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Worth Reading - 2006 Archive 12/31 “Somalia, Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan. Evidence that we live in a world of war and destruction is everywhere. And yet, it is not so.” Johan Norberg explains. And when mega-killers die: George Reisman detects a pattern of journalistic bias at the NYT. Which raises the question: What will they say when Castro dies? 12/30 Alone but not lonely: Creativity and alonetime. 12/29 Tyler Cowen excerpts an important quotation comparing European and American pharmaceutical development. Richard Epstein argues that Big Pharma is over-regulated. And speaking of R&D, Grant McCracken reports on a talk by IBM’s Linda Sanford at the MIT-IBM Innovation lecture series: How significant is the academic world as a source of innovation? I was surprised. McCracken follows up with this post on how well business schools foster innovators and innovation. 12/28 In The Independent Review, anthropologist Spencer MacCallum is bullish on civilization and the evolution of private property communities. (Thanks to Johann for the link.) 12/27 Intriguing images and playful photographic composition: the world in his hands. And if fear and trembling are the essence of religious experience, then some of these roads and paths are almost mystical. 12/24 In these litigious and sensitive times, here is a perfectly safe holiday greeting. (Via Overlawyered.) 12/23 A great short film: Time-travel and the musician-philosopher as a god. (Thanks to John for the link.) 12/22 Is it better to give or to receive? Neither, said the politicians of New London, Connecticut, preferring to take by force. Here, in response, is Susette Kelo’s Christmas card. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) And Ed Hudgins has a brief reflection on the pleasures of both giving and receiving. 12/21 Stephen Browne discusses a worrisome theme from master rhetorician Mark Steyn’s new book: birth rates and the future of Europe. On the other hand, the urbane Grant McCracken makes a wise point about misplaced moral panic. 12/20 International cooperation concretized: What your cell phone is made of. Competition and distinguishing the excellent from the average. Fearing what one doesn’t understand? Sebastian Mallaby looks at capitalists we don’t trust. 12/19 The good, the bad, and the inane. A review of a new biography: Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.) David Thompson revisits the “art bollocks” that is postmodernism. And in Australia more controversy over the use of tax dollars spent on political art. (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) 12/18 Time to reprise that good advice on how to survive this season’s holiday parties. And Steven Landsburg explains why Ebenezer Scrooge is an apostle of selflessness and environmentalism. 12/16 Revisiting The Horrors Of The Holocaust: An upcoming 60 Minutes program on millions of Nazi documents now being released to the public. (Thanks to Barbara for the link.) 12/15 A poignant Newberry tutorial about being an artist: Approach art like a child. 12/14 FIRE’s “Spotlight” report on free speech on campus: 73% of public universities surveyed maintain unconstitutional speech codes. One symptom: Johns Hopkins suspends a student for an insensitive party invitation. 12/13 This flabby New York Times article on the 2008 presidential election prompted this hilariously sarcastic response by Richard John Neuhaus. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) 12/12 Economist Peter Gordon finds confirmation from anthropologists that protectionists are Neanderthals. And here’s a Homo Sapiens Sapiens engineering achievement for a mountainous Italian town: sunlight in winter. 12/10 Do not rush into entrepreneurship blindly: Rob May on The Top 5 Reasons You Don't Need 4 Easy Ways To Start Your Own Business. Arnold Kling believes we should reform education by, in part, adding more entrepreneurship courses. 12/9 Nirpal Dhaliwal states it manfully: Women want real men, not girly-boys. 12/8 A two-part article by Russell Roberts on trade, comparative advantage, specialization, and standard of living. And Rossputin explains why the productive rich should be proud of their wealth. 12/7 Why has New York declined as a center of world finance? And to what extent is Sarbanes-Oxley to blame? WSJ’s John Fund puts SOX at the top of the list while Lisa Fairfax thinks SOX is a less significant factor. 12/6 Technology and engineering through the ages: A cool list of ten inventions by the ancient Chinese. Here is Wikipedia’s article on the world’s tallest structures. And here is a history of Boeing. 12/5 Many moan-and-groaners blamed the unusually harsh 2005 hurricane season on global warming. What will they make of 2006’s hurricane statistics? And what about disaster response? Philosopher Stone links to this John Stossel column on American charitable giving and foreign aid and follows up with this commentary. 12/4 Live Science’s list of 10 “bad” things that are good for you. Which reminds me of the classic joke: A minister decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon. He placed four worms into four separate jars. The first worm was put into a container of alcohol. The second worm was put into a container of cigarette smoke. The third worm was put into a container of chocolate syrup. The fourth worm was put into a container of good clean soil. At the conclusion of the sermon, the Minister reported the following results: The first worm in alcohol: Dead. The second worm in cigarette smoke: Dead. The third worm in chocolate syrup: Dead. The fourth worm in good clean soil: Alive. The Minister asked the congregation, “What can you learn from this demonstration?” An old woman sitting in the back quickly raised her hand and said, “As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won't have worms.” 12/2 Dr. Roy Poses takes on another postmodern attack on evidence-based medicine. And is the Duke lacrosse-alleged-rape case a good example of postmodernism infecting the law? Professor William Anderson thinks so. (Thanks to Brent for the link.) 12/1 The BusinessPundit links to Andy Rutledge’s anti-Social-Media argument: “Excellence is not the sum of opinions. Excellence is not born of consensus. Excellence is by its very nature something far outside the average. In fact, not even good is found in the average. Average is comfortable. Average requires no great effort. Average requires nothing exceptional. Average anything is..., well, just mediocre. Think about great ideas. Not good ideas or decent ideas, but great ideas. Where do they come from? Do they come from the masses? Do they come from consensus? No, they come from individuals. The masses are not out there generating a stream of great ideas. Great ideas come from singular, exceptional sparks of inspiration and deep or intuitive understanding, and they come from uncomfortable processes. The mob dislikes depth. The mob dislikes discomfort.” 11/30 Equal time for chemistry and alchemy? In The Harvard Crimson, Steven Pinker has good suggestions in response to a proposed faculty revision to general education goals. Is this anecdote indicative of racism in higher education admissions? And are schools underfunded? Andrew Coulson compares government versus private schools. 11/29 Thirteen unanswered questions at the cutting edge of science. And here are several great photos of animals. 11/28 Max Boot provides an overview of American military power, branch by branch. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.) Steven den Beste has a brief post on contemporary military strategy in historical perspective. And Friedrich von Blowhard reflects on state formation in Sparta. 