees [Fahrenheit]. Fifty degrees! In Tucson! That’s less than half of what it was this past July and August. Several miles into the trip, I put on brown, cloth gloves to keep my hands warm. (What foresight to bring them!) There was snow on the mountains in every direction. First I was bombarded by pea-sized hail, then sleet, and finally rain—several times. My clothing was soaked twice, once on the way to the cave [Colossal Cave] and then again on the way home. I shivered and cursed the weather throughout. People in passing cars must have thought that I was crazy. But of course I never considered abandoning the ride. I’ve got a schedule to keep. Come rain, snow, sleet, hail, or hundred-degree temperatures, I’ll be out there on Sunday, pedalling [sic; should be “pedaling”] away. In fact, today I achieved my third-best gross-average speed ever: 14.28 miles per hour. I also passed the 4300-mile mark for overall riding. Usually, I pass dozens of riders on my cave ride, but today I saw nobody. That alone should tell you how crazy and determined I am.

A religion that does not require any sacrifices of its votaries is unlikely to have much influence on people's behavior. The religiosity of Americans, so surprising to European observers, is by this standard behaviorally rather meaningless and social conservatives are right therefore to be dissatisfied with it. Apart from Mormons, Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Orthodox Jews, and members of a few other sects, religious Americans do not differ greatly in their outlook and behavior from nonreligious ones. And only Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and some Pentecostals actually reject science in matters vital to their personal welfare. If the economist's concept of "revealed preference" is substituted for professed preference, the preference of most Americans is to live a secular life.

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 292)

There are four ways to change the world:

1. Force.
2. Coercion.
3. Manipulation.
4. Persuasion.

Of the four, only the last is respectful of the person. I also believe that it's the most secure form of change. This is why I say that PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is bad for animals. Its chosen methods are coercion (changing the law) and manipulation (appealing to emotion, rhetoric, vanity, celebrity, &c). If you really care about animals and want to make things better for them, you will try to persuade rationally. This involves showing your interlocutor that he or she already believes, without realizing it, that it's wrong to treat animals as resources for human use and consumption. Rational persuasion is not only the most effective means (in the long run) to helping animals; it's the right means. See here for a superb example of rational persuasion. I don't know how anyone can read this essay and not become a vegetarian.

Here.

I lectured this morning on psychological egoism (the doctrine that all human behavior is motivated by self-interest, i.e., that altruism is a myth). Along the way, I paused to distinguish between egoism and egotism. The former is a doctrine, the latter a (bad) character trait. I thought of several synonyms. Egotistical people are vain, conceited, big-headed, haughty, and self-centered; they have an inflated sense of self-worth; they're self-important; they're stuck up; they put on airs. Can you think of other synonyms? No thesauri allowed! (By the way, Bryan A. Garner says that "thesauruses" and "thesauri" appear equally often. He prefers the "home-grown" "thesauruses." I prefer "thesauri," just as I prefer "syllabi" to "syllabuses" and "stadia" to "stadiums.")

Redundant, adj. Superfluous; needless; de trop.

The Sultan said: "There's evidence abundant
To prove this unbelieving dog redundant."
To whom the Grand Vizier, with mien impressive,
Replied: "His head, at least, appears excessive."
Habeed Suleiman.

Mr. Debs is a redundant citizen.—Theodore Roosevelt.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

One of my students from 15 years ago found my blog and wrote to me. He and his brother have a blog and are trying to start a new political party, the Liberal Capitalist Party. I wish them well.

To the Editor:

Re "Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities" (front page, Feb. 8):

The Democrats need to take a page from the Republicans' playbook and attack the other party on its perceived strengths.

President Bush's operatives took on Senator John McCain and then Senator John Kerry on their war heroism. The Democrats don't need to be nearly as dishonest to raise questions about President Bush on security issues.

After all, he did ignore the warnings about Sept. 11; he did freeze for seven minutes when he learned of the attack; he did leave the capture of Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora largely to Afghan tribesmen, allowing him to escape; he did transfer most of our military and intelligence resources from Afghanistan to Iraq; and now he says he needs to bypass the law to keep us safe.

Can't the Democrats do something with this?

Robert Resnikoff
Middletown, Conn., Feb. 8, 2006

Here.

Dr John J. Ray, my polymathic friend Down Under, has some reflections on apathy. John must be getting old; he's reminiscing about his college days. Then again, he has a son in college, so maybe the reminiscence was brought on by conversation. In any event, I enjoyed it.

Here is a well-written and interesting essay by Claudia Rosett. To repeat some things I've said in recent days, the cartoons depicting Muhammad should not have been published, since they are deeply offensive to Muslims. Religious beliefs are not just any old beliefs. They are core beliefs that give people's lives meaning and shape their identity. Religion should be respected. But publication of the cartoons doesn't excuse the violence being perpetrated by Muslims throughout the world. It, too, is wrong. There is no incompatibility in saying both that the publication is wrong and that the violence is wrong, all things considered.

Addendum: Don't say that Muslims mock Judaism and Christianity. They shouldn't. It's wrong. It falls under the same principle I expressed in the main paragraph.

