[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Stuff of mine that’s newly online:
Aristotle’s Conception of Freedom [Review of Metaphysics 49.4, June 1996]
Aristotle’s Egalitarian Utopia: The Polis kat’ eukhēn [M. H. Hansen, ed, The Imaginary Polis: Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 7, 2005]
A Florentine in Baghdad: Codevilla on the War on Terror [Reason Papers 28, Spring 2006]
Review of Hilary Putnam’s Collapse of the Fact-Value Dichotomy [Reason Papers 28, Spring 2006]
Comics readers – have you been a tad puzzled over how to keep the continuity straight in DC’s latest, ongoing universe-wide crisis – with, for example, Batman fighting crime as usual in one comic, M.I.A. in another comic, and M.I.A. for an entirely different reason in yet another comic?
You’ll get no reassurance from these comments by Grant Morrison about the continuity problems between Final Crisis and the series leading into it:
Why didn’t Superman recount his experiences from DOTNG [= Death of the New Gods]? Because those experiences hadn’t been thought up or written when I completed Final Crisis #1. If there was only me involved, Orion would have been the first dead New God we saw in a DC comic, starting off the chain of events that we see in Final Crisis.
As it is, the best I can do is suggest that the somewhat contradictory depictions of Orion and Darkseid’s last-last-last battle that we witnessed in Countdown and DOTNG recently were apocryphal attempts to describe an indescribable cosmic event.
To reiterate, hopefully for the last time, when we started work on Final Crisis, J.G. and I had no idea what was going to happen in Countdown or Death Of The New Gods because neither of those books existed at that point. The Countdown writers were later asked to ‘seed’ material from Final Crisis and in some cases, probably due to the pressure of filling the pages of a weekly book, that seeding amounted to entire plotlines veering off in directions I had never envisaged, anticipated or planned for in Final Crisis.
So, I wonder what DC pays its editorial staff? It’s clearly either way too little or way too much.
In related news, there’s some frustrating intel on Anarky; it counts as a spoiler so I’ll bury it in the comments section.
No caption or commentary is adequate.
The last step of the instructions for microwaving my lunch says:
Step 5: Stir noodles until they are evenly coated with sauce. Sprinkle toasted sesame seed topping over noodles. Enjoy.
Note that “Enjoy” is part of the instructions. This must be a boon to their customer service:
CUSTOMER: There’s a problem with my Soy Ginger Noodle Bowl. It’s filled with mouse dung and bits of asbestos.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Did you enjoy our product?
CUSTOMER: No, I did not! I just explained that it contained –
CUSTOMER SERVICE: I’m sorry, but we’re not responsible for any problems resulting from your failing to follow the printed instructions.
CUSTOMER: But my problem didn’t result from failing to follow the instructions! It resulted from the presence of mouse dung and bits of asbestos.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: The instructions called for you to enjoy our product. If, as directed, you had in fact enjoyed our product – if mouse dung and bits of asbestos had been just what you wanted – would you now be contacting us to complain?
CUSTOMER: Well no, obviously not.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Well then, you admit that you are bringing this complaint only because you failed to follow the printed instructions. As I have explained, we are not responsible for any problems resulting from your failing to follow the instructions. Good-bye!
According to this news story (conical hat tip to LRC) “there was an extra-terrestrial event on Earth 12,900 years ago.”
Sorry, no. By definition, no.
Now up, in addition, are comments from Chris Morris and Will Thomas, plus an additional comment from me.
(By the way, my own answer to Will’s question, in effect, is on p. 140 of my anthology chapter.)
The Molinari Symposium will be held in Independence Meeting Room II. (The APA program supplement says “Independence Ballroom II” but there is no such animal; the Independence Meeting Rooms are next to the Liberty Ballroom.)
Independence Meeting Room II is hard to find because it’s actually across the street (via skybridge) from the main hotel, in something called the “Deluxe Tower” (or, less glamorously, the “3rd Floor Annex”).
How to find Independence Meeting Room II: from the hotel lobby (1st floor), take the escalator (not the elevator) to the 3rd floor. (It goes directly from 1st to 3rd; I’m not sure there even is a 2nd floor.) Follow the signs that say “Deluxe Tower” or “Bridge to Convention Center.” Cross the skybridge; at the other end you’ll see an arrow pointing left saying “Convention Center” and an arrow pointing right saying “Marriott”; go right.