If Michigan was really considered to be a candidate to make or win the national championship, why the shit were they playing a team so poorly thought of that their ensuing loss to that team is considered to be the greatest upset in the history of college football?
The San Francisco Chronicle has some bad news for Obama:
"New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, bolstered by an aggressive campaign organization in California, has amassed a whopping 30-point lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama — and enjoys more support among likely voters in the state Democratic primary than all of her Democratic presidential rivals combined, a Field Poll released today shows."
The conference this Saturday went well. I presented a paper on Donald Davidson and Natural Selection. The keynote speaker was Barry Stroud. Stroud is, obviously, quite knowledgable about both Davidson and Wittgenstein, so I was a little worried he'd simply destroy me. But, lo and behold, he loved the paper. He was exceedingly complimentary, describing the paper multiple times as wonderful, saying that I nailed Davidson's position, and that the evolutionary arguments were a novel and interesting way to support it. I got to have drinks with Stroud afterward and talk some shop. He's not quite the skeptic he's potrayed to be, simply someone who believes that our historical quest for knowledge has been tainted by a desire for disembodied perspectives. He was also rather interested in my plans for graduate school. Hopefully, pursuing this relationship will provide me with, at least, a recomendation from someone known by all in the field and, at most, an in at Berkeley.
The next day I went to 7-11, around 9:30 pm, looking for some beer. I was running low on cash, so I decided to use my vast reserve of change that I keep strategically located on all the counters at my house. I purchased some Miller High Life. Yes, I know it's a sin, but necessity occasionally overrules ethics. On my way out, this bum approaches me. I saw him on the way in and had already decided to give him the little change I had left. As I reach into my pocket he says, "I noticed you scraping for pennies to buy some beer. Someone gave me some beer, but I don't drink. You want it?" I stopped, almost dumbfounded, and said, wittily, "What?" He repeated, "Someone gave me a can of Old English, but I don't drink. I thought you might want it." I, without thinking, told him no thanks and asked him if wanted the change I as currently holding. He said that he wasn't asking, but he doesn't turn people down when they offer. I gave him the change and that was that. But, on the drive home, it hit me: This bum fucking offered me beer. This is an inversion of all logical expectations. This was a, not to speak flippantly, fucking miracle. And I turned it down! What was I thinking? When something like this happens, one must take advantage of it. What did I miss by passing up the bumbeer? Was it ambrosia? Perhaps some secret elixir of youth? My god, what have I done?
Given all the recent controversy, I thought I'd just go ahead and get this out on the public record: I, unlike some others who shall remain nameless, am anti-slavery.
mendaciloquent has done a nice job putting his proverbial finger on the distinction between what he calls two different "orientations" to the world: first-personers and third-personers. Click Here
I've no commitment to a necessary logical division between these orientations, and I think they do collapse some under scrutiny, but a functional division can be conversationally fruitful at the moment. To put it crudely, there are people who start their philosophy from a first-person perspective and people who start from a third-person perspective.
This morning I noticed a large sign in front of one of the three (3!) churches I passed on my way to work.
"Join us for our flawed sundays. No perfect people allowed."
1. No perfect people are allowed in this church on sundays. 2. Jesus is perfect. 3. Jesus is a person. therefore . . .
2 is necessary for most versions of Christianity. 3 seems fairly solid as well. I mean, how does one have a personal relationship with a being that is not a person? Though, I suppose, there could be debate. One might argue that persons are morally capable beings, and that to be morally capable, to be subject to the action-guiding enterprise of morality, it must be possible to one to act immorally. Since Jesus cannot act immorally he can't be a person. If one did argue in such a manner I would respond thusly: "Piss off, fuckstick."
"For empirical knowledge, like its sophisticated extension, science, is rational, not because it has a foundation but because it is a self-correcting enterprise which can put any claim in jeopardy, though not all at once."
"The aim of philosophy is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term."
Though his writing is cold and rigid, Sellars occasionally pulls a beautiful line out of his ass.
John Connor must immediately be found. He must be taken into protective custody and placed in the deepest, darkest, pit imaginable. I suggest Palmdale, CA. The city is barren. It's patrolled by roving bands of road warriors, ala Mad Max, and it contains dangerously high levels of Afroman. It is, in fact, so secure that even Dick Cheney and his army of genetically engineered Swiss Guardesmen dare not enter. The reason for the urgency should be obvious: there a spectre haunting this great country of ours, and that spectre is ... cyborgs.
2. why can't microsoft word have a spellcheck specific to philosophers? words i've had to add to it's dictionary recently: performative, constative, locutionary, perlocutionary, analyticity, a priority, a posteriority, formalizable, expressive, assertive, and commissive. those are off the top of my head.
3. my reliance on microsoft word's spellcheck is detrimental. i've been using it for years, probably more than five, and, since it automatically corrects my spelling, oftentimes i don't even realize that i spelled a word incorrectly. thus, when taking exams, i find myself suprisingly unsure of how to spell certain words. this leads to lots of trial and error spellings on scratch paper, which is just really fucking annoying (the gre should be fun).
4. i don't really have a four. so, um, i'll simply reiterate my dislike for a certain mills professor at berkeley. seriously, look at this douche:
he has this picture on at least three of his books.
one benefit of working for starbucks is that i get to spend five weeks, from just before thanksgiving to just after christmas, listening to christmas music.
when traveling at a sub-sonic speed during the last one hour of hyper-sleep, which romulan nebula will suffer the wrath of the impenetrable quickening?
extra points: how many rats to the nearest molton?
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thisisnotsteve's journal