Addendum 2: I keep hearing it said that the Danish newspaper had a right to publish the cartoons. I don't know whether it had a legal right (under Danish law), so let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it had a moral right. This doesn't dispose of the issue. There's a difference between having a right and exercising it. Sometimes it's wrong to exercise a right, just as sometimes it's wrong to punish the guilty (or to mete out the punishment that's deserved). Mercy is a virtue, is it not? Mercy is doing less than you have a right to do, out of consideration for the defendant and his or her family. Why isn't respect for other people's strongly held beliefs a virtue? "Ought" may imply "can," but "can" doesn't imply "ought"!

I agree with this.

Still no mention of the cartoon war on Democratic Underground. See here. To the Left, the cartoon war is a distraction—or, in Brian Leiter's words, an "unfortunate intervention." The Left wants to focus on the Abramoff scandal, Social Security, wiretapping, Coretta Scott King's politicized funeral, Hurricane Katrina, weapons of mass destruction, Osama bin Laden, race relations, and other subjects. Why? Because they provide a basis for criticizing—i.e., attacking—President Bush. To the Left, it's all about President Bush, a.k.a. Chimpy W. Hitler. He is their bête noire, their evil genius, their brooding omnipresence, their mortal enemy, their raison d'être, their bogeyman—and, invariably, their Waterloo. Can you say "obsession"? Somebody needs to get these people a life.

Addendum: Arianna Huffington thinks the Democrat Party should challenge President Bush on the national-security issue. One little problem. Americans don't trust the Democrats on national security. But hey, it's worth a try! I mean, you're already losing every time around. Why should it matter whether you lose by a little or by a lot?

Sean Pelette sent a link to this story about a Canadian philosopher who was ordered by his university to remove Muhammad cartoons from his office door. The professor says he will take the cartoons into the classroom to discuss them with his students. What do you think? Should he have posted the cartoons?

Here.

In brief, our moral consciousness suggests that punishment, to be just, must be merited by the committing of an offence. It follows from this that punishment, to be justly administered, must involve care in determining whether the offending person is really a responsible agent. And it implies that the punishment must not be excessive. It must not exceed what is appropriate to the crime. We must always be able to say of the person punished that he deserved to be punished as he was punished. It is not enough to say that good results were achieved by punishing him. It is logically possible to say that the punishment was useful but undeserved, and deserved but not useful. It is not possible to say that the punishment was just although undeserved.

(H. J. McCloskey, "A Non-Utilitarian Approach to Punishment," in Contemporary Utilitarianism, ed. Michael D. Bayles [Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1968], 239-59, at 242 [essay first published in 1965])

One of my readers, Alison, brought this blog to my attention. Thanks!

To the Editor:

Re "Those Danish Cartoons" (editorial, Feb. 7):

Haven't we learned that, in general, Muslims do not see the humor when their religion is mocked? Newspapers have the right to publish what they wish. I also have the legal right to say something to someone that I know will push a hot button, egg that person on to great anger or even violence.

Having the legal right does not make it the smart or the right thing to do.

David S. Conner
East Lansing, Mich., Feb. 7, 2006

Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

The cabbage is so called from Cabagius, a prince who on ascending the throne issued a decree appointing a High Council of Empire consisting of the members of his predecessor's Ministry and the cabbages in the royal garden. When any of his Majesty's measures of state policy miscarried conspicuously it was gravely announced that several members of the High Council had been beheaded, and his murmuring subjects were appeased.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

Barack Obama has it right: The Democrat Party has spent too much time reacting to President Bush and not enough time acting. I still don't understand the leftist hatred of President Bush. It's everywhere: in Paul Krugman's semiweekly columns; at the Democratic Underground; at the Daily Kos; in academic blogs; in Hollywood; in journalism. If leftists spent one-tenth as much time thinking as they do emoting, they'd have policy proposals to submit for the approval of the American people. Ironically, leftists think they're smarter than President Bush. Ha! He has almost single-handedly destroyed them. In the chess game of American politics, he is the grandmaster.

Impostor, n. A rival aspirant to public honors.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

See here.

Here is an interesting new blog.

Left, n. 1. A group or section favoring liberalism, social reform, etc. (orig. the more radical section of a continental legislature, seated on the president's left); such persons collectively. 2. The favored haunt of a spineless, brainless, feckless, and reckless creature that prefers the security of illusion and like-mindedness to the challenges of independent thought, forthright debate, and manly struggle. 3. The opposite of right.

Here.

Here is an essay by Dr Ernest Partridge, a philosopher. It sounds like he would rather live in some other country. Perhaps he should. Then everyone will be happy.

To the Editor:

Re "U.S. Says It Also Finds Cartoons of Muhammad Offensive" (news article, Feb. 4):

The decision by major newspapers, including The New York Times, not to demonstrate support for free speech by printing cartoons that are offensive to some is an abdication of your responsibility.

To suggest that it is irresponsible to allow free expression of ideas because it might incite a radical faction to violence validates the existence of these radicals, empowering them to impose their will on the world.

