Does anyone want to go to the MN orchestra next week?

Check it out, Kelly! This thing will hold and play more CDs that even you own!

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/HomeEntertainment/AudioComponents/CDPlayers/Pioneer/ci.PD-F1009.Kuro

Does or doesn't a utilitarian ethic condemn theft while requiring charity when the outcome of both in a certain case is exactly the same?

 In the last few months I've read a few articles and book chapters by Peter Singer. He's a contemporary utilitarian "applied ethicist". I'm looking for a little insight from anyone who has it on a particular question. I'll tell you the question right away instead of waiting until the end. Is there a difference, in the utilitarian ethic, between the duty of a person to give surplus wealth to people in need, the government redistributing that wealth by force (taxing people with money to spare and then using that money to pay for immunizations or food or whatever for people to need them), a poor person stealing from the wealthy to feed themselves, and a poor person stealing from a wealthy person to feed another (their child, say)?

To summarize, I'm wondering about the ethical distinction between:

(a) the duty to use excess resources to save a life;

(b) the government using a private citizen's excess resources to save a life;

(c) a person stealing from a secure person to save their own life;

(d) a person stealing from a secure person to save the life of a dependent.

Now, this whole thing rests on the assumption that there is a duty to save someone else's life (it isn't just wrong to take a life, but to sit idly by and let someone die). The scenario that is frequently used to illustrate this is the train track hypothetical.

Imagine a train coming down the tracks. It will soon hit and kill a child who is stuck on the tracks. By chance, there is a person a mile away who can see the situation, and who can push a button that will direct the train over a different set of tracks, missing the child. Unfortunately, this person's expensive car (or any other resource/wealth that is not necessary for the person to survive) is parked on the tracks and will be hit if the train is redirected.

Now, let's look at this through the lens of a, b, c, and d.

(a) Does the person a mile away have the ethical responsibility to save the child by throwing the switch, thereby sacrificing their own car?

(b) Is it ethical for the state to compel this person to sacrifice their car to save the child?

(c) Is it ethical for the child to sacrifice the person's car to save their own life (assuming they somehow could do this)?

(d) Is it ethical for a third party to redirect the train, sacrificing a stranger's car, and saving another's life?

If a is true, then people who have more money than they need to survive have an obligation to use that money to save lives.

If b, c, or d are true, it is ethical to steal or coerce money from one person to save another person (like Alladin stealing to eat).

I guess the core of the question is does a utilitarian ethic condemn theft while requiring charity when the outcome of both in a certain case is exactly the same?

Someone is finally taking on Oprah for lending her credibility to phony experts. It will be the Newsweek cover story for the next edition, but I found it on Lexis so if anyone wants to read it here it is:
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Does anyone read LJ anymore? I barely do. I have basically migrated to Twitter. I love it because (a) other people cut to the chase (in 140 characters or less!), (b) I cut to the chase and that way I am less boring (or if I'm boring you aren't bored for long!) and (c) I get updates on people who I was never following on LJ.

But I am posting this on LJ instead cus I am feeling ranty. Even so I will fight this urge and will make frequent paragraph breaks to give the illusion of brevity.

Does anyone notice eye color? In books people are described including eye color. Sometimes this is even done in dialogue, which indicates that characters notice the eye color of other characters.

But in real life I know the eye color of exactly 6 people. Me, my family, and one of my friends. I never, ever notice eye color upon meeting people. Is it even possible to see eye color from conversation distance? But I also don't know the eye color of most of the people that I have...ah...had the opportunity to get very close to.

Let me know if you notice eye color and if you remember it.

It happens to everyone. You wake up submerged in a pitch black mood where the whole shebang seems an immense waste of time. When any and every move you could possibly make not only seems ill-advised, but a sure path to utter ruin.

Then you have a drink. You may have to force yourself to do it, because even drinking seems a big hassle. Suddenly the weight of the world shifts a little off your neck, not much, but enough to notice. Then you have another and, you know, things still suck, but it isn’t the end of the world, for crissakes. Then you have a third and a sliver of light pierces the gloom and you can actually make out the dim shapes of some of the good things around you. Six or seven more down the pipe and—Shazam!—you’re not only out of the pit of gloom, you’ve somehow managed to leap atop some gaudy and magnificent peak, surrounded by vast rolling plains of hope and opportunity.

http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/issues/54/54_10_Best_Things.html

Frost-Nixon is so great. It makes me respect Nixon so much as a debater! I can truly respect a good debater. If Bill O'Reilly were as good as Nixon I would respect Bill O'Reilly.

To my fellow political scientists:

I don't understand how this statement by John Mearsheimer in Newsweek fits in with his offensive realist theory:

"Third, offshore balancing would reduce fears in Iran and Syria that the United States aims to attack them and remove their regimes—a key reason these states are currently seeking weapons of mass destruction. Persuading Tehran to abandon its nuclear program will require Washington to address Iran's legitimate security concerns and to refrain from overt threats."

Offshore balancing makes a ton of sense. On the other hand, when he says that US presence in the region is "a key reason these states are currently seeking weapons of mass destruction" doesn't really fit to me. It seems that based on one of the key assumptions of Offensive realism, that states can never trust the intentions of other states, would mean that Syria and Iran would continue to seek nuclear weapons. In fact, in an interview with IR, Mearsheimer states that states can't convince each other that they have no aggressive intention:

"Yes. I think that international institutions serve some useful purposes, but
they cannot ameliorate uncertainty in any meaningful way. Let’s take this discus-
sion a step further. There is much emphasis in the rational choice literature these
days about ‘costly signals’. According to some scholars in this tradition, states can
take costly measures that allow them to signal their type, which is another way of
saying that states can signal whether they are a revisionist power or a security
seeker, i.e., satisfied with the status quo. But I do not believe that states can signal
type, although if they could it would go a long way toward fostering international
peace. "

So I don't understand how taking boots off the ground would really signal type to Iran and Syria in such a way that they would not pursue nuclear weapons. On the other hand, there is a lot that Mearsheimer says about conventional deterrence that I'm not familiar with. Perhaps it has something to do with that.

Check out the awesome camera work on this hilarious video:

http://www.ctsfw.edu/events/contendingforthefaith/index.php

George Lucas says Han, not Han, in the commentary.

Kelly: I'll kill two birds with one hand.

There was a page of the top 20 mitch hedberg quotes but these were the two really funny ones.

2. My manager saw me drinking backstage and he said "Mitch, don't use liquor as a crutch." I can't use liquor as a crutch, because a crutch helps me walk. Liquor severely f@cks up the way I walk. It ain't like a crutch, it's like a step I didn't see.

1. I was walking by a dry cleaner at 3 a.m., and it said "Sorry, we're closed." You don't have to be sorry. It's 3 a.m., and you're a dry cleaner. It would be ridiculous for me to expect you to be open. I'm not gonna walk by at ten and say, "Hey, I walked by at three, you guys were closed. Someone owes me an apology. This jacket would be halfway done!"

Dear Kelly and Kristina:

It has long been possible, thanks to Google, to do searches like "search for known associates."

I have now discovered another important part of making your computer act like a computer in a movie. Here it is: http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nbeep/ This software will cause your computer to sound like a computer from the movies.

The next step is making the user interface *look* like a movie computer.

-Nick

Guess who:

Kelly - somewhere around minute 38 is the story http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/04/midmorning1/