signalnoise

good points.

re: adam smith - it makes me laugh that he cites so much, but makes up so much of it.

re: all about politics - isnt a political war, as is anything really, about power?

people who live in the middle of bumblefuck are so worried their living room is going to get blown up, when in reality, there are only a handful of real targets right now, it seems....and they are in only a handful of cities. though...ironically, if someone blew up the football stadium in lincoln, nebraska (or urbana champaign), it would put the fear of ___ in me - more so than if wall street were hit again.

thanks for the birthday wishes.

I don't have anything in particular to add to this comment, but I thought you might find it interesting to see that dissatisfaction with the pro-choice rhetoric is not uncommon among liberals: another post on choice.

Interesting food for thought.

Re: the first issue - the idea is that an environment where sources know that they will remain confidential encourages whistleblowers, which is a net benefit to society because otherwise these people wouldn't speak out for fear of the repercussions. It's not an easy issue, and I'm actually not sure where I stand. It might be best to leave it on a case by case basis.

The second issue - yes, i feel like some modern day feminists have their heads in the sand while they pretend that there is no moral dimension to abortion. That being said - first trimester abortions should have just about zero moral qualms, in my opinion, from a biological perspective. A ball of cells that can barely form layers, let alone complex organs or thought, is no more deserving of any additional moral consideration than a finger by itself. Possibly less so. Second trimester, especially late second trimester abortions, and it starts to get a little hazy.... I still think the primary issue is one of control, however. To pretend that some great moral calling trumps an individual's right to exert control over their own body and reproductive freedoms is to come perilously close to theocracy.

one thing i've missed sorely in my absence has been reading your journal entries--never a letdown

also, i've been meaning to ask you what, if any (and i'm pretty sure you do have one), your opinion is on the outcome of kelo v. city of new london (aka the preeminent eminent domain case ), although i'm positive you would have already opined on it in some previous JE...

I need to reread The Prince, I'm also thinking it might be time to read The Art of War.

Yeah, looks like there are no really good movies out right now. We actually wanted to do dinner and a movie the other night, and opted for dinner and coming home to pass out early instead.

I wanted to ask you a question! My boo keeps saying how interested he is in traffic...like the patterns of traffic around the city, and how things can get soooo fucked up. He seems interested also in how the roads themselves were laid out, the interstates and highways and expressways all going in and out of the city. Do you know any good books or websites that he could go check out to learn more???

wow. it's been a long time since I've read any of that....

Allow me to try and rain on this parade, BROTHER!

Last time I read Locke (last year), I came away with the exact opposite impression, i.e., it left me thinking that Locke fetishizes property to a degree that is unfathomable.

I see what you are saying regarding the broader definition of property, and it leads me to the exact opposite conclusion. Chapter 2, 6: Locke justifies self-preservation as deduced from the fact that we are God's property! From a standpoint of moral philosophy, this just sounds silly. Maybe Locke is a deist (or, as a Straussian would probably argue, an unbeliever who is hiding his true meaning for fear of persecution), but this whole life = God's property thing strikes me as a not something consistent with Christian moral ideas/teaching.

I haven't seen the movie, but don't forget that Batman witnessed, as a child, the death of his parents. His life has been altered by this event so much that he 1) wants to restore things to the good and safe world he knew when his parents were alive 2) He wants to punish criminals not only for himself but for all of society 3) He sometimes vents his rage in his crusade and runs the risk of becoming a bad guy himself.

I'm sure a lot of these compenents make up the mentality of a facist, but it's a common theme in any story where people obtain power. I see it more as a simple psychological drama. ie. Lord of the Rings, Akira, Howl's Moving Castle, etc.

had to skip the entry. I want to see the Batman movie. so am I gonna melt when I show up in Chicago on July 22?

Well, of course I'm interested in this topic, but you've pretty much heard everything I have to say on it...

I've been re-reading Dewey, and I think that education is a seriously overlooked part of it, though, in addition to participation (is it enough? Can we have education, required service *and* participation, please?). Dewey brings home exactly how odd it is, e.g., that we treat American History classes as either a collection of facts or as relatively crude propaganda (that's how mine were, at least) - rather than as a record of how people worked through problems of society.

One other thing I've been thinking about that I know little about (yet) is how to combine these republican ideas with a modern society in which governments are far from the only locus of power. For instance, what killed unions? Germany has worker representatives on all corporate boards... but the consensus seems to be that this just harms efficiency without actually getting the workers' interests represented...

P.S. I think it's too crude to see liberalism and republicanism as unrelated - though it's a mistake many folks (including philosophical luminaries, such as Thomas Nagel, who's got a paper on how we just shouldn't talk to each other about sex) make. Remember that for Mill, the idea was not just that we should be left alone - but that we should be left alone *so that we could carry out the important work of building our own conception of the good.* It's only recently that we've dropped the moral responsibility idea from the idea of personal freedom (or, where we haven't, it's been taken as an external standard used to *limit* freedom, rather than as an internal principle that's supposed to *motivate* our free actions).

[Edited on Jun 25, 2005 10:56AM]

i was under the impression roman virtue was athletic/military/strength prowess in the arena/battlefield? i.e. roman gods/heroes.

It's interesting how that emotion changes over time.

What is your summer work?

Mr. Noise-

You must go see the new Batman movie. You will throw away your Star Wars toys when you get home.

good job on the exam.

do you realize...i just realized TODAY a testimonial you left me last november? jeez. anyways, thanks for the kind words.

A giant Marx head? Yeah, I'm in to that.

Honestly, I like busts. But they're always too expensive.

thank you for the birthday wishes!

IT STINKS! I am bored. Nothing happened here or at work.

Not so much missed...I am just bored

well, I'm more of a qualitativist than a quantitativist. I can do the math and run the numbers, but I prefer case studies and other similar sorts of things rather than computing z-scores or whatever. I have a lot of fundamental issues with quantifying human behavior. Just a thing of mine, I suppose.

Wanna trade?

I didn't know Layer Cake was a book. I really wanna see that movie, though I'm dissapointed the Matthew Vaughn dropped out of directing X3. Now we may get Brett "Rush Houre, Rush Hour 2" Rattner

My field is international relations. My research tends to focus on international environmental politics and sustainable developments in the third world.