Cure-alls and Remedies
For a philosopher, I do a shockingly small amount of metaphysics. This is usually not a problem: I can handle basic issues in materialism and idealism, for instance, and tackle mind-body monisms and dualisms with my students, and my scholarship is in political philosophy and I generally argue, along with Rawls, that matters of justice…
Mumbai Under Attack . We know so little about what is happening there that these photographs are almost better than the print journalism. Beware: many of the photographs are difficult to see. [caption id=”” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″ caption=”A resident takes cover for possible return fire as National Security Guard commandoes fire at suspected militants holed up…
I’ve been really troubled by Proposition 8’s passage in California. It’s a strange kind of melancholy, because I’m already married, and I live in the DC area, so there’s no practical impact on me at all. Trying to explain this weirdly vicarious disappointment, I realize that it was arguments about marriage equality that first convinced…
Out of the mouths of babes : Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, indicated that the US would accept some criticism. “We have in many ways humiliated ourselves as a nation with some of the problems that have taken place here.”
When Antoinette and I got engaged, I purchased a cultured (i.e. synthetic) diamond , concerned about the role that the diamond trade plays in provoking conflict. Here’s what it looks like . At the time, I seriously considered using a saphire, since I believed the trade in saphires was child-labor free and less tainted by…
Arbitrage is the practice of exploiting price differentials for a profit. Arbitrage is based on the Law of One Price: “in an efficient market, all identical goods must have only one price.” From the arbitrageur’s perspective, price differentials are violations of the law, and they profit from correcting the differences. The most basic form of financial arbitrage…
Long time no post, right? Too much work, too little time. Anyway, here’e what I’m thinking about today: George Soros on Bill Moyers Journal: You see, for the last 25 years the world economy, the motor of the world economy that has been driving it was consumption by the American consumer who has been spending…
This blog was posted over at metafilter and got deleted for being too political, but I like it: Do you know what the light at the end of the tunnel is for us? Food. Yeah, food. When we’re on patrols and house clearing missions, what’s keeping us going is not the promise of freedom and…
Three Slate articles caught my eye today. On the Big Sort, Bill Bishop argues that the McCain ad accusing Obama of supporting sex ed for kindergardeners is a kind of dog whistle politics. Bishop gives the history of opposition to sex ed in schools going back to the textbook wars of Kanawha County, WV in the seventies, and…
One of our household’s favorites holidays is Constitution Day ! On this day in 1787, members of the Constitutional Convention signed the final draft of the document that governs us all. Since 2004, all schools who receive federal funds have been required by law to hold educational events on this day. Even if you’re not…