I take up Roderick’s tagging-without-tagging “meme of four” - below the fold.

Four jobs I’ve had
1. bartender
2. deli counter guy
3. bookstore clerk/stock guy
4. college professor

Four movies I can watch over and over
1. Casablanca
2. The Godfather
3. The Pope of Greenwich Village
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still

Four places I’ve lived
1. New York
2. Connecticut
3. Pennsylvania
4. Arkansas (more too – see here)

Four TV shows I love
1. Star Trek (original series)
2. The Fugitive
3. Seinfeld
4. 24

Four highly regarded and recommended TV shows I haven’t seen (much of)
1. Sopranos
2. Deadwood
3. Lost
4. Buffy

Four places I’ve vacationed
1. Paris
2. Italy
3. Maine
4. Minnesota

Four of my favorite dishes
1. Lamb Vindaloo
2. Chicken Saagwalla
3. Pizza
4. Lobster

Four sites I visit daily
1. Volokh
2. Fark
3. Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog
4. Geek Press

Four places I’d rather be right now
1. Same place, but in a parallel universe where the job pays 20K more than it does here
2. The space station that they told me in junior high said would be built by now
3. Some Caribbean beach
4. Mt Olympus

Four new bloggers I’m tagging
1. Lynne Kiesling
2. Steve Horwitz
3. Protagoras
4. Irfan
UPDATE: Apparently, there's a variant of this meme which includes"4 albums I can't live without." Obviously, there are more than 4, but to play by the rules, I'll stick to 4. 1. Steely Dan, Aja 2. Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti 3. Beethoven, Symphony #9 4. The Who, Quadrophenia

I found something disturbing about the parents' lack of concern for their own children in this story in Sunday's NYT Magazine. Is this a parent's legitimate prerogative or is it in some way child abuse? Discuss. (I'm not trolling; I'm seriously interested in reading different people's take on this. Please RTFA before commenting though.)

Besides the Molinari Society meeting described below, philosophically-inclined L&P readers may also be interested in these sessions, at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Meeting (the NY Hilton):

GIV-1. Wed, 12/28
American Association for the Philosophic Study of Society
2:00-5:00 p.m., Concourse C
Topic: A Symposium on Rasmussen and Den Uyl's Norms of Liberty
Chair: Fred Miller, Jr. (Bowling Green State University)
Speakers: Aeon J. Skoble (Bridgewater State College)
Edwin England (Denison University)
Charlotte Thomas (Mercer University)
David Thunder (University of Notre Dame)
(Rasmussen and Den Uyl will participate in the Q&A)

GIX-2. Thursday, 12/29
Ayn Rand Society
1:30-4:30 p.m. Nassau Suite B
Topic: Ayn Rand as Aristotelian
Chair: John Cooper (Princeton University)
Speakers: James Lennox (University of Pittsburgh)
"Axioms and Their Validation"
Allan Gotthelf (University of Pittsburgh)
"Concepts and Essences"
Fred Miller, Jr. (Bowling Green State University)
"Values and Happiness"
Robert Mayhew (Seton Hall University)
"Literary Esthetics"

GXI-1. Friday, 12/30
American Society for Value Inquiry
9:00-11:00 a.m. Concourse B
Topic: Author Meets Critics: Tibor Machan's Objectivity
Chair: Douglas Den Uyl (Liberty Fund Inc.)
Critics: John Reis (Elmhurst College)
Douglas Rasmussen (St. John's University)
Fred Seddon (Duquesne University)
Author: Tibor Machan (Chapman University)

GXIII-5. Friday, 12/30
North American Society for Social Philosophy
1:30-4:30 p.m., Morgan Suite
Topic: The Why of Democracy
Chair: Barbara Andrew (William Paterson University)
Speakers: Alistair MacLeod (Queen's University)
"Can We Have Freedom and Justice without Democracy?"
Jan Narveson (University of Waterloo)
"Democracy by Main Force?"
Carol Gould (George Mason University)
Title: TBA

There may be others you might find interesting. The entire program is here.

Is there some reason the Cory Maye story is getting more play at Crooked Timber than here at Liberty and Power? (Oddness compounded by the fact that the CT story links to L&P co-blogger Radley Balko's coverage of the story. Cross-post next time!) Seems to me this fellow shouldn't even be in jail, let alone executed.

Here's a very decent review essay in the Sunday NYT Book Review on Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, which is basically the Citizen Kane of graphic novels. (What's being reviewed is a new release with extra stuff.) It's a good read. And this gives me an excuse to (a) harangue all those of you who haven't yet read Watchmen to do so, and (b) engage in the usual shameless self-promotion by posting a link to the essay I wrote on it for Superheroes and Philosophy, ed. by Tom Morris and Matt Morris (Open Court, 2005) (Somewhat sloppy scan-to-PDF -- why not go buy the book?)

Yesterday’s NYT ran an op-ed by a journalist, Dan Savage, which argues that we ought to have a constitutional amendment to specify a right to privacy. (Either this link or this link ought to work to read the essay.) Can you guess what I think is the main problem here? I wrote a letter to the editor. UPDATE: I was premature in my earler lament. The letter to the editor I wrote on this will in fact be published. (That'll be my 7th published NYT letter to the editor, if you're keeping score at home!) I will post another update when it runs.

Today's top story isn't the ChiSox breaking their 88-year drought, although that's indeed interesting, but rather that Harriet Miers will not be joining the Supremes after all. Works for me. Any chance of Brown as replacement? (Rhetorical question)

I just learned that distinguished philosopher Louis Pojman has died. He was a prolific author and editor, scrupulously fair and resepctful of contrary views, and also a genuinely decent person. I will post a full obit when one is available.

In January, I had my right hand fixed. Yesterday, the left. The right has been symptom-free, so I'm hoping for as good a result with the left. Of course, at the moment, there's a hole in my hand. But everything is, I'm told, normal.