Worth Reading - 2003 Archive

12/31 Classic legal humor in the case of Wile E. Coyote v. Acme Manufacturing. (Via Overlawyered.com.)

12/30 The Heritage Foundation’s report on dynamic income mobility in the United States.

12/29 Economist Richard Cooper reviews Jagdish Bhagwati’s In Defense of Globalization.

12/27 Political theorist Michael Novak on America as a Spartan Athens. (New link: now at NRO.)

12/26 Ambassador to Egypt David Welch’s vigorous discussion of American foreign policy with a group of Middle Eastern journalists.

12/25 China takes a giant step away from socialism and toward capitalism by formally recognizing property rights. (Thanks to Karen for the link.)

12/24 It’s not too late to change your Christmas plans: Humorist Dave Barry on the true meaning of Christmas, Miami style.

12/23 Bake sale or political satire? No matter: dangerous campus subversion must be shut down by the authorities.

12/22 Architect Peter Cresswell reviews Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary on the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright.

12/21 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals show their holiday spirit by frightening children and using them as tools against their parents. (Thanks to Joe for the link.)

12/19 Energy research fellow Rob Bradley urges environmentalists to lighten up and enjoy the holiday display.

12/18 The National Post admonishes the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for its badly biased coverage of the capture of Saddam Hussein.

12/17 Author Michael Crichton’s excellent speech against the religion of doom-and-gloom environmentalism.

12/16 Columnist Richard Tren notes that government control of agriculture has led to countless deaths. So why do some think government control of drinking water will be any different?

12/14 Columnist Ed Hudgins asks: Can sex save China?

12/12 Student government elections at a Palestinian university focus on a key question: How many Jews have you killed recently?

12/11 Philosopher David Kelley’s classic article on Mother Teresa, Michael Milken, and Ayn Rand’s supply-side ethics.

12/10 The European edition of Time magazine on the rising tide of hate crimes in Europe. (Via AndrewSullivan.com.)

12/9 Editor Roger Donway on Voltaire's and the Enlightenment's battle for toleration properly conceived.

12/8 Jean-Francois Revel offers a sobering account of the sources and varieties of European anti-Americanism.

12/7 Web logger William Whittle offers a provocative calculation of the Iraq body count.

12/5 Ronald Bailey challenges President Bush’s Council on Bioethics, some members of which are arguing that longer human lives would be a bad thing.

12/3 Finalists for the Political Correctness Absurdity Awards? Masters and Slaves and The ‘N’ Word. (Thanks to Anja for the first link.)

12/2 Canada's Fraser Institute releases a study by Professor Gary Mauser concluding that restrictive firearm legislation has failed to reduce gun violence in Australia, Canada, or Great Britain.

12/1 Producer Duncan Scott is interviewed on the re-release of the movie version of Ayn Rand's We the Living.

11/30 Columnist Robert Novak on the G.O.P.'s use of bribes and threats to pass the Medicare bill. (Thanks to Diana for the link.)

11/26 Columnist Mark Steyn assesses the comparisons of George W. Bush to John F. Kennedy.

11/25 Astronomy popularizer Bill Arnett's multi-media tour of our fascinating solar system and the spacecraft that explore it.

11/24 Economist Tyler Cowen on the cultural benefits of globalization.

11/23 Web logger Steven den Beste explains why prescription drugs are so expensive and how the Food and Drug Administration's incentive to be overly cautious increases human death and suffering.

11/22 Scientific American's John Rennie provides 15 answers to Creationist nonsense.

11/21 The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education releases its Religious Liberty on Campus Survey.

11/20 Web logger Robert Bidinotto dumps on left environmentalists' claims about the latest threat to life on Earth: the flush toilet.

11/19 Should a woman be permitted to drive a car in order to save human lives? Controversy at The Arab News.

11/18 An ABC News report on Maher Arar, a Canadian and Syrian citizen deported by the United States to Syria where he was beaten and tortured. See also this CBC News timeline and overview.

11/17 Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom explore solutions to the racial gap in education.

11/16 Senior Editor of Foreign Policy Mark Strauss explains the rise of anti-Semitism among the far left and far right.

11/16 From Nature: Here come the Ratbots! (Thanks to Eric for the link.)

11/15 The S.E.C. has caused Martha Stewart to lose tens of millions of dollars. What did she do that was so bad? Law professor Stephen Bainbridge argues: Not much.

11/15 New Scientist reports continued progress in reducing world hunger.

11/14 Wendy McElroy of ifeminists.com argues that some colleges charge big for worthless curricula.

11/13 Don Parrish's photos and commentary on Ayn Rand sites in St. Petersburg.

11/13 From Israeli television, a video clip on how the Palestinian Authority is training children to be suicide bombers. (Thanks to Robert for the link.)

11/12 Editor Walter Olson chronicles the ridiculous, manipulative, and destructive elements of our legal system.

11/11 Capitalist chicks want you. Not necessarily for your body, unfortunately.

11/11 Meera Nanda's lecture on how postmodern attacks on objectivity and science are being used to revive religious fundamentalism.

11/10 Reason's Charles Paul Freund on how Arab pop music videos are challenging conservative Islamic culture from within.

11/8 Josh Chavetz's speech to the Oxford Union, in which he asks, How should we measure success or failure in Iraq? – and offers some optimistic evidence.

11/6 Evidence of continuing censoring and arrests of intellectual dissidents in China.

11/4 Fascinating: The powers of ten.

11/2 Law and History professor David Mayer offers an alternative to the stale debate between conservatives and liberals over constitutional interpretation.

11/1 Via Arthur Silber, UCLA student Garin Hovannisian's provocative libertarian take on the federal government's role in causing the California forest fires.

10/31 Philosopher David Kelley on the witless battle over General Boykin.

10/30 Keeping up with the Nazis: An overview of the Soviet Union's artificial famine/genocide in Ukraine during 1932-33, which resulted in the deaths of 7 to 10 million people.

10/28 Columnist Cathy Young argues that a scrupulous regard for the rights of rape victims should not mean disregarding the rights of those accused of rape.

10/27 The Objectivist Center's William Thomas argues against proposals to re-introduce a military draft.

10/25 The Wall Street Journal's Claudia Rosett on North Korea's concentration camps.

10/23 The Cato Institute's Doug Bandow argues against sports stadiums financed by taxpayers' money.

10/20 Charles Murray, author of Losing Ground, the book that dramatically changed the welfare debate, discusses the theme of his new book, Human Accomplishment.

10/19 An ABC News report on sexual brutality and murder sanctioned by tribal custom in Pakistan.

10/17 Former Reason editor Virginia Postrel on the theme of her new book, The Substance of Style.

10/14 Via Andrew Sullivan, an Oakland Press article that raises again the perplexing question: Just how much do teachers' unions hate children?

10/13 Economist George Reisman's lecture to the Ludwig von Mises Institute on the benevolence of capitalism.

10/11 Educator Marsha Enright's perceptive review of The Edge, starring Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, and Elle MacPherson.

10/10 Journalist Ilana Mercer's provocative article against sentimental thinking about animal rights.

10/8 Alan Kors on Orwellian thought reform in college orientation programs.

10/2 Owen Harries, Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Victor Davis Hanson, and Paul Kelly discuss The Fracturing of the West.

9/30 Bernard Lewis's classic essay on the roots of Muslim rage.

9/28 National Geographic's Andrew Cockburn's horrifying report on 21st century slavery. See also Colin Powell and the Department of State's 2003 Trafficking in Persons Report.

9/27 Laugh or cry? Carlin Romano's report on the World Congress of Philosophy in Istanbul.

9/26 Artist Michael Newberry's fascinating interview on Art, Inspiration, and Love.

9/25 The Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation makes the case for school choice and vouchers.

9/24 Historian Alan Kors points out that communistic socialism killed far more people than Hitler’s nationalistic socialism – but Western leftist intellectuals are still avoiding the moral lesson.

9/23 Psychologist Nathaniel Branden offers useful advice on how to nurture a child's self-esteem.

9/20 José Piñera explains Chile's successful transition from socialist dictatorship to free market democracy.

9/18 Michael McMenamin's fine article on insider trading and why Martha Stewart should go to heaven and the SEC should go to hell.

9/17 Nicholas Wade in The New York Times reports on brain scientists' latest theories on how music evolved.

9/16 The Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society presents its mission statement and a new book by its founder, Ibn Warraq.

9/14 Physicist Allan Walstad uses Austrian economic theory to explore science as a market process.

9/13 Reason science correspondent Ronald Bailey on killer agriculture subsidies.

9/11 Web logger Robert Bidinotto takes on Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times over drilling for oil in the Arctic and argues that human lives are more important than the aesthetic experience of being slapped on the butt by a polar bear.

9/11 A photojournalism review of the terrorist attacks on Manhattan.

9/10 Columnist Edward Hudgins on why 9/11 is The Ultimate Philosophy Lesson.

9/9 The late Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of Osama bin Laden’s closest associates, gives us a glimpse of Al Qaeda’s philosophical framework. [Dead link.]

9/7 Columnist Christopher Hitchens on why the Ten Commandments are inadequate as a moral code.

9/5 The Foundation for the Advancement of Art announces its mission statement and October 6th conference at the Pierre Hotel, Manhattan.

9/2 Law professor Mark Tushnet on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's radical individualism – and whether Thomas’s views also contain elements of Black Nationalism.

9/1 Columnist Mark Steyn on celebrating Labor Day in the capitalist world.

8/30 Noted educator-at-large Dave Barry offers a compelling sermon at the start of the new school year.

8/28 The Institute for Justice’s Chip Mellor and Charles Hobbs provide an overview of welfare reform efforts (and their enemies) in the last two decades.

8/23 Management consultant David Maister on the requirements of integrity and diagnosing the lack of vision, laziness, and cowardice that can contribute to hypocrisy and cutting corners.

8/22 Engineering professor Gordon Stubley’s classic case studies of integrity – one failure causing the Challenger disaster, and one success preserving the Citibank building in Manhattan.

8/17 Publisher and Editor of Die Zeit Josef Joffe on why the United States is the world’s sole hyper-power and how it can maintain its position with a combination of power-politics strategy and win/win provision of international public goods.

8/10 Web logger Steven den Beste summarizes recent history leading up to the current situation in North Korea, along with some educated guesses about the strategic thinking of the major players – the Chinese, American, and North Korean governments.

8/1 Biologist Robert Sapolsky on being an alpha male and the connection between baboon culture and neuroscience.

7/17 Science writer John Brockman introduces The Third Culture – those science writers who are bridging the gulfs between the humanities and the sciences and between specialists and the general thinking public.

7/10 Philosopher David Kelley defines and defends The Party of Modernity against its pre-modern and post-modern enemies.

7/3 Artist Michael Newberry discusses composition and perspective in drawing.

Archives: Worth Reading 2008, Worth Reading 2007, Worth Reading 2006, Worth Reading 2005, Worth Reading 2004, Worth Reading 2003.