The world need not be more accommodating of Islam, but rather Islam needs to fit into a world community filled with diverse opinions and points of view.

As long as the global Muslim community supports and gives license to the radical imams, Islam will be subject to ridicule from the free world.

It is up to the Muslim community to rein in these radicals; it is up to us to demonstrate by our actions that they cannot impose their will on the world.

While we certainly do not need more violence in this world, we cannot compromise the very essence of the freedom we hold so dear by appeasing the radicals.

Christopher Shea
New York, Feb. 4, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Here is today's New York Times editorial opinion on the cartoon war. Note the title: "Those Danish Cartoons." It reminds me of "That Darn Cat!" Does the Times realize that World War III may have begun? The Times no longer determines what is news. Sometimes the blogosphere determines what is news and mainstream media organizations such as the Times must play catch-up. The Times is still pooh-poohing the story, perhaps thinking and hoping it will go away so the Times can get back to its real love: Bush-bashing.

Jeff Percifield of Beautiful Atrocities nailed it in his comment on my post "Childish Leftists." The Left has been silent on the cartoon war because the war doesn't fit into its script of affluent Westerners—especially evil Republicans—oppressing everyone else. This demonstrates the confusion. The author, a "scientist," hates religion and is proud to say so, but doesn't want to be too hard on the poor Muslims who are fomenting violence, for that would align him with imperialistic Westerners. The man is a joke. By the way, Brian Leiter, who is never at a loss for words, even when he doesn't know what he's talking about, has nothing to say about the cartoon war. See here. Sometimes the world just leaves leftists confused and speechless.

Here.

I got to wondering what leftist intellectuals think about the violence being perpetrated by Muslims in various parts of the world. After all, leftists profess to care about people. Won't they condemn it in no uncertain terms? Brian Leiter has five guest-bloggers, any one of whom could post something about the violence. Alas, nobody has. William Edmundson, Ph.D., J.D., has a really neat post about the Super Bowl and beer. I went to Crooked Timber. I found only one post, and I don't know what to make of it. I read the hundred or so comments. Perhaps I'm not getting it, but most of the commenters seem to think the violence is funny. Either that or they're using humor to evade responsibility. Many leftists don't know what to make of the Muslim violence. To condemn it would be to take a stand, and that seems so, well, grown-up and old-fashioned. The violence can't be blamed on President Bush, or you can be sure the Left would be all over this issue. Leftists hate Christianity, since they view it as an oppressor religion, but they refuse to say anything even remotely critical about Islam or Muslims, perhaps because that would make them (the critics) seem imperialistic. Better to joke about the violence. Better to retreat into irony and sarcasm. To take a stand would require careful thought and moral backbone, neither of which is conspicuous by its presence among leftists.

Here.

Taking all these processes into account, we get the following picture. People are qualitatively the same but may differ quantitatively. The quantitative differences are small in biological terms, and they are found to a far greater extent among the individual members of an ethnic group or race than between ethnic groups or races. These are reassuring findings. Any racist ideology that holds that the members of an ethnic group are all alike, or that one ethnic group differs fundamentally from another, is based on false assumptions about our biology.

But biology does not let us off the hook entirely. Individuals are not genetically identical, and it is unlikely that the differences affect every part of the body except the brain. And though genetic differences between races and ethnic groups are much smaller than those among individuals, they are not nonexistent (as we see in their ability to give rise to physical differences and to different susceptibilities to genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs and sickle cell anemia). Nowadays it is popular to say that races do not exist but are purely social constructions. Though that is certainly true of bureaucratic pigeonholes such as “colored,” “Hispanic,” “Asian/Pacific Islander,” and the one-drop rule for being “black,” it is an overstatement when it comes to human differences in general. The biological anthropologist Vincent Sarich points out that a race is just a very large and partly inbred family. Some racial distinctions thus may have a degree of biological reality, even though they are not exact boundaries between fixed categories. Humans, having recently evolved from a single founder population, are all related, but Europeans, having mostly bred with other Europeans for millennia, are on average more closely related to other Europeans than they are to Africans or Asians, and vice versa. Because oceans, deserts, and mountain ranges have prevented people from choosing mates at random in the past, the large inbred families we call races are still discernible, each with a somewhat different distribution of gene frequencies. In theory, some of the varying genes could affect personality or intelligence (though any such differences would at most apply to averages, with vast overlap between the group members). This is not to say that such genetic differences are expected or that we have evidence for them, only that they are biologically possible.

(Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature [New York: Viking, 2002], 143-4 [italics in original])

Here is Ted Baiamonte's post "Anal Retentive Republicans." I added Ted's blog to the blogroll.

Frying-Pan, n. One part of the penal apparatus employed in that punitive institution, a woman's kitchen. The frying-pan was invented by Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died without baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith. The following lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter) seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to this world; but as the consequences of its employment in this life reach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on the other side, rewarding its devotees:

Old Nick was summoned to the skies.
Said Peter: "Your intentions
Are good, but you lack enterprise
Concerning new inventions.

"Now, broiling is an ancient plan
Of torment, but I hear it
Reported that the frying-pan
Sears best the wicked spirit.

