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Worth Reading - 2007 Archive 12/19 Merry Christmas!! There, I’ve said it. Lester Hunt wonders about the sometimes-odd linguistic maneuvers people make to avoid saying the C-word. And where can I buy the whole set on DVD? The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time. (Via Not PC, who reminds me of my reminder to touch base with this classic advice on how to survive the holiday party season.) 12/18 Fruits of the Enlightenment: a fascinating New Yorker piece on intensive care. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) Here is medical tourism: from the UK to Philippines for a kidney transplant. A related story on British physicians who are outsourcing themselves to India. And it’s time to free up the market for organs: one of Houston’s Clear Thinkers quotes from Sally Satel’s recent transplant experience. 12/17 What the Reformation can teach us about militant Islam: "we see the same phenomenon: newly literate people claiming that the sacred text speaks for itself, and legitimates violence and repression." Here is a website keeping tabs on the track record of the religion of peace. And Rudy Rummel on why terrorism is not caused by poverty. 12/15 Immanuel Kant—Clearly Wrong for America: (Thanks to Bob H., Bob M., and Douglas W. for the link.) Now I’m waiting for the Committee-to-Elect-Kant’s response. 12/12 12/10 Absurd signs of the times: proposed regulations to solve the problem of sub-standard Santas. (Via BusinessPundit.) Up next: I predict legislation targeting the Easter-Bunny-Big-Candy Complex and those pervy Tooth Fairies who sneak into kids’ bedrooms at night. 12/9 Via Shawn Klein’s Philosophy Blog, two classic Monty Python philosophy skits: The Argument Clinic: And the Soccer Match: 12/8 Not that I’m bitter or anything: college professors’ versus football coaches’ salaries. Sympathy donation checks accepted. Meanwhile, Martin Morse Wooster of the Capital Research Center reminds college donors to remember the Princeton University case. 12/7 Shall we join in the art-establishment's enthusiasm for this two-year old art prodigy? Maybe not. And the Advice Goddess has some carefully chosen words for the art world’s oh-so-brave avante garde. (Via InstaPundit.) 12/6 Stephen Browne reviews a book on growing up behind the Iron Curtain. And who remembers whether the Nazis were socialists? 12/4 As the semester winds down, here is a rather accurate typology of irritating professors and, for getting caught up on movies over the semester break, here is a helpful list of rules of success for evil overlords. 12/1 A report on AOL Chairman Emeritus Ted Leonsis’s keynote address: “It's the Greatest Time to Be an Entrepreneur”. And here’s a link to his PowerPoint presentation. 11/30 Why were Enron’s Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling convicted? Professor Larry Ribstein argues that no one seems to know for sure. 11/29 Eyal Mozes investigates: Is there a rational basis for determinism? And in Spiked, Stuart Derbyshire surveys the state of brain science and free will and argues that we’re no slaves of our senses. 11/28 The New York Times reports on further progress for women in India. (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) Prospect magazine has this fascinating overview (statist assumptions aside) of India’s under-achieving middle class. Philosopher Stone has a post with links about India and Ayn Rand. And thanks to my friend Bill, I’ve been watching Bollywood movies this year—let me recommend Guru (“a villager, Gurukant Desai, arrives in Bombay 1958, and rises from its streets to become the GURU, the biggest tycoon in Indian history”), Lagaan (“the people of a small village in Victorian India stake their future on a game of cricket against their ruthless British rulers”), and Veer-Zaara (“the story of the love between Veer Pratap Singh, an Indian, and Zaara Hayaat Khan, a Pakistani”). 11/27 A sad case study in far-left educational culture: Charlotte Allen explains Who killed Antioch College. (Thanks to Charles for the link.) On financial accountability in higher education: Ward Connerly looks at the factors. And Yale professor Anthony Kronman reminds those of us in higher education Why We Are Here. 11/26 A brief look at the social skills of the new generation of entrepreneurs. Here is an overview of Dietrich Doerner’s work on failure. The BusinessPundit on the one book every executive should read. And some useful advice to young entrepreneurs from a young entrepreneur. 11/20 Three interesting conferences coming up next April: Objectivity in the Law at the University of Texas, Liberty Studies at the College of New Jersey, and the annual conference of the Association of Private Enterprise Education in Las Vegas. Update: And in February a Students for Liberty conference at Columbia University, featuring speakers David Boaz of Cato, Alan Kors of the University of Pennsylvania, and Will Thomas of The Atlas Society. 