AnalPhilosopher

To be a first-year student at the Harvard Law School in the late 1950s (as I was) was to spend a year trying to master unfamiliar materials—namely, common law judicial opinions—with little guidance or feedback. It was the heyday of the Socratic method of legal education. This meant that the casebooks consisted of—cases, with only a little explanatory material. The first-year courses other than criminal law and civil procedure were in common law fields—property, contracts, torts, and agency. The teachers disparaged hornbooks, treatises, articles, and other secondary materials; and most of the students, docile me included, dutifully refused to consult any of these materials. Adept at not tipping their hand, and abetted in this by the students' avoidance of secondary materials and the absence of commercial study aids, the teachers orchestrated debates among students who personified the various fallacies to which lay thinking about the law is prone.

These first-year law teachers were intimidating people. They were not sadistic, but they didn't try to put the students at their ease or wait for a student to volunteer in order to call on him (or her, but there weren't many hers). There were no exams until the end of the entire year, so you couldn't tell how well you were doing. This was a big spur to working hard, as was the knowledge that on the basis of the examination results alone you would be ranked from 1 to 500 and that your rank might have a big effect on your future career. The emphasis of the courses, mirrored by the exams, was not on stuffing students full of rules or case names but on drilling them in fitting factual situations into plausible legal categories, much as medical students learn to fit a set of symptoms into a disease category, and in manipulating the categories in the interest of the client: so the training had both a diagnostic and a treatment aspect. The lesson was the manipulability of the legal categories. Lay people think that the law is something written down in a book. Lawyers learn, in their very first year of law school, that the law is an inference from often ambiguous and even conflicting cases. They learn to be skilled casuists.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 291-2 [footnote omitted])

4-30-86 . . . There was a nuclear accident in the Soviet Union recently, at the town of Chernobyl. Details are sketchy, but apparently there’s a cloud of radiation floating over Europe, and some of it is expected to reach the west coast of the United States in a few days. Radiation scares me, because I don’t understand its nature or how it affects sentient beings. All I know is that it causes cancer and birth defects. If this accident doesn’t raise the consciousness of the American people about the perils of nuclear power plants, I don’t know what will. A healthy, rational debate about the pros and cons of nuclear power would be to the benefit of us all. I’ll have more to say about the Chernobyl tragedy as the story unfolds. From what I’ve heard, many Russians have been killed or contaminated by the fallout.

The Democrat Party is the party of cosmopolitans, pacifists, utilitarians, and America-haters. Is it any wonder that it can't speak coherently about American power and American interests? Until it does, it will remain impotent. See here for Peter Beinart's essay.

See here.

Albert Pujols of the St Louis Cardinals is on pace to hit 94.5 home runs and drive in 216 runs. The man is a monster.

To the Editor:

In "Lethal Cruelty" (editorial, April 26), you maintain that "the death penalty is in all cases unconstitutional" and that the law of the land should recognize that the Eighth Amendment bars capital punishment.

I do not read any mention of the death penalty in this amendment. The actual text prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments." In some cases, death is a just punishment.

Throughout all of human history, the death penalty has been considered a grave but by no means excessive form of punishment, as long as it is reserved for the most extreme forms of crime.

I agree that lethal injections, if it can be proved that they result in excruciating pain before death, would qualify as torture and should therefore be barred by the Eighth Amendment.

Michel van der Hoek
Anoka, Minn., April 26, 2006

Here.

Decalogue, n. A series of commandments, ten in number—just enough to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to embarrass the choice. Following is the revised edition of the Decalogue, calculated for this meridian.

Thou shalt no God but me adore:
'Twere too expensive to have more.

No images nor idols make
For Robert Ingersoll to break.

Take not God's name in vain; select
A time when it will have effect.

Work not on Sabbath days at all,
But go to see the teams play ball.

Honor thy parents. That creates
For life insurance lower rates.

Kill not, abet not those who kill;
Thou shalt not pay thy butcher's bill.

Kiss not thy neighbor's wife, unless
Thine own thy neighbor doth caress.

Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete
Successfully in business. Cheat.

Bear not false witness—that is low—
But "hear 'tis rumored so and so."

Covet thou naught that thou hast not
By hook or crook, or somehow, got.

G.J.

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

Rod Dreher, a member of the editorial board of The Dallas Morning News, is now a blogger at Belief Net. His blog is entitled "Crunchy Con," after his recent book Crunchy Cons. The "crunchy" in the title refers (I gather) to the crunching sound one makes while eating a granola bar. These are conservatives who care about such things as the environment. Query: Whoever thought conservatives didn't, or couldn't, care about the environment? Why do people feel a need to modify "conservative," as in "compassionate conservative" and "crunchy con"? Isn't this to imply that conservatives, as such, lack compassion or are indifferent to the environment? But surely that's not the case.

Here.

To the Editor:

Bob Herbert laments, "If George W. Bush could have been removed from office for being a bad president, he would have been sent back to his ranch a long time ago."

Voters in the United States had the opportunity to "remove" President Bush from office in the 2004 election. A majority of voters, in a ballot which was beyond reasonable dispute, did not do so, but in fact re-elected him.

Mark A. Kellner
Rockville, Md., April 27, 2006

Primate, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

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

4-29-86 . . . Odds and ends: (1) Alvin Goldman told me after the [Epistemology] seminar this afternoon that he appreciated the many examples that I came up with during the course. I appreciated the compliment. (2) Roger Clemens, a rookie pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, set a major-league record today by striking out twenty Seattle Mariners in a single, nine-inning game. The previous record, held by several pitchers (including Tom Seaver) was nineteen. Can you believe it? Twenty of the twenty-seven outs in the game came by way of strikeout. This Clemens kid is something else. [The record is still 20. Clemens repeated the feat in 1996, while Kerry Wood of the Chicago Cubs struck out 20 batters in 1998. Clemens finished the 2005 season with the Houston Astros and is expected to pitch again this year, perhaps for my adopted Texas Rangers, but more likely for Houston, since it’s closer to his home.]

Ludwig Wittgenstein died 55 years ago today, at the age of 61.

Here.

[T]his issue of egoism versus altruism must not be confused with the question of universal moral principles versus no moral principles, nor should egoism as a principle be confused either with determination of conduct by prudence alone or—worse still—with merely doing what one likes on all occasions. As a fact, a convinced and consistent egoist could be a completely moral man, respecting others as he asks that they respect him. It would be required of him only that he acknowledge exactly the same manner of egoistic conduct as right also for everybody else. And so far as I know, no egoist in ethical theory has ever failed to make that admission.

(Clarence Irving Lewis, Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics, ed. John Lange [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969], 142-3)

Respirator, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.

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

To the Editor:

Re "The Nuclear Option": This is a predictable proposal considering the world's shrinking fossil fuel reserves and our ceaseless, exponentially increasing demands for fuel.

Although William Sweet assures us that Chernobyl's faulty technology is not found in United States nuclear plants, he doesn't mention the entire environmental argument against trying to harness nuclear energy for our grids: The radioactive waste that is developed as a byproduct is extremely toxic and can outlive any known storage method.

If it falls into the wrong hands, it can be a very dangerous substance.

Throughout history, there have been innumerable mistakes, terrorists, miscalculations of politicians and unforeseen happenstance.

Mr. Sweet is proposing that we become dependent on an energy system that produces very dangerous substances that exist indefinitely and that cannot be perfectly stored, protected or disposed of.

Brian Begley
Menlo Park, Calif., April 26, 2006

I've been playing around with Google Video. See here and here—but only if you have a tissue handy.

See here.

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.

4-28-86 At noon today there was a “guitar wars” contest on the university [of Arizona] mall. I happened across it, so I stopped to watch. To my delight, there were both rock and roll [i.e., electric] and classical guitarists. Each participant got a couple of minutes to perform (mostly solos, but an occasional song), and some of them were good. One man in particular, an unassuming looking student wearing shorts and sunglasses, got up on the stage and belted out a startling rendition of Van Halen’s “Eruption,” one of the most difficult solos that I’ve ever heard. [The song appears on the band’s first album, Van Halen (1978). Here is the studio version.] I was amazed. There was something anomalous about a fraternity boy (or so he appeared) playing such a killer guitar. He ended up getting second place. On the whole, it was an enjoyable hour. I talked to Sam Truett and Ken Burke as we watched.

Later, Julianna Wilson came by as I was reading under the palm trees. I saw an orange object go zipping past me on the grass, so I turned and saw a smiling Julianna. She had brought her golf balls and was in a playful mood. We spent the next fifteen minutes or so engaged in “lawn bowling.” Julianna put one of the balls on the grass several feet away, and we attempted to roll our respective balls as close to it as possible. The closest ball “won” the match. Passersby must have wondered what in the world was going on. Here were two bare-footed people playing a child’s game at the university. But I didn’t care. If Julianna wanted to play lawn bowling, then so did I. I can’t get over how delightful and witty she is.

Paul Krugman* will not like this one bit. Can't you just see him gnashing his teeth?

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Here.

Feminism is an ideology in the bad sense of the term. Instead of seeing the world as it is, it sees it as it wishes it were. See here for a debunking of several feminist dogmas.

One of my readers sent a link to this. It's hilarious.

Here.

One of my readers, John Hadley, sent a link to this op-ed column by Peter Singer. Thanks, John.

To the Editor:

Re your April 26 editorial:

I agree that President Bush is ducking the real issue concerning America's addiction to gasoline. But the most obvious solution is not more regulation in the form of increasing fuel-efficiency standards for ordinary cars, as you propose. On the contrary, it is simply to let gas prices find their own level.

As gas prices rise, car users will automatically turn to more economical models and cut out needless trips. Furthermore, alternative forms of energy will become increasingly competitive in simple dollar-and-cent terms.

And of course, this elegantly simple solution is fully in accord with Mr. Bush's much-trumpeted free-market stance.

Charles Simmonds
Heringsdorf, Germany
April 26, 2006

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

Allegiance, n.

This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,
Is a ring fitted in the subject's nose,
Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed
To smell the sweetness of the Lord's anointed.
G.J.

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

Did you know that the new White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow, is a philosophy major? He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy from Davidson College in North Carolina. He went on to study philosophy and economics at The University of Chicago. See here. I can't wait to see how he interacts with the White House press corps. Here is a snippet of what's to come:

David Gregory: Tony, what is the president's policy on guest-worker permits?

Tony Snow: What do you mean by "guest-worker permits"?

David Gregory: Come on, Tony, you know what I mean.

Tony Snow: I don't. Really. The expression is ambiguous. If it means A, then X is the president's policy. If it means B, then Y is the president's policy. If it means C, then Z is the president's policy. I can't answer your question until you clarify it.

Helen Thomas: Tony, is the president going to be as stubborn on the topic of immigration as he is on the war in Iraq?

Tony Snow: That's a complex question, Helen. If I say "No," I imply that he's been stubborn on the war in Iraq, which is false. If I say "Yes," I admit forthrightly that he's going to be stubborn on the topic of immigration, which is false. I refuse to answer until you ask a simple question.

Norah O'Donnell: Tony, you're insufferable.

Tony Snow: That's an ad hominem attack, Norah. Do you have a question?

Let 'em have it, Tony! By the way, Tony's appointment should give the lie to the idea that a bachelor's degree in philosophy is worthless.

What's the difference between "bad" and "badly"? The former qualifies a state; the latter modifies an action. Thus, it would be correct to say "I feel bad" but incorrect to say "I feel badly." Suppose I mowed the yard hurriedly, in order to make it to the game. It would be correct to say "I mowed the yard badly" but incorrect to say "I mowed the yard bad." Other uses of "bad" include "I need a drink bad" (need is a state or condition, not an action) and "I want it bad" (wanting is a state, not an action).

It can be appropriate to say "I feel badly." Suppose I'm blindfolded and feeling for some object, perhaps as part of a game. If I'm unable to find it, I might say "I feel badly," meaning that I perform the action of feeling (groping) badly.

I might add that I disagree here with Bryan Garner, who recommends the following:

If you can meet these criteria, then the people who put on the Symphony Style Show need you badly.

It should be "bad," not "badly." Why? Because needing, like wanting, is a state, not an action. I should know better than to disagree with Bryan, but in this case I have to. I'm too much of a logician not to.

Here.

If you disagree with Molly Ivins, you're a "nutjob." How does that differ from defining "sane" as "agrees with Molly Ivins"? Can you say "persuasive definition"?

We need to update Chicken Little's cry of "The sky is falling!" I propose "The globe is warming!"

I stopped being shocked by Paul Krugman* long ago. See here. As I've said on many occasions in this blog, he is the most intellectually dishonest person I've ever known. That he is well-regarded in leftist quarters shows how impoverished leftist thought has become.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Pain, n. 1. The range of unpleasant bodily sensations produced by illness or by harmful physical contact, etc. 2. The body's way of informing its inhabitant that it's time to reprioritize.

Here.