11/27 A thoughtful piece by Anne Applebaum on the Darfur conflict. And is the United Nations endorsing slavery in Africa? Funny how it's almost believable. 11/25 Robert Bidinotto praises Casino Royale's new James Bond. And Virginia Postrel quotes Simon Winder on how exotic Casino Royale was to the constrained world of 1950s Britain. 11/22 Kathy Sierra explains why creative people shouldn’t wait for the muse to show up. 11/21 Liberty and the body beautiful: The latest on the politics and science of breast implants. Liberty and world peace: Don Boudreaux on the economics of trade and war. 11/20 What makes a great teacher great? An excellent series of reflections by Marsha Enright at the College of the United States’s website. 11/17 Professor Mayer on smoking and freedom. 11/16 Please join Tom Palmer and Ross Kaminsky in protesting the Egyptian government’s suppression and imprisonment of web logger Abdelkareem Soliman. 11/15 Another environmentalist doom scenario meets its doom: Apocalypse Cancelled. Of course, that won’t slow down those for whom environmentalism is a cover for anti-humanism. More on anti-humanists from Robert McHenry at Tech Central Station. 11/13 Featuring Wendy Kaminer, First Amendment absolutist. 11/11 Today is Dostoevsky’s birthday. Here is the International Dostoevsky Society. And here is Roger Donway’s “Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, and Ayn Rand's Moral Triad.” 11/10 In The New York Times: Global warming and new evidence from paleoclimatology. (Thanks to Johann for the link.) 11/9 The Food and Drug Administration’s drug lag costs lives. In Capitalism Magazine Richard Ralston outlines an alternative to the FDA. (Via Philosopher Stone.) Meanwhile, the BusinessPundit resignedly notes that even when big corporations such as Meijer offer free prescriptions, they will be attacked. 11/8 Awesome photos of our universe. 11/7 At Los Angeles’s KCET television station, rare Ayn Rand footage and a set of links to more information about Rand’s works and legacy. (Thanks to Katherine for the link.) 11/6 FIRE has announced its college speech code of the month: Don’t even unintentionally say something offensive at the University of Maine. 11/4 Business Week features twenty-five of America's best young entrepreneurs. 11/3 Are you a poor college student? Here are 118 money-saving ideas. And which of three strategies is best for procrastination? 11/1 In The New York Times, George Will reviews Brooke Allen on America’s deistic Founding Fathers. (Thanks to Bob for the link.) And in Wired, Gary Wolf surveys the battle of the new atheism with interviews with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) 10/31 In Der Spiegel: Europe’s white trash problem. In Africa, an interesting experiment in rewarding non-dictatorial politicians. And Victor Davis Hanson on where the Dark Ages are alive and well. (Via TIA Daily.) 10/30 Professor David Mayer’s thorough explanation of the dysfunctionality of the minimum wage, morally, economically, and constitutionally. And EclectEcon reports Rebekah’s anecdote from a small shop affected by the minimum wage. 10/28 At Slate: What were the net effects of pre- and post- Enlightenment colonialisms? Here’s a fine podcast of Johan Norberg on globalisation. And in the Washington Post, Marcela Sanchez has an optimistic take on poverty among Hispanic immigrants. 10/27 Steven Hayward on Al Gore as Martin Heidegger’s protegé. (Thanks to Roger for the link.) And Bill Nye updates astrology since the Babylonians. 10/26 Artist Michael Newberry discusses his recently-completed Artemis, including its development and pictures of other Artemises in the history of art. 10/25 A charming review of a William Clark’s new history of the university. And here is a fascinating recent survey of university faculty political beliefs. 10/24 Professor John Palmer explains how he price-gouges his desperate students. Here’s a summary of a talk given by Walter Williams in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. And Will Wilkinson evaluates the arguments for Peter-Keating-ism as public policy. 10/23 Creative advertising images. And for fans of 24, previously unknown Jack Bauer truths. (Thanks to Beverly for the link.) 10/21 The collected papers of Charles Darwin online at Cambridge University. And a chilling article in The New York Times on biology and maternal love. 10/20 Censorship in higher education: At Marquette University, Thou shalt not make jokes about the government. At Fisher College, Thou shalt not insult administrators. 10/19 Compulsion on behalf of the disabled: A federal judge allows a suit that argues Target’s web site discriminates against the blind. (Thanks to Beverly for the link.) Compulsion against the able: Hair braiders must attend government-approved schools. 10/17 A vastly-informative essay in Wired by George Gilder on the Desktop-to-Internet migration and the future of information networks. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.) 10/16 At the Reason Foundation: what would a property rights and free markets approach to climate change look like? Panelists include Shikha Dalmia, Don Boudreaux, and Julian Morris. (Via Not PC.) 10/14 Education round-up: Professor Reisman identifies the philosophy of Romanticism as the root cause of the failure of contemporary education. Russell Roberts argues that government education has the Sadim touch. David Boaz asks a good question: Where are the conservatives? And Stephen Browne is on a roll, with a post that distinguishes the ignorance-education and stupidity-intelligence dimensions. 10/13 Fascinating: divorce rates for religious and non-religious couples. (Via E pur si muove!) 10/12 Daniel Griswold on immigration and The Battle for Brainpower. Key quotation: “Half the Americans who won Nobel prizes in physics in the past seven years were born abroad. More than half the people with Ph.D.s working in American are immigrants. A quarter of Silicon Valley companies were started by Indians and Chinese. Intel, Sun Microsystems and Google were all founded or co-founded by immigrants. But now India and China are sucking back their expats, and America’s European competitors have woken up to the importance of retaining their talent. To cap it all, the immigration authorities [in the United States] are making life harder for foreigners.” 10/11 Thomas Sowell on local government and socialism for the rich. And architect Peter Cresswell has three sad anecdotes on red tape lag in building. 10/9 Fortune magazine’s list of the 50 most powerful women in business. Update: China’s richest man is a woman. 10/7 Americans and Eastern Europeans: Stephen Browne is on a roll with a fascinating series of first-hand vignettes. 10/5 Founder Fred Smith’s speech on how FedEx became so successful. (Via TomPalmer.com.) 10/4 Café Hayek excerpts John Tierney’s brief summary of public choice economics in action. 10/2 Philosopher Lester Hunt analyzes the psychology of wacky conspiracy theories. It’s not a pretty sight. And the BusinessPundit weighs in on the sometimes-idiocy of crowds. 9/30 Stephen Browne on the current state of the discipline of anthropology. 9/29 350 years of The Royal Society’s papers online. And are these colleges the future of engineering education? 9/28 “I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs when I used to teach entrepreneurship in a business school. They all hate bankers. They see them as irrational misers. They have money, why won't they share it?” Russell Roberts explains the value bankers offer to entrepreneurs. And what will take Chinese creativity to the next level? Grant McCracken thinks it’s a choice between Postrel and Florida. 