"Go get one—fill it up with fat—
Fry sinners brown and good in't."
"I know a trick worth two o' that,"
Said Nick—"I'll cook their food in't."

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

Here are some of my favorite bloggers (in no particular order):

Dr John J. Ray (Dissecting Leftism)
Steve Rugg (JusTalkin)
Peg Kaplan (what if?)
Jeff Percifield (Beautiful Atrocities)
Ally Eskin (Who Moved My Truth?)
Dr Bill Keezer (Bill's Comments)
Dr Bill Vallicella (Maverick Philosopher)
Michelle Malkin (Michelle Malkin)
Donald L. Luskin (The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid)
Norm Weatherby (Quantum Thought)
Kim du Toit (The Other Side)
Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit)

If you think I'm missing a good blogger, let me know.

I don't know about you, but I'm glad my government is trying to intercept terrorist communications. Leftists make it sound as though there is only one value: privacy. I value security as well. Here is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's column about the necessity of wiretapping.

Here.

Here.

Dr John J. Ray of Brisbane, Australia, pays tribute to a great man: Ronald Wilson Reagan. Ronnie was born 95 years ago today.

Khursh Mian Acevedo sent a link to this story.

As threatened, here are images from yesterday's West End Ride (from Arlington to Dallas and back). This is the group of riders I was in as we neared the West End (click to enlarge):

Here is the West End, from the street in front of Spaghetti Warehouse. My group was among the first to arrive, at 10:45. As I stood waiting for the door of the restaurant to be opened, I watched many other groups come in:

Here I am, sandwiched between two very old, very slow, and very cranky men, Julius Bejsovec (left) and David Somerville (right):

Here I am, after lunch:

A good time was had by all.

To the Editor:

Re "When Trust in Doctors Erodes, Other Treatments Fill the Void" ("Being a Patient" series, front page, Feb. 3):

As a medical doctor who has practiced "mainstream" medicine for the last 18 years, I believe wholeheartedly in the potential for alternative treatments to help patients, and I do not condone the conduct of impersonal or incapable medical doctors.

But given the environment in which we all practice, it is unfair to publish an article comparing kind, caring providers of alternative medicine to their heartless, incompetent medical colleagues.

To make the comparison more fair, we first need to level the playing field.

My proposal would be to subject all practitioners of alternative medicine to years of the following: unrelenting government oversight; fees limited by government bureaucrats and profiteering managed-care companies; a legal system that necessitates malpractice insurance costing a significant portion of their annual incomes; Food and Drug Administration oversight and approval of all treatments before their use; and the very high expectations of patients resulting from years of unparalleled lifesaving and life-extending care and treatments.

Then, and only then, would you be able to write an article comparing patients' experience with both types of health care providers.

Mitchell B. Stein, M.D.
Mount Kisco, N.Y., Feb. 3, 2006

Here is a story about Hillary Clinton.

2-5-86 . . . This morning, before teaching my [Introduction to Philosophy] class, I saw a man rummaging around the newspaper machines in the Student Union Building looking for money. He appeared to be crippled and was wearing shorts in this cool weather, so I quietly offered to assist him. “Sir,” I said, “can I give you some money?” He looked at me as if I were a leper and shrieked “No!” I was taken aback. Here was a man scrapping for change, and he turns down a certain donation. Perhaps he was offended by my offer of assistance. If so, I apologize; I was just acting out of instinct—a laudable instinct, I think. I was frankly surprised at his reaction.

Monosyllabic, adj. Composed of words of one syllable, for literary babes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound by appropriate googoogling. The words are commonly Saxon—that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.

The man who writes in Saxon
Is the man to use an ax on.
Judibras.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To the Editor:

Re Nicholas D. Kristof's Jan. 31 column about obesity, and his argument that we should use stairs instead of elevators:

A few years ago, I worked as a lawyer on the 25th floor of a skyscraper. The ground floor had a gym full of StairMasters. I couldn't bring myself to run in one spot like a gerbil, but building management refused to allow me into the stairwell, using the one reason that justifies everything in America today: safety.

I used the full force and training of my Harvard Law School education to fight for the right to use the stairs. I failed miserably.

The root cause of obesity in American isn't Coca-Cola. It's a culture that is so alienated from everything natural that even the body is a chore and fitness is something to accomplish, like brushing your teeth or doing your taxes.

Alexander Boldizar
New York, Jan. 31, 2006

Every Super Bowl Sunday, bicyclists converge on Dallas's West End from all parts of the Metroplex. I did my first West End Ride in 1990. Today's ride was my 15th in 17 years. It was cold and wet a year ago, but today it was dry and mostly sunny, albeit cold and windy. The crosswind was so stiff on the way back that my bike was at an angle even though I was going straight. I had a good time. I met a few friends at Spaghetti Warehouse, had a nice lunch, and rode back on my own. All told, I covered 44.6 miles. I'll post images shortly.

Here.

Kevin Stroup sent a link to this interesting essay.

Here is a review of James Risen's new book about the Central Intelligence Agency.

Here.