Although most of Chomsky's political writings concern U.S. foreign policy, they are anchored in an economic theory, Marxian in character, that denies that capitalism is a viable economic system. It can be kept afloat, he believes, only by exploiting, deceiving, and intimidating workers; dominating and exploiting backward countries; suppressing all experiments with alternative economic systems, such as socialism; and harming families and children. Chomsky predicted that the rise of free-market economics in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet system would impoverish Eastern Europe, Australia, Canada, and numerous other countries; would cause the wealthy countries of the West, including the United States, to become more like the Third World; and, in short, would lead to a worsening of economic conditions around the globe. He claimed that central planning, protectionist trade policies, and other state interventions in the economy were critical to the survival of capitalism, pointing to statist policies in Japan and Germany that he regarded as crucial to those countries' economic success. He attributes our hostility to Castro's regime to the regime's economic and humanitarian successes. Our "terrorist war" against Cuba was "launched by John F. Kennedy. It had nothing to do with communism. There weren't any Russians around. It had to do with things like the fact that these people were devoting resources to the wrong sectors of the population. They were improving health standards. They were concerned with children, with malnutrition. Therefore we launched a huge terrorist war."

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 88-9 [footnotes omitted])

The editors of The New York Times, in their infinite wisdom, conclude that capital punishment violates the United States Constitution. See here. In this, they disagree with the framers of the Constitution, who wrote that "No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." I go with the framers. You?

To the Editor:

I compliment the Food and Drug Administration for its truthful report indicating that [there] are "no sound scientific studies" supporting the medical use of marijuana.

I am an addiction specialist and practicing physician who has studied marijuana for three decades and who co-directed two conferences on marijuana, including a 1998 international conference at New York University.

At this conference, 51 papers presented failed to show that marijuana had any practical therapeutic value. This included use in anorexic H.I.V. patients, who continued to lose weight despite using marijuana.

Recent research shows that marijuana has detrimental effects on the brain, lungs, heart and fertility. The THC (the main ingredient in marijuana) content in marijuana used today is twice as strong as 30 years ago.

The false impression that there is a medical need for marijuana confuses and misleads a poorly informed compassionate public in believing that the medical profession is withholding helpful medication from the sick.

Nicholas A. Pace, M.D.
New York, April 21, 2006
The writer is a clinical associate professor of medicine, New York University Medical Center.

Here.

I intend to link to this site on Animal Ethics, but I thought readers of AnalPhilosopher might find it interesting as well.

Americans tolerate many obnoxious things, but not disruptions to their day-to-day activities. Many people have built their lives on the automobile. They commute to and from work (often many miles); they transport their children to and from school and various recreational activities; they shop; they vacation; they take leisurely drives through the countryside. When gasoline was comparatively cheap, they bought humongous vehicles, some of which look like tanks. I’m dwarfed by Expeditions, Tahoes, Excursions, and Hummers as I go about my business in my Grand Am. I feel as though everyone has grown except me.

Now that the price of gasoline is rising, people are experiencing the costs of their foolish decisions. They wish they lived closer to work. They wish they didn’t own such large, fuel-inefficient vehicles. They wish their children weren’t involved in so many extracurricular activities. Instead of making changes in their lives to accommodate the increased expense, they lash out at politicians and oil companies. Everyone loves a free market except when it impinges on his or her “lifestyle.” One would think that the Declaration of Independence includes the phrase “life, liberty, and driving.”

My advice to those of you who have built your life on the automobile is to deconstruct and rebuild your life. There is no reason you should live more than 10 miles from your place of employment. If you do, you’re a fool. There is no reason to be chauffeuring your children. I didn’t have a chauffeur when I was a child, and I lived five miles from town. If I wanted to play Little League, I had to walk or ride my bike. Sometimes I got a ride, but not always. Not having a chauffeur made me self-sufficient, independent, and responsible. If you want to vacation in your car, save your money. It’s going to cost you. Stop using your car as a means of entertainment. Downsize. Drive a Civic instead of an Expedition.

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. What part of that do the gasoline whiners not understand? Americans have had cheap gasoline for far too long. By “cheap,” I mean that they have not paid the full cost of it, either in terms of its effect on our foreign policy or in terms of its effect on the environment. It’s time they reconsidered and reordered their lives.

Eucharist, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi.

A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.

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

To this.

In the Lectures, as throughout his writings, Rawls's prodigious philosophical labors brought to light, in some cases unwittingly, stresses and strains, fissures and flaws, and ironic twists and turns in the liberal spirit. In the process, Rawls exposed conflicting qualities to which the liberal spirit gives rise. On the one hand, an appreciation that the moral foundations of liberalism are bound up with a faith in human dignity that is not entailed or guaranteed by reason may encourage a certain humility, of the sort demonstrated in the virtue of toleration, in the energetic interest in the variety of ways of being human, and in a certain skepticism about comprehensive claims about moral and political life. On the other hand, the conviction that the founding truths of liberalism are implicit in common sense and that judgments about political institutions and public policy are derivable by the healthy operation of human reason may promote a certain hubris. It is this hubris that one sometimes sees among those who are satisfied that those who disagree with them on moral and political matters suffer from wicked or twisted minds and deserve to be segregated into separate intellectual communities.

(Peter Berkowitz, "The Ambiguities of Rawls's Influence," Perspectives on Politics 4 [March 2006]: 121-7, at 125-6)

Here is Brendan Miniter's column about Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Life, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successful controversy.

"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,"
Carelessly caroled the golden youth.
In manhood still he maintained that view
And held it more strongly the older he grew.
When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,
"Go fetch me a surgeon at once!" cried he.
Han Soper.

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

If this isn't the best album ever made, then I'm a monkey's uncle.

To the Editor:

Hope for change in the Bush policies on Iraq is probably doomed, as David Gergen suggests. Added to the reasons he gives is a less visible one: Vice President Dick Cheney's team, the most powerful and secretive group of hard-liners in our history.

Mr. Cheney and those around him believe in military force rather than diplomacy, acting alone rather than with other countries, and in the right of the president to ignore international laws and treaties.

They are determined to keep the president on his present course no matter what the cost in lives and treasure to this country or to the people of Iraq.

Sayre Sheldon
Natick, Mass., April 23, 2006
The writer is president emerita of Women's Action for New Directions, a national peace organization.

Here.

My Internet friend Darby Shaw did another bike rally in the Pacific Northwest. See here for his account. I must say, it was a treat to read it. I like writing about bicycling and reading about bicycling almost as much as I like bicycling. I hope one day to ride in the Pacific Northwest, in the shadow of snow-capped peaks. I have fond memories of my weeklong bike tours of New Mexico and Colorado in 1993, 1994, and 1995 (difficult though they were). Thanks, Darby! Please send me accounts of your future bike rallies so I can share them with my readers. The more details, the better.

Addendum: I was unable to link specifically to Darby's bicycle post. Please scroll to the post entitled "The Daffodil Classic Redux," dated 24 April. By the way, one reason I post stories about bicycling is to encourage others to get out and ride. Bicycling is a great sport, one that can be engaged in at any life stage. It's good for the heart, good for the lungs, good for the soul, and good for the environment. Be forewarned! You might fall in love with it.

Addendum 2: While scrolling through Darby's blog, I found this post, which contains a link to a video of an awful bicycle crash—at 101 miles per hour! Don't watch it if you're fainthearted.

Addendum 3: I figured out how to link to specific posts on Darby's blog. The link to his account of the bike rally has been changed.

Here.

Spaniard Alejandro Valverde won yesterday's prestigious one-day classic Liège-Bastogne-Liège, in Belgium. He averaged 25.60 miles per hour for the 162.8-mile course. As in Flèche Wallonne a few days earlier, nobody could stay with him on the final climb. See here for the story.

Meanwhile, in the United States, American Floyd Landis continued his impressive early-season racing by winning the week-long Tour de Georgia by four seconds over fellow American Tom Danielson, who won the race in 2005 with the assistance of Lance Armstrong. See here for the story. Don't be surprised to see Landis and Valverde contending for the Tour de France title in July. Of course, Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso will also be in the mix, as will Alexandre Vinokourov, who seems to have planned his season around the Tour. With Armstrong retired, this year's Tour is up for grabs. It's going to be fun to watch.

Radical political reform, like radical judicial reform, will be more or less appealing depending on one's confidence in human intelligence and wisdom. In the Utopian Vision, solutions to social problems are readily available. Speaking in 1967 about the conditions that breed violence, Lyndon Johnson said, "All of us know what those conditions are: ignorance, discrimination, slums, poverty, disease, not enough jobs." If we already know the solutions, all we have to do is choose to implement them, and that requires only sincerity and dedication. By the same logic, anyone opposing the solutions must be motivated by blindness, dishonesty, and callousness. Those with the Tragic Vision say instead that solutions to social problems are elusive. The inherent conflicts of interest among people leave us with few options, all of them imperfect. Opponents of radical reform are showing a wise distrust of human hubris.

(Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature [New York: Viking, 2002], 292 [endnote omitted])

Here is Tom Graffagnino's latest poem.

Here is John Fund's latest column about the Yale Taliban.

Here.

Palmistry, n. The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in "reading character" in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The pretence is not altogether false; character can really be read very accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word "dupe." The imposture consists in not reading it aloud.

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

Does it seem to anyone else that the Left has lost its purpose? The Left is obsessed with inequalities of wealth and power. It wishes either to socialize the means of production or to regulate the economy so as to improve the lot of the (comparatively) disadvantaged. It views the social world in terms of economic classes. It is anti-capital and pro-worker, at least in theory (for most radicals live comfortable middle-class lives, with all the capitalist amenities).

Events have left the Left behind. People these days are worried about terrorism, religious fundamentalism, environmental catastrophe, cultural decadence, pandemics, and nuclear annihilation, not the distribution of wealth and power. The main threat to poor people in this country is obesity, not deprivation. Poor people have met the enemy, and it is them. The poorest person in the United States is significantly better off than the wealthiest person in other parts of the world.

In a way, it’s sad to see leftists so discombobulated (and overtaken) by events. They are nostalgic for the days when unionization promised to undermine capitalism and when people were going without necessities—when movement toward the socialist utopia seemed real, if sluggish. Dare I suggest that leftism as we know it is dead? It’s time to move on, revolutionaries. There are new enemies to be fought. Capitalists, as it turns out, are on your side.

Here.

Michelle Malkin has a new Internet venture. It's called Hot Air. I only now discovered the site, so I haven't looked it over. I do know that if Michelle is involved with it, it will be of high quality.

Addendum: Michelle describes Hot Air as "the world's first, full-service conservative Internet broadcast network." Excellent.

To the Editor:

Re "Outrage at Funeral Protests Pushes Lawmakers to Act" (news article, April 17):

The behavior by the Westboro Baptist Church members intruding upon the grief of Cpl. David A. Bass's loved ones at his funeral is unconscionable.

Freedom of speech should not be curbed lightly. But the right of a soldier's family to bury him or her without being subjected to religious zealots rejoicing in the soldier's death—at a time and place where the family's grief may be most palpable—far outweighs the rights of the hatemongers.

If a bill prohibiting this behavior steps on the toes of those who believe in free speech at all costs, so be it. The cost of relinquishing some freedoms on rare occasions is not too high a price to pay for providing grieving families with a measure of peace.

Whatever happened to the basic tenet of most religions as kindness toward others?

In the name of religion, some people abandon all sense of decency and compassion when delivering their message.

Sandra Polsky
Newark, April 18, 2006

Here is Richard Posner's blog post about income inequality.

Even in today's United States freedom of speech is not absolute. People can still be punished for disseminating obscenity, for revealing military or trade secrets, for defamation, for inciting riots, for copyright and trademark infringement, for plagiarism, for threats, for perjury, for false advertising and other misrepresentations, for certain types of verbal abuse, for exchanging information in the hope of facilitating price fixing, for talking back to prison guards, for revealing confidences of various sorts, for certain forms of picketing and aggressive solicitation, for indecorous behavior in courthouses, for publicly criticizing one's employer on matters not deemed to be of public concern, for irresponsible or offensive broadcasting, even for using loudspeakers.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 277-8)

What is democracy? See here and here.

Here is David Gergen's op-ed column about the Bush administration.

To the Editor:

By focusing upon an imaginary future conflict with Iran, Paul Kane misses the best argument in favor of national conscription: it would bring our present-day misadventure in Iraq to a hasty conclusion.

Most of my students are vehemently opposed to American involvement in the Iraq war, but very few of them have engaged in organized protest against it. If they knew that they could be drafted, however, they'd take to the streets. So would millions of other young people, along with their parents and grandparents.

Our elected officials would sit up and take notice, ending the war in Iraq before their own daughters and sons faced the terrifying prospect of fighting and dying there. Fear has a way of concentrating the mind.

Jonathan Zimmerman
New York, April 20, 2006
The writer is a professor of education and history at New York University.

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Zimmerman, to his discredit, is willing to gamble with his students' lives. He thinks a draft will end the war, thus saving the lives of those currently deployed in Iraq. Isn't it just as likely to step up the war effort, or even lead policymakers to start new wars? In that case, many young people will be needlessly killed. Perhaps Zimmerman should enlist in the military, as a test of his sincerity.

