I will read this book. I have already bookmarked "The Splintered Mind."

I have long hoped that I would live long enough to actually see the title of Dennett's 1991 book achieved.

Is it possible this might actually happen?

If we can explain consciousness will we have made a huge leap towards AI? What then? What if humans learn to create custom robots and then... but there lies (for now) bad science fiction.

Yes, indeed. Who represents the foreign policy realists? It is ludicrous for the "NY Times" to claim that hiring a neocon thug like Kristol has anything to do with adding an alternative viewpoint.

It sure would be nice to get Zbig's point of view from time to time, for example. But another warmonger? We've already been had, there is no need to pile on.

I hope someone can pop into the comments and translate - annotate might be a better word - his spiel. For example, how is he using the word 'spectators'?

There is obviously a lot going on for someone who knows what he is talking about, even as people like GW Bush can fly under my radar with language understood by theocrats.

In short, Cruise is probably even nuttier than he sounds to the rest of us.

Sounds interesting. Wonder if I will ever get a chance to see it in a theatre out here in Seattle?

Just went to his web page and sent him a contribution. His tag line is the same as Darcy Burner's, who is running to defeat a Republican in Washington State's 8th District. (just down the road from where I live)

We need more and better Democrats.

Hear hear to that!

Interesting - Fox "News" is still on the air?

Seriously. What would be the point of helping out that dickhead?

McCain and establishment Dems seem to accept the latest government propaganda to the effect that in Iraq, we are fighting a war against the people who hijacked the planes on 9/11.

In a nutshell, that is the problem.

I even heard a version of this claim yesterday when I attended the Washington State caucuses. An Evita supporter gave a chest-thumping endorsement of the troops on the grounds that they are "over there defending our right to be in a caucus."

I asked her if she believed that there were no caucuses and no votes in America prior to the invasion of Iraq? Did she believe the IED and suicide bombers want to bomb caucuses over here? But she didn't get it and we moved on.

It isn't enough to support ending the occupation. Dems and non-warmongers across the board have to point out that the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq are illegal and are disastrous on every single front.

The only possible path to repairing that tragic country is to end the occupation and work with all affected parties to achieve a workable government.

I do not believe that either of the Dem candidates left standing will make this case.

No, you are not crazy, one of the guys heckling (the one who was being cuffed when we last see him) was in fact one of the lead characters from season 2 on the docks. I can't remember his name, but he was the cousin of the nutsy young guy. It was his uncle who was the union boss who got whacked.

It seems to me that the point of the bogus serial killer plot is to examine the question of whether or not the ends justify the means.

The 'ends' are pretty good. Money comes rolling in and police work begins again. Crimes are being solved, morale is up, the mayor and the public are focusing on the plights of the homeless.

The same question is being asked in the plot about the reporter who is lying. But making money, no?

I think that the old question of whether or not the ends justify the means is particularly timely, given how the right wing has been stealing civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism.

If McNulty's scam winds up bringing in the case against the most vicious drug kingpin we have seen in this series, does that make it OK?

Who writes: (way back on the first page)

"3. Lobbyists are paid advocates serving clients' agendas. Attorneys are paid advocates serving clients' agendas. Advertising people are paid advocates serving clients' agendas. Professional political consultants are paid advocates, as are Public Relations people.

4. If McCain had surrounded himself with any of the "professionals" cited above, would that be a news story?"

You are comparing lobbying - apples - with those other things -oranges.

First, if a US Senator hires a lawyer, a PR flack, or a consultant, the Senator is the client on whose behalf they work. This is not the case with a lobbyist. The lobbyist's client is someone else. The lobbyist is not working for the senator. The lobbyist is working for someone who wants the senator to do them a favor.

Second, it is only the lobbyist who wants a supposed public servant to manipulate public law to do something to benefit, not the public at large, but the interests of the lobbyist's client.

Your analogy is false.

The problem is influence-peddling. If it takes a "NY Times" story with a sex angle to get some attention, fine with me.

The real scandal, IMO, is not just McCain. It is the fact that this sort of thing is normal and legal. McCain just happens to be a bit more hypocritcal about it, but nothing he does seems to me to be on the outer edge, statistically, of what power-crazed and greedy politicians do on a regular basis.