Map of Battlestar Galactica

Take a look at this map. Contains spoilers, if you still haven't finished the series.

AFF Chicago round table: Marketing the classical liberal alternative

Went to a great panel discussion by AFF Chicago on Wednesday evening, May 20. It was moderated by John Tillman; the panel consisted of four short presentations suggesting different approaches for libertarians to advance their agenda and candidates. The first discussant, Nikki Sullivan, said that since voters vote irrationally anyway, a movement needs a charismatic leader, whether it's Reagan, Obama or a new libertarian spokesman. By contrast, Marisa Maleck

Tales of the unconscious: Finding out who you really are

The remark by Irad Kimhi I posted the other day is at once creepy and profound. It is also more familiar than it at first appears; think of the stories and narrative methods employed in the following:

In several television shows and films, a character's everyday ego (his I) is unaware of who he really is. He really is a saboteur or a murderer, another person, and so on. Think of "The 4400" (Kyle Baldwin, son of the putz secret agent protagonist); "Angel Heart" (Harry Angel); "Battlestar Galactica" (the false surface consciousness of Sharon "Boomer" Valeri, as in Episode 1x3, "Water"); "Fight Club" (the narrator); "Evil Dead" (Ash's hand, which went bad, so he had to cut it off).

A different kind of thing-beneath-you is the fascinating depiction of the Echo-consciousness in Joss Whedon's current going concern "Doll House." Echo is perhaps a being underneath the surface of Caroline, the woman who semi-voluntarily gave up her body for five years for employment as a doll. In the first season finale,

Rumour of the Hidden King: Irad Kimhi

This is just a short note of a kind of introduction, but not to me. I am not very familiar with academic blogs, though I know they exist. The point here is just to say a few words about Irad Kimhi. Kimhi is an Israeli philosopher who had taught in both the United States and Israel. In the mid-1990's he was an assistant professor in the Philosophy Department at Yale. He has guest-taught courses on a couple of occasions for the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. As I understand it, his regular gig is to teach courses in Tel Aviv in Israel. His name and reputation are well known among a fairly small group of cognoscenti, including friends, colleagues and former students (like myself). He has a kind of magical reputation to him, unique as far as I know in the academic world: He has not to my knowledge published a book and I don't know that he has published even any articles, but several of his draft manuscripts circulate privately among ravenous devotees of his thought. When he taught courses at the U of C this past Autumn and Winter, established, famous professors sat in on the classes and took notes as eagerly as the attendant graduate students.

Clifford S. Asness: Unafraid In Greenwich Connecticut

[From the Ney York Times' Dealbook: May 5, 2009, 6:07 pm: "Hedge Fund Manager Strikes Back at Obama. Clifford S. Asness is not afraid to defend himself against attacks from the Obama administration. The outspoken managing partner of AQR Capital Management, a $20 billion hedge fund in Greenwich, Conn., has written a scathing letter striking back at President Obama for his harsh words blaming hedge funds for Chrysler’s bankruptcy. The letter is making its way around Wall Street, where it’s being met with cheers from other hedge funds managers, one of whom sent it to DealBook. Among other things, Mr. Asness said he was “aghast at the president’s comments” and called them “backwards and libelous.” I found this through Diana West's blog. While she is quite the American Zionist, I think her angry skepticism of the GOP's post-election strategy is right on. This comes the same day that I noticed Richard Posner's recent renunciation of the GOP or the rump conservative movement as any kind of home for intellectual conservatism. It seems clear to me that the various forces and players on the non-evangelical American right have the tools, the talent and the ideas to recenter the Republican Party, to rebuild from the centrist pussyfootery of the recent McCain-Palin campaign which, despite my measured enthusiasm for the governor of Alaska last fall, I readily agree as a disaster. The party needs to convince disappointed lovers, fellow travelers, moderates, people who work for small business, and all kinds of independents, professionals and other dynamists that the Grand New Party should be and will be the opposite of the waxing Obama Mussolini-style corporate state...]

Unafraid in Greenwich Connecticut
Clifford S. Asness
Managing and Founding Principal
AQR Capital Management, LLC

The President has just harshly castigated hedge fund managers for being unwilling to take his administration’s bid for their Chrysler bonds. He called them “speculators” who were “refusing to sacrifice like everyone else” and who wanted “to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.”

The responses of hedge fund managers have been, appropriately, outrage, but generally have been anonymous for fear of going on the record against a powerful President (an exception, though still in the form of a “group letter,” was the superb note from “The Committee of Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders,” some of the points of which I echo here, and a relatively few firms, like Oppenheimer, that have publicly defended themselves). Furthermore, one by one the managers and banks are said to be caving to the President’s wishes out of justifiable fear.

I run an approximately twenty billion dollar money management firm