2/28 It’s never too soon to get excited about the next Olympic Games: Beijing 2008. And has the 2007 Wimbledon tennis tournament rejected the labor theory of value?
2/27 Causality and concept-formation: the case of breast cancer. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.) And here is evidence of higher intelligence: chimpanzees making and using tools and weapons. (Thanks to Joe H. for the link.)
2/26 Aside from a few pathetic Freudian snarks, here’s a good survey of the current worldwide skyscraper boom. And here are some photos of skyscrapers finished and under construction.
2/24 I love photos of great cities. Here is Times Square at night. And while few of these are to my taste, here is a Forbes feature on the world’s most expensive homes.
2/22 Reforming statist higher education: Greek universities take a step toward more autonomy and privatization. (Via University Diaries.) And here is a success story of the founding of a private university: Stanford University.
2/21 Sarcasm alert: Russell Roberts admits it: “I’m a hack.” And at the very fine Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, here are Stanley Lebergott’s article on “Wages and Working Conditions” in the 20th century and Linda Gorman’s article on “Minimum Wages.”
2/20 Yogi Berra said of a popular restaurant, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” Patrick Henry did not say, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” And Zsa Zsa Gabor, asked how many husbands she has had, said, “You mean apart from my own?” Louis Menand reflects on quotes and the quotable.
2/19 At TED, Richard St. John has a short and sweet 3:46 minute video on what leads to success. And at The Atlasphere, Bob Burg has good advice on Bringing Your Business to the Next Level.
2/16 Peter Oborne launches a good discussion on Nick Cohen’s new book, which asks how the “liberal-left has lost its way and, in the process, turned a blind eye to Islamic fascism.” David Thompson reflects on an unsatisfactory conversation with some have-it-both-ways lefty multiculturalists. And at Sign and Sight, Pascal Bruckner defends the Enlightenment project and puts the choice starkly: “Enlightenment fundamentalism or racism of the anti-racists?”
2/15 Liberty in Spanish: Fundacion Atlas’s heroes of liberty. Here is The New Individualist’s excellent interview with Eduardo Marty, who is president of Argentina’s Junior Achievement and a director of Fundacion Atlas.
2/13 Business and management guru David Maister has straight talk on how to manage your career. This prompted a series of strong reader reactions and a response by Maister about the role of Ayn Rand’s philosophy in his thinking.
2/12 Fathers, sons, and adventure: The Dangerous Book for Boys is selling strongly and being well-reviewed in Britain.
2/10 Two good analyses of dishonest squashing of dissent: Robert Bidinotto on ad hominem smearing and Frank Furedi on guilt-by-dubious-association. And Russell Roberts weighs in on why he thinks the global-warming-doomsayers will get at most a few token policy changes.
2/9 I’m late to the show, but I watched The Commanding Heights, a very good three-DVD series on the economic history of the twentieth century. The first disk nicely engages the great intellectual battle of Hayek and Friedman against Keynes and connects that battle to the political achievements of Reagan and Thatcher against their socialist and mixed economy enemies. Here is the resource-rich website for the program.
2/8 Philosophy 101 reports: a student sues a college for his own poor typing skills. And check in again with Walter Olson for the latest zaniness from the world of crazy lawsuits. And for a fun test case: If the state’s interest in preserving marriage is to promote procreation, then these gay activists have a good point.
2/7 Roy Poses of Healthcare Renewal quotes extensively from The Boston Globe’s article on allegedly lavish spending by the leadership of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Lavish on limousines and fancy dinners in Manhattan, Paris, and London, that is.
2/6 A -13F degree morning is a good time to survey the terribly politicized reporting of climate science: Peter Cresswell links to and summarizes this Fraser Institute Independent Summary for Policymakers;
The Wall Street Journal provides an overview of the highly-variable scientific climate of opinion; Johan Norberg points out several big items from the IPCC report that shouldn’t be overlooked; Glenn Reynolds sketches his thoughts on several global- warming-related issues; and Division of Labour excerpts George Will’s list of six key questions about climate change.
2/5 American politicians who want government to control our wealth, manage our investments, and set our wages: Philosopher Stone quotes a politician who straightforwardly says “I want to take those profits,” and Joe Krutulis writes a letter to Indiana politicians about why they shouldn’t make it harder for his teenage daughter to get a job.
2/3 FIRE has announced its speech code of the month: Northeastern University. And here is a confession of intellectual bankruptcy: We can’t out-argue or out-market bigoted authoritarianism, so Chris Hedges wants to censor it.
2/2 The Cato Institute has some cool interactive world economic freedom maps. (Via Division of Labour.)
2/1 Cancer rates drop for second year in a row. Global warming blamed. Or something like that. And Flemming Rose and Bjorn Lomborg speak truth to power, finding some inconvenient truths that don’t fit Al Gore’s cherry-picking the global warming data.