Tara Smith doesn’t often write op-eds, but since she’s been working in the philosophy of law, I’m very pleased to see this clear contribution to the debates about the proper standards by which to judge judicial nominees.

I found that via Don Watkins, who also has a good piece on the epistemology behind psychological egoism up and running.

Don also links to this article on “successful losers,” i.e. people who have lost mucho pounds and kept them off. Much of the advice resonates with what I’ve found in the course of trying to shed my extra pounds. (I still have about 10 to go, I think.) My current baseline of exercise is a bit more than 4 miles/40 minutes of rowing or running per day, every day. Interestingly, I found that increasing it substantially (with my long bike rides) had no impact on my weight. Diets don’t help either, although I am far more careful about what I eat these days. Here’s what does work: Hunger. To lose weight, I must be somewhat hungry for significant portions of the day. (To foster that, I try to eat small snacks rather than big meals.) On some days, that’s relatively easy to bear. It’s impossible torture on others. (I don’t push myself on those impossible days, since it’s hard enough on the easy days.)

Hey, maybe I could write the next fad diet book: The Hunger Diet.