Next time you think about flying to your destination, you better think twice. Airport security screeners are beginning to use X-ray devices that will allow them to have X-rated viewing pleasure (or disgust, as the case may be). Yes, indeed. What’s that? Outrageous, you say? Unbelievable? Check out this article: “Airport screeners could see X-rated X-rays.” Says Bill Scannel, a privacy advocate and technology consultant, in the article: “Well, you’ll see basically everything. It shows nipples. It shows the clear outline of genitals.” Do we really want airport security personnel to be able to see us naked? Is terrorism such a threat that we should eagerly or even resignedly give up our privacy and our dignity? I certainly don’t think so. How about you?

Whew! The semester is finally over and I survived intact with three A’s, and most of my students survived too! I finished grading Tuesday and, hopefullly!, finished with fielding questions about final exams and with the begging (and demanding!) for higher grades. My grade distribution turned out pretty skewed towards A’s and B’s, probably because of the optional extra credit paper and the fact that I dropped some of the lowest quiz grades. 15 A’s, 14 B’s, 7 C’s, 3 D’s, and 3 F’s. One of those F’s, though, was someone who apparently forgot to drop the class because I never saw him and he never took any of the quizzes or exams. Aside from Mr. Absentee, I ended with 42 students after starting with 51. Not bad. I think my first time teaching seems to have been a success. At least a few of my students mentioned that they were intellectually stimulated and challenged.

On a different note, it is amazing how the least deserving in the class will come to their professor expecting to be given a higher grade simply because they want it or need it. I had this one student who skipped well over half of the class periods during the first half of the semester. She failed the first exam, managed to improve to a D on the second exam, and barely pulled off a C on the final. She actually started coming to class semi-regularly during the second third and regularly during the last third of the semester. Sure, that shows some improvement and a recognition that she hurt herself in the beginning. She also did the extra credit paper. But it was too little too late. She came up 10 raw points shy of a C for her final grade. One of the reasons was that I don’t think she was doing the reading, and probably not paying attention well in class, as evidenced by still relatively low quiz grades. She claimed she worked so hard to improve her grade, the hardest of anyone in the class, and deserved “a way better grade.” (I’m also a harsh grader, by the way. ;o) ) But obviously she didn’t, and she wanted an undeserved C. Opportunistic egalitarians demanding the undeserved get my hackles up, so needless to say I didn’t give it to her. Besides, where am I going to come up with 10 points to fill the gap? If someone is just one or two or three points away from the next highest grade and he or she has given me reason to suspect that s/he really tried hard, then I might be able to give him/her the benefit of the doubt. I can’t do anything with such a large gap though. Oh, and that girl claimed she went all-out and pulled an all-nighter to study for my exam. Sorry! That just isn’t good enough. Complex material like that of political philosophy takes time to absorb and understand. For someone who has been struggling through the class, one night of intensive studying just ain’t gonna cut it.

Anyway, now that the semester is over I should be posting on here more often and more regularly. Expect the latest version of my “Death and Harm” paper to be uploaded soon!

NASA wasted the better part of another $110 million of hard earned taxpayer money recently. NASA spent the money on a robotic spacecraft designed to rendezvous with satellites. The robotic spacecraft was supposed to get within 16 feet of a particular satellite as part of a test run. It only got within 300 feet, however, before it detected a fuel malfunction and had to abort. The spacecraft then did as designed and went into a disintegrating orbit in which it would burn up over the following 12 hours. Well done!

The project was considered high risk because of the automated controls and low budget. Low budget!?! Perhaps by government standards, but I would be very surprised if a private attempt at the same feat cost more than 1/10th of NASA’s “low budget” bust. It would succeed too! And not only succeed, but actually make contact with the satellite instead of just coming within 16 or 300 feet of it.

For more on NASA’s expensive “partial success,” see here and here.

Here’s an interesting excerpt from Federalist #6, written by Alexander Hamilton, that directly contradicts Immanuel Kant’s famous argument for what is today called the democratic peace thesis. For Kant it was a republican peace, but he thought that a combination of republics, international trade, and international laws and organizations would be necessary for bringing about and maintaining world peace.

Has it not, on the contrary, invariably been found, that momentary passions and immediate interests have a more active and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote considerations of policy, utility, and justice? Have republics in practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the former administered by men as well as the latter? Are there not aversions, predilections, rivalships, and desires of unjust acquisitions that affect nations as well as kings? Are not popular assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealously, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities? Is it not well-known that their determinations are often governed by a few individuals, in whom they place confidence, and are of course liable to be tinctured by the passions and views of those individuals? Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives, since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or domination? Has not the spirit of commerce in many instances administered new incentives to the appetite of both for the one and for the other? Let experience the least fallible guide of human opinions be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.

It’s finally here! The latest issue of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, with the theme of Ayn Rand among the Austrians. I’ve been waiting for this issue for months now, because it contains articles pertaining to a topic I am very much interested in: reconciling Objectivism and praxeology. Now I just have to somehow resist the temptation to drop all of my schoolwork and spend too much time reading it.

I finally have a new working paper uploaded and ready for your perusal. The first rough draft, Version 1.0, of my “Death and Harm: A Neo-Aristotelian Account” can be found here in pdf format. I’ll be submitting the rough draft to my professor tomorrow for his comments and maybe resubmitting one or more times during the rest of the semester. As I revise the paper I will try to remember to upload the revised versions.

For my original post announcing this project, including an overview of it, see here.

Please, feel free to offer constructive comments, suggestions, and criticism.

Oh, this is good…in a bad sort of way. I received an email from my university (Louisiana State) informing me that tomorrow a career panel-type event will be held on campus.

Aside from a wine company and a bank, guess which government organizations will have representatives there.

One is the Louisiana Department of Civil Service. The other is – yup – the CIA.

The Central Intelligence Agency wants to present opportunities to LSU graduate students to become spies.

And here’s the kicker. Halliburton is sponsoring it.

Ahh…corporations and government officials make such sleazy bedfellows.

Didn’t Halliburton recently announce reducing or shutting down its operations in Iran? I hope Bush isn’t so foolish as to invade Iran now, particularly when he’s already overextended and bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan as it is.