mind × the + gap ™

PROF. MICHAEL SANDEL OPENED HIS FAMOUS CLASS ON "JUSTICE" and Moral and Political Philosophy at Harvard University, USA, with the following (cautionary) address: If you look at the syllabus, you would notice that we read a number of great and famous books. Books by Aristotle, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and others. [...] We will read these books, and we will debate these [philosophical] issues, and we will see how each informs and illuminates the other [school of thought]. This may sound appealing and interesting enough, but here I have to issue a warning: To read these books, in this way, as an exercise in self-knowledge, carries certain risks. Risks that are both personal and political. Risks that every student of Political Philosophy has known. These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us, and unsettles us, by confronting us with what we already know . There is an irony: the difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches...

ONLY A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO, THE (SO CALLED) LEADERSHIP of the stalwarts from the land of the birth of modern finance and capitalism, namely the money streets of London, seem to show the way to the world, yet again. Leading economists from across the Atlantic cried to pay attention to the novel strategy through which the Britons claimed to wager a turnaround of the global financial crisis: by partnering the financial institutes and banks, not just bailing them out. Today, Reuters shows the data declaring that Britain is officially under recession [See Right. Source: Reuters.com] . Now, there doesn't seem to be a consensus on why this happened in spite of all that happened. Nobody seems to be knowing what's going on, where it came from, taking us where. And apparently, Taleb would be having a laugh. But loosing Sterling suddenly could be much harder than the steady weakening US Dollar - it would probably mean that the hedge would become the target; cover is blown. When George W....

THE EDITORIALS FROM THE LAST WEEK'S EDITION OF THE ECONOMIST declared that with respect to the Presidential election in the US, Republican Sen. McCain is almost tied with his Democratic contender Sen. Barack Obama on most opinion polls - something that was deemed inconceivable just a month ago. And add to that the enormous popularity - almost a jackpot for the Republicans, if you like - that the Republican Veep nominee, "the 'hot' Governor from the cold state", Gov. Sarah Palin garnered at the National Republic Convention early this week virtually pumped a fresh breath of life into the 2008 US Presidential race. Siting the issue as McCain's George Bush problem and the need to distance himself from the incumbent President, the editorial goes on to conclude that "he sounds increasing like Bush III; [the American public] prefer McCain I".