I finally watched the first presidential debate on YouTube. The various pundits and commentators are right - the president did seem unfocused, unenergetic, and basically no where near the top of his game, while Mr. Romney did own the stage tonight. But strangely, I feel more driven to rally behind the president. This debate made me more likely to ( Read more... )

ETA: I have officially been convinced I was wrong. Hey, it happens!;-) Feel free to keep commenting, but do check out my recent blog post following up on this.Apparently, California has passed a law outlawing certain kinds of psychotherapies, specifically those that attempt to "cure" homosexuality ( Read more... )

Saturdays are made for good music, and this song is one of my favorites. Here's a studio version of "I Need a Dollar," where you can really hear the blues and jazz roots much more claearly than in the more polished version. Nice job.

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Riffing on the "you didn't build that" line, here is a mashup of other lines taken out of context set to the tune of "You Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer.

( Read more... )

Over at the NY Time's "Opinionator," Seyla Benhabib took on Obama's decision not to deport a certaion groups of undocumented immigrants. It's really quite interesting.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/stone-immigration/

To lay my cards on the table, I happen to believe that most of our laws on immigration are unjust laws. While a ( Read more... )

1. I think I've had this cat in my philosophy class:

( Read more... )

Jon Stewart meets Lord of the Rings - what's not to love?

( Read more... )

I actually saw this one coming a mile away:

What the 'After-Birth Abortion' and 'Personhood' Debates Have in Common

A few weeks back I wrote about a journal article proposing that infanticides just after birth should have the same legal status as abortions just before. Meaning that they should be legal if the mother's welfare was at risk, and not ( Read more... )

Whatever else the recent blowup over the ACA contraception mandate might have shown, it's that Americans need a better epistemology. The news story has interested me on many levels and will probably pop up in blog posts from time to time. But one philosophical idea kept seeming to float to the forefront, at least in my mind as I read the different ( Read more... )