Judges in foreign countries do not have the slightest democratic legitimacy in a U.S. context. The votes of foreign electorates, the judicial confirmation procedures (if any) in foreign nations, are not events in our democracy. To cite foreign decisions in order to establish an international consensus that should have weight with U.S. courts is like subjecting legislation enacted by Congress to review by the United Nations General Assembly. The Supreme Court would not only be making a juridical error, but also acting imprudently, if it asked the American people (as one Justice [Stephen Breyer] did in an opinion) to accept that decisions by the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, one of the world's most disordered nations, should influence decisions by our Supreme Court.

(Richard A. Posner, "The Supreme Court, 2004 Term—Foreword: A Political Court," Harvard Law Review 119 [November 2005]: 31-102, at 88-9 [footnote omitted])

Today's Dallas Morning News reports that Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow, who were engaged to be married, are separating. I can't say that I'm surprised. In fact, I expected it. No self-respecting man will play second fiddle to a woman. Sheryl Crow has a career of her own that would never allow her to be a devoted companion to Lance. Men are hard-wired to want nurturing women. Women are hard-wired to want providers. Crow's musical career means that she can't be Lance's nurturer and that she doesn't need a provider. I hope she finds someone, especially since she's 43 years old. Lance will have no trouble finding someone—if he hasn't already. He's 34 years old and in the prime of life.

Addendum: I hope Lance goes back to the lovely and athletic Kristin, who is the mother of his three children. When they separated, it was said that she didn't want to be married to someone who was gone all the time. Now that Lance has retired as a cyclist, he can stay home with her and their children. Go back to her, Lance! Don't be a fool.

Werewolf, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a bestial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane as is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.

Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human form during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran."

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Stanford's law school is no longer represented on the United States Supreme Court. Both William Rehnquist, who was recently replaced by John Roberts Jr, and Sandra Day O'Connor, who was recently replaced by Samuel Alito Jr, are graduates of Stanford Law School. Five of the present nine justices are graduates of Harvard Law School. Two are graduates of Yale Law School. One is a graduate of Columbia Law School. One is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law. Here is a breakdown:

John Roberts Jr: Harvard
Antonin Scalia: Harvard
Anthony Kennedy: Harvard
Stephen Breyer: Harvard
David Souter: Harvard
Clarence Thomas: Yale
Samuel Alito Jr: Yale
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Columbia
John Paul Stevens: Northwestern

Eight of the nine justices are from Ivy League schools. All nine are from private universities.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "Didn't See It Coming, Again" (column, Feb. 1):

Maureen Dowd highlights a major deficiency of the Bush administration: an intellectual inability to anticipate problems and plan accordingly.

This recurring theme is exemplified by the comments of Condoleezza Rice, when she was national security adviser, that "I don't think anybody could have predicted" the 9/11 attacks, and again, as secretary of state, that "nobody saw it coming," referring to the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections.

It is quite simply the business of capable government to account for such contingencies and to operate in a proactive rather than a reactive mode.

The Bush presidency has been a dismal failure in this regard. It appears constantly to make poor decisions, fail to anticipate the ramifications of its actions and then move to political damage-control mode when the situation becomes a fiasco.

The ultimate responsibility for this unhappy state of affairs lies with the American people, who appear to prefer electing a folksy president one could share a drink with rather than an intellectual, competent, well-read statesman who would more competently meet the high demands of the presidency.

Deepak Doraiswamy
Hillsborough, N.J., Feb. 2, 2006

Here are some essays about judicial confirmation hearings.

Judge Richard A. Posner makes a good point (as usual) in his discussion of Supreme Court justices. Presidents naturally want their appointees to serve for as long as possible, but "The younger the judge, the less fixed his views—and the more time he has in which to change them" (Richard A. Posner, "The Supreme Court, 2004 Term—Foreword: A Political Court," Harvard Law Review 119 [November 2005]: 31-102, at 80, n. 138). Take me, for example. Six years ago, at the age of 42, I was a fire-breathing leftist. Suppose (God forbid!) that Bill Clinton had appointed me to a federal appellate judgeship. I would now be a conservative judge with more than 30 years of service ahead of him. John Roberts is 51. Samuel Alito is 55. It's unlikely that they'll change very much, if at all, from here on out.

Today’s national Democratic Party needs a forced march to reality. But there are no drill instructors or generals who have the “gravitas” to do it, and there are not enough troops willing to make the long march to reality. It’s too easy, too comfortable and too lucrative to just keep sucking up to the status quo. Drink a latte, catch a wave, and blame it on the “dumb people” just as London’s Daily Mirror did on the front page the day after the election. The headline read “How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?” Or bask in the elitist glow of opinion makers like Gar[r]y Wills, Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and Chris Matthews who claimed they could not believe how many “intolerant” and “ignorant” Americans were out there. But we shouldn’t be surprised—the Josephus Chardonnay crowd long ago usurped the reins of the Democratic Party from Joe Six-pack.