Here.

Lunarian, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill tribes of Vermont.

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

Here.

Meriwether Lewis is not a happy camper. See here.

I just saw an offensive television advertisement during the Texas Rangers/Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball game. It said, "Ford: The most awarded truck out there." The word should be "feted" or "celebrated," or perhaps "rewarded," but not "awarded." As it stands, the ad means that Ford is awarded as a prize more often than any other truck. Clearly, that's not what's intended. Who writes such idiotic ad copy?

I did my third bike rally of the year and 374th overall this morning in Granbury, Texas. Not only is this the most beautiful rally of all, in terms of scenery; the weather was perfect. Okay, it was windy, but who’s complaining? Granbury is 49.5 miles from my house in Fort Worth. I had to rise at 5:30 to make it to the starting line at 8:00. I’ve done so many rallies that I know exactly how many minutes I need to get ready in the morning: 50. I drive at or just above the speed limit, so what time I have to get up depends on when the rally starts and how far away it is. One rally—Muenster—starts at 11:00. The earliest start is at the Hotter ’n Hell Hundred in Wichita Falls: 7:00. I have to rise at 4:00 and drive 121 miles like a maniac in order to arrive on time. I hate it, but it must be done.

My goal for the day was to do the long course (63 miles) and have fun. I saw only two of my friends (Phil Kevil and Randy Kirby) among the several hundred who showed up. Years ago, I saw dozens of members of my bike club at the rallies. Over the years, the number has dwindled. Some people have kept riding, undoubtedly, but go out on their own rather than attend rallies. I understand this decision. I rode many thousands of miles by myself (much of it in the Sonoran desert) before going to my first rally in September 1989. I enjoy both experiences. If money were an object, I’d go out on my own, since each rally costs $20 to $30. I probably spent $675 on rally fees a year ago. That doesn’t include gasoline for the long drives or Taco Bell burritos on the way home.

Today’s ride went well. The countryside near Granbury is truly beautiful. There are canyons, mesas, forests, rivers, plains, and jaw-dropping country roads. Most of the road surfaces were smooth, which makes for easier riding. I saw dairy cows, beef cattle, horses, dogs, hawks, and many other animals along the way. Everything is green and lush at this time of year. It was great to see the sun rise. By the time I finished, it was directly overhead. I saw ranch houses, cottages, trailers, and just about every other form of human abode, including dilapidated barns and sheds. I love rustic buildings and enclosures. They remind me of my childhood in Michigan. Doing the rally today was like going back in time.

Statistically, my ride wasn’t half bad. I rode alone the entire way, completing the 63.26-mile course in 3:54:15 (that’s riding time). My average speed was 16.20 miles per hour. Remember: My goal is to get a little stronger with each ride. I’ve gone farther and faster each time I’ve ridden this year. I rode 16.48 miles the first hour (headwind), 14.30 the second (headwind and hills), 17.28 the third (tailwind), and averaged 16.81 miles per hour for the final 54:15. I hammered for the final three miles. I must have averaged 25 miles per hour. My top speed for the day was 32.3 miles per hour. My maximum heart rate was 156. I reached it early in the rally and again late. The best song of the day (among many good ones) was “Serious Music,” by Daryl Hall & John Oates, from Along the Red Ledge (1978).

I carried my Casio camera in my jersey pocket. Here is one of the ranch entrances I passed as I was climbing a hill through a forest (click to enlarge):

Here is a typical view from the course (note the mesa in the distance and the cattle in the foreground):

Here are some longhorns:

Here is a longhorn and her calf:

Thank goodness for fences!

Addendum: There's a story in today's (Sunday's) Dallas Morning News about a windmill farm near Granbury. See here for images of the windmills.

Perseverance, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

"Persevere, persevere!" cry the homilists all,
Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.
"Remember the fable of tortoise and hare—
The one at the goal while the other is—where?"
Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease
Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,
The goal and the rival forgotten alike,
And the long fatigue of the needless hike.
His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew
Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,
He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,
A winner of all that is good in a race.
Sukker Uffro.

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

[A]rguing, and indeed concluding in general, would be utterly pointless, because utterly ineffectual, if it did not serve to alter or modify our physical behavior.

(Clarence Irving Lewis, Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics, ed. John Lange [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969], 123)

Here.

To the Editor:

The arrest of Dr. Wenyi Wang after she "disrupted" the joint appearance of President Bush and China's president, Hu Jintao, calls into question Mr. Bush's commitment to the idea of freedom he so frequently espouses.

The Communist government of China has killed millions of people during its tyrannical reign. For any American president to share the stage with the head of this murderous regime is a betrayal of our nation's ideals.

It is unconscionable for President Bush to sanction the arrest of someone who has the courage to call attention to the plight of the Chinese people. If the leader of the free world is embarrassed for the Chinese dictator, it is not the principles of our founders that animate him, but their antithesis.

The Chinese government's dictatorial control over China's citizens should be held in the same regard as that over the people of Darfur, Rwanda, Iraq and North Korea.

Amesh Adalja
Butler, Pa., April 21, 2006

Feminism is a lie wrapped in a mistake. Two mistakes, actually. Its first mistake is thinking that men have it all. Its second mistake is thinking that women, too, can have it all. But men never had it all. They had half of it. Women also had half of it—the other half. The two halves make a whole. Feminism lied to women and made a whole generation of women unhappy. Young women of today won't make the same mistake. They know that nobody, including men, has ever had it all. They know that nobody, including men, will ever have it all. Life is full of compromises, opportunity costs, and tragic choices. All any of us can do is choose a bundle of goods—one that suits our personality, interests, inclinations, and tastes. There is no reason to think that men and women, who are wired differently, will choose the same bundle. Women are nurturers. Men are providers. This will affect the choices they make. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with that. If feminism sneers at certain of women's choices, such as the choice to be a homemaker, so much the worse for feminism. See here for Kara Hopkins's insightful essay.

The Davis Mountains are the most extensive mountains in Texas. Here is the website of Davis Mountains State Park.

Journalism professor Jay Rosen has a blog post about outgoing presidential press secretary Scott McClellan. What Rosen and his colleagues don't understand is the hostility of the White House press corps toward the Bush administration—a hostility that existed from day one. Why should the Bush administration do anything to help the press corps undermine its policies? That's suicidal. If the press corps were impartial, as it ought to be, things would have been different. Perhaps the media will learn from this: If you're partial, you get no cooperation. Do your job as a journalist and you get cooperation.

Here is an interesting column about science and religion.

Here.

The moonbats at Democratic Underground don't like Katherine Harris. Many of them blame her for President Bush's election in 2000. I thought it was elephants who had long memories.

Charles Krauthammer puts the cowardly generals in their place.

Donald Luskin is still reading Paul Krugman*—and still giving him hell. Keep up the good work, Don.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Disobey, v.t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command.

His right to govern me is clear as day,
My duty manifest to disobey;
And if that fit observance e'er I shun
May I and duty be alike undone.
Israfel Brown.

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

To the Editor:

President Bush is shaking things up at his White House, with promises of positive changes in his administration.

So, after watching Mr. Bush for the last five years wrapping himself in a cocoon of yes-men and yes-women, why don't I feel better?

Of course, the reason is that Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the people whose utter incompetence, duplicity and lack of touch with reality have placed us in this mess we're in, still remain at their posts.

On Election Day 2008, it will be up to us citizens to make some key staff changes of our own.

Doug Belfiore
Trumbull, Conn., April 20, 2006

Here.

I read in today's Dallas Morning News that Lance Armstrong plans to run this year's New York City Marathon (on 5 November). It'll be interesting to see how fast he goes. Although he's a great athlete, it typically takes years of training to reach world-class status in the marathon, and Lance is already 34 years old. (He'll be 35 by the time of the New York City Marathon.) I think he can run a 2:45 marathon, and maybe even 2:35, if he trains properly and avoids injury. My best (of the 11 marathons I've run) is 3:07:14.30, which was good enough for a medal. The world record (held by Paul Tergat) is 2:04:55.

Resort to force is never justified, in [Chomsky’s] view, because no nation has completely clean hands. But it may be excused when it is by a nation or group that is neither the United States nor allied with it. Chomsky is an anarcho-pacifist. His embrace of that creed—which he treats as self-evidently correct and so doesn’t attempt to defend—illustrates the academic public intellectual’s common mistake of confusing political with personal ethics. A private citizen of the United States can go through life without killing anybody or governing anybody; it does not follow that a large nation can get through its life without governing and without causing people to be killed.

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 88 [footnote omitted])

Why do people say "a little bit," instead of just "a bit"? Could there be a lot of bit or a great deal of bit? See here, for example. What does "A Little Bit of Soul" say that "A Bit of Soul" doesn't? If it says no more, why the extra word? Am I weird for wanting to strip language down to its essentials? Maybe I get this from being a philosopher. We're taught to shave off unnecessary theoretical or explanatory entities. It's called Ockham's Razor. Another name is the principle of parsimony. Wait! Why are there two names for the same thing? Arrghhh!

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

Addendum: I lectured today on feminist ethics, with particular attention to the work of Carol Gilligan. I couldn't help but think, as I read Noonan's column, that only a woman could have written it. Her criticisms of President Bush sound like criticisms of . . . masculinity. President Bush is a man's man, which explains why so many leftists hate him. He thinks like a man, acts like a man, and has the feelings, attitudes, and desires of a man. I sometimes think that men and women inhabit different moral universes. This doesn't mean that the male way of thinking is better than the female way of thinking. They're just different. I, for one, find President Bush's manliness refreshing after eight years of Clintonian effeminacy.

Incompatibility, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache.

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

Paul Kane makes a case for a draft.

To the Editor:

I was surprised to read the April 13 letters about David Brooks's take on the fiasco at Duke. Not one of them mentions family—that's where values, morals and ethics are taught. But we've raised at least two generations so far with no such guideposts.

The outer-focused hippies became the me-focused yuppies with two careers and self-importance. When kids came along, they were mere accouterments. No one sat down to dinner as a family anymore. No one was home to set and enforce rules. No one said "no" anymore.

The kids were left to their own devices—scary concept for a kid at any age, but particularly in the formative years, to think that he is alone, unsupervised and unloved. What else to do but to act out?

Add to the mix psychotropic drugs to keep the kids "well behaved" in school and out of their parents' hair at home—a recipe for disaster that is coming home to roost in countless forms of abusive behavior, aggression and violence.

Stephany Yablow
North Hollywood, Calif.
April 13, 2006

Here.

[T]he old quarrel between liberalism and religion goes back to the beginning, to the emergence of the liberal tradition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in response to the European wars of religion. In the name of the rights of individuals, the founders of the liberal tradition elaborated constraints on religion's political authority and politics' religious authority. As the liberal idea took hold, individuals demanded more and more autonomy from the state—and from religion. Yet whereas the state and its lawmaking apparatus grew, in part to secure the conditions of freedom, the demands of autonomy increasingly reduced faith's domain. After much progress in freedom over several centuries, a question remains: Is it reasonable for a liberal to be religious? Can one reasonably claim to put freedom first while also embracing on faith teachings about where we come from, what we are, and how we ought to live? Such doubts have a distinguished pedigree in the liberal tradition, and they have impelled many contemporary liberals to regard religion with intense suspicion, if not outright hostility.

(Peter Berkowitz, "The Ambiguities of Rawls's Influence," Perspectives on Politics 4 [March 2006]: 121-7, at 125)

Here.

See here.

Charles Darwin died on this date in 1882. His theory of natural selection is compatible with theism, understood as the doctrine that there is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient personal being who created and sustains the universe. If it weren't compatible—if it entailed atheism—then it couldn't be taught in public schools without running afoul of the Establishment Clause. Darwin himself never claimed to be an atheist. See here. But even if he had, this wouldn't show that his theory of natural selection is incompatible with theism. He might have been an atheist for other reasons. It's sad that there is so much confusion on this score. Some Darwinians think they must be hostile to religion, and some theists think they must reject Darwinism. Just for the record, I'm an atheist and a Darwinian; but I could be one without being the other.

Bicycle racing is not for the claustrophobic. Today's Flèche Wallonne (in Belgium) was won by Spaniard Alejandro Valverde, an up-and-coming star. Nobody could stay with him on the final grueling climb.

Here.

If anyone finds a constructive leftist proposal about Iran, please let me know. In the meantime, here is Mark Steyn's column.

But there is still much to be wary of in human moralizing: the confusion of morality with status and purity, the temptation to overmoralize matters of judgment and thereby license aggression against those with whom we disagree, the taboos on thinking about unavoidable tradeoffs, and the ubiquitous vice of self-deception, which always manages to put the self on the side of the angels. Hitler was a moralist (indeed, a moral vegetarian) who, by most accounts, was convinced of the rectitude of his cause. As the historian Ian Buruma wrote, "This shows once again that true believers can be more dangerous than cynical operators. The latter might cut a deal; the former have to go to the end—and drag the world down with them."

(Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature [New York: Viking, 2002], 280 [endnote omitted])

Here.

There has been some confusion regarding the import of this post. All Feinberg is saying is that there is no necessary connection between the obscene and the pornographic. In other words, it's possible for something to be obscene without being pornographic and it's possible for something to be pornographic without being obscene. If you think all pornography is obscene, you're making a substantive claim, not merely analyzing the concepts.

To this.

To the Editor:

Re "New Worry Rises on Iranian Claim of Nuclear Steps" (front page, April 17):

President Bush should be held responsible for Iran's nuclear threat. He recklessly attacked Iraq with no exit strategy, despite the fact that it had no weapons of mass destruction.

In doing so, President Bush abused the moral imperative, wasted our fiscal and human resources, embittered the Arab world and squandered this country's limited tolerance for war.

Now, when confronted with a true threat, we have been rendered powerless.

Arnold Pedowitz
New York, April 17, 2006

Here.

Reliquary, n. A receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the true cross, short-ribs of saints, the ears of Balaam's ass, the lung of the cock that called Peter to repentance and so forth. Reliquaries are commonly of metal, and provided with a lock to prevent the contents from coming out and performing miracles at unseasonable times. A feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation once escaped during a sermon in Saint Peter's and so tickled the noses of the congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three times each. It is related in the "Gesta Sanctorum" that a sacristan in the Canterbury cathedral surprised the head of Saint Dennis in the library. Reprimanded by its stern custodian, it explained that it was seeking a body of doctrine. This unseemly levity so enraged the diocesan that the offender was publicly anathematized, thrown into the Stour and replaced by another head of Saint Dennis, brought from Rome.

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

Does the Left have a coherent position on Iran? Read this. The author says the Iranians want nuclear weapons to protect themselves, as if that motive constitutes a reason for them to have them. The author then blithely assumes that if both the United States and Iran have nuclear weapons, each will be deterred from using them against the other (or against any of the other's allies). Has the author been listening to Iranian rhetoric? Do these sound like rational people? They're fanatics. Mundane life is as nothing to them. They can't wait to join Allah in virginal paradise. No constructive solution is provided by the author. The leftist mantra is to oppose the use of American power, especially when wielded by Chimpy W. Hitler. America bad; everyone else good. The Left, sad to say, is intellectually and morally bankrupt.

How do things look for the Republicans in 2008? See here.

Terrorist, n. 1. A person who uses or favors violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community. 2. A proponent of American power.

The tendency of most philosophical speculation—and it is what makes philosophy, despite its remoteness from quotidian concerns, a proper staple of college education in a liberal society—is to shake up a person's presuppositions.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 227)

Here.

Merchant, n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.

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

Here is Brendan Miniter's column about immigration.

To the Editor:

In "The Slaughter Spreads" (column, April 16), Nicholas D. Kristof describes the Sudan-backed genocidal incursion by the janjaweed militias into neighboring Chad and cries out for America and France to intercede.

But why aren't Arab and other Muslim nations interceding against this crime against humanity?

The Arab street exploded over Danish cartoons that were deemed blasphemous, but now there is only silence.

Nor did the Arab street have anything to say about an Afghan citizen who was sentenced to death for the crime of converting to Christianity.

If Arab allegiance extends no further than one's tribe, and if what happens to nonmembers is a matter of indifference, why should American foreign policy consider Arab sensitivities beyond the needs of our own realpolitik?

If it suits our interests to support kings and dictators who abridge the rights of Arab peoples and stifle their economies, why should we care?

The nations of the West care because we recognize the humanity of all people and the sanctity of all human life, and our concept of right and wrong extends beyond our own parochial interests.

That is why Mr. Kristof appeals to us in his outrage, and not to the people who ought to be the focus of his entreaties.

Neil Chesanow
Montvale, N.J., April 16, 2006

I moved the Google Search function to the bottom of the blog. I found that I wasn't using it very often. Has anyone used it?

Here.

See here.

See here. Would somebody nominate me already? To be denominated an idiot by moonbats of this order would be a high honor.

Jeff is in fine form this day.

Here is John Fund's latest column.

Luxembourger Fränk Schleck won yesterday's Amstel Gold Race in impressive fashion, breaking away from his breakaway companions with several miles to go before the finish. He averaged 24.45 miles per hour for the 157.2 miles. These one-day classics select not just for athletic ability, which is pretty well evenly distributed, but for willpower. Schleck's will was more powerful than that of his rivals yesterday. In other words, he wanted it more. Here is an image from the race.

Here.

Frog, n. A reptile with edible legs. The first mention of frogs in profane literature is in Homer's narrative of the war between them and the mice. Skeptical persons have doubted Homer's authorship of the work, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann has set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain frogs. One of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh was besought to favor the Israelites was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh, who liked them fricasées, remarked, with truly oriental stoicism, that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the programme was changed. The frog is a diligent songster, having a good voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective—"brekekex-koäx"; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in each hoof—a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to shine in a hurdle race.

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

It's good to see that ordinary Americans are waking up to the fact that we're being overrun by immigrants. If it were up to me, I would (1) deport everyone who is here illegally; (2) confiscate the property of everyone who is here illegally; (3) build a wall between the United States and Mexico; (4) stop all immigration from all countries for 20 years; (5) require that only English be spoken in public schools and courts; and (6) punish anyone who employs an illegal immigrant. I will vote only for those who share my views.

To the Editor:

Re "Seeking Ancestry, and Privilege, in DNA Ties Uncovered by Tests" ("The DNA Age" series, front page, April 12):

The rush to document one's ancestry through DNA analysis brings a wonderful byproduct. The tests reveal that most of us are genetic hybrids of one sort or another; that, in general, "racial purity" is as false as it is ignoble; and that, in particular, the European, African and native populations of this continent have always had, and always will have, an intertwined destiny.

The more racial and ethnic confusion, the better.

Conn Nugent
New York, April 12, 2006

Bob Herbert's incessant carping about President Bush reflects hatred of white people, envy of a man who is smarter than he is, and fear of annihilation.

Prudence, as well as justice, is imperative; it is not simply derivative from inclination, but needs inculcation in childhood and reinforcement even in maturity. There is no automatic inclination always on the side of prudence. Instead we natively incline to choose the immediate or nearer goods, to the prejudice of more remote ones and of the rational interest in the greatest or highest good in a whole lifetime. Meeting the requirements of prudence calls for self-government. Also it frequently calls for deliberation and care in choosing, just as it calls for self-control and for deliberation to meet the requirements of justice.

(Clarence Irving Lewis, Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics, ed. John Lange [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969], 108-9)

Here.

Here is a sobering essay about nuclear proliferation. Please note the fallacy of equating Iran with the Soviet Union. The leaders of the Soviet Union were deterrable, which is to say they were (1) rational and (2) self-interested. I don't think Iranian leaders are deterrable. If they get the bomb, it's all over.

See here.

Everyone says the United States must not attack Iran to destroy its nuclear capacity (or prevent it from acquiring a nuclear capacity). See here for Andrew Sullivan's column. What are we supposed to do: allow Iran to acquire nuclear weaponry? I don't see any way short of destruction to prevent it.

Baseball players should not be allowed to wear body armor at the plate. It upsets the delicate balance of the game. The game is designed so that good pitchers can get good hitters out. If a batter stands too close to the plate, hoping thereby to hit the outside pitch, the pitcher throws inside to move him off the plate. If a batter stands too far from the plate, hoping thereby to hit the inside pitch, the pitcher nibbles at the outside corner. Tom Glavine is a perfect example of a good pitcher. He never gives in. He throws every pitch on the outside corner of the plate. If the batter gets wise and moves toward the plate, Glavine throws inside to move him back. The batter's natural fear keeps him honest.

When batters wear armor on their elbows or wrists, they can stay close to the plate without fear of being hit. That's not fair. They're getting the whole plate instead of just part of it. No wonder games are so high scoring and why there are so many home runs. No wonder Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Frank Thomas hit so many home runs, and why Ichiro gets so many hits. Can you imagine how many home runs Hank Aaron would have hit had he worn body armor? 800? 900? Forget about steroids. If you want to restore balance to the game, take away the body armor.

Jeff Percifield is upset because my Texas Rangers waltzed into Oakland and took two of three games against his Athletics. Oakland's fans are classless. Late in the game, they chanted "You suck!" when the umpire called balls instead of the strikes they wanted. That's called displacement. Instead of blaming their ineffective relief pitcher, Huston Street, they blamed the umpire. Now do you see why my Rangers fought with Oakland fans a couple of years ago? It's not always the athletes who are in the wrong.

Here is an op-ed column by a Harvard psychology professor.

To the Editor:

David Brooks ("The Past Meets the Future," column, April 13) argues that the war in Iraq should be compared to such stirring human endeavors as Moses' journey to the Promised Land and the American civil rights movement. The pain of the Iraq struggle should be embraced, Mr. Brooks suggests, because it will lead, as did those earlier discords, to a noble end.

The problem with those analogies should be obvious. Neither Moses nor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began their campaigns by lying about the reasons for the journey. Nor did they suppress information, bully dissenters or surround themselves with yes men who were never held accountable for mistakes, no matter how disastrous.

Maybe this explains why Moses and Dr. King approached their Promised Lands, and why our current leadership has gone so far astray.

John Duffy
Notre Dame, Ind., April 13, 2006

Here.

Avernus, n. The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion. This, however, has been shown by Lactantius to be an error.

Facilis descensus Averni,
The poet remarks; and the sense
Of it is that when down-hill I turn I
Will get more of punches than pence.
Jehal Dai Lupe.

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

See here.

We in the West would like to believe that Muslims, like everybody else, basically want the peace, freedom, and prosperity that we associate with democracy and a market economy. What we would like to think they want the jihadis view as the heart of the evil against which they are waging war. Sovereignty, including political sovereignty, belongs to God alone. Rulers and legislators of every sort have only one duty, which is to uncompromisingly implement the revealed laws of God without the slightest modification. The democratic theory that the people are sovereign is simply blasphemy and rebellion against the rule of God.

(Richard John Neuhaus, "The Two-Hundred-Year War," First Things [April 2006]: 63-7, at 66)

Here.

Here is Theodore Dalrymple's essay on egalitarianism.

Everyone has heard the expression “playing the race card,” but what does it mean? I haven’t done any research on the matter, but my guess is that it has to do with trump cards in games such as euchre. A euchre deck has 24 cards: an ace, king, queen, jack, 10, and 9 of four different suits. The suits are clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds. The ace is the highest card in each suit, followed by the king, &c. Each time someone deals cards, one of them is turned up in the stack. This card’s suit becomes trump for that hand. If no trump card is played during the hand, the highest card takes the trick. A trump card takes any nontrump card. If two or more trump cards are played in a given hand, the highest one wins. The jack is the highest, followed by the jack of the same color, followed by the ace, and so forth on down.

Still with me? Let me give an example. Suppose hearts is trump. The person to my left plays a king of spades. My partner, across the table from me, plays a 10 of spades. (You have to follow suit.) The person to my right plays an ace of spades. To this point, the person to my right has the trick, since an ace is higher than a king or a 10. If I have a spade, I must play it; but suppose I don’t. I can take the trick with a lowly 9 of hearts. As you can see, trump cards are special. It’s no accident that Ronald Dworkin calls individual rights—such as the right to speak—“trumps.” To have a right is to prevail, even at the cost of overall utility.

Playing the race card is playing a trump card. Take United States Representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. As you know, she recently struck a capitol police officer who apprehended her for not stopping at a security checkpoint. There are various things she might have said in her defense. For example, she might have said that she didn’t hear the officer, or that the officer struck her first, or that the officer was biased against women or people with frizzy hair. Instead, she brought race into the picture. She said she was being treated differently (worse) solely because of her skin color.

In our society, race is special. Nobody likes to be called a racist. People bend over backward to be seen as nonracist or anti-racist. This can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals. When McKinney brought race into the picture, she played the race card. She used her race to take the trick, as it were. She thought this would silence her critics, or at least put them on the defensive. What’s interesting is that it appears not to have had this effect. Playing the race card is so common, and so reviled, that it can backfire. It’s as if someone else played a higher trump card than McKinney’s. She thought the trick was hers, but it wasn’t.

See here.

If you like presidential politics, you'll like this.

Not that Chomsky’s dozens of books and pamphlets contain no useful information and interesting half-truths, as when he calls Theodore Roosevelt a “racist fanatic and raving jingoist.” But the tone and the one-sidedness of this characterization are all too typical. Chomsky’s use of sources is uncritical, and his methodology unsatisfactory—it consists simply of changing the subject. If someone argues that military intervention in Kosovo was a morally worthy if ineptly implemented effort to avert a genocide of the Albanian population, Chomsky replies by asking what about our failure to protect the Kurds from the Turks, the East Timorese from the Indonesians, or the Palestinian Arabs from the Israeli Jews?

