9/30 At Entrepreneur.com, ten businesses that likely won’t exist in ten years. Are there differences between male and female entrepreneurs?
9/29 In a Swedish Institute for Social Research working paper, economists Daniel Klein and Charlotta Stern wonder where the free market capitalists are. Key quotation: “We find that about 8 percent of [American Economic Association] members can be considered supporters of free-market principles, and that less than 3 percent may be called strong supporters.” (Via The Volokh Conspiracy.) To help with that intellectual deficit, here is a great list of free online e-books at the site of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. (Thanks to Anja for the link.) I especially learned a great deal from George Reisman’s The Government Against the Economy when I was in college.
9/28 ABC News spotlights ten technologies that are changing the world. And Damn Interesting’s Alan Bellows reports on the discovery of a freshwater lake two miles under Antarctica.
9/26 When your life is on the line, whose decision is it about what experimental treatments to attempt: yours or the government’s? Cato’s Roger Pilon follows up on the “Abigail Alliance” case with an overview of the legal history leading up to it. Here is the Independent Institute’s useful FDA Review site. And Larry Ribstein raises a good question about: experimental drugs, the FDA, and who’s killing Penelope?
9/25 Congratulations to editor Robert Bidinotto and the staff of The New Individualist for winning an “Eddie” Award from Folio: magazine. Here is the award-winning article, “Up from Conservatism.”
9/24 Rich advice: Forbes asks twenty questions of twenty-one self-made billionaires. (Via BusinessPundit.) And here is new website on the theme of Honor the Rich.
9/22 A preview of the soon-to-be-released promotional video for the new Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship at Rockford College. Kudos to Chris Vaughan, who shot and edited the video and posted this pilot version at Yahoo.
9/21 In The Times Literary Supplement, Gerard Baker argues that we should give the America-is-Rome thesis a rest. And classicist Mary Beard lists ten things you thought you knew about the Romans . . . but didn’t.
9/19 Regulation’s effects on entrepreneurship: The Illinois Business Law Journal posts a brief categorizing essay for determining “The Effect of Regulatory Schemes on the Rate of New Venture Creation”. And the LockeSmith web log looks at a bad policy for entrepreneurship.
9/18 And I thought we had some problems with politicized faculty members. Meanwhile Ilya Somin explains when it is appropriate to refuse to hire professors based on their political views.
9/17 At first I thought this was a spoof from The Onion: now the usual sort of politicians want to apply antitrust to successful charities. (At least I wasn’t too far off.) Meanwhile, this is no spoof: a European court has ruled against Microsoft on antitrust grounds, holding that Microsoft must give its rivals access to its software codes and that it may bundle together software products only in government-approved ways.
9/16 The New York Times on how Ayn Rand has inspired two generations of entrepreneurs and business professionals. (Thanks to John for the link.) Here is a short series of inspirational quotations on entrepreneurship. (Via Jeff Cornwall.)
9/14 The FIRE’s speech code of the month: Ohio State University. By contrast, FIRE is happy to report, Bryn Mawr gets it right.
9/13 Fallingwater is one of those few places that set my pulse pounding when I am there. Here is a well done computer-graphic-video of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece.
9/12 Lester Hunt posts a philosophical-political review of 300, including, among other items of interest, a definitive answer to the question: Is it all George Bush’s fault? And from Reason’s archives, Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley seeks Hollywood’s missing films. (Via InstaPundit.)
9/11 How to develop the entrepreneurial mind-set. The BusinessPundit explains Why I Gave Up Deserts To Become a Better Entrepreneur. And here is a helpful list of ten mistakes freelancers commonly make.
9/10 “Democratic Peace” theorist R. J. Rummel summarizes the themes of his new The Blue Book of Freedom, which is available in audiobook format and print. Meanwhile, Ilya Somin argues that the debate over socialism is not over. And Johann Gevers provides a theoretical alternative to the context of violence that generally informs discussions of ethics: The Freedom Universal. A key quotation: “violence inverts the incentives that operate between people in peaceful contexts, destroys the natural harmony of interests between people, and places the aggressor in the position of master over his slave, the victim.”
9/9 Aristotle still rules—though Rand, Sartre, and Kant (yikes) have moved up in my ranking while Nietzsche, Augustine, and the Stoics have fallen. So what is your ethical philosophy? SelectSmart.com’s Ethical Philosophy Selector takes about five minutes. My results from this week in 2007 are here, and my results from 2004 are here.
9/8 An astounding collection of the best images from the Hubble telescope.
9/7 David Thompson links to and comments on a Bruce Bawer essay exposing “peace studies” guru Johan Galtung as yet another anti-liberal apologist for totalitarianisms, both leftist and theocratic. George Leef identifies four common mistakes by non-libertarians. And Belgium-based Vincent De Roeck has a good series of quotations on liberty.
9/5 Timothy Sandefur of the Pacific Legal Foundation has a good web log devoted to property rights and fighting eminent domain abuses.
9/1 The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship has published the first issue of its newsletter, Kaizen, featuring an interview with New York City architect John Gillis, news about the Center’s founding, our courses in development, last semester’s student-prize winners, and a teaser about our next issue. Kaizen can also be viewed here at Rockford College’s website.