3/31 At PointofLaw.com, a valuable collection of to-the-point columns on the current state of the U. S. litigation system.
3/30 Are we running out of oil? Two arguments conclude “No” – one from Robert Bradley, Jr. at the Institute for Energy Research and one from M. A. Adelman at the Cato Institute. (Note: Both are in PDF format.)
3/29 Wired magazine profiles Jimmy Wales, the founder of the intriguing Wikipedia. (Via The Atlasphere.)
3/28 Non-bleeding-heart libertarian Bryan Caplan suggests conditional welfare for the poor: Let them get roommates. (Via Marginal Revolution.)
3/26 A debate on free speech by law professors
Geoffrey Stone and Eugene Volokh. (Via InstaPundit.com.) And worth ridiculing is a pending Florida law to muzzle professors who say things that hurt students’ feelings.
3/25 The Manhattan Institute’s profile of the prolific
Walter Olson. And definitely keep up with Olson’s timely, infuriating, amusing, and occasionally bizarre Overlawyered.com.
3/24 Der Spiegel reviews (in English) a new book on
the role of the welfare state in promoting Hitler’s National Socialism. (Via Tom Palmer.)
3/23 An excellent online library of constitutional classics.
3/22 Dr. Edward Hudgins on
confronting deeply savage cultures.
3/21 In this first week of spring, here is art historian Cristina Paolicchi’s telling of the legends of Demeter and Persephone.
3/19 Two fine, scholarly books on Nietzsche: Lester Hunt’s Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue, and R. Kevin Hill’s Nietzsche’s Critiques. Professor Hunt of the University of Wisconsin interprets and applies Nietzsche as a virtue ethicist, while Professor Hill of Portland State University explores Nietzsche’s Kantian roots.
3/18 The excellent Walter E. Williams’s website. Check out his backlist of syndicated columns.
3/17 Historian Keith Windschuttle reviews
Gertrude Himmelfarb’s Roads to Modernity. Windschuttle is the author of the fine book The Killing of History.
3/16 A group web log tracking and arguing about developments in
the intellectually rich field of Philosophy of Biology. And on the still-relevant grandfather of philosophy of biology, check out James Lennox’s well-reviewed
Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology, published by Cambridge in 2000.
3/15 Donald Pittenger on
the education of an artist in the 1950s. And The Foundation for the Advancement of Art has re-focused its website to provide links to
articles and essays on the divide between representational and postmodern art.
3/14 Frank Furedi of the University of Kent vigorously defends academic freedom against the new inquisitors.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is relentless in seeking out and confronting the worst violators. Jim Peron of New Zealand’s Institute for Liberal Values surveys hate speech around the world. And here is my analysis of the postmodern arguments behind many speech codes.
3/12 Two articles on the shortage of non-whiny female intellectuals. Heather MacDonald has little patience for feminist hysterics and Ilana Mercer wonders about
the number of female Nobel Prize winners.
3/11 Who are
the world’s top ten most brutal dictators this year? (Via JohanNorberg.net.)
3/10 I am re-reading Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman’s hilarious and inspiring memoirs and reflections on the scientific enterprise: “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” Adventures of a Curious Character.
And here is science writer James Gleick’s outstanding biography: Genius: The Life and Science of Richard P. Feynman.
3/9 Distributed Proofreaders: A worthy project to make more classic writings available online.
3/8 How Austrian is your economics? Take the Mises Institute’s quiz.
3/7 While we’re in ancient Rome: For the next several generations of Roman caesars, make it a priority to watch or re-watch the outstanding BBC series,
I, Claudius. The movie series I, Claudius was based on Robert Graves’s novel of the same name, which draws heavily from second-century Roman historian Suetonius’ frank and racy portraits in The Twelve Caesars.
3/5 I watched and enjoyed the 2002 version of Julius Caesar —especially the riveting scene of the first meeting of Sulla and the young Julius Caesar. For another fictional version of the mature Caesar’s life and thinking, Thornton Wilder’s epistolary novel The Ides of March is very good.
3/4 Economist George Reisman on why we should kill the prescription drug benefit. And here is a link to a site with Dr. Reisman’s books and essays on capitalism and free markets.
3/3 Why Ayn Rand Matters, by Elaine Sternberg, a research fellow at the University of Leeds. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) Check out Dr. Sternberg’s Just Business: Business Ethics in Action, published by Oxford University Press. And Johan Norberg reports on the success of the new Swedish translation of Atlas Shrugged.
3/2 The A.C.L.U.’s amusing-yet-chilling video projecting threats to privacy from the combination of government paternalism and information technology. (Thanks to Doug R. for the link.)
3/1 The Oscar goes to … . Robert Bidinotto’s predictions and mini-reviews of this year’s Oscar-nominated films. Good calls, Robert, given the actual winners.