(Zell Miller, A Deficit of Decency [Macon, GA: Stroud & Hall Publishers, 2005], 101)

2-3-86 I’ve finally completed my survey of reasoning and basic concepts, so today I lectured to my [Introduction to Philosophy] class on religion. The first argument that we take up is the Ontological Argument, which purports to establish the existence of God by showing that the very concept of God presupposes existence. Since we have the concept, it follows, deductively, that God exists. Or so the argument goes. It’s one of the oldest and toughest of all philosophical arguments. I always enjoy teaching it, because each time I do, I learn something new. The argument raises important and interesting questions about metaphysics, logic, epistemology, and even value. I hope my students enjoy it as much as I do.

This afternoon I presented a short paper in my ethics seminar on the subject of utilitarianism. The point of departure was John Rawls’s famous article “Two Concepts of Rules,” but I went quickly from there to a general discussion of utilitarianism, drawing distinctions and exploring several arguments. [John Rawls, “Two Concepts of Rules,” The Philosophical Review 64 (January 1955): 3-32.] Fortunately, I had read Rawls’s article several months ago, so it wasn’t new to me. Henning Jensen seemed to like the presentation, and afterward the students joined him and me in a discussion of the various kinds of utilitarianism. I’m strongly attracted to both the value theory and the theory of right action contained in utilitarianism. Nonetheless, I’m keeping an open mind about things this semester. The goal is to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the various positions in order to develop a better one. To do otherwise would be to engage in dogmatism. [I had forgotten that I was ever attracted to utilitarianism. It now appalls me. It not only permits too much; it requires too much. I’m a deontological egoist.]

I’m seriously thinking about cutting down my hours with the [law] firm. I’ve been working twenty-five hours a week since August 1985, but I’m getting worried about the “incomplete” in Jules Coleman’s [Social and Political Philosophy] seminar and the two seminar papers [Ethics and Epistemology] that are due this semester. That’s a lot of work in just three months. The only question is whether I can afford to live on just a teaching-assistantship stipend and whatever I earn at the firm. I would dearly love to have more time to read, write, and think.

To the Editor:

Paul Krugman claims that the high quality of care at the Veterans Health Administration proves that socialized medicine works. There's a fallacy behind that claim.

The V.H.A. is government-run health care, subsidized by a much larger private-sector health care environment. For example, the V.H.A. buys drugs at low prices, but a large private-sector market in the United States enables the drug companies to sell low to the V.H.A. and still earn sufficient profits to invest in research for new cures. If the entire health care market were government-run, that subsidy would disappear.

Similarly, the V.H.A. hires doctors who are trained at prestigious medical centers around the nation. But these medical centers are supported by the private sector and offer more lucrative private-sector career options. The pool of doctors-in-training is different in a country where every medical student is destined to be a government employee at relatively low pay.

The true test of whether socialized medicine works is to ask whether seriously ill patients—for example, those with heart disease—have a better chance of surviving their illness in the United States or in a country with socialized medicine, and little or no private-sector health care. The data are unambiguous. Survival rates are better in the United States.

Betsy McCaughey
New York, Jan. 27, 2006
The writer, a former lieutenant governor of New York, is chairwoman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.

My 71-year-old mother and 65-year-old stepfather just bought a bright red Hummer (click to enlarge):

I wish they'd grow up.

I'm puzzled by this cartoon business. Some people, realizing that Muslims take their religion seriously, are mocking it. See here. Isn't that disrespectful—and dangerous? I will have no sympathy for those who, having mocked Islam, suffer for it. If you play with fire, you're liable to get burned.

Addendum: I'm glad to see that Hugh Hewitt is on my side.

Here.

Here is Daniel Henninger's column about ideology.

Here.

Here.

In 2005, as many of you know from reading this blog, I participated in 27 bike rallies. I usually pay in advance, by mail, which costs less than paying in person on the day of the event. As many rallies as I do, it adds up. There was one occasion in 2005 in which I registered for a rally online at Active.com. I did so because time was running out. It was worth it to me to pay a couple of dollars to Active.com in addition to the registration fee.

Yesterday, while checking my bank balance online, I noticed a charge for $49.95 to Active.com. Investigating, I learned that the company was trying to charge me an annual membership fee. I never agreed to become a member, much less to pay $49.95 for it. Needless to say, this was infuriating. I searched the site in vain for a way to cancel my “membership.” Even sending an e-mail inquiry was difficult. The company clearly doesn’t want people to cancel their memberships, or even to make contact. It has thrown up obstacles at every step of the way.

This morning, still angry, I called. As soon as I gave my name and explained the purpose of my call, the clerk said, “I’m removing the charge from your credit card.” I wasn’t about to let her off the hook that easily. I told her that I didn’t enroll as a member and that the company was trying to steal money from me. She listened and tried to explain. She said that when I signed up for the event, I must have enrolled as a member. I told her that I most emphatically had not enrolled as a member and that, if I did so accidentally, it was the fault of the company’s software. You don’t assume that people are enrolling unless they take steps not to do so. You assume that people are not enrolling unless they take steps to do so.

