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Index for this page...(Be aware some links below may have expired.)
All The Following Items Were Posted On November 1, 2006 War and Peace: The word "war" in everyday discourse usually means actual warfare, fighting with whatever weapons are available at the time and place, and the word "peace" usually means the opposite, the absence of violent warfare. But, considered philosophically, we must take account of a more complex set of meanings. In the first place we must distinguish between the state of war and actual warfare. Sovereign princes or sovereign states in relation to one another are in a condition of anarchy. In this century we have a new name for this condition. We have called it the "cold war," as opposed to the hot condition of actual warfare. In the "cold war" with each other, sovereign states may be either friendly or hostile, but that relationship can change from time to time. The word "peace," in addition to its negative meaning as an absence of the violence of actual warfare, has a positive meaning. Civil peace is enjoyed by a people who can settle all their conflicts and disputes by means of the instrumentalities of government and law, and so they do not have to resort to the violence of actual warfare. We owe to the philosopher Thomas Hobbes this more precise understanding of war and peace. It is this more precise understanding that leads us to the conclusion that, in the absence of government, which is anarchy, we cannot have civil peace, locally, nationally, or in the world of international relations. Permanent world peace without world civil government is impossible. From Adler's Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher's Lexicon. Read Max Weismann's review of this book by Clicking Here.
Henri Bergson (1859-1941) "An evolutionary thinker creates a joyous worldview that promises a revolution in the way we understand the world; he tells us that life is meaningful, that we can be free, and that life processes are forever triumphant over matter; and though God has been dethroned by scientific mechanism, He is still with us (just disguised in evolutionary processes)." -- Professor James L. Christian. Read about Henri Bergson in The Radical Academy.
Source: Volume 1I of The Wisdom Seekers: Great Philosophers of the Western World, by James L. Christian. If you want an excellent and comprehensive history of philosophy, the two volumes in this set are among the best available. And I'm not just saying that because Professor Christian is a personal friend. I used his introductory textbook in philosophy when I was teaching an introduction to philosophy course many years ago. J.D.
FOR THE RECORD America's insane drug laws have turned cops into robbers. Recently Davidson County, North Carolina sheriff's deputies pulled over a car traveling on Interstate 85, southwest of Lexington. The officers said the car was following too closely to another vehicle. While searching the car, the officers found $88,000 in cash. The driver and passenger insisted the money was to buy a house in Atlanta. The officers didn't believe them. So they called in a drug-sniffing dog. According to the Davidson County newspaper The Dispatch, the dog "found a strong odor of narcotics inside the car." But no drugs were found. Nor any evidence of wrong-doing. So the two men weren't charged with any crime and were free to leave. But not with their $88,000. The sheriffs kept that. Incredibly, thanks to federal and state civil asset forfeiture laws, police can seize property and cash on the mere suspicion that they may be connected with drugs. The lack of proof of a crime is no protection. The sheriff's department called in federal investigators, and they are now preparing to argue in federal court that the government should be able to keep the money. If they win -- and the government does win the vast majority of asset forfeiture cases -- the local sheriff's office cut will be 75 percent ($66,000) of the confiscated money. Asset forfeiture has been quite lucrative for the Davidson County Sheriff's Office: $1.6 million in 2005 and $1.4 million in 2004. "It allows us to buy equipment without using taxpayers' money," said Sheriff Grice. Police departments across the country report similar windfalls. This practice, common for many years, was given a strong boost in August. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that if a motorist is carrying a large sum of cash, that money is automatically subject to confiscation. "Possession of a large sum of cash is 'strong evidence' of a connection to drug activity," the court ruled. In other words, for all practical purposes, driving with a lot of cash is now a crime in the United States of America. Source: Davidson County Dispatch Resources:
Newsweek Magazine has finally admitted that it got it wrong on climate change 31 years ago. In an Oct. 23 article that appeared on the news weekly's Web site, senior editor Jerry Adler wrote that an April 1975 piece on global cooling had been "spectacularly wrong." In that article, the magazine told readers that the Earth was heading into a new Ice Age. It reported that there were "ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically." And it warned of a "drastic decline in food production" that would cause shortages affecting "just about every nation on Earth." Scientists, Newsweek said, were calling on governments to take immediate action to head off the coming catastrophe. The magazine even offered a possible solution -- pour soot over the Arctic ice cap to help it melt. Newsweek's 31-year-old mistake was brought to light by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., during a 50 minute speech on the floor of the Senate on Sept. 25. Inhofe, chairman of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, took Newsweek and the rest of the mainstream media to task for its hysterical reporting on climate change, pointing out that they have been scaring the public with dire predictions of climate related catastrophes for decades. "Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares," Inhofe told his colleagues, adding that "from 1895 until the 1930s the media peddled a coming Ice Age. From the late 1920s until the 1960's they warned of global warming. From the 1950s until the 1970s they warned us again of a coming Ice Age." And he pointed out that over the years the media has repeatedly issued dire warnings about global overpopulation, resource scarcity, mass-starvation, and the death of the world's oceans. "None of these predictions came true, yet they never they never stopped the doomsayers from continuing to predict a dire environmental future," the Oklahoma Republican said. As for present-day claims of impending doom from global warming, Inhofe says they are yet another in a long series of scary predictions based on faulty science promoted by "left-wing environmental groups with a vested financial interest in hyping alarmism." University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming agrees. "The media hysteria on global warming has been generated by journalists who don't understand the provisional and uncertain nature of scientific knowledge," he says. Weathermen, the professor says, can't predict what the temperature will be in 30 days, so how can they forecast what it will be in 50 years? "They can't, because Earth's climate system is complex and poorly understood." Meanwhile, Sen. Inhofe is calling on responsible journalists to break "the cycles of media hysteria." He points out that it won't be easy. "Hysteria sells -- it's very profitable," says the senator. Source: Insider Report 3. O.J. Simpson's "If I Did It" Book O.J. Simpson has purportedly been given a $3.5 million advance to write a book describing how he would have murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, if he had committed the crime. The National Enquirer is reporting that the deal with O.J. is for the delivery of a "hypothetical book" with a working title of "If I Did It." The hypothetical murder scenes are, according to the Enquirer, "detailed" and "chillingly realistic." Thanks to the heads-up from the National Enquirer, since O.J has more than $30 million in unpaid damages, Fred Goldman and his family will likely take steps to intercept the book advance and royalties. Simpson is protected by double jeopardy and can never again be tried for the murders of Nicole and Ron, regardless of what he "hypothetically" admits to in print. Source: The Left Coast Report 4. Marijuana Shocker: Arrests Hit All-Time High U.S. governments are embroiled in a deadly war abroad and battling the threat of terrorism at home. But they still found the time and resources last year to arrest an all-time record number of marijuana smokers. U.S. police arrested an estimated 786,545 persons for marijuana violations in 2005, according to the latest FBI annual Uniform Crime Report. That total is the highest ever recorded. It amounts to one arrest every 40 seconds. Annual marijuana arrests have more than *doubled* since the early 1990s. Further, the total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. for 2005 far exceeded the total number of arrests in the U.S. for "all violent crimes combined" -- including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The target of almost all of these arrests are mere users. Approximately 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only. And the remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes "all" cultivation offenses -- even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. These figures indicate that the War on Drugs is in substantial part a "War on Marijuana Smokers." Indeed, marijuana arrests comprise 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States. "These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that diverts law enforcement personnel away from focusing on serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism." An arrest, even without imprisonment, can be a devastating and life-wrecking experience. "Arresting hundreds of thousands of Americans who smoke marijuana responsibly needlessly destroys the lives of otherwise law abiding citizens," St. Pierre said, adding that over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges in the past decade. "Some 94 million Americans acknowledge having used marijuana during their lives," St. Pierre noted. (Among them: presidents, congressmen, and Supreme Court justices.) "It makes no sense to continue to treat nearly half of all Americans as criminals for their use of a substance that poses no greater -- and arguably far fewer -- health risks than alcohol or tobacco." Source: NORML Press Release 5. Study: University of Michigan Still Discriminations On Admissions The University of Michigan's discrimination against white and Asian applicants -- the subject of a landmark 2003 Supreme Court decision -- is more severe than ever, a new study reveals. The study by the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO), based on admissions data released by the school in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by CEO, shows that the grades and standardized test scores of black and Hispanic undergraduates in 2004 and 2005 were far lower than those of their white and Asian counterparts. Last year, the median black admittee's SAT score was 1160, versus 1260 for Hispanics, 1350 for whites, and 1400 for Asians. Median high school GPAs were 3.4 for blacks, 3.6 for Hispanics, 3.8 for Asians, and 3.9 for whites. The data also showed that African-American and Hispanic applicants who scored 1240 on the SAT and earned a 3.2 grade point average had a nine out of 10 chance of being admitted to the university, while white and Asian applicants with similar scores and grades had a one in 10 chance. The disparities were found in the law and medical schools as well. The study could affect the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which is on the Nov. 7 ballot. The initiative would bar the state and local governments from granting preferences based on race, sex, or ethnicity in public employment, contracting, and education. CEO's president, Roger Clegg, said the study results are shocking in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision to strike down the admissions program used by the University of Michigan's main undergraduate school, according to The New York Sun. "The Court found that by automatically granting minority applicants 20 points out of the 100 needed for admission, the school failed to consider applicants on an individual basis and thereby violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause," the Sun reported. CEO Chairman Linda Chavez said in a statement: "What is really remarkable is that the weight given to race by the University of Michigan in its undergraduate admissions is actually heavier now than under the system that was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2003." According to Clegg, black students are now 71 times more likely than white students to gain admission, whereas in 1999 they were 24 times more likely to be admitted. A spokesman for the university, Julie Peterson, called CEO's study "flawed" and "shallow" because it did not take into account all the information considered in the admission process. But Terrence Pell, president of the Center for Individual Rights -- the law firm that represented the plaintiffs who sued the university -- said Michigan continues to enforce a "completely segregated double standard." He added: "This ought to be an issue in every state that has a top-ranked state university because every one of those states is using double standards comparable to Michigan's." Source: Insider Report "Willie Nelson and the boys were on the road, and they stopped them and found a pound and a half of marijuana. Bin Laden is still loose, but we got Willie Nelson." -- David Letterman, September 19, 2006. Source: About.com Political Humor Note: The following resources may have provided some of the above information. We thank them. Advocates for Self-Government; NewsMax.com; The Patriot Post; Media Research Center; National Center for Public Policy Research; Foundation for Individual Rights in Education; TownHall.com; Toward Tradition.
COUNSELING CORNER: Reflections and advice on marriage . . . 1. Whether a man winds up with a nest egg, or a goose egg, depends a lot on the kind of chick he marries. 2. Trouble in marriage often starts when a man gets so busy earnin' his salt that he forgets his sugar. 3. Too many couples marry for better, or for worse, but not for good. 4. When a man marries a woman, they become one; but the trouble starts when they try to decide which one. 5. If a man has enough horse sense to treat his wife like a thoroughbred, she will never turn into an old nag. 6. On anniversaries, the wise husband always forgets the past - but never the present. 7. The bonds of matrimony are a good investment only when the interest is kept up. 8. Many girls like to marry a military man - he can cook, sew, and make beds and is in good health, and he's already used to taking orders.
A LITTLE OF THIS & A LITTLE OF THAT A Little Wisdom: Love is the only thing that can be divided without being diminished. A Little Advice: Take interest in your future. It's where you're going to spend the rest of your life. A Little Question: We have enough youth, how about a fountain of Smart? A Little Put-Down: I refuse to enter a battle of the wits with you - it's against my morals to attack an unarmed person. A Little Proverb: Without vision, we are blind to opportunity. A Little Reflection: It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end. A Little Observation: Mother's of teens know why animals eat their young. A Little Quote: "Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." -- William Cowper (1731-1800) British poet. A Little Definition: CIGARETTE: A pinch of tobacco, wrapped in paper, fire at one end, fool at the other. A Little Admission: I just let my mind wander, and it didn't come back. A Little Quip: When we talk to God it's called prayer. When God talks back it's called schizophrenia.
Some interesting & provocative articles on other websites: Breast-Feeding, Intelligence Link Probed, by Tariq Panja: Breast-fed children are more intelligent than their bottle-fed counterparts, but this has nothing to do with the content of the milk they receive, a study published in the British Medical Journal said. A bad time for organic believers, by Dennis T. Avery and Alex A. Avery: It's a bad moment for believers in the mystical wonders of organic and natural foods. Deadly E. coli bacteria, lurking in spinach from one of the biggest organic farms in America, just killed one woman and hospitalized at least 29 other people with kidney failure. In all, the contaminated spinach sickened nearly 200, in at least 23 states and Canada. Psychoanalysis as a Weapon, by Murray N. Rothbard: This article was a keynote address given at a conference entitled Asclepius At Syracuse: Thomas Szasz, Libertarian Humanist. Thomas Szasz is justly honored for his gallant and courageous battle against the compulsory commitment of the innocent in the name of "therapy" and humanitarianism. Duke and Deceit - Brodhead's Folly, by William L. Anderson: The long-awaited "60 Minutes" broadcast has proven to be devastating to the prosecution's case in the Duke rape hoax &endash; and, yet, Ed Bradley's masterful performance barely touched the amount of police and prosecutorial misconduct that has existed. That is not Bradley's fault; even though two-thirds of the show was devoted to the story, it would take a documentary to occur over many days just to begin to cover everything. Yes, it is that bad. We will soon be lost for words: In the final exclusive extract from his new book on language, John Humphrys laments the death of formality and the dumbing down of classic texts. Religion and the war on terror, by Tulin Daloglu: In Muslims' heated debates over anti-Americanism, one of the key recurring questions is whether America has a majority Christian population or is a Christian state. And comparisons between President Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad abound. Madison's views on religion examined, by Liz Mitchell: President James Madison was a strong advocate for religious freedom but his personal views on spirituality remain largely a mystery. Out of interest and as executive director of the Montpelier Foundation, Michael Quinn examined Madison's contributions to these doctrines and the influence of religion on his political thought. Modern western culture against religion, pope says: Modern Western culture is unable to dialogue with religion and cannot answer fundamental questions about the meaning of life, Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday. Speaking in the northern Italian city of Verona, where he attended a convention of the Italian Catholic Church, Benedict said the West must return to its Christian root, warning against its secular drift. Program helps keep philosophy in schools, by Jesse Tinsley: The question of whether animals have souls meant little to high school student Christopher Perkins until he enrolled along with nearly 50 other students in the Carroll-Cleveland Philosophers' Program at John Carroll University. Like the Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato before them, Perkins of Cleveland and his classmates have become critical thinkers... Got a problem? Try someone trained in philosophy to solve it, by Jesse Tinsley: Socrates, the founder of moral philosophy some 3,000 years ago, had little trouble putting his discipline to practical use during Greece's golden age. He attracted huge crowds of people and lured them into discussions on politics, liberty, justice and love. Expert - More TV, more violence, by Patrick Cassidy: A former psychology professor at West Point , Grossman is considered by many in law enforcement and the military to be a leading expert on the psychology and aftermath of killing. My years in a habit taught me the paradox of veiling, by Karen Armstrong: If ministers really want a proper debate, they must learn that where the veil is forbidden, women hasten to wear it. Rules of Engagement, by William Langewiesche: On November 19, 2005, in Haditha, during Kilo Company's third tour of duty in Iraq, a land mine planted by insurgents exploded beneath a Humvee, killing a 20-year-old Marine. What happened next -- the slaughter of 24 Iraqi men, women, and children -- was not entirely an aberration. Why Johnny is reading Islamist propoganda, by Bob Unruh: Islam is being taught in the nation's public schools as a religion to be embraced because "organized Islamists have gained control of textbook content," according to an organization that analyzes textbooks.
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