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Why Does He Hate Toads?

SCOTUS nominee John G. Roberts not a green’s first pick President Bush’s new Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. has a distinguished conservative pedigree: He clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist and was deputy White House counsel during the Reagan administration. With only two years under his belt as a federal judge, […]

A walk on the slippery rocks

"Philosophy," you scoff. "What is it good for?"

Not much, really. But I studied it for a long time and still enjoy seeing it pop up here and there. I was happy, for instance, to see my favorite philosopher make it to (a distant) No. 2 on the BBC poll of best philosophers evar, and also to see him given a 9 out of 10 on Sartwell's rather more idiosyncratic ranking.

"Generally speaking," ol' Dave Hume said, "the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous." So true.

Just to pretend this post is about the environment, here are a few quotes about nature from philosophers.

Most incorrect:

Nature does nothing uselessly. -- Aristotle

Most correct but misunderstood:

The goal of life is living in agreement with nature. -- Zeno

And finally, back to my boy Hume:

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value.

Got any favorite quotes about nature? Leave them in comments.

Could it work?

Biopolitical anticipated this post with his comment -- in fact, my post on the gas tax started off on the topic of road privatization but then, well, veered off course.

I like the idea of road privatization on the surface. The road system is similar to the mail system in that when it was instituted, there wasn't really a private company that had the necessary capital to take on such a project themselves. Now, however, we have FedEx and other shipping companies that do have that capital for shipping, and which would undoubtedly have branched into mail delivery were it not for the government monopoly. Why not the same for roads?

There are a few considerations here:

Notes on the new Supreme Court nominee.

Ha. Well, that whole post was sure pointless.

Bush has nominated John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court. More later.

Update [2005-7-19 22:18:50 by Dave Roberts]: Well, I've read around a bit, and there doesn't seem to be much exciting to say about Roberts. He is by all accounts an extremely good lawyer, intelligent and thoughtful. He's known for his level, collegial temperament and ability to find consensus. Ideologically, he's extremely conservative, in the Scalia and Thomas mold, but not doctrinaire. His confirmation is inevitable, and while I'm sure Dems will kick up a little dust, they won't go to the mat over this guy. Says law school professor Robert Gordon:

All the indications are that he will become another vote to expand presidential power in national-security affairs, to limit the federal government's authority to regulate business and the environment and protect civil rights, to make it harder for women, minorities, labor and the disabled to pursue practical remedies in the courts, and to favor a larger role for religion in public life and as object of public subsidy. He is most likely to do this incrementally, case-by-case, rather than by sweeping new doctrines.

On the right, they seem not thrilled but certainly not disappointed. For a range of conservative opinion, visit redstate.org, the best conservative blog going.

Libertarians seem oddly silent on the subject of subsidies that benefit the oil and gas industries.

Warning: This post is just as wonky and boring as the title makes it sound.

This essay by Jerry Taylor and Peter VanDoren of the Cato Institute perfectly captures a real confusion I have about libertarians.

They discuss the two versions of the energy bill -- House and Senate -- and say pretty much what you'd expect libertarians to say: Every provision that has government giving money to a market actor, taking money from a market actor, or restricting the behavior of a market actor is bad, bad, bad.

Okay, fine. But what's the motivation?

Here are the two possible versions of libertarianism:

Vague on social conservatism; hard right on federalism.

Below, Chris requests information on what appears to be the likely Bush SCOTUS candidate: Fifth Circuit Judge Edith "Joy" Clement. Ask and ye shall receive.

Here's what I gather from my quick scan: Clement has a pretty thin record, so it's impossible to tell where she stands on many major issue. (She is, in other words, a "stealth nominee.") Reading the tea leaves, the scuttlebutt seems to be that her support of the social conservative agenda is subtle, but her support of the rightwing business and regulatory agenda ("constitution in exile") is overt and robust. This is more or less what I predicted here.

Jeffrey Rosen writes:

Conservative talkshow host Tucker Carlson thinks bombing Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrio was just peachy

Twenty years ago, photographer Fernando Pereira was killed when the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Aukland Harbor by French secret service agents, in retaliation for Greenpeace protests of French nuclear testing. The plan to sink the boat was later traced to the very top levels of the French government.

On June 22, on his MSNBC show The Situation, conservative talkshow host Tucker Carlson had this to say:

CARLSON: Actually, I am objectively pro-France. You know, France blew up the Rainbow Warrior, that Greenpeace ship in Auckland Harbor in the '80s. And I've always respected them ...

RACHEL MADDOW: That made you like them?

CARLSON: Yes. Yes. It won me over.

Mr. Neal Shapiro
President
NBC
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112-0002
neal.shapiro@nbc.com

FAX: 212-664-2264

Mr. Rick Kaplan
President
MSNBC
1 MSNBC Plaza
Secaucus, NJ 07094-2419
rick.kaplan@msnbc.com

(via tpmcafe)

SCOTUS update

Bush will announce his Supreme Court nominee in a live, prime-time Tuesday night address.

The fact that this will distract media attention from Karl Rove is, of course, entirely coincidental.

Update [2005-7-19 11:27:7 by Dave Roberts]: Speaking of SCOTUS picks, the Center for American Progress has started a blog devoted to the topic. Check it out.

Cooperation versus antagonism in environmental activism.

Perusing AlterNet's headlines today, I noticed the new EnviroHealth article expands on a subject covered in both Daily Grist and Gristmill. Zack Pelta-Heller discusses the the pros and cons of different approaches to environmental activism. Case in point: The Sierra Club uses positive reenforcement and collaboration to get Ford to alter its modus operandi, while the Rainforest Action Network is much more confrontational and antagonistic, running an ad in The New York Times comparing Ford CEO Bill Ford, Jr. to Dick Cheney and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. RAN justifies its methods with the following anecdote:

There's a story about a guy with a mule. He couldn't get the mule to move. His friend says, "You've just got to whisper 'Move' in his ear and he'll move." So the first guy whispers into the mule's ear. Nothing. He says louder, "Move!" Nothing. Eventually the friend says, "Here, I'll show you." He takes a two-by-four and whacks the mule on the head. Then he whispers, "Move" into the mule's ear, and the mule moves. The first guy is shocked by the violence. "What was that about?" "Well," says the friend, "first you have to get his attention."

So my question is this: Is the "two-by-four" method necessary to make the "whisper" method effective? I'm tempted to say Yes, because large corporations are quite good at being deaf when it serves their financial interests. However, as per the recent Gristmill discussion about the value of eco-sabotage, antagonism has a way of boomeranging and estranging people that aren't already singing in the choir...

A visit to Iceland spurs dreams of a hydrogen future

The loneliness of the long-distance rider. I have seen the future, and it works. The 111 bus rolls quietly up to the Mjodd terminal in eastern Reykjavik at 11:19 a.m., and I climb aboard. For 45 minutes, we cruise through the suburbs and then to the central square downtown, picking up and discharging eight passengers […]