Can you believe this? Active.com is counting on some percentage of its customers not complaining about the involuntary enrollment. Perhaps some people don’t pay attention to their bank statements. Others might decide to pay the fee, even though they didn’t intend to enroll at the time they signed up for an event. Still others might find it too much of a hassle to get the charge removed. Companies such as this deserve to go out of business. One thing is for sure: I’ll never deal with Active.com again.

Painting, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work: the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between the two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

My friend Darby Shaw sent a link to this eight-minute video of a bike race on the streets of New York City. Don't watch it if you're faint of heart.

Addendum: Here is Darby's blog.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the precipitating event of World War III were the publication of . . . cartoons?

It's been 28 years to the day since I drank alcohol.

2-2-86 Sunday. A week ago, during my Sunday bike ride, I missed the fifteen-mile-an-hour mark by one second. It grated on me all week, so what did I do today? I shattered my record. My gross average speed today [for 40.2 miles] was 15.56 miles per hour, and I even stopped to fill my tires with air on the way. But I may have cheated a bit. For the first time ever, I left my panniers home. These are bags that attach to the sides of the tires. All I ever carry in them are [cassette] tapes and a water jug, but the tapes can fit into the small bag behind my seat, and I don’t need the extra water these days. So off I went without the panniers, and the record fell. The wind resistance was probably much lower. I’ve now ridden five weeks in a row and thirty-three of the past thirty-seven. In the past year, I’ve ridden 1532.8 miles. Also, almost exactly two-thirds of all my miles (2838.2 of 4260.0) have been accumulated in Tucson. [The rest were accumulated in Michigan.] That gives you an idea of how much I’ve been riding out here.

The mountains were stunning today. I don’t know why, but I did notice it. Perhaps the dust cover was less than usual, or perhaps I’ve been cooped up too much this week. As for my record-setting ride, I didn’t set out to break the record, but shortly into my ride I made a decision to go for it. All it takes is a bit more pressure than usual at each stage of the ride. My maximum speed today was thirty-eight miles per hour. The official high temperature was sixty-nine degrees [Fahrenheit]. This evening, I changed my rowing machine into a bench press. I’m determined to increase the size of my chest and arm muscles. I’m starting at a low resistance, but plan to increase it regularly.

Here is my open letter to President Bush.

My god, even physicists have blogs. See here. Don't they have better things to do, like figure out how the world works?

Here.

Mark Spahn sent a link to this interesting column about the expression "ranging from X to Y." On a related note, how many times have you seen the expression "a choice between A or B"? The choice is between A and B. For example, I have to choose between Cranberry Apple and Tangerine Orange tea this evening.

Hurry, n. The dispatch of bunglers.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Stop everything
I think I hear the president
The Pied Piper of the TV screen
Is gonna make it simple
And he's got it all mapped out
And illustrated with cartoons
Too hard for clever folks to understand
They're more used to words like:
Ideology . . .
But they say it's not the issue
Ideology . . .
They're not talkin' 'bout right or left
They're talkin' 'bout
Talkin' 'bout

Right and wrong—do you know the difference
Right and wrong—do you know the difference
'Tween the right and the left and the east and the west
What you know and the things that you'll never see

So what ya think
You like the Yankees or the Mets this year
And what about this latest war of words
And what about the Commies
You know, I saw the news last night
All illustrated with cartoons
So when they come with that opinion poll
They better not use words like
Ideology . . .
Or try to tell me 'bout the issues
Ideology . . .
Whose side are you on
'Cause we're talkin' 'bout
Talkin' 'bout

Right and wrong—do you know the difference
Right and wrong—do you know the difference
'Tween the right and the left and the east and the west
What you know and the things that you'll never see

Where are we?

Right and wrong—do you know the difference
Right and wrong—do you know the difference
'Tween the right and the left and the east and the west
What you know and the things that you'll never see

To the Editor:

Re "Bush, Resetting Agenda, Says U.S. Must Cut Reliance on Oil" (front page, Feb. 1):

President Bush declared in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night that the country was addicted to oil and encouraged the use of alternatives like ethanol and nuclear energy.

Mr. President, as a retired professor of chemistry, I urge you to get other science advisers. The ethanol alternative for cars is a pie-in-the-sky idea, as is your notion of hydrogen power for cars.

Nuclear power, though much touted in France, is not viable given the failure to solve the problem of radioactive waste storage.

Mr. President, the only alternative is an efficient mass transit system in every town in the United States.

What we need is a Manhattan Project to develop rail, bus, trolley, light rail and all variations of mass transit that get us away from the one-person-one-car habit forced upon the American public for the last five decades, the real cause of addiction to foreign oil.

It is time to be bold, to act without regard to the outcome in the next elections. Decisions about energy, health and related issues should be based entirely on science, not the bottom line.

Brahama D. Sharma
Pismo Beach, Calif., Feb. 1, 2006

Sahib:

I note the following headline in today's WSJ: "Can President's Plan Keep U.S. Competitive?"

Perhaps there is no word in the English language that more aptly divides conservatives from liberals: competition . . . and its role in a free country. I once again refer to my lifelong professor friend who years ago told me, "Will, there is too much competition in this country." My jaw dropped then and remains so after 40 years of give and take (um, bickering?). So how DOES one (much less a country!) restore respect for competition once the politically correct have essentially removed it from the first 18 years of life and inculcated the Intelligentsia with a passionate distaste for it? After all, is it not the Intelligentsia who, by and large, determine any society's future? Will life become pass or fail? Or no grades at all? Will we ALL get on life's honor roll just as students do nowadays? (I have an ongoing battle with the local paper regarding their listing of students on the honor roll. It goes on for page after page. My suggestion is to list those NOT receiving honors to save space.) Competition is to liberals what crosses are to vampires.

Best, Will

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

Here.

2-9-86 Brrr! Machine that I am when it comes to riding, I was not deterred by today’s high temperature of fifty degrees [Fahrenheit]. Fifty degrees! In Tucson! That’s less than half of what it was this past July and August. Several miles into the trip, I put on brown, cloth gloves to keep my hands warm. (What foresight to bring them!) There was snow on the mountains in every direction. First I was bombarded by pea-sized hail, then sleet, and finally rain—several times. My clothing was soaked twice, once on the way to the cave [Colossal Cave] and then again on the way home. I shivered and cursed the weather throughout. People in passing cars must have thought that I was crazy. But of course I never considered abandoning the ride. I’ve got a schedule to keep. Come rain, snow, sleet, hail, or hundred-degree temperatures, I’ll be out there on Sunday, pedalling [sic; should be “pedaling”] away. In fact, today I achieved my third-best gross-average speed ever: 14.28 miles per hour. I also passed the 4300-mile mark for overall riding. Usually, I pass dozens of riders on my cave ride, but today I saw nobody. That alone should tell you how crazy and determined I am.

Here is an article about the "new face" of the campus Left.

Did you know that Hispanics make up 20% of the population of New Orleans, as opposed to 3% before Hurricane Katrina? The city will probably not look the same when it's rebuilt. See here.

Individuals who will not or cannot allow questions to arise about what they are doing from a broader perspective are in an important way cut off from their society and the larger world. They may not be troubled by this in any very direct way, but even so they may fail to experience that powerful sense of purpose and meaning that comes from seeing oneself as part of something larger and more enduring than oneself or one's intimate circle. The search for such a sense of purpose and meaning seems to me ubiquitous—surely much of the impulse to religion, to ethnic or regional identification (most strikingly, in the "rediscovery" of such identities), or to institutional loyalty stems from this desire to see ourselves as part of a more general, lasting, and worthwhile scheme of things. This presumably is part of what is meant by saying that secularization has led to a sense of meaninglessness, or that the decline of traditional communities and societies has meant an increase in anomie.

(Peter Railton, "Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality," Philosophy & Public Affairs 13 [spring 1984]: 134-71, at 151-2 [footnote omitted])

Are you following the furor over a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons that depict the Islamic prophet Muhammad (c. 570-632)? See here. Some bloggers are calling for the cartoons to be published in American newspapers. I don't get it. Yes, people have a legal right (at least in the United States) to publish the cartoons, but it doesn't follow that they should, morally. Sometimes it's wrong to exercise a right. Whatever happened to respect for other people's religious beliefs? If you're a Christian, ask yourself whether you'd like your deity/prophet to be lampooned. Don't say that your deity/prophet is already lampooned. That's not what I'm asking. Is it right that your deity/prophet is lampooned? If not, then why is it right to lampoon someone else's deity/prophet? Can we all please respect other people's religions?

Remember Ethel Mertz from the I Love Lucy show? Remember Ethel Rosenberg? See here for an instructive comparison.

To the Editor:

You report that James E. Hansen, the top climate scientist at NASA, says the administration is trying to silence him on the risks of global warming. The article suggests that government agency restrictions on public statements by employees are exceptional, but they are not.

In more than 30 years of federal employment, I have always found it a clearly articulated policy that all employee presentations—even those unrelated to the agency's mission—were subject to management approval.

These policies exist, although they may be offensive to some or applied inconsistently.

After almost 40 years of federal service, Dr. Hansen is probably eligible to retire on a substantial pension. That would allow him to speak and publish freely with no question of censorship and bring to the fore his disagreement with the administration.

Thomas D. Dial
Lakewood, Ohio, Jan. 30, 2006

Here is James Taranto's column about the media.

Here is Tom Graffagnino's latest poem.

Here.

Opera, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word simulation is from simia, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for his model Simia audibilis (or Pithecanthropos stentor)—the ape that howls.

The actor apes a man—at least in shape;
The opera performer apes an ape.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

This year is already one-twelfth over. By the time I get used to writing "2006," it'll be 2007. It was a strange month in Dallas/Fort Worth. The average high temperature was 68.2º Fahrenheit. The normal average for January is 54º. This past month was the warmest in recorded history. We broke 80º four times, topping out at 84º on 3 January. That day, I wrote "where's winter?" on my calendar. I love the fireplace, but used it only once all month. It'll be spring soon. We may go from summer to fall to spring, without stopping for winter. Oh well, at least my electricity bill isn't as high as it might be.

Here.