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 87-8 [footnote omitted])

To the Editor:

Now that no fewer than five retired generals have weighed in on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's incompetence ("More Retired Generals Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation," front page, April 14), the failings of our administration can no longer be ignored.

Although the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, has said that "the president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job," the opinions of these high-ranking military men must be taken seriously.

The time is overdue for President Bush to remove Mr. Rumsfeld from his position. But for that to occur would require the president to display a willingness to swallow his pride and to admit to having made a mistake—not likely for Mr. Bush.

When will our president surrender his arrogance and face reality?

Lawrence J. Hahn
Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.
April 14, 2006

Here.

President Bush is ignoring the unsolicited advice of a handful of Army generals to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. See here. Good for him. These generals may not realize it, but they don't get to pick cabinet members. If they want to do so, they should run for president. Perhaps one or more of them will. In the meantime, President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld have important work to do. To the reply that the generals have a right to speak out, of course they do. But they shouldn't. There's a difference between having a right and exercising it. Sometimes it's wrong to exercise a right. About all these complaints will do is undermine morale in our fighting forces, and thereby hinder the war effort. At a minimum, the advice should have been given privately. What is the point of going public with it, other than to embarrass the president?

Redress, n. Reparation without satisfaction.

Among the Anglo-Saxons a subject conceiving himself wronged by the king was permitted, on proving his injury, to beat a brazen image of the royal offender with a switch that was afterward applied to his own naked back. The latter rite was performed by the public hangman, and it assured moderation in the plaintiff's choice of a switch.

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

Check out Texas Bob. If you click "About Me," you get this.

Wouldn't it be nice if Bush-haters such as this man had something constructive to say about the Iranian threat? Are we to wait until Iran bombs us before taking action? Was it wrong of the United States to wage war against Germany in World War II? After all, Germany didn't attack us.

Because he deserves it.

Ralph Peters joins the chorus of those who believe Europe is dying. It's not homicide; it's suicide. I, for one, will not shed a tear.

Peter Berkowitz is, in my opinion, one of the best public intellectuals in the country. Haven't heard of him? Read this. If you click on "Bio" on Berkowitz's website, you'll see why he's so good. He has a bachelor's degree in English literature, which ensures that he can write. He has a master's degree in philosophy, which ensures that he can reason. He has a doctoral degree in political science, which ensures that he can see through political appearances. He has a law degree, which ensures that he understands the rule of law. Not a bad package.

Tell us how you really feel, Jeff.

Abraham Lincoln was shot on the evening of 14 April 1865 and died early the following morning. Here is a New York Times op-ed column about his tragic death.

See here.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "Playing Hardball With Secrets" (editorial, April 7):

There is no evidence that the White House manipulated intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime. The Senate Intelligence Committee pointed out in its 511-page report, which 17 Democrats and Republicans unanimously approved, that the intelligence assessments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were very declarative.

For instance, the N.I.E. said, "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons." Such forward-leaning assessments were prevalent in the N.I.E. Only later, through the committee's review, did we learn that these assessments were not supported by the underlying intelligence and were the result of flawed tradecraft and sloppy analysis.

With respect to alleged Republican foot-dragging on the phase II reports: on April 5, I announced that after the Easter recess, the committee will hold a series of closed meetings to move forward on phase II, including committee approval of factual findings and conclusions concerning three of the report's five elements. These findings will be fact-based and thorough. They will not be based upon agenda-driven and innuendo-laced press reports.

Pat Roberts
Washington, April 7, 2006
The writer is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Here.

Ritualism, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.

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

See here.

All these complexities and exceptions duly noted, the cultural fact remains fairly simple and clear. The main form of contemporary philosophical scholasticism is analytic philosophy, and it is almost entirely written in English. It announces by its name the secondary or handmaidenly role it is to play: not revealing or disclosing truth but analyzing the exigencies of what is taught or disclosed.

Indeed, not a few undergraduates become disappointed by this basic and defining characteristic. They want revelations and epiphanies, but analytic philosophers seem always to be operating in the shadows, not saying immediately what is right or wrong but discussing the concepts of right and wrong so that one might approach moral questions with clarity and responsibility, not announcing what is true but investigating the nature of truth. One hears a common complaint, “empty formalism,” and it makes my point. Second-order technical discussions are the bread and butter of scholasticism, and students have complained of the apparent existential dryness since the days of Plato’s Academy.

Because analytic philosophy is a scholasticism that has shifted loyalties from theology to science, most modern theologians have thought it a godless antagonist. One needs to read only a little of Bertrand Russell to see that he was both very smart and very opposed to Christian doctrines. A. J. Ayer serenely dismissed metaphysics, ethics, and religion as sentiments wrongly retailed as propositions. I do not know what Quine’s religious views were, but he certainly had no more place for God in his philosophy than does modern science. Add the verbal aggressiveness characteristic of analytic philosophers, an intellectual arrogance that quickly dismisses as fools those uninitiated into the specialized vocabulary, and, let’s be honest, the natural human impatience with technical arguments (that old “empty formalism” complaint), and it is easy to see why modern theology would turn elsewhere.

(R. R. Reno, “Theology’s Continental Captivity,” First Things [April 2006]: 26-33, at 31)

My friend Peg Kaplan in Minnesota is blogging up a storm. Check it out. Whatever happened to Jesse Ventura, Peg?

See here.

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "Arab Democracy, a U.S. Goal, Falters" (front page, April 10):

The headline itself tells why. The administration showed its arrogance once again in trying to impose democracy on Arab countries, especially after beginning by bombing.

President Bush and his team aren't that interested in spreading democracy anyway—witness their disregard for our own democratic protections and rights. Their real goal is to promote globalization and free markets, not free people.

Eileen Copeland Gallagher
Rockville Centre, N.Y.
April 10, 2006

Vanity, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.

They say that hens do cackle loudest when
There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid;
And there are hens, professing to have made
A study of mankind, who say that men
Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen
Make the most clamorous fanfaronade
O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid
They're not entirely different from the hen.
Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,
His blazing breeches and high-towering cap—
Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,
Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!
Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue
Is that in battle he will never hurt you?
Hannibal Hunsiker.

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

Here.

Today you offer four fine points of rebuttal to that idiot woman who wants us to "talk only" to Iran, because the use of force is never justified. Would you consider running this unpublished piece of mine as an added rebuttal? Bob

Dear Neighbor:

Every time I pass your house, I am tempted to stop and try to talk to you about your lawn sign that proclaims: "War is NOT the answer." But perhaps an anonymous rebuttal will suffice, affording you an opportunity for reflection without confrontation.

What exactly do you mean? Is war NEVER the answer? Should your sign read, instead, "War should never be our first option"? Longer, certainly, but more exact, unless you are a pacifist who believes that no war is ever justified, even a war of self-defense. Is that your position?

If not, then your lawn sign is misleading, a lazy shorthand for what you really intend to say. Perhaps it fills you with a sense of moral self-righteousness, but to me it signifies someone who is a sloganeer held prisoner by platitudes.

If you truly believe that war is NOT the answer, then explain to me (or even just to yourself, your spouse or your children) how, in the absence of the Civil War, the Negroes would have been freed from slavery. Do you imagine the Confederate States would have released them from perpetual bondage? In the absence of war—Lincoln's decision to fight—isn't it more likely that the South would have invaded and conquered Mexico, Cuba, Haiti and other sun-drenched territories where King Cotton could have been extended, as the Confederate states faced soil depletion from continuous cultivation of cotton? Should President Lincoln be condemned for his action?

In the absence of war—Roosevelt's decision to fight—Hitler would have achieved his goal of killing the Jews of Europe and, facing no military opposition, killing all the remaining Jews worldwide, as well as gypsies, homosexuals and other "inferior" peoples. If you survived at all, you would be speaking German today—if America had not used military force to resist Hitler's insatiable appetite for conquest. Should Roosevelt be censured for challenging isolationism and pacifism, and for realizing that sometimes war may be the ONLY answer?

If you oppose war everywhere and at all times, do you propose to restore the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, so they can continue to subjugate women, destroy works of art, ban music, and perpetuate a reign of terror?

If war is not the answer, do we owe an apology to Saddam Hussein for killing his murderous sons and heirs, and for ousting him? Should America not have led the 1991 coalition that forced him to withdraw from Kuwait? If going to war against Saddam Hussein was wrong in 1991 or 2003 because war is NOT the answer, then it is a reversible error. Should we restore him to power so he can annihilate the Marsh Arabs, continue his oppression of the Kurds and prolong his tyranny over the Shi'ite majority? And should we compensate him for his mental anguish? How much would you be willing to pay into such a fund?

If I have managed to cause you second thoughts about your lawn sign, would it be too much to ask that you remove that eyesore today?

4-12-86 It was indeed a rough night’s sleep. The insects were terrible, and then it got cold at that high altitude. My sleeping bag, moreover, is a bit short for me, so, in order to cover my head, I had to fold my legs and slide in. This, needless to say, was uncomfortable. I tossed and turned all night. By the time the sun rose in the morning I was ready to go. David [Cortner] and I packed up in a matter of minutes and set out. But first we had to find David’s coat. He had lost it the night before while scrambling back to the path. Luckily for us, I found it about an hour after we started looking. It was wedged between some rocks. Talk about rough terrain! The side of that mountain is a veritable no-man’s land of rocks, twisted trees, and sharp cacti. It was still pretty early when we got going.

Realizing that we had to get to our destination and back in one day, David and I made a strategic choice to go to Rincon Peak rather than to Mica Mountain. Rincon is the second-highest peak in the range, 184 feet lower than Mica. But that was OK with me, because now I have something else to accomplish, with or without David. The thing that surprised me the most about the hike was the change in terrain and flora. From desert we hiked through low undergrowth, then into a pine forest, and finally up the side of the peak. The last half mile was brutal, absolutely brutal. I was way ahead of David by this time, and not sure that he’d make it, but I was determined to get to the peak myself. I finally did, and the view was spectacular. I dropped my pack, wandered around, and wrote in a notebook that somebody had left up there. Crows flew by continually. I noticed that it was much colder on the peak than elsewhere in the mountains.

Just as I was about to start down, I saw David coming up. He looked like a zombie, so fatigued was he. We went back to the top for some more rest and relaxation, pausing to take pictures and enjoy the view. We found patches of snow near the peak, much to my amazement. This, even though the high temperature for the past few days has been in the eighties [degrees Fahrenheit]. Finally we started down. It had been 8.1 miles from the car to the peak, and we knew that we had to traverse every inch of the trail before nightfall. But we did it, pausing many times to rest and talk. My right knee became sore by the time I got to the car. All in all, we had a great time. I had never camped overnight in any of Tucson’s mountains before, so I count it as a learning experience. Next time I hike, I’ll bring fewer items and have a travel itinerary already laid out. David vowed never to hike to Rincon Peak again. He was devastated by the exertion.

To the Editor:

I urge Congress to build a bipartisan group to end any plans President Bush may have to bomb Iran. There are many important issues being debated at the moment, but none are as essential to national security as this.

We cannot continue to use military force whenever we don't like what a country is doing, even if it is truly horrible.

What's worse is that we seem to do so only when the supposed threat takes place in an area where we have strategic interests, like oil. We have yet to take any military action to stop the genocide in Darfur.

Although diplomacy may not work with Iran, bombing will make things far worse, with consequences that may include nuclear strikes, hatred of America that grows exponentially, terrorism in the United States and potentially World War III.

I am 41 years old, and for the first time in many years, I am scared. Our government must start to think more creatively about how to solve problems. To continue to use military force will never bring about true security.

Mary Goldschmidt
Doylestown, Pa., April 11, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: God forbid the United States should ever do anything to promote its interests!

Second note from AnalPhilosopher: Is there any better example than this letter of the difference between male and female thinking? Women think we would all get along if only we would talk out our differences. Men know that there are evil men out and about, with designs on the vulnerable. These men must be disabled, not discoursed with. Violence will cease at precisely the moment human beings cease to exist, and not a moment before.

Third note from AnalPhilosopher: Note the absolute deontology reflected in the expression "even if it is truly horrible." No amount of horror can justify the use of military force, according to this writer. One wonders what she would say if she were a Jew in Nazi Germany or a Kurd in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Fourth note from AnalPhilosopher: What do you suppose the writer will say when Iran's nuclear bombs destroy one of our major cities? That we should have talked harder?

Here is Brendan Miniter's column about Mitt Romney's health-care plan for Massachusetts.

Here is the best essay I've ever read on the moral status of nonhuman animals. Please read it. If you reject the conclusion, then, to be consistent, you must either deny the validity of the argument or reject a premise. In other words, there are three ways to respond to Engel's argument:

1. Deny its validity (i.e., claim that the conclusion does not follow from the premises).
2. Reject a premise.
3. Accept the conclusion.

Read the essay carefully and choose wisely.

Kevin Stroup sent a link to this essay by Mitt Romney. Thanks, Kevin!

See here.

Here.

Berenice's Hair, n. A constellation (Coma Berenices) named in honor of one who sacrificed her hair to save her husband.