11/19 It’s getting better all the time. Graphically-presented data on average income in the USA along with several other progress-related charts and graphs. Here is a website devoted to improvement indicators. (Thanks to Anja for the link.) And why even the optimistic Star Trek series underestimates future potential. 11/17 Professor Tara Smith investigates: Why Originalism Won’t Die—Common Mistakes in Competing Theories of Judicial Interpretation. (Thanks to Richard for the link.) 11/16 “In 1993, over a million saiga antelopes roamed the steppes of Russia and Kazakhstan. Today, fewer than 30,000 remain, most of them females.” Unintended consequences meet the tragedy of the commons, as Tyler Cowen explains. 11/12 Sawse has twenty-five photographs taken at precisely the right time. 11/11 Reflecting on Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, Lester Hunt makes some shrewd observations about the moral psychology of cynicism, socialism, and nihilism. And John Palmer, the EclectEcon, has a datum on the European left’s deep crisis. 11/10 The bedbugs are back. Yet another thing to thank Rachel Carson for. Or not. 11/8 This Friday’s Free Kareem rallies. And while a relatively liberal young man languishes in jail, here is a classic piece explaining the attraction of intellectual-lightweight entertainment superstars to heavyweight-murderous political thugs: Humberto Fontova considers the case of Che. 11/7 In The New York Times, Harvard economist Greg Mankiw has a closer look at health care comparison numbers. Johan Norberg is also looking at the number of uninsured Americans. Philosopher Stone has a good round-up of links on the economics and politics of healthcare. Meanwhile, John Enright wonders what life-saving information we should suppress next. And Tom Kirkendell reminds us of an important anniversary: 30 years of angioplasty. 11/6 Overcoming the destructive eras in our history. An important history lesson by Shelby Steele on the legacy of Little Rock. Some pictorial evidence relevant to the question: to what extent were the Nazis Christian? And here’s an essay on the Regressives—or rather, the so-called Progressives in American history. Professor David Mayer has also written wisely on the reactionary progressives. 11/5 11/4 Cato’s David Boaz argues that on balance we are freer than at many points in our past (PDF format). Here is a stellar line-up of back issues of Cato’s Letter. By contrast, it’s election year in Saskatchewan, the resource-rich and socialism-poor Canadian province. The contrast to its neighbor Alberta is instructive. And even worse: Meghan Cox Gurdon puts some of our domestic rhetoric in perspective. 11/3 Where is Voltaire when you need him? John Leo wonders who will stand up for free speech on campus. Here is one university committed to brainwashing students with false and destructive messages. (Thanks to Johann for the link.) And David Thompson comments on the right not to be offended. Update: The FIRE reports that the University of Delaware has dropped its obnoxious indoctrination plans. 11/2 Ayn Rand in Latin America, with these follow-up interviews with Alex Chafuen, Giancarlo Ibargüen, and Juan Fernando Carpio. Harry Binswanger’s useful The Ayn Rand Lexicon is now free online. (Thanks to Anja for the link.) And YouTube user DJ Lorenzen has Ayn Rand on audio. 11/1 Trends of the times: A short interview in The Globe and Mail with the always-observant Grant McCracken, a summary look at IRS tax data, more data on badly misplaced priorities in the drug war and the fight against crime (thanks to Virginia for the link), and evidence that being a cop just keeps getting more difficult. 10/31 John Ellis’s Literature Lost (Yale University Press) is one of my favorite books from the 1990s. Here is a timeless excerpt on how Western civilization’s unique trait of self-reflective criticism regularly becomes perverted to cultural self-hatred. 10/30 Photos of great bridges. 10/29 Ibn Warraq’s new book is out: Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism. (Thanks to Irfan.) Warraq is also the author of Why I Am Not a Muslim. John R. Thompson asks: Whose genocide will it be? And at Salon.com, Steve Paulson looks at the religious state of Islamic science. (Thanks to Chris for the link.) 10/28 All parents have lived this YouTube version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. (Thanks to Beverly for the link.) 10/27 Rossputin paints an ugly picture: corporate welfare is an abomination of both Democrats and Republicans. Classical Values points out new horizons in rent seeking. John Enright does the math on welfare for babies. Meanwhile, Stephen Green confesses: I was a card-carrying Libertarian. Scary. 