9/27 Commenting on the furor over the Pope’s remarks about Islam, Lee Harris makes a perfect analogy to make clear who is responsible for any ensuing bloodshed. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) 9/26 Professor Bradley Thompson offers an important overview of big-government conservatism—including a striking connection to the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 9/25 Café Hayek talks sense about allegedly racist sports-team names. 9/23 Real liberal thinking in Sweden: Web logs by Stefan Karlsson, Johnny Munkhammar, Carl Bildt, and of course Johan Norberg. Here is the English-language version of free market Timbro’s site, and a portal to over 100 European free market think tanks: Stockholm Network. Finally, a recent article in The Economist on the state of Sweden’s economy. I liked this closing line on the perfect “Nordic” social model: “Finland's education, Estonia's progressive tax policy, Denmark's labour market, Iceland's entrepreneurship, Sweden's management of big companies and Norway's oil.” 9/21 Essential reading—Bernard Lewis: “one of the greatest dangers is that on their side, they are firm and convinced and resolute. Whereas on our side, we are weak and undecided and irresolute.” David Boaz has a beautifully-complementary piece on Islam and Enlightenment. And Sam Harris comes out swinging left and right, arguing that unless liberals get their heads out of the sand, "Americans will come to believe that the only people hard-headed enough to fight the religious lunatics of the Muslim world are the religious lunatics of the West." 9/20 Where did the nation’s top CEOs go to college? 9/19 Ban the fat people! Wait—that was last month. Now let’s ban the skinny people! And let’s mandate housework. Hopefully soon, as Radley Balko puts it, and with enough Nanny-Statism we will all be truly equal. 9/18 Wal-Mart’s outstanding success—and George Will’s analysis of those who consistently hate commercial success. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) And here’s an experiment definitely worth trying: Founders College. (Thanks to Anja for the link.) Update: Ross Kaminsky has a round-up of links to politicians in the anti-WalMart gang. 9/16 How to increase your life expectancy: Tim Shaughnessy explains why you should move to New Jersey and become an Asian-American woman. How to decrease your life expectancy: Michael Tanner has data on The Great Wait—i.e., one negative result of socialized medicine. (Via Philosopher Stone.) 9/15 Author Richard Wheeler’s speech about the false dichotomy between “serious literary” and “popular” novels. Writer Matthew Stibbe has tips on how to get that writing project done. And if you do want to be taken seriously as a writer, here are ten common typos to avoid. 9/14 Sports and Higher Education? Norman Chad plugs for St. John’s College’s approach. And Margaret Soltan reports on the Auburn University sports conflict. 9/13 USA Today lists ten brilliant younger scientists. And Brian Schwartz has this heartfelt comment on the great Richard Feynman. 9/12 Artist Mark Vallen answers: Does the Rocky movie-prop statue belong in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art? 9/11 Productivity: For the first time ever there are more overweight than hungry people in the world. (This Man is measured item is via Protagoras.) Competition: As usual, George Reisman gets it exactly right. 9/9 FEE’s Sheldon Richman talks sense about What income equality and inequality numbers mean. 9/7 Fascinated by India: An interesting post on why so many Indian immigrants become millionaires. Atanu Dey has two good posts on India’s proposed “One Laptop Per Child.” The Indian Economy Blog has a round up of recent Foreign Affairs essays on India. Aditya Dash and Gaurav Sabnis have two lively, wide-ranging web logs. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a lengthy article on Indian students in American graduate schools. And here’s a press release for Tibor Machan’s edited Ayn Rand at 100, which is being published first in India. 9/6 History textbooks: “When reality conflicts with political correctness, reality gets the boot.” (Thanks to Joe K. for the link.) And Thou shalt not laugh inappropriately: FIRE has announced its College Speech Code of the Month. 9/4 Are Harvard’s woes a microcosm of American undergraduate education? Yale historian Donald Kagan: “This is not a battle over the control of academic turf. The turf itself is at stake. The twin purposes of a university are the transmission of learning and the free cultivation of ideas. Both are entrusted to the faculty, and both have been traduced at its hands.” 9/2 Entrepreneurship and character—a brief, Aristotelian post from Jeff Cornwall. And is it better to plunge into entrepreneurship when younger or when older? Rob May aggregates some good data and anecdotal observations. 8/31 Is Wal-Mart the world’s biggest poverty eliminator? And Don Boudreaux explains to the negativists at The New York Times why we’re much, much wealthier than in 1967. 8/30 James Lileks explains how to get your postmodern 15 minutes (and a government grant): cuddle and stab a pig. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) 8/29 A mini-tutorial by artist Michael Newberry on the integration of light in painting. 8/28 Keeping up with some influential philosophers: Simon Blackburn on the appeal across 2.5 millenia of Plato's Republic; a new book on Spinoza’s vision of reason; and 2006 being the 200th anniversary of his birth, a tribute to John Stuart Mill’s enduring liberalism. 8/26 Two interesting items from Johan Norberg: the rise of free market think tanks in Europe, and an example from Bolivia right out of the pages of Atlas Shrugged. 8/25 Shawn Klein with an excellent comment on consumerism in education. (Via Philosopher Stone.) And Glen Whitman explains why college cafeteria food is, ummm, not always the best. 8/24 Why does history matter? Peter Cresswell summarizes fourteen life-or-death lessons from modern history. And: The Dark Ages were Dark: Tyler Cowen quotes from Bryan Ward-Perkins’s new book. Update: With reference to those cultures still stuck in the Dark Ages, Rossputin posts a history test with a public policy edge to it. 8/23 Admirable: Farrah Gray, Entrepreneur. 8/22 Anastasia Krutulis has a clear, short post on the importance of integrating playing and learning. Her post reminded me of a section from the great John Locke’s 1692 Some Thoughts concerning Education: “[G]reat care is to be taken, that [learning] be never made as a business to him, nor he look on it as a task. We naturally, as I said, even from our cradles, love liberty, and have therefore an aversion to many things for no other reason but because they are enjoin'd us. I have always had a fancy that learning might be made a play and recreation to children: and that they might be brought to desire to be taught, if it were proposed to them as a thing of honour, credit, delight, and recreation, or as a reward for doing something else.” 8/21 Corporate accountability for poor performance: Cato’s David Boaz compares the private sector with government. And Andrew Chamberlain compares compensation rates in the two sectors. 8/17 Bring on the witch doctors: Four postmodernists—three nurses and an English professor—object to "fascistic" Evidence-Based Medicine. Update: Roy Poses has this response. 8/16 I’m with Robert Bidinotto on this one: Let’s ban this dangerous nuclear reactor. Via Not PC: BioNuclearBunny on three anti-life environmentalist causes that have killed and maimed hundreds of millions of humans. Finally: Near-Record Corn Yield for 2006 Expected, Global Warming Blamed. (Just trying to get into the spirit of contemporary journalism.) 8/15 Angry Astronomer Jon Voisey on four misconceptions about the Big Bang Theory. 8/14 Excellent: Now available online are the episodes from Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose PBS television series. And Johann Norberg has another datum on globalization’s benefits. 8/13 Unintended consequences and environmental law: how endangered species acts can harm the animals they’re supposed to protect. And an untoward consequence: wise government officials in a Connecticut town shut down a 13-year old’s worm-selling business for violating zoning regulations. 8/12 Professor Peter Boettke argues that “Atlas Shrugged is arguably the most economically literate work by a major novelist in the history of literature.” And reservations about the concept of self-“ownership” aside—human beings are not objects to be owned—here is an interesting online graphical tutorial on Life, Liberty, and Property. 8/11 Another fine post from Rob May: How to Be an Effective Entrepreneur. And: Is European culture becoming more hospitable to entrepreneurship? 8/10 I can relate: Old Testament Parenting. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy.) 8/9 History and philosophy in practice: Victor Davis Hanson on how 2006 looks a lot like 1938. Key quotation: “It is now a cliché to rant about the spread of postmodernism, cultural relativism, utopian pacifism, and moral equivalence among the affluent and leisured societies of the West. But we are seeing the insidious wages of such pernicious theories as they filter down from our media, universities, and government — and never more so than in the general public’s nonchalance since Hezbollah attacked Israel.” (Via EclectEcon.) 8/8 Fruits of the Enlightenment: A Seattle Times review of 999 ideas that changed our lives. And CNN reports that Americans’ houses keep getting more spacious. 8/7 The Foundation for Individual Rights’ college speech code of the month: Don’t call anyone a “dumbass” at Colorado State. 8/5 Will Wilkinson reports that we may very well be the happiest zombies in the world. Here are some suggestive hypotheses about willpower and success. And at Tech Central Station, Nathan Smith has more excellent world economic news. 8/4 Science and the individualism-versus-collectivism debate: ants are more war-like in collectives and team-sport players are less ethical. 8/3 Edited by Professor Edward W. Younkins and published by Ashgate: a strong-looking collection of essays entitled: Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion. 8/2 In The Independent Review, Roy C. Smith and Ingo Walter have a close look “Four Years After Enron: Assessing the Financial-Market Regulatory Cleanup.” 8/1 Margaret Soltan with an interesting observation about what Americans at the beach teach us about American culture. And publishing tycoon Felix Dennis has no-nonsense advice about how to become rich. 7/31 An amusing whirlwind video trip down memory lane: the evolution of dance. 7/29 R. J. Rummel on part of the historical context for Iran today: What about that 1953 CIA Iranian Coup? Here is the Wikipedia entry on Iran. Austin Bay wonders if the Islamists are this century’s version of nineteenth-century anarcho-socialism. And here are some sobering pictures of Ground Zero two days after 9/11. 7/27 Forbes’s Rich Karlgaard has a brief, pithy commentary on tax cuts, tax revenues, and government spending. And Johan Norberg has this datum on the dysfunctionality of socialized medicine. 7/26 Wonders of nature: A video clip of the mimicking lyrebird. (Thanks to Matt H. for the link.) And a neat set of graphics: If the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang until now were compressed into one year. 7/22 Via George Reisman’s blog, why Rachel Carson’s book caused Deadly Spring. 7/18 Peter Huber defends Big Pharma against the usual charges that it “ignores the drugs that matter, wastes huge amounts of money corrupting the market, and passes on the cost to patients.” (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) 7/17 An insider’s perspective on philosophical fraud—a transcript of former Enron speechwriter Rob Bradley’s C-Span speech on what went wrong. 7/16 Three jaw-dropping performance versions of Fatboy Slim’s great song That Old Pair of Jeans: a passionate juggler, a wonderfully feminine hula performer, and a Brighton street juggler with a sense of humor. (Thanks to Jim for the links.) 7/15 Is eBay doing enough brand protection? Grant McCracken compares Microsoft and Google and applies the lesson to eBay. 7/14 Terry Teachout’s recommendations for Shakespeare in film. 7/11 Men and blacks get less sleep. Clearly, discrimination is at work—and let’s not neglect the health problems that stem from sleep-deprivation. I propose that we form at least one new government agency to combat this. And: Safe at almost any speed? No thanks to doomster Ralph Nader. (Thanks to Beverly for the links.) 7/9 FIRE has announced its college speech code of the month. 7/1 Spectacular pictures of storms. 6/30 Fruits of the Enlightenment: synthetic blood vessels and the use of stem cells to repair paralysis. 6/29 Cool photos of insects (and a frog) up close. Very close. 6/28 Why are so many great creators outside the margins? Another fine essay from Paul Graham. Key quotation on “the disadvantages of insider projects: the selection of the wrong kind of people, the excessive scope, the inability to take risks, the need to seem serious, the weight of expectations, the power of vested interests, the undiscerning audience, and perhaps most dangerous, the tendency of such work to become a duty rather than a pleasure.” 6/27 1942 and why Stefan Zweig still matters. 6/26 Wow: the relative sizes of Earth, the other planets, and several stars. 6/24 America’s “World Cup edge”? Margaret Soltan excerpts a David Brooks article on American and European universities. See also Soltan’s classic takedown of a cranky intellectual pretender. Also: Andrea Dworkin versus the First Amendment—Alan Dershowitz updates and corrects the record. 6/23 When is the next flight to Moscow? Grant McCracken reflects on divergent reactions to outstanding beauty. 6/22 The “high” art world today: one museum loses its head. Mark Vallen comments on a “cutting” edge artist whose medium is flatulence. And one wonders what was going on in some of these buyers’ heads. For some antidotes, check out Alexandra York’s American Renaissance for the 21st Century and Quent Cordair’s gallery. 6/21 What is anti-imperialism? Marko Attila Hoare’s thoughtful review of Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit’s Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) 6/20 In Belgium: the Education Police versus homeschoolers. And a brief report on homeschooling in England. (Thanks to Sean for the links.) 6/19 From Arnaud Frich Photo, gorgeous panoramas of Paris at night. 6/17 James K. Glassman with good global economic news: it’s boom time. Striking quotation: "For the first time since 1969 … not a single country in the world has had negative year-over-year growth." (Via Johan Norberg.) 6/16 Global warming? The journalism and the politics are often awful. How good is the science? (Thanks to Robert for the link.) 6/15 Terry Teachout writes up his visit to the fascinating (and sometimes weird) Barnes Museum in Philadelphia. 6/14 In The Herald, Joan McAlpine diagnoses the malaise of European universities. And the Financial Times, Richard Lambert suggests six steps to revitalize Europe’s universities. (Both via University Diaries.) 6/13 Via TIA Daily, two good articles on the intellectual and moral meltdown of the Left: Ian Buruma notes and explains the pattern of Western leftists admiring and apologizing for the worst tyrannies, and FrontPage Magazine has a roundup of tortured Left reactions to Zarqawi’s death. 6/12 Science, technology, and art at their finest? The Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment. (Via Philosopher Stone.) More seriously, here is a classic experiment in us-versus-them groupthink bias. 6/10 Film buff Stan Rozenfeld has a new round of mini-reviews of new and classic movies. 6/9 At Rossputin.com, an interview with Walter Williams on price gouging. And George Reisman takes on the real gougers—those who, like Paul Krugman, want to gouge the rich to pay for their pet projects. 6/8 Die Zeit’s publisher and editor Josef Josse’s brilliant diagnosis of the psychology of Anti-ism—with special attention to its currently most popular form world-wide. 6/7 The artist at work: June’s studio update from painter Michael Newberry. 6/6 PC World’s top tech gadgets of the past 50 years. And at the Online Archive of California: a photographic collection of technology. 6/5 Chemists beware!—the SWAT team is on its way to your house and lab. Philosopher Stone asks: Is this the future of government regulation? Or this? Punch magazine put it perfectly way back in 1920: "One of the Pacific Islands, we read, is so small that the House of Commons could not be planted on it. A great pity." (September 15th, 1920 issue; via Bjørn Stærk) 6/3 Eugene Volokh offers an amusing reprisal of John Galt’s legal history. And my college town in Canada was founded by John Galt in 1827. 6/2 Theodore Dalrymple on drug addiction and personal responsibility. 6/1 Hollywood Rand fans. And here is a promising new web log: The Objective Standard. And the BB&T corporation has an excellent Values philosophy. 5/31 Two recent takes on contemporary intellectual culture: In the Chronicle, Michael Kimmel reviews several trendy novels in the “lad lit” genre, describing that genre as “a sort of anti-bildungsroman, in which a sardonic, clever, unapologetic slacker refuses to grow up, get a meaningful job, commit to relationships, or find any meaning in life.” And Julian Baggini argues that, philosophically, the “comic cartoon [is] the form best suited to illuminate our age”: “To speak truthfully and insightfully today you must have a sense of the absurdity of human life and endeavour. Past attempts to construct grand and noble theories about human history and destiny have collapsed.” (Both via Arts & Letters Daily.) 5/30 Is Darwinian conservatism an oxymoron? James Seaton reviews Larry Arnhart’s recent book. And here is a review of leftist Todd Gitlin’s new book on how postmodernism gutted the Left. Exactly. (Though it had already suffered a brain-stroke, as I have argued, by the time it turned to desperate pomo measures.) 5/27 Has Ragnar shrugged? And here is an inspiring profile of Ken Iverson, a twentieth-century business hero. 5/26 Sally Satel on organ donation and the kindness of strangers. (Thanks to Roy for the link.) Here is the latest in human longevity research. And 91-year-old Cliff Garl will be forever young. 5/25 Fascinating: What physicists think happened the first few microseconds after the Big Bang. And how much progress have we made toward strong artificial intelligence? Jeff Hawkins summarizes. (Thanks to Jim H-N. for the link.) 5/24 Harry Binswanger makes a strong moral and practical case for open immigration. (Via Not PC.) And Russell Roberts identifies some further cultural and political components of a full solution to the issues that immigration raises. 5/23 Michael Barone has more good world-economic news. (Via Rich Karlgaard.) 5/22 New record-high life-expectancy statistics in the U.S. (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) And the Bureau of Labor Statistics has average hourly and weekly earnings for American workers. 5/19 Here are five fascinating numbers. And worth browsing is this History of Mathematics Archive. 5/18 Why the rich need a tax break. For more data see also this government report. 5/17 Improving the fruits of the Enlightenment: Gadgets then and now. And here comes the Six-Billion-Dollar Man. And here is a website devoted to one of the mathematical and political giants of the Enlightenment: the Marquis de Condorcet. 5/16 Do not miss the excellent underwater photographs from the sunken city of Alexandria. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.) And here is a series of lovely images of planet Earth. 5/15 The always-worth-reading George Reisman enlightens us about price gouging. Professor Bainbridge has an intriguing hypothesis about union leaders’ arguments about CEO pay. And Roy Poses reports on out-of control conflicts of interest in the University of California system. 5/13 Should we privatize peace efforts in, e.g., Darfur? Rebecca Ulam Weiner weighs the issues of efficiency, cost, and accountability. Shelby Steele wonders why, since World War II, the West fights its wars so delicately. And Andrew Klavan believes that to get the job done we should draft Hollywood. 5/12 Neil Parille’s new web blog has an admirable goal: “Its aim is to discuss Objectivism free from the name calling and hoopla too often associated with the discussion of Rand and Objectivism on the web.” The Objective Reference Center has a good selection of texts by Ayn Rand available online. And this just in: Kathy Sierra has advice Objectivists could profitably adapt to philosophy. 5/11 The home decoration dictators are coming to your neighborhood. (Via Philosophy 101.) And now that the health police have put Big Tobacco on the defensive, it’s time to take on Big Ice Cream. 5/10 Philosopher Lester Hunt explains why he is against multi-culturalism. And here is an immigrant-group success story—twice. 5/9 Humberto Fontova rips into the historically-uninformed critics of The Lost City: Andy Garcia’s movie about Cuba. (Thanks to Brent for the link.) Which also raises an interesting question: How much is Fidel Castro worth? And "Protagoras" asks another: Why do some find it so hard to learn from history? 5/8 Grant McCracken asks: How do we measure how creative a culture is? And Jeff Cornwall has advice to entrepreneurs about failure on the highway to success. 5/6 Is the evolution of the eye irreducibly complex? In this four-minute video, Swedish scientist Dan-Eric Nilsson demonstrates one possible straightforward evolutionary path. And some actual—as opposed to mythical—intelligent design: This is one Clever design for a car. 5/5 A new tutorial by artist Michael Newberry: Rhythm in painting. 5/4 Superstar teacher John Taylor Gatto is working on an ambitious documentary project about American education: "The Fourth Purpose". (Thanks to Jim for the link.) 5/3 A website devoted to the great Romantic novelist Victor Hugo. Interesting and new to me was this account of Carl August Hagburg’s visits with Hugo in 1836. 5/2 A new book on one of the architects of the Reign of Terror: Maximilien Robespierre. And for something more uplifting, Ken Gregg has a post on a vigorous and fascinating Pole who embraced Enlightenment ideals: Tadeusz Kosciuszko was recruited by Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, became a great friend of Thomas Jefferson and a hero of the Revolutionary war. 5/1 Logic and economics: Don Boudreaux has a good example illustrating why ad hominem is an invalid argument tactic. And he has a further post illustrating why tu quoque is a perfectly understandable reaction. 4/29 Now I understand women: New data on men’s and women’s emotional processing. Key quotation: “It could be that while men and women have basically the same hardware, it’s the software instructions and how they are put to use that makes the sexes seem different.” And here is some evidence that equality is good for your sex life. 4/28 Corporate non-ethics from the inside: Former Enron speechwriter Rob Bradley recently gave a talk about what it was like to work at Enron. And where, oh where, would GM be without the UAW? George Reisman explains. 4/27 Following the controversy surrounding David Horowitz’s new book? Here are Amazon’s page for The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, including some vigorous debate in the Customer Reviews section, EclectEcon, and David Horowitz himself. 4/26 Two philosophical friends of mine have started web logs: Meet Tom Stone at Philosopher Stone and Anja Hartleb at Philosophy 101. 4/25 Philosopher David Schmidtz has a new book out this year with Cambridge University Press: The Elements of Justice. Schmidtz is also directs the Philosophy of Freedom Program at the University of Arizona, which has hosted philosophers David Kelley, Loren Lomasky, and Eric Mack as Visiting Professors. 4/24 The most interesting envelopes I have ever seen: the evolution of the Netflix envelope, with pictures and rationales for each change. And here is enough salt to last us 70 million years: Check out this salt mine 1,200 feet below Detroit, Michigan. 4/22 More great graphically-presented data: World maps of population, birth rates, net immigration rates and more. (Thank to Joe for the link.) And here is a set of maps showing population distributions according to religion. 4/21 A wonderful 49-minute video interview with Richard Feynman. If you haven’t read Feynman’s hilarious and inspiring “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” Adventures of a Curious Character, put it on your short list. Right now. 4/20 Mirror neurons, emotional contagion, and why it’s good to stay away from angry and resentful people: Kathy Sierra connects the dots. 4/19 Now that the tax deadline has passed and we’ve all calmed down again, here is a scary pie chart: How many days each year does the average American work to pay taxes compared with to pay for food, leisure, and so on? And for more blood-sucking vampires (not that I’m bitter or anything), LiveScience.com is in search of the real Dracula. Update: John Stossel has a fine column on how much tax you really pay. 4/18 I spent two hours that I don't have exploring this great timeline history of the universe. 4/17 In my Philosophy of Science course this semester, one of the books we are reading is Michael Ruse’s The Evolution-Creation Struggle (Harvard, 2005). Ruse is a very clear writer and teacher—I took three courses with Ruse when I was a student at The University of Guelph. A neat item relevant to the evolution-creation debate is a newly-discovered “missing link”—a fossil of a “375 million-year-old fish, which exhibits changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals.” (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) Finally, creationism takes some hits. 4/15 Two books worth your attention: Objectivist (upper-case “O”) philosopher Tara Smith has a new book out: Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist, published this spring by Cambridge University Press. And objectivist (lower-case “o”) philosopher Michael Huemer also has a new book out: Ethical Intuitionism, published by Palgrave MacMillan. Both Smith and Huemer are careful thinkers and clear writers, and I have learned from their earlier books. 4/14 Yesterday was Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. Historian David Mayer separates Thomas Jefferson the man from the myths surrounding him. And here are the official White House biography and the website for Jefferson’s home at Monticello. 4/13 In The Guardian, Simon Jenkins closes the coffin on architectural modernism. And Friedrich Blowhard discusses a connection between Karl Popper and modernist arts culture. Update: Peter Cresswell, responding to the Jenkins piece, asks: Modernism: How bad was it? 4/12 In Salon, Jonathan Keats takes on the anti-sex feminists: Is the corset an instrument of bondage—or of liberation? (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) And here feminist enforcers are requiring strict compliance with the party line on fashion. (Thanks to Beverly for the link.) 4/11 Johan Norberg on why Julian Simon is still right. 4/10 When a century of stagnation and brutality just isn’t enough evidence—How the contemporary anti-capitalist mind works. A milder version: zero-sum thinking in French economic culture. (Thanks to Tibor for the link.) A more extreme version: a true-believer socialist longing for a revival of collectivism and redistribution. 4/8 How the world improved from 1993-2006: Bill Emott of The Economist reflects on events during his tenure as editor. (Via Johan Norberg.) 4/7 Here is a well-deserved riposte to two academic paternalists who have proposed punitive taxation for hard work. And here is another academic who advocates mass-death on environmentalist grounds. Bad philosophy, tenure, and your tax dollars at work. 4/6 How sensitive are you? Not emotionally—but in terms of perceptual acuity and judgment. And the next time you sense an insect and insensitively want to swat it, stop to ask yourself this sensible question: How much economic value do insects have? (Answer: $57 billion per year.) 4/5 Images of Muhammed throughout history—some of them horrific and some quite beautifully done. (Thanks to David for the link.) And here is the first American magazine to reprint one of the controversial Muhammed cartoons on its cover. 4/4 Fruits of the Enlightenment: an experiment in “closed-heart” surgery to repair valves. And check out this very cool light-transmitting concrete. 4/3 EclectEcon notes that New Zealand is considering tradeable water rights. A step in the direction toward avoiding The Tragedy of the Commons. Here is Craig Milmine’s 2000 dissertation applying Lockean and Objectivist principles to water rights. Of course, as Division of Labour reports, some people refuse to learn the lesson. Update: Peter Cresswell has further analysis and links. 4/1 Right out of Atlas Shrugged: Is Ivy Starnes now writing for Time? 3/31 Being a Brief Guide to Religious Denominations in America: A Baptist is a man who got saved. A Methodist is a Baptist who got shoes. A Congregationalist is a Methodist who moved to town. A Presbyterian is a Congregationalist who got rich. An Episcopalian is a Presbyterian who ran for public office. (Author unknown.) 3/30 In the Chronicle, Diane Ravitch has a short history of the College Boards and SAT—and a suggestion that we revive the College Boards. 3/29 An extended interview with Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng, who was imprisoned by the communist Chinese for twenty years. And here’s an interesting, briefer interview with Shelby Steele, author of the new classic The Content of Our Character. 3/28 Professor David Mayer argues that political “progressives” are anything but that. 3/27 Do you recall the (now-debunked) claim that 500 scientists had signed a letter opposing evolution and supporting “Intelligent Design”? Here’s a snappy comeback: the Alliance for Science has published a letter with the signatures of 10,000 members of the clergy who support evolution. And here is a troubling item: some public school districts in Arkansas prohibit teachers from mentioning evolution. 3/25 Collectivism and human rights: Disabled newborns are killed in North Korea, says a defector. Here is a musical based on an unlikely theme: North Korean concentration camps. (Thanks to Karen for the link.) A picture that is worth one-hundred-thousand words: North Korea is dark. And R. J. Rummel has this summary overview of the horror that is living in North Korea. 3/24 In Wired, Will Wright, creator of The Sims, argues that video games build “creativity, community, self-esteem, problem-solving” skills. Not to mention that growing up on video games means you can kick tail on the real battlefield. 3/23 Political philosopher Tibor Machan takes the editors of a recent book on business ethics to task for a package-deal besmirching of libertarianism. And economist George Reisman places the blame for higher oil prices on those who help prop up the Middle Eastern cartel—including the U.S. Senate. 3/22 Is it teaching-versus-research in higher education? Professor Jonathan Zimmerman argues that it is time to give teaching more weight. Or is it athletics-versus-education at some state universities? Nobel Prize-winning physicist Carl Wieman is fed up with the University of Colorado. And here is an example of the education bureaucrat mindset in action. (Via John Enright.) 3/21 Fascinating: a study released in 2005 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University: The Top 100 Universities in the World. The global-distribution patterns are striking: Of the top 10 in the world—8 are in North America, and 2 are in Europe. Of the top 30 universities—23 are in North America, 5 are in Europe, and 2 are in Asia. Of the top 50 universities—39 are in North America, 9 are in Europe, and 2 are in Asia. 3/20 Fortune magazine has a list of 10 cool colleges for entrepreneurs. I especially like the University of Rochester’s idea of integrating entrepreneurship across the curriculum rather than having it located only in the business department. And Forbes has a great list: The Twenty Most Important Tools Ever. (Thanks to Roger for the link.) 3/19 Art insight: painter Michael Newberry explains and illustrates triangulation of light and color. 3/18 Aesthetics—from beauty to edginess: Donald Pittenger begins a chronicle on the decline and fall of the classical face. 3/17 Professor Margaret Soltan suggests that the professor-as-intellectual is obsolete and asks a dangerous question: Do sabbaticals create more value than they cost? 3/16 Fruits of the Enlightenment: Researchers have restored the vision of mice blinded by brain damage. And scientists have harvested stem cells from menstrual blood. 3/15 Bjørn Stærk requests that we translate Shakespeare into English. 3/14 With March Madness upon us, Neal McCluskey takes on the morality of taxpayer money and public university sports programs. (Via University Diaries.) 3/13 Why are there so many unhappy endings in great literature? And how can we change that? Ben Macintyre shows us how To Cuddle a Mockingbird. 3/11 Has another Michelangelo fresco been authenticated? And here is a site with some good quality images of Leonardo da Vinci sketches. 3/10 FIRE has announced its college speech code of the month. 3/9 When government schools fail, some of them turn to the private sector for help. On the other hand, as Mark Lerner reports, some failing government schools turn to yet more centralized, top-down control. 3/8 Simply excellent: Dr. Wafa Sultan on Al Jazeera television. Joshua Zader also has the link and some key quotations from the talk. And R. J. Rummel has the text of a widely-distributed letter written by Major General Vernon Chong, Command Surgeon, Headquarters U.S. European Command, Stuttgart, Germany. Update: Here is a follow-up article on Waha Sultan and her outstanding interview. (Thanks to Karen for the Sultan links.) 3/7 In the new Cato Unbound, philosopher David Schmidtz asks: When does inequality actually make a difference? 3/6 Breath-taking photographs of aurora phenomena. And is Jupiter developing a new red spot? 3/4 In the Literary Encyclopedia, Ashland University's John Lewis states that "Ayn Rand wrote the most intellectually challenging fiction of her generation" and provides an introduction to the themes of Rand's novels. Grant Schulyer opines about the state of the debate about Ayn Rand’s literary and philosophical significance. In a talk to SLIS, doctoral student Robert White gives an overview of Ayn Rand’s thought and significance. And if your German is up to it, check out Kapitalismus-Magazin, Freie Radikale—Das Blog der deutsch- sprachigen Objektivisten, and Objektivismus. Update: George Reisman takes Robert Mayhew to task for altering Ayn Rand’s wording in a newly-published volume of her Q & A. 3/3 For researchers and admirers of the Enlightenment: Electronic Enlightenment, a developing site with texts and correspondence of over 3,800 eighteenth-century figures. Check out also the Voltaire Foundation, the force behind Electronic Enlightenment. 3/2 In The New York Times, Dr. Brian Day on Canada’s socialized medical system: "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years." Worth reading again is Mark Steyn’s review of a Canadian film, The Barbarian Invasions. And at Division of Labour, Frank Stephenson follows up on the issue of how much high medical bills contribute to personal bankruptcies in the USA. 3/1 At San Francisco’s Exploratorium, a set of science experiments anyone can do. And Australian scientists have grown a prostate gland from stem cells. 2/28 At the CEE, a profile the intriguing Joseph Schumpeter, he of capitalism’s “creative destruction” fame. And to contrast socialism’s destructive destruction: here’s a datum showing that socialized medicine is deadly. 2/27 The average American now has six weeks more leisure time per year compared to 1965. Virginia Postrel looks at how we got that extra time and what we do with it. And Michael von Blowhard has a link-rich post on the connections between money and happiness. 2/24 Peter Beinart explains why Lawrence Summers ran afoul of the Harvard faculty establishment. (Requires free login at The New Republic. Thanks to Marsha for the link.) And in the Times of London, Gerald Baker weighs in heavily on the Summers affair. 2/23 At Scientific American, an extended review of three new books on Charles Darwin’s significance. (Thanks to Bob for the article.) 2/22 Don Boudreaux has an interesting proposal about voluntary military service. And worth reading again is William Thomas’s argument against proposals to re-introduce a military draft. 2/21 LA Times journalist Tim Rutten connects the cartoon controversy to strategic decisions made in medieval philosophy. Jason Pappas states it forthrightly: truth is our most important weapon in the battle against the Islamists. And about another enemy of reason and free speech: here is a review of Leo Damrosch’s new biography of Rousseau. 2/20 At Philosophy of Biology, Warren Platts asks: Was Aristotle a materialist or a vitalist? And here is James Lennox’s book-length study of Aristotle’s philosophy of biology. Also: the cane toad as an example of evolution in fast forward. 2/18 Forbes has a cool list of 10 things that will change how you live. (Thanks to Roger for the link.) 2/17 Read George Reisman’s new blog. Reisman is very astute, and I have learned much from his excellent book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. 2/16 Use adverbs sparingly, tastefully, and not unnecessarily, avoid repeating yourself and saying the same thing twice—and go easy on the exclamation points! Elmore Leonard has good advice on writing. 2/15 NASA’s top ten images. And here is the world’s longest-burning lightbulb: 105 years and counting. 2/14 Biting the hand that heals us: a report from the Manhattan Institute on the litigation lawyer industry and medical malpractice. (Via the always amusing and/or infuriating Overlawyered.com.) 2/13 Evolution and crystal-ball gazing: Steven Pinker predicts Life in the Fourth Millennium. (Thanks to Bob H. for the article.) 2/11 At ABetterEarth.org: viable explanations and moral approaches to environmental values. 2/10 From Der Spiegel, an interview with the courageous Hirsi Ali. (Thanks to Karen for the link.) Via Peter Cresswell, a cartoon that captures the hypocritical part of the story:
2/9 David Mayer has a well-condensed history of affirmative action’s decline to affirmative racism. 2/8 Who are this year’s World’s Worst Dictators? (Via Johan Norberg.) It would be good to see a contrasting list of those politicians who have done the most to advance liberty in the past year. Meanwhile, Economist George Reisman explains that Hitler and the National Socialists were, uhhh, socialists. And check out John Ray’s Dissecting Leftism site for more good historical material. 2/7 Roy Poses, M.D., has some sharp questions about a lengthy list of conflicts-of-interest and possible abuses in the University of California system. 2/6 Ibn Warraq defends the Danish cartoonists, Robert Bidinotto has a measured response—contrasting the lesser sin of gratuitous insult with the great evil of threatening and inflicting violence, and at BlogCritics.com David M. Brown argues that our differences with the Islamofascists are fundamentally about culture and not about foreign policy. (Thanks to Bob H. for the Warraq link.) And the always-sharp Mark Steyn puts the key philosophical point this way: “One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obliged to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural ‘sensitivity,’ the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want—including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers.” (Thanks to Karen for the link.) 2/5
2/4 Left-liberals in the 1960s were wrong about many things—Arnold Kling has a list—and many lefties are still stuck in 1968. Patri Friedman has an excellent follow-up question for libertarians: What year are libertarians stuck in? And: Long-range principles or short-range politicking? Daniel Henninger believes political philosophy is again becoming central in American politics. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) 2/3 Makes you wonder if the administrators at Jacksonville State University have heard of a country called the United States of America: Here is the FIRE’s college speech code of the month. And there is yet more harassment of free speech at DePaul University. 2/2 Do humans use only 10 percent of their brains? Is a dog’s mouth cleaner than a human’s? Do men think about sex every seven seconds? Here are the Top Ten Science Myths. And here are the results of a neat experiment: Are smart people better at ignoring details? 2/1 How rich we are: Don Boudreaux meditates on a 1975 Sears Catalog and follows up with a comparison of the cost in labor then and now for selected items. 1/31 Well worth browsing: Quent Cordair Fine Art has an eclectic collection of artists with works available. And Donald Pittenger has the third of an ongoing series on peripheral artists. 1/30 Frederick Douglass: “Everybody has asked the question . . . ‘What shall we do with the Negro?’ I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!” Cato’s Tom Palmer has a post about Frederick Douglass’s classical liberal credentials. And more recently: Morgan Freeman is a wise man. 1/29 Tim Swanson wonders: Will the traditional college survive distance-learning, podcasting, and other new delivery systems? And given that about 60% of college graduates are now women, Michael Blowhard asks whether we have a genuine Boy Crisis. 1/28 Excellent business ethics in action: BB&T Bank has announced that it will not loan money to developers who use the government to acquire property by eminent domain. A welcome step toward eliminating compulsion from the marketplace. (Via Dynamist.) And Russell Roberts has some sharp words for a sloppy economic reporter. 1/27 Today is Mozart’s 250th birthday. Terry Teachout places Mozart in a class apart. Tyler Cowen looks at the economics of Mozart. And here’s an update on the testing of Mozart’s skull. 1/26 Globalization and dramatically shifting shares of global GDP. And check out the London-based Globalisation Institute. You have to admire an institute whose number one hero is Richard Cobden. 1/25 Doug Brown reviews Geoffrey Stone’s Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism. (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) 1/24 Ed Driscoll reflects on Hollywood politics, new movie-making technologies, and the “prosumer” movement. And at 43 Folders, information about a program that translates text feeds into podcasts. 1/23 A series of darkly hilarious de-motivational posters. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) Here is my favorite: Sacrifice. 1/21 The American Council of Trustees and Alumni: fixing the lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses (PDF format). And Orin Kerr clarifies the legal status of free speech and annoying emails. 1/20 What are science’s ten most beautiful experiments? Check out the PillCam—a pill-sized camera that “takes about 2,600 color pictures at a rate of 14 per second” as it passes through a patient’s digestive system. And scientists have found molecules that are the precursors to life on a planet only 375 light-years from Earth. (Thanks to Karen for the link.) 1/19 Philosopher Dennis Dutton connects aesthetics and evolutionary psychology. Which raises the question: What to make of these aesthetically-challenged beasts? 1/18 At Catallarchy, Bill Cholenski starts a discussion: What’s wrong with child labor? And what about fideism in children’s books? Tom Bell has a question for those who urge children to believe blindly. 1/17 Were American colonists on average 2.6 inches taller than their British contemporaries? Did they live on average 17 years longer? Friedrich has data on nutrition and life expectancy in the American colonies. 1/16 The state of the debate: To what extent is intelligence innate or acquired? And are you obsessed with email on the job? Slow Leadership explains how that lowers your IQ and productivity. 1/14 The Radical Loser: Hans Magnus Enzensberger explores dark psychological territory—and its political implications for understanding terrorists and other killers. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) 1/13 Tyler Cowen reflects on an essay by Gregory Clark and asks When did the Industrial Revolution really begin? Possibly a century earlier than the usual date of 1750? 1/12 Lynne Kiesling is thinking about Google Print, Amazon’s ‘Search Inside’ and the future of book selling. And Arnold Kling argues that The Undercover Economist is what an economics textbook should look like. 1/11 Fruits of the Enlightenment: tables showing dramatically rising life expectancies in the 20th century. And here is a link to Heritage’s recently released Index of Economic Freedom, showing improvement around the world. 1/9 Fifty great inventions at Popular Mechanics. And here is the world’s longest running science experiment. 1/5 How to make wealth: Paul Graham explains. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) And at the other end of the wealth spectrum, just how bad are things in North Korea? (Via Catallarchy.) 1/4 Trouble for free speech in Europe: two writers under government pressure. And in Iran Western music has been banned. And here is the FIRE’s college speech code of the month. 1/3 Roger Donway has been appointed Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy Research. Here is the announcement and a partial list of his relevant publications. 1/2 Job seeking advice to start the year off right: Responses in an Interview for a Nanny Position That Will Almost Certainly Sink Your Chances of Getting the Job. (Via Geek Press.) Archives: Worth Reading 2008, Worth Reading 2007, Worth Reading 2006, Worth Reading 2005, Worth Reading 2004, Worth Reading 2003. |
© Stephen Hicks
And Pamela at the Atlas Shrugs blog has a post and some gruesome pictures of 
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