Her locks an ancient lady gave
Her loving husband's life to save;
And men—they honored so the dame—
Upon some stars bestowed her name.

But to our modern married fair,
Who'd give their lords to save their hair,
No stellar recognition's given.
There are not stars enough in heaven.
G.J.

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

To this.

I recently subscribed to First Things, the masthead of which reads as follows:

First Things is published by Religion and Public Life, an interreligious, nonpartisan research and education institute whose purpose is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society.

The essays are superb. Here is an essay from the current issue. I wish I could link to George Weigel's essay "Iraq: Then & Now," but I can't find it online. He makes a powerful case that the war in Iraq satisfies the requirements of traditional just-war theory. I quote:

From a classic just war perspective, there were multiple and mutually reinforcing rationales for making the moral judgment that the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime, and the creation of a new political order in Iraq, satisfied a developed version of the war-decision [ius ad bellum] criterion of "just cause." (page 38)

I have been saying precisely this since the war began, not only in this blog, but in my Ethics of War blog and in my columns at Tech Central Station.

Addendum: Bob Hessen sent a link to this essay by George Weigel. Note that it was published just days after the war in Iraq began.

Here.

Here is Charles Krauthammer's column about the French.

Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians.

(Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature [New York: Viking, 2002], 277)

Here.

See here for an interesting quotation about conservatism.

4-11-86 Friday. What a day! First I lectured to my [Introduction to Philosophy] students, then I chewed the fat with Julianna Wilson and several other students for a few hours, and finally I went hiking with David Cortner. We had planned this hike, to Mica Mountain, for some time. Here’s how it went. David met me at my apartment in the early afternoon. After eating at a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant (“Our last hot meal for at least a day,” I told him), I drove eastward to find the trailhead. David was charged with getting us to the trail, but he flubbed it and we ended up driving dozens of miles out of our way. By the time we found the road, a winding, treacherous stretch of gravel, it was getting late in the afternoon. We didn’t park the car and start hiking until five o’clock. But that still left us with a couple of hours to climb the mountain, so off we went.

At first, the terrain was desertlike, but gradually it changed. We hiked around boulders, through ten-foot-high shrubs, and eventually into some twisted trees. I walked ahead of David as much as possible, if only to set a good pace, but at one point this caused a problem. I had stopped to wait for David on some boulders, but he never came. Finally, concerned, I let out a yell. A moment later I heard a faint return call. Damn! David was hundreds of yards away on the side of the mountain. Fortunately we could hear each other, so we kept yelling until David found the trail and got to my location. That wasted forty-five minutes, and David was exhausted, so we decided to find a place to camp. Darkness was fast approaching. I located a tolerably flat space between some rocks and under a tree, and we proceeded to spread our sleeping bags and eat the sandwiches that we had brought. My pack was quite heavy, so it was nice to get it off my back.

Originally, when David and I conceived the idea of a hike into the Rincon Mountains, it was to get a good look at Halley’s Comet. David is an amateur astronomer, and he has an expensive portable telescope. But at the last moment he decided not to bring it. Nonetheless, the sky was clear, so David spent a good part of the evening staring at it through binoculars. (He never did see the comet, because we were on the wrong side of the mountain.) I hadn’t brought a light, so I got into my sleeping bag for a good night’s sleep. As I lay there, David explained some of the constellations to me. The plan was to go to Mica Mountain the next day, returning to the car by nightfall. Mosquitoes, however, were determined to make me uncomfortable all night. It was a long time before I was able to sleep. Hmm. I hadn’t slept in this sleeping bag since August 1984 [on my bike ride across Arizona]. What a strange feeling!

Geographer, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.

Habeam, geographer of wide renown,
Native of Abu-Keber's ancient town,
In passing thence along the river Zam
To the adjacent village of Xelam,
Bewildered by the multitude of roads,
Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,
Then from exposure miserably died,
And grateful travelers bewailed their guide.
Henry Haukhorn.

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

To the Editor:

The value of the illegal immigrant to our economy is his illegality. If you understand this fact, you understand the problem.

So long as he retains his illegal status, he can be paid less, denied health care and dismissed at will. This is what those corporations that employ undocumented workers value the most. And this is why a "guest worker" program will never succeed.

When today's illegals become tomorrow's federally recognized guest workers, the jig will be up. Because of their legitimate status, guest workers will have to be treated like human beings. This will not sit well with those employers who thrive on illegals today.

By adopting a "guest worker" program, we will be creating millions of legitimate workers, and those hard-pressed employers will be forced to seek out (and "invite" into our country) another illegal group willing to be paid less, denied health care and dismissed at will.

George Moss
Columbus, Ohio, April 10, 2006

Here is Mitt Romney's column about the new Massachusetts health-care plan.

Here.

Fascism is sometimes used simply as a name for Mussolini's régime, sometimes as a term of abuse directed against any government, party, or individual who does not fall in with Soviet wishes. So far as it denotes a distinctive political system it should presumably denote the 'corporative State'. In such a State there is a functional organisation according to trades and professions; but the 'corporations' are, unlike trade unions, dependent on the government and represent all elements in each industry, not the workers only. They are part of the working machinery of the State and in Italy they were firmly controlled by the Fascist Party, which supplied their key officials. Such a system is no more than a complex machinery for totalitarian control; and in fact the Italian corporations never acquired any real vitality or political significance.

(J. D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 2d ed. [London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967 (1st ed. 1948)], 168)

To the Editor:

Families are returning to the dinner table?

Some of us never left. Some of us chose to find the balance that allows for real quality family time—the intimacy of eating, watching TV, and laughing and talking together that comes with just being home together.

Be bold, families! Set boundaries on your workday. Make careful choices about the quality and number of activities your children engage in.

Say no! And, say no to your own need to feel effective with endless committee work and board of director activities.

Work, school and community involvement can all come together to enhance the family. But not if family is the last thing on the list.

Create your vision of family life and make that your primary goal to achieve—and then build your life around that.

Roberta Herche
New York, April 5, 2006

Here is John Fund's column about the 2006 midterm elections.

Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man—who has no gills.

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

Here.

Here.

Here is Jonathan Alter's Newsweek story about Massachusetts Governor (and likely 2008 Republican presidential candidate) Mitt Romney.

The Corps of Discovery of the Lewis and Clark expedition is making its way up the Columbia River. Today the Corps passed a 300-foot waterfall. See here for the journal entries. The editor of the journals, Gary Moulton, says it's either Multnomah Falls or Horsetail Falls.

[I]t is doubtful that the savagery with which the United States is attempting to extirpate a seemingly arbitrary subset of mind-altering drugs (cocaine and LSD, but not Prozac; heroin, but not Valium; marijuana, but not cigarettes or alcohol; benzedrine, but not caffeine) can be explained without reference to social class. As I noted in Chapter 2, it is mainly the mind-altering drugs favored by blacks and by members of the "counterculture" that have been criminalized.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 215)

To the Editor:

Now that we know to what depth this president will go to subvert our democracy to get what he wants, will those who supported and admired and still support and admire this man as a man of character and integrity finally admit that they were wrong?

Never in our recent history has this country been so ill led by such an immature, reckless leader as it has been with George W. Bush.

And never in our recent history has this country been so ill led by a most feckless Congress.

Will it now admit that it has been wrong, on both sides, to let this president do whatever he wanted to do, and do something about it?

The country is desperately waiting for it to act.

Hendrik E. Sadi
Yonkers, April 7, 2006

Aim, n. The task we set our wishes to.

"Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?"
She tenderly inquired.
"An aim? Well, no, I haven't, wife;
The fact is—I have fired."
G.J.

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

Here.

Swiss cyclist Fabian Cancellara won today's 104th edition of the Hell of the North, otherwise known as Paris-Roubaix. Here is the story. Cancellara, the first Swiss to win the race in 83 years, covered the 160.9 miles in 6:07:54, for an average speed of 26.2 miles per hour. I'm a longtime cyclist, but this speed boggles my mind. These aren't men; they're gods.

Addendum: American George Hincapie, who made the decisive 14-man break from which Cancellara emerged, suffered a freak accident when his handlebars snapped. Helpless, he veered to the side of the road and crashed. Hard. That was it for him. I thought he broke his collarbone, but evidently he did not. That's good, because George needs to begin preparation for the Tour de France. Had he broken his collarbone, he would have been off the bike for several weeks and unable to train.

Addendum 2: Here is Cancellara driving the peloton through the Arenberg Forest. Note the cobblestones. There were something like 27 cobblestone sections in the race, for a total of about 30 miles. The riders' hands must be numb after the race.

Here is the text of the new South Dakota abortion law. One of my students, Michelle Blankenship, tracked it down.

Here.

I don't give money to panhandlers. It only discourages them from getting a job. This afternoon, as I was leaving the bike rally in Lancaster, I stopped at a red light at Interstate 20. Two men were working the median. Both carried containers for the money they collected. My window was down. One man approached. I ignored him. But he kept coming, so I glanced his way. He held the container out. I shook my head no. He asked, "Do you go to church?" I ignored him. As he walked away, he said something rude and waved at me in disgust. I saw him do this to other drivers as well. The man was nice until he saw that we weren't going to give him money; then he was vicious. What a world.

Rimer, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.

The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,
The sound surceases and the sense expires.
Then the domestic dog, to east and west,
Expounds the passions burning in his breast.
The rising moon o'er that enchanted land
Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.
Mowbray Myles.

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

My beloved Bengals—the Detroit Tigers—beat Texas again this evening to improve their record to 5-0. All five victories have come on the road. Some of you may recall that in 1984, when Detroit won the World Series, the Tigers began the season 35-5. As for my adopted Rangers, who are now 1-5 (all at home), let's just say that they stink.

To the Editor:

"Doubling Up on Literacy Classes" (editorial, April 2) perpetuates the idea that literacy is something that happens in certain classes; we usually think of English classes as the main place where students read and write.

But students should read and write in every class they take—music, art, physics, history and mathematics. Then there would be no need for doubling up on literacy classes, because all classes would be literacy classes.

Teachers need to offer students some choices and bring in a range of texts—diaries, biographies, newspaper articles, primary documents, comics—and writings that are relevant, humorous, informative, questioning and enjoyable to read to inspire students more than the insipid writing found in most textbooks.

Finally, no matter how knowledgeable the teacher, no amount of "teaching young children to read" will enhance a student's literacy if the students don't read and write throughout the day in their classes, or above and beyond their classrooms.

John Gabriel
Chicago, April 2, 2006
The writer is an associate professor, School of Education, DePaul University.

This morning I did my second bike rally of the year and 373d overall. I hurt my back playing softball this past Wednesday, which causes me to hobble, but it doesn’t affect bicycling. Go figure. It was good to see several of my friends this morning in Lancaster’s town square. Joe Culotta was there; Julius Bejsovec was there; Phil Kevil and Randy Kirby were there. It was cool, cloudy, and windy at the start. I thought seriously about riding only 45 miles instead of 62, since the second half would be into a headwind; but Joe and I decided to gut it out. Neither of us was in a hurry to get home, and we know that suffering now will pay off in later rallies. (We also know that suffering is good for the soul—especially if it’s self-imposed.)

We rode 18.93 miles the first hour. It was easy pedaling. We talked, admired the beautiful scenery (bluebonnets are out in force), and kept our eye out for road obstructions. Bicycling etiquette requires that riders point out dangerous road conditions to those behind. If I’m going to the right of a pothole, for example, I’ll point with my left hand to the pavement. Riders behind see this and take precautions. We also call out “Car up!” or “Car back!” I saw one bad accident today. I came upon a rider sitting in the road with medical personnel hovering nearby. He was in pain. I suspect he broke a bone. The collarbone snaps easily when one falls on the shoulder, and that’s usually what hits the ground first.

Riding with a tailwind is deceptive. You feel good, and you think you’re supplying all the power. As soon as you turn into a crosswind or a headwind, you realize how mistaken you were. When Joe and I reached the southernmost point of the course and began heading back, I was stunned by the wind speed. It must have been blowing at a steady 20 miles per hour. I read somewhere that your speed is reduced by half the headwind speed. If so, then this wind slowed Joe and me by 10 miles per hour. If we would have been going 19 miles per hour with no wind, we were reduced to 9 with it. But we took turns pulling, which increased our speed. I proposed one-mile pulls. That made a big difference. Pulling was hard, but as soon as I dipped behind Joe, my heart rate went down and I was able to catch my breath. We rode like this for many miles. I mentioned to Joe that we had 30 miles to go. I knew it was going to get ugly, especially since my legs were weakening.

Eventually, we were caught by Julius and his companion, who had stopped for refreshments. This made four of us. Instead of breaking the wind half the time, each of us was able to work one-quarter of the time. I would pull for a mile, then rest for three miles. Our speed wasn’t high, but that wasn’t the idea. It was to conserve energy. Finally, at about 45 miles, I told Joe and the others to leave me. I was fried. I wanted to ride at my own pace, even if it meant fighting the wind on my own. The final 15 miles were hell. I kept thinking, “This is beyond bad; it’s absurd.” I saw “10,” “9,” “8,” even “7” on my speedometer—on flat ground! It was all I could do to keep the pedals turning. It was like trying to walk in a wind tunnel.

But, as I’m fond of saying, all bad things must come to an end. I made it back to Lancaster, where Joe was waiting. By then the sun was out. It was a beautiful day, weatherwise, except for the infernal wind. My average speed for the 59.37 miles was 15.32 miles per hour, which is a bit higher than a week ago. To show you how bad the wind was, I rode 18.93 miles the first hour and averaged only 14.06 miles per hour thereafter. My maximum heart rate was 148 and my maximum speed 33.1 miles per hour. With warm-up and cool-down riding, I ended up with 60.7 miles. Thus, I went farther and faster than in Aledo a week ago. Speaking of which, here is an image of me in Aledo (click to enlarge):

That’s Lake Weatherford behind me.

Addendum: The average wind speed on the day of the Lancaster rally was 15.8 miles per hour. The maximum wind speed was 31 miles per hour. See here.

Here.

This past Saturday, I did my first bike rally of the year and 372d overall. I hadn’t been on the bike in almost two months, so my goal was simply to complete the 62-mile course and burn off calories. Several hundred people showed up in downtown Aledo, which is a hamlet a few miles west of Fort Worth. This year, the organizers started us downtown instead of at the high school on the outskirts of town. Traffic was bad. But I made it to the starting line on time. In fact, as soon as I pulled up, the announcer said that the rally would start at 8:25 instead of 8:15. It was 8:06. I didn’t feel like waiting 19 minutes, so I headed out alone. The racers had departed at 8:00, so the police officers were already at the intersections. This, as you can imagine, made for enjoyable riding. I was able to keep moving instead of stopping at stop signs and stop lights. I always say “Thank you” to the officers as I pass.

It’s been cold at the Aledo rally in the past, but this time it was warm and humid. I worked up a sweat pretty quickly. My goal was to hold off the lead pack for at least an hour. The course was hilly. Volunteers at the rest stops applauded as I went past. They must have wondered why I was alone. Perhaps they thought I had been dropped by the racers. Sure enough, I got through the first hour without anyone catching me. The first rider caught me at 1:03, as I was rounding Lake Weatherford. A small pack caught me at 1:06 and another at 1:13. After that, it was like a regular rally, with people scattered all over the course. I thought about hopping on one of the packs as it went by, but I don’t have cycling legs yet, so I wouldn’t have lasted long. I covered 17.12 miles during the first hour. The music on my Rio Karma was stimulating.

After about two hours, I began to tire. The wind and hills were wearing me out. I decided to ride only 50 miles instead of 62. All it meant is skipping the final loop. I ended up with an average speed of 15.18 miles per hour. My maximum heart rate was only 149, which shows that I didn’t go hard at any point. I reached a top speed of 37.7 miles per hour. All in all, it was fun. I try to build leg strength and endurance with each rally. I did 27 rallies in 2005 and hope to do just as many this year. The best song of the day was John Cougar’s “I Need a Lover.” This song is unusual in that the singing comes in late. The guitar is superb. Some of you may know John Cougar as John Cougar Mellencamp. I believe he was born John Mellencamp, changed his name to John Cougar, and eventually tacked his given name back on. For all I know, he is now John Mellencamp again.

See here.

I was born 49 years ago today in Lapeer, Michigan. I had an idyllic childhood, despite the divorce of my parents when I was about eight. From the time I was 10, we had 20 acres of wooded land to explore. My brothers and I raised chickens, rabbits, dogs, and horses; we built tree houses and forts; we made paths through the woods; we played army; and, most importantly, we played sports. Our yard was big enough for a baseball diamond. I laid it out perfectly and kept it mowed. I made a home plate out of wood and nailed it to the ground. For football, I made a goalpost out of timber. I made a basketball backboard. We were far from spoiled. Glenn and I had chores to do. We learned how to be responsible. Our mother and stepfather set good examples for us. If I could live my life over again, I would—in a heartbeat. But that’s not possible, so I must make the best of whatever time I have left.

I suppose I’m now middle-aged. I don’t feel it; I don’t act it; and I certainly don’t look it. I still feel 18! Sometimes I wonder where my life went. How could it be 2006 already? Wasn’t it 1996 yesterday? Does that mean it will be 2016 tomorrow? Will I slide through the 50s the way I slid through the 40s? With each passing year, I have more admiration for my late friend Don Tennant. When I met him on a club bike ride, in 1993, he was 59. I was 36. We did three week-long bike tours in the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, the last when he was 61. Don always kept up with us, although we were two decades younger. I didn’t realize then what he was accomplishing. I just assumed that you felt the same as you grew older. Now I know better. I have aches and pains in various parts of my body after I exert. I’m still sore from Wednesday’s softball game, for example. Don never complained. He was a proud, tough, resilient man. It meant a lot to him to be able to ride with the young guys. Thanks, Don, for providing such a good model for me. I hope to ride until I’m 69, as you did.

To the Editor:

I am depressed and frustrated by the countless editorials and columns about the immigration issue, in your paper and other publications. Not one I have read has referred to the most important issue of all, which is the environmental effect of continued population growth in our country, with immigration a major contributor.

Urban sprawl and the loss of woodland and habitat, urban and traffic congestion, pollution: all result from unchecked population growth.

Where is the voice of the national environmental groups?

Overpopulation, including in our own country, should be the most fundamental of issues to them, and yet they are silent.

What is needed is a serious discussion about what our country should be like in the future.

William A. North
Birmingham, Ala., April 5, 2006

Here.

Meander, n. [sic; should be "v.i."] To proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the ancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy, which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.

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

I take it that philosophers have nothing to tell people which they do not already know, or will not be prepared to accept after they have thought the matter through; and the worst fault any philosophy could commit would be to overlook or fail of accord with what is obvious.

(Clarence Irving Lewis, Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics, ed. John Lange [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969], 27)

Here.

There is no more unfortunate mistake in the discussion of obscenity than simply to identify that concept, either in meaning or in scope of designation, with pornography. To call something obscene, in the standard uses of that term, is to condemn that thing as shockingly vulgar or blatantly disgusting, for the word “obscene,” like the word “funny,” is used to claim that a given response (in this case repugnance, in the other amusement) is likely to be the general one and/or to endorse that response as appropriate. The corresponding term “pornographic,” on the other hand, is a purely descriptive word referring to sexually explicit writing and pictures designed entirely and plausibly to induce sexual excitement in the reader or observer. To use the terms “obscene” and “pornographic” interchangeably, then, as if they referred to precisely the same things, is to beg the essentially controversial question of whether any or all (or only) pornographic materials really are obscene. Surely, to those thousands or millions of persons who delight in pornographic books, pictures, and films, the objects of their attachment do not seem disgusting or obscene. If these materials are nevertheless “truly obscene,” they are not so merely by virtue of the definitions of the terms “obscene” and “pornographic” but rather by virtue of their blatant violation of some relevant standards, and to establish their obscenity requires serious argument and persuasion. In short, whether any given acknowledged bit of pornography is really obscene is a logically open question to be settled by argument, not by definitional fiat.

(Joel Feinberg, Offense to Others, vol. 2 of The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law [New York: Oxford University Press, 1985], 127 [italics in original; endnote omitted])

It may not be fair, but I have two baseball teams: the Detroit Tigers and the Texas Rangers. I'll always love the Tigers. I grew up with them. I fell asleep many nights with a transistor radio under my pillow, listening to Ernie Harwell. I can still hear his voice in my mind's ear. When the Tigers won the World Series in 1968, I was in seventh heaven. Little did I know that the Tigers would not return to the World Series for 16 years. In 1984, when I was a graduate student at The University of Arizona, my Tigers won the World Series again. This time I got to experience victory as an adult. It was sweet. I have been twice blessed. But I've been away from Michigan for almost 23 years, and I no longer follow the team closely.

In August 1989, I moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, which has its own baseball team. Luckily for me, I had no animus toward the Rangers, so I adopted them. I've been to the ballpark many times over the years. I always put the game on television when I'm home, although usually with the sound muted so it doesn't distract me from my work. The Rangers have been to the playoffs a couple of times, but never won. I hope to live long enough to see them in the World Series.

Tonight my two teams played in the ballpark a few miles away. I refuse to root, since doing so would be rooting against one of my teams. I simply enjoy the game. The Tigers won big this evening, striking seven home runs. If you can believe it, the Tigers are 3-0. The Rangers are struggling at 1-3. It's great to have baseball again. Each April, life begins anew.

To the Editor:

My family of immigrants, legal and illegal, their children and grandchildren, differ from current Hispanic immigrants in one important respect.

On arrival, the newcomers of generations past were fierce in their determination to learn English, the bond that gave America its motto, "Out of many, one."

Unfortunately, even as English became the lingua franca of the world, much of the Hispanic migration speaks only Spanish at home, depriving their children and themselves of easy assimilation and economic advancement.

To make matters worse, we have pushed Spanish as an alternative to English in commerce, on product instructions, in libraries, and worst of all, in schools, unlacing the bond of a common language.

For those immigrants who propose to stay and become citizens, shouldn't we focus their attention on the language that bound us as a nation rather than provide them with an easy and disabling out not given to earlier immigrants who had to learn English quickly to succeed and prosper?

Sol Stein
Tarrytown, N.Y., April 4, 2006

I must say, it's refreshing to see that I'm not alone in thinking that Linda Greenhouse, who covers the United States Supreme Court for The New York Times, is a partisan political hack rather than a disinterested reporter. See here. I am often appalled by the bias she displays. She doesn't even try to hide it.

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column. I'm proud to say that I've never heard Katie Couric speak or watched her on television. I know who she is because I've seen her mentioned in newspapers. By the way, I never watched Dan Rather, either.

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 is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection. In grammar it is a pronoun of the first person and singular number. Its plural is said to be We, but how there can be more than one myself is doubtless clearer to the grammarians than it is to the author of this incomparable dictionary. Conception of two myselves is difficult, but fine. The frank yet graceful use of "I" distinguishes a good writer from a bad; the latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to cloak his loot.

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

One of my former students is struggling with vegetarianism. See here. In case you're wondering, I do not try to convert my students to vegetarianism in my Ethics course, any more than I try to convert my students to atheism in my Philosophy of Religion course or to conservatism in my Social and Political Philosophy course. What I try to do is get my students to understand the concepts, theories, issues, arguments, and criticisms. What the students do in their personal lives is none of my concern. I'm a moral philosopher, not a moralist. I'm their teacher, not their preacher.

Here.

Here is the best reason to limit your caloric intake. This morning, I weighed 157 pounds. I limit myself to 2,200 calories a day.

My slow-pitch softball team is 2-0. This afternoon, we (most of us are professors) beat another team of students. The score was 13-7. I pitched the entire game this time. My philosophy of pitching is simple: Throw strikes and let them hit it. If our defense can't make the plays, then we don't deserve to win. Tonight, we made the plays. I'm proud of the old boys. By the way, we play by the clock, not by the inning. The game lasts one hour. This is abhorrent to any fan of the game, but what are you gonna do?

The 2006 recipient of The Joel Feinberg Award has been announced. See here.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "Chávez Uses Aid to Win Support in the Americas" (front page, April 4):

The hand-wringing by Bush administration officials over how Venezuela is spending its oil wealth is both hilarious and breathtakingly hypocritical.

President Hugo Chávez is "spending considerable sums involving himself in the political and economic life of other countries in Latin America and elsewhere, this despite the very real economic development and social needs of his own country," complains John Negroponte, the American director of national intelligence.

The exact words could be used to describe the Bush approach.

Perhaps if we spent our foreign aid on popular programs that aided the poor rather than military invasions, we would be received with the enthusiasm that Mr. Chávez is enjoying.

John Eklund
Milwaukee, April 4, 2006

Here is Brendan Miniter's column about the Republican Party.

Here.

Deinotherium, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.

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

To this.

Chomsky made elaborate excuses for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. These were part of his determined effort, which continues, to blame the United States not only for the Cold War but for everything else that is wrong with the world, even Pol Pot’s massacres (which he now acknowledges, though belatedly as we’re about to see), and to depict the Soviet Union as a harmless and unaggressive, though internally repressive, pretext for American imperialism. Chomsky’s writings are peppered with such dicta as that the United States is “the center of international terrorism” and that “corporations are just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism.” He believes that Saddam Hussein’s reasons for bombarding Israel with missiles during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 were as good as George Bush’s reasons for seeking to expel Hussein from Kuwait by force and that the nations of Central America are more repressive than the communist nations of Eastern Europe ever were. He says that “there are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism, and on a scale that puts its rivals [such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, the Sudan, and North Korea] to shame.” He regards Arab hostility to Israel as entirely a product of Israeli aggression—he does not acknowledge that Israel has any legitimate security concerns or that any of its wars with the Arab states can be described as defensive on Israel’s part. He dismissed reports that the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia had killed more than a million people, saying that “highly qualified specialists . . . concluded that executions have numbered at most in the thousands; that these were localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence and unusual peasant discontent, where brutal revenge killings were aggravated by the threat of starvation resulting from the American destruction and killing.” He never acknowledges error.

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 86-7 [italics, brackets, and ellipsis in original; footnotes omitted])

You've heard the expression "Too much information." It's true. See here.

To the Editor:

"Inherit the Wind; There's Little Else Left" (Week in Review, March 26) emphasizes the stunning inequality of the American system of inheritance. Half of all bequests—a hundred billion dollars a year—comes from the top 7 percent of decedents' estates. Yet wealthy parents can leave $4 million to their children without paying a penny of federal estate tax, and even these taxes are scheduled for abolition in 2010.

Contrast Britain. Since September 2002, each baby born in the United Kingdom gets a Child Trust Fund that will provide him a citizenship inheritance upon reaching maturity. The government deposits up to $900 per child at birth and at age 7. If it accumulates at 7 percent, this will yield nearly $4,000 at age 18.

The British experiment deserves a closer look. A similar system, financed out of a revitalized estate tax, will democratize inheritance, providing every American a head start in life when he needs it, as he starts out adult life. There is no need for a further tax cut for the middle-aged members of the economic elite, whose windfall from the I.R.S. will depend on the longevity of their parents.

Bruce Ackerman
Anne Alstott
New Haven, March 26, 2006
The writers are professors of law at Yale.

Homiletics, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.

So skilled the parson was in homiletics
That all his moral purges and emetics
To medicine the spirit were compounded
With a most just discrimination founded
Upon a rigorous examination
Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.
Then, having diagnosed each one's condition,
His scriptural specifics this physician
Administered—his pills so efficacious
And pukes of disposition so vivacious
That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam
Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em.
But Slander's tongue—itself all coated—uttered
Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered
That in the case of patients having money
The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.
Biography of Bishop Potter.

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

Here.

Here.

If you're a baseball fan, no explanation is necessary. If you're not, no explanation is sufficient.

Here is an excellent column by Michael Barone about bias in the mainstream media. It explains why leftists are apoplectic about conservative talk radio, the Fox News Channel, and the blogosphere. They're used to having only one view—the leftist view—expressed or presupposed by journalists. Now they find that they have to argue for their views, and they've lost the ability to do so. About all they can do is make personal attacks. Imagine a business firm that lost its longstanding monopoly. It would not be used to competing for customers, having had the market to itself for so long. It might resort to illegality to maintain its privileged position.

What is it with The University of Texas at Austin? Every university has its imbeciles, but UT-Austin seems to have more than its share. You know about Brian Leiter, the academic thug. You may have heard of Robert Jensen, America-hater supreme (see here). Now comes Eric Pianka, who wants 90% of our species to die. Austin is a backwater town full of aging hippies, failed entrepreneurs, political hacks, and bums. There must be something in its water.

This law professor doesn't understand the debate over homosexual "marriage." It's not about morality or religion; it's about law. It's not about the relationship between adults, or their financial and emotional needs; it's about their children. Ultimately, the debate is about whether the state should be indifferent to how children are reared. Most Americans believe it should not—and they're entitled to have their belief institutionalized.

Jeff Percifield cracks me up. See here.

To the Editor:

One significant flaw in the study of the effect of intercessory prayer on patients undergoing heart surgery is the assumption that the "proper" answer to prayer is always healing.

There is nothing in the Bible, in Jewish or in Christian prayer, that teaches that God always gives petitioners what they ask for. He answers our petitions according to his will. Sometimes his will is to teach us about suffering, patience, perseverance. Sometimes his will is to take us out of this world. Sometimes his will is to humble the proud who think they can manipulate him like an idol.

Prayer is more complicated than our statistically thinking scientists understand. The glory of God is greater than science.

(Rev.) Christian Adjemian
Cambridge, Mass., March 31, 2006

I haven't read a column by Paul Krugman* in many months. I refuse to pay to read invective. I do, however, see a blurb about each of his columns on the New York Times website when I read the editorials and letters to the editor. Here is today's blurb. This is at least the second column in which Krugman attacks McCain. It's a sure sign that Krugman thinks McCain is the frontrunner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Archbishop, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.

If I were a jolly archbishop,
On Fridays I'd eat all the fish up—
Salmon and flounders and smelts;
On other days everything else.
Joho Rem.

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

Here is John Fund's latest column on the Yale Taliban.

Here is Richard Posner's post on the economics of national cultures.

Here.

Here.

By now, most Americans have heard of the Tour de France, even if they don't know much about it. In Europe, one-day classics are just as exciting, if not more so. Today's Tour of Flanders was won by Belgian Tom Boonen, the reigning world road-race champion. He rode magnificently. (I watched it on tape delay this afternoon on the Outdoor Life Network.) Boonen covered the 160.9 grueling miles at an average speed of 25.11 miles per hour. Boonen's breakaway companion, fellow Belgian Leif Hoste, came up short in the sprint. American George Hincapie won a bunch sprint for third place. Hoste and Hincapie are teammates on the Discovery Channel team. George sounded upset in the post-race interview. Hoste was not supposed to attack, evidently. Once he went, George couldn't chase, since that would mean chasing down a teammate. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the Discovery Channel hotel this evening. Here is the report of the race. Be sure to look at the many wonderful images.

The Corps of Discovery of the Lewis and Clark expedition departed Fort Clatsop 10 days ago. Yesterday, the Corps reached the vicinity of present-day Portland, Oregon. While encamped, Lewis and Clark learned that a large river—today's Willamette—empties into the Columbia on the south side. They had missed it on the downriver journey, probably because they were in a hurry and the mouth of the river was hidden behind islands. Clark and a small party went to investigate, take measurements, and prepare maps. See here for today's journal entries.

The Corps received bad news the past couple of days. Natives coming downriver told them that there was no game upriver and that the salmon were not expected to run for another month. Lewis and Clark had excellent hunters, such as George Drouillard, but you can't shoot what doesn't exist. They decided to spend a few days hunting game near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. Whatever meat they collected would be dried and stored for later use. Lewis and Clark also formulated a plan to dispose of their canoes at the earliest opportunity. They would trade the canoes for horses and go overland to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where they would await the annual snowmelt. One advantage of horses over canoes is that the former can be eaten in a pinch. Note Lewis's comment that the party was reconciled to eating horse flesh. Hunger trumps queasiness. The party had long since reconciled itself to eating dog flesh.

There were two noteworthy events today. First, just as Clark was leaving camp to investigate the Willamette River, several canoes of natives arrived. Clark says he considered going back, but decided not to. If you read Lewis's journal entry, you'll see that he shot the air gun, which astonished the natives. Put two and two together. Lewis, who had only a small party with him, was worried that the natives would attack. He decided to put them in awe of his power. The air gun was used many times for this purpose during the expedition. Second, if you read Clark's journal entry, you'll see that he used a strategem to get food from the natives. He used a fuse, a magnifying glass, a compass, and a magnet to frighten the inhabitants of a house he had entered. I hate to be prissy, but I don't like this. The end does not justify the means.

To the Editor:

Re "A Poverty of the Mind" (Op-Ed, March 26):

Orlando Patterson criticizes us for ignoring culture as an explanation for the high rates of joblessness and incarceration among young black men.

But, in our book, "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men," written with Paul Offner, we clearly state: "Mass culture glorifies violence and denigrates achievement. . . . Peer culture on the street seems to do the same."

Much of the book argues that communities, including those that are African-American, need to take more responsibility for instilling both skills and values among their young.

We don't say that jobs are unavailable, or that lack of work leads inevitably to crime, and we never oppose the obligation to pay child support.

We simply argue that three decades of declining wages on legal jobs have discouraged work and marriage, while raising crime rates, among young black men. Later in life, the stigma of having criminal records plus very high child support orders make it very difficult for them to return to legal work.

We argue for policies that aim to help reverse this process—including positive youth development programs, work-oriented activities in high school and better access to post-secondary schooling.

Expanding eligibility for the earned-income tax credit would raise incentives to accept low-wage jobs, as it clearly has for single mothers. And criminal justice and child support reforms would also encourage more legal employment and more involvement with their children.

Harry J. Holzer
Peter B. Edelman
Chevy Chase, Md., March 27, 2006
The writers are, respectively, a professor of law and a professor of public policy at Georgetown University.

Shelbie is three years old today. Here she is in a pensive mood a few minutes ago (click to enlarge):

Here she is alert and ready to play:

I had no idea what sort of dog Shelbie would be when I brought her home from the Humane Society of North Texas in July 2003. She was three months old. I should have guessed that she would be rambunctious, given how she climbed over me as I drove home. Here she is, exploring the back yard that first day:

Here she is, five days later, already rambling with Sophie and me:

In our almost three years together, Shelbie has never been ill or injured. She is happy, healthy, and active. We take two long rambles (unleashed) every day. She chases rabbits and squirrels, keeps those infernal cats out of our back yard, and protects me from marauders. She is smart, friendly, and affectionate. Happy birthday, stinker!

Addendum: Here is what I wrote about Shelbie on her first birthday (two years ago). Here is what I wrote on her second birthday (one year ago).

Here.

Bondsman, n. A fool who, having property of his own, undertakes to become responsible for that entrusted by another to a third.

Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a dissolute nobleman, to a high office, asked him what security he would be able to give. "I need no bondsmen," he replied, "for I can give you my word of honor." "And pray what may be the value of that?" inquired the amused Regent. "Monsieur, it is worth its weight in gold."

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

The train was quite crowded, so a U.S. Marine walked the entire length looking for a seat, but the only seat left was taken by a well-dressed, middle-aged, French woman's poodle. The war-weary Marine asked, "Ma'am, may I have that seat?" The French woman just sniffed and said, to no one in particular, "Americans are so rude. My little Fifi is using that seat." The Marine walked the entire train again, but the only seat left was under that dog. "Please, ma'am. May I sit down? I'm very tired." She snorted, "Not only are you Americans rude, you are also arrogant!" This time the Marine didn't say a word; he just picked up the little dog, tossed it out the train window, and sat down. The woman shrieked, "Someone must defend my honor, and put this American in his place!" An English gentleman sitting nearby spoke up, "Sir, you Americans seem to have a penchant for doing the wrong thing. You hold the fork in the wrong hand. You drive your autos on the wrong side of the road. And now, sir, you seem to have thrown the wrong bitch out the window."

Note from AnalPhilosopher: I like this joke—except for the part about throwing Fifi out the window. No Marine would do such an abominable thing. Come to think of it, no Marine—even an exhausted one—would accept a seat on a crowded train, much less beg for one. Whoever wrote this joke doesn't know Marines.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Orthography, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every asylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to be conceded hereafter.

A spelling reformer indicted
For fudge was before the court cicted.
The judge said: "Enough—
His candle we'll snough,
And his sepulchre shall not be whicted."

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

United States Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin is grandstanding on the censure of President Bush. Even his Democrat colleagues see the folly of it. One more time: Americans don't want their elected representatives to engage in pointless one-upmanship. Didn't we learn this from the Clinton impeachment? Then again, Feingold is pandering to the moonbats.

To the Editor:

Corinne Maier ("French Twist," Op-Ed, March 31) says that while Parisian protesters in 1968 wanted to change society, protesters in 2006 "want simply to be part of it." So why do they protest in favor of the status quo? With more than one in five unable to find a job, do these twentysomething middle-class French citizens fancy that they are now well integrated into society?

The key to enabling each young man and woman to become part of society is liberating each person to work on terms mutually agreeable to that person and to his or her employer.

Donald J. Boudreaux
Fairfax, Va., March 31, 2006
The writer is chairman of the economics department, George Mason University.

Like Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), I have always kept meticulous weather records. Since January 1987, for example, I have recorded—in chart form—the average high temperature for each month. See here. This past March was the warmest since I moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in August 1989. We had high temperatures in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s (degrees Fahrenheit). The range was 44º to 93º and the average 72.5º. It's been a warm winter. I used the fireplace only eight times in the first three months of 2006, and I love the fireplace. I would have been happy to use it 20 times a month.

Addendum: Here is my source for high temperatures. You'll notice that NOAA rounds averages upward. I do not.

I hope you're reading my Brian Leiter blog every day. It's the hottest site in the blogosphere. (Please spread the word.) As the letters pour in from law professors, philosophy professors, practicing lawyers, law students, and philosophy students, you'll see what people really think of Leiter. He thinks he's an academic star, but in fact he's the laughingstock of his chosen disciplines (law and philosophy). Don't feel sorry for him. His reputation for being a clown and a thug is his own doing. He has almost single-handedly destroyed his career by abusing everyone who disagrees with him. I have many more posts to write detailing his abusiveness. My bulletin board is full of the names of his victims.

Perry Eidelbus has redesigned his blog. See here. It appears that he has converted to leftism. Then again, it could be an April Fool's Day joke.