10/26 I recently got an unexpected chance to visit the Legion of Honor collection, one of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. It has an outstanding collection of Rodins, some fine Impressionist pieces I had never seen before, as well as a solid collection of very good works from the early Renaissance through the early twentieth century. So put it on your must-see list. And here is a good review of the Edward Hopper exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, which I almost got to see but the lines were waaaaaaaaay too long. (Thanks to Mark for the link.) 10/24 How high are the effective tax rates on the American rich? And here’s some good Canadian anti-tax spirit in a spoof posted at YouTube: (Thanks to Craig for the link.) 10/23 Religion and the American experience: A Los Angeles Times review of Gary Wills's new book. A key quotation: "at the time of the founding, historians estimate that only about 17% of Americans professed formal religious adherence, a historic low point. The framers were deists, who believed in a divine providence knowable only through reason and experience and not prone to intervene in the affairs of men." And Tom Stone directs our attention to a new wrinkle on the theodicy problem and why God won’t heal amputees. 10/22 The conservatives do have a legitimate complaint about academic diversity. 27 - 0 is not a football score at the University of Iowa. (Thanks to Richard for the link.) And Walter Williams comments on the significance of “Indoctrinate U”. (Thanks to Charles for the link.) 10/17 Cross-fertilization: applying evolutionary biology to design engineering. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) 10/15 Now that Chicago has been named as the USA’s proposed city to host the 2016 summer Olympic Games, here is a summary of its private-versus-public funding debates. Perhaps we in Illinois can learn from the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and Ed Snider’s ComcastSpectacor and its development of the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. 10/12 In the wake of recent ugliness on campuses over controversial speakers, the American Association of University Professors has issued this timely set of guidelines for invitations to outside speakers. Lester Hunter reflects on the age of apoplexy. And as Harvard’s Larry Summers has been a lightning rod for one issue, here is the text of his speech. 10/10 More major Ayn Rand coverage: After features in earlier this year in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Times, and Forbes, here is another piece in The Wall Street Journal, this one by David Kelley. 10/8 Where are the top small workplaces 2007? (Via Jeff Cornwall.) And what are the most dangerous jobs? 10/4 Tom Palmer praises as Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933–1939 as “an elegant treatment of twentieth century collectivism” and links to a review by David Boaz. 10/3 Canada—my (former) home and native land: Jeff Cornwall has this item on the state of entrepreneurship in Canada. Learning (not) from the dismal failure of the drug war in the US, Canada’s conservatives have decided that they too will escalate the drug war. Tyler Cowen links to a piece comparing health care in the US and Canada. And here are some great photos of the Thousand Islands, near the family homestead in Ontario. 10/2 Relativist multiculturalism taken to its immoral and absurd extreme. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.) 10/1 Rich Karlgaard nicely extracts some key themes in the Forbes 400 as a Lesson in Economics. 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. 8/30 A heartfelt missive from an exasperated American farmer: Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal. (Thanks to Anastasia for the link.) 8/29 Signs of progress: Neal McCluskey wonders just how starving those starving college students are—though he also notes wryly who is paying for the party at the nation’s top party campuses. 8/28 Morgan Meis asks what art is in a shrewd review of Stephen Farthing’s 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.) 8/27 Awesome: Astronomers view four galaxies colliding. The image is here. 8/25 Entrepreneurship round-up: For enterprising students, Entrepreneur.com shows how you can build a million-dollar business while you're still in college. . The Business Pundit explains why you are not alone in your entrepreneurial struggle. At LifeHack.org, cautionary advice on how not to go broke on your million-dollar idea. (Via the Entrepreneur MD.) And here is a good set of entrepreneurial resources. 8/23 The new SBA small business statistics are out and Jeff Cornwall has some highlights. Here is a sobering progress datum on infant mortality in 1907, which suggests how far we’ve come. Here is Greg Easterbrook’s candidate for the greatest living American. And this is offensively amusing: Should we tell Africa about the new global economy? 8/22 Here is a well-put-together women-in-art animation. And Ted Keer applies a fine art-critical eye to Michael Newberry’s Ascension Day. 8/21 Education problems and solutions: In Britain, a study indicates that boys are especially at risk. (Via ifeminists.) A further downside of poor education is the influence of junk evidence on juries. On the positive side, Peter Gordon comments on how, post-Katrina, a New Orleans charter school is speeding educational reform and reconstruction. And the Michigan Education Report chronicles Detroit’s mayor’s endorsement of charter schools as a path out of Detroit’s schools’ chronic problems. 8/20 David Bordwell uses The Bourne Ultimatium as a running example to explore developments in video shooting and editing: shaky shot, queasicam, run-and-gun cinema verité, and/or plot-gap cover-up? And Lester Hunt comments on the wisdom of Ratatouille. 8/18 Via David Thompson, a new, short video by Richard Dawkins giving an impassioned defense of objectivity against postmodern relativism, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and touchy-feely voodoo. 8/17 Plato argued that “there is an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy.” F. C. Light carries on the tradition with this collection of anti-Nietzschean couplets. And philosophy could fight back by using as ammunition this example from Slate’s Bad Poetry Contest. (Via University Diaries.) 8/16 This is a good book: Quee Nelson’s The Slightest Philosophy is a well-written, jargon-free critique of postmodern philosophy and politics, tracking it from its skeptical and idealist origins in Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel to its recent anti-realist manifestations in Rorty and the rest. Nelson also ambitiously and in take-no-prisoners-fashion connects that philosophical morass to deadly politics: “A Cambodian guerilla deep in a steaming jungle carries a paperback copy of Rousseau, and the next thing you know, a million people are dead.” 8/15 Advice from art critics to the postmodern art world: It's time to move on. At Art.com, art history professor Donald Kuspit excerpts a chapter from his new book: “The Decadence of Advanced Art and the Return of Tradition and Beauty: The New as Tower of Conceptual Babel.” And The New Criterion’s Roger Kimball explains why the art world is a disaster. (Thanks to Michael for the links.) 8/6
8/4 An important article on the Muslim world’s embattled secularists. (Via TIA Daily.) 8/2 Artcyclopedia has a very useful database of art museums worldwide. 7/31 It’s definitely not the end of history: In Policy Review, Yale’s Robert Kagan on the return of history. 7/28 “Woolworth was 100 years ago what Wal-Mart is today”: Joshua Zeitz on how Woolworth grew and then had to die. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.) 7/27 Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom, authors of Why Truth Matters (2006), diagnose postmodernism’s descent into intellectual adolescence. (Via David Thompson.) And here is Roger Donway’s review of Why Truth Matters. 7/26 Fantastic: Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrates Microsoft’s cool new Photosynth program. (Via Grant McCracken.) 7/25 Steven Pinker in praise of dangerous ideas. And there are a few dangerous ideas in Protagoras’s recent reading list. 7/24 Entrepreneurship and Generation Y. (Via Jeff Cornwall.) Here are ten signs that you might be an entrepreneur. And, since perfect timing doesn’t exist, start channeling the Nike commercial and just do it. 7/23 Now I don’t feel so bad about my email backlog: Here is God’s inbox. And here's a good graphic of the world’s distribution of religious belief. 7/21 Foreign policy round-up: In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Carlin Romano asks: What should we call the terrorists? In The Daily Mail, Hassan Butt reflects upon his time as a member of the British Jihadi network. In The Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby confronts the dreaded M-word. And in The Wall Street Journal, Randy Barnett delineates conflicts within libertarianism about the Iraq war. Update: Barnett follows up with more here. 7/20 Chomsky versus Pinker: In The New Yorker, a “bombshell” thesis about the Pirahã and universal grammar. (Thanks to Joe H. for the link.) 7/19 Stephen Browne has three compact and pithy lessons from history. And Peter Cresswell plugs for Jonah Goldhagen’s explanation for two millennia of European anti-Semitism. And generalizing to the movement of history in general: What role do philosophical ideas play? Robert Tracinski has a good discussion of the major issues—and the complicating factors. My introduction to this fascinating field is here: What Moves History. 7/18 List mania: Here are ten amazing facts about the Earth, the results of an international web-poll on seven wonders of the world—along with fourteen other popular choices—and Discover magazine’s choice of the seven most exciting moments in science. 7/17 Economist Russell Sobel’s Unleashing Capitalism—a fine set of state-level policy recommendations for West Virginia that could profitably be applied in all fifty states. Jeff Cornwall has this datum on the worldwide entrepreneurial boom. Uzodinma Iweala makes a plea on how not to save Africa. (Via InstaPundit) And the BusinessPundit has an anecdote about changing with the times and how a C paper became an A paper. 7/16 The Manhattan Institute’s new sub-site devoted to reforming higher education. