(AP) Hypotheses, Theories, Facts

http://atheism.about.com/od/philosophyofscience/a/ScienceFacts.htm

The TRUTH is not up to NBC's "standards"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/petas-thanksgiving-turkey_n_368793.html

34,000 more US troops to Afghanistan; or Obama = Bush-lite?, cont.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/24

Meanwhile, (cheap) talk of withdrawal from the newly forgotten "war" in Iraq is being matched by (expensive/secretive) US military expansion and consolidation in the area:

"In fact, since 2001 the Pentagon has been pouring significant sums of money into the "critical base and port facilities" mentioned by the general -- both U.S. sites and those of its key regional partners. These are often ignored facts-on-the-ground, which signal just how enduring the U.S. military presence in the region is likely to be, no matter what happens in Iraq. Press coverage of this long-term infrastructural build-up has been remarkably minimal, given the implications for future conflicts in the oil heartlands of the planet. After all, Washington is sending tremendous amounts of military materiel into autocratic Middle Eastern nations and building-up bases in countries whose governments, due to domestic public opinion, often prefer that no publicity be given to the growing American military "footprint."

Given that the current conflict with al-Qaeda stemmed, in no small part, from the U.S. military presence in the region, the issue is obviously of importance. Nonetheless, coverage has been so poor that much about U.S. military efforts there remains unknown. A review of U.S. government documents, financial data, and other open-source material by TomDispatch, however, reveals that an American military building boom yet to be seriously scrutinized, analyzed, or assessed is underway in the Middle East."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/23-4

Update:

US continues (Bush's) policy of refusing to sign treaty banning landmines:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/25-1

(NHN) Snakes, Snails, and Evolution

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/science/24creature.html?_r=1&8dpc

(AP & AE) Tom Wartenburg Visit

Reminder: On Wednesday, December 2nd at 5:30 in the Sullivan Lounge, Thomas Wartenberg of the Philosophy Department at Mount Holyoke College will be speaking on current issues in aesthetics.

On Turkey Day

One bird we honor on this day of thanks;
Alongside our symbol of freedom she ranks.
Regard for her grows as we near “Turkey Day.”
(I’ll parse her death as “regard,” if I may.)

Are turkeys the victims of vile human power?
A simpering few harbor thoughts fairly dour:
“These birds live their lives in a self-conscious way;
These birds aren't for stuffing, or eating,” they say.

Can't they agree that tradition's a right;
One sufficiently strong to eclipse the bird’s plight?
Perhaps they’re just bored, confused, or hate cooking;
It’s only a bird (and rather ill-looking).

Those in the know limit thought to our brains:
Alone we can suffer, feel pleasures and pains.
Just meeting our needs – a formidable feat;
How dreary the world, each entrée sans meat!

Life’s like a raft, with but room for one kind;
(So barely embrained, they're too simple to mind.)
The turkey we honor on this day of thanks;
Alongside our symbol of freedom she ranks.

DKJ

Reminder: Next Stage of Research Essays Due Friday

From the original guidelines for multi-stage persuasive essay writing:

Stage 3. Initial draft of essay: due: 11/20/09. Any student missing this deadline will have one letter grade subtracted from his/her final grade for the project.

Tim Geitner: Reverse Robin Hood?

If you or I lifted a $10 book of stamps from the Post Office, we'd be arrested, our personal and professional lives in ruins. This (insert appropriately negative description of choice here) gave away "tens of billions" (that's $10,000.000,000's) of taxpayer dollars to a private company (AIG), and continues to serve as treasury secretary to the President.

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/11/17

Update:

Rep. DeFazio calls on Obama to fire Geitner:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/18/rep-defazio-fire-timmy-ge_n_363093.html

Sarah Palin on Veganism

A taste of the wit and wisdom of Going Rogue, Sarah Palin's soon-to-be best-seller:

"If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?

I love meat. I eat pork chops, thick bacon burgers, and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak. But I especially love moose and caribou. I always remind people from outside our state that there's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals -- right next to the mashed potatoes."

Update:

More comedy from the master:

"Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) vice presidential running mate, signals in her new book Going Rogue that she doesn't believe in evolution, panning it as theory that human beings "originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea.""

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/palin-evolution/

Ethics, Animals, and H1N1

The most overdetermined yet unpopular conclusion ever (eating animals is a bad idea -- for us, them, and the environment), just got a little more so:

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/debate-modern-pork-production-and-h1n1/

Alternatives to the Status Quo

A sample of the kinds of questions we ought to be asking (in contrast to, say, "does the puny public option have the potential partially to fund abortion services for poverty-stricken Americans?!"):

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/10

(AP) Hume's Viciousness

Let's take a closer look at David Hume's proposed solution to the antinomous depiction of art as open to "critical" (that is, objective) judgments that are irreducibly subjective in origin. Hoping ultimately to reconcile a multiplicity of human "sentiments," (or tastes) he invokes (what he supposes are) instances of universal agreement from which to generate principles of artistic excellence. But on what basis does Hume assume that mere (inter-subjective) agreement is sufficient to generate an objective (that is, trans-subjective) standard? Is he simply claiming that "the best art" always conforms to standards implicit in our best artistic products and processes? If so, Hume is open to the charge of vicious -- or at least ineffectual -- circularity.

T. Gracyk agrees:

Whatever the standard, Hume's essay poses the problem of an apparent circularity in argumentation. A limited number of works are used to identify the best critics (leading, in turn, to the list of the qualities of such critics), but those works attain the status of masterpieces only through the judgment of such critics. So Hume either defines good critics in terms of good art, or good art in terms of good critics. (Is Homer's greatness demonstrated by the fact that true critics say so, or is their status as good critics to be demonstrated by the fact that they agree on Homer's merits?)

It may be, as Hume claims, that we face "questions of fact" in asking whether someone possesses the characteristics he attributes to true critics, or whether a specific work has appealed to such critics across cultures and the ages. Either way, how has he shown that "established" beauties provide the "finest" pleasure? Why are they superior to the "vulgar," transitory entertainments Hume dismisses? The features of the true critic are often read as Hume's way out of this trap. But Hume seems to have predetermined that only someone with wealth, education and leisure will ever possess good taste. The only answer, in the end, is the verdict of our common human nature: "the sentiments of all mankind are agreed" that such critics are superior.

The War Economy

Freedom belongs to the army that defines it:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/09-6

(A&P) Hume on "Necessary Connection"

Here's a brief sample of David Hume's skeptical approach to causality:

"All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined but never connected. And as we can have no idea of anything, which never appears to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be, that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasoning, or in private life."

(A&P) Meaning of it all...

Excellent summary of the central answers and approaches to the question, "what is the meaning of (human) life?"

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/

Contranymically speaking...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_auto-antonyms_in_English

Obama = Bush-lite?

Wall Street bailouts (with no regulatory strings), wars aplenty, justifications of extraordinary rendition, health insurance bonanza, etc.:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/04-9

More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/03-2