Girls Gone Drunk

Some time ago I saw a CNN bit on a Facebook group. The group apparently consisted of women who 1) drank way too much, 2) did stupid things because of this and 3) felt obligated to photograph and post said drinking and “stupiding” (I’ll make up words if I want).
The reporter doing the story asked [...]

Who will win?

It is interesting to see how the candidates behave. So far, McCain and Huckabee have been very civil with each other. However, they have been somewhat less so with Romney. Edwards has been mostly nice, but Obama and Hillary are starting to take more shots at each other.
People have asked me how I think it [...]

F

The spring semester is just about to start and soon students will be asking the classic questions.
Q: “Do I have to buy the book?”
A: “Yeah, but if ethics is not a big thing, you can just steal it.”
Q: “Will that be on the test?”
A: “Yes. Every word I say will be on the test.”
Q: “Even [...]

The Dollar

I’m not an economist, except to the degree that economics is a part of moral philosophy. However, being a philosopher does provide a useful perspective on the state of the dollar.
As most people know, the US economy is a bit wounded. We are dumping billions into Iraq and the war on terror. We are borrowing [...]

The Value of Theft

Rick Cotton, NBC Universal general counsel, had the following to say: “Society wastes entirely too much money policing crimes like burglary, fraud and bank-robbing when it should be doing something about piracy instead.” He adds that “Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned. If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in [...]

Two Rejected Resolutions

 
Since people tend to do dismally at self-criticism, I decided to ask people what New Year’s resolutions I should make. So far I have two that I must reject: “be less philosophical” and “cease to be a smart ass.” Fortunately, I can reject both at once.
 
My Aristotelian essence includes being a smart ass. Thus, being [...]

My Christmas Tree

Some years ago my life was at a terrible low point. My marriage was failing, my career seemed stagnant, and I was stuck in what seemed to be a sea of bleak misery. Many of my problems seemed to stem from my reluctance to do bad things and the willingness of others to prosper through [...]

Corn Ethanol

Since the earth has a finite supply of fossil fuels and they are not being replenished (or are being replenished at a rate that is of no use to us) it is just a matter of time before we run out of gas. Literally. In the US, one proposed alternative is corn ethanol.
 
The basic idea [...]

Headset with (Bad) Attitude

I recently picked up a new Xbox 360 headset. I had to do this because Microsoft makes a great deal of (to be technical) ‘crap that breaks.’ So far, the death total is: 1 Xbox 360 (Red Ring of Death), one controller, and 3 headsets. Oddly enough, this blog is not about the evils of [...]

Plagiarism

This semester I was pleased to have only two cases of plagiarism. In one case a student turned in a copy of the sample paper I wrote as an aid to the class. I do include the warning “copying this sample paper would be plagiarism”, but perhaps I need to use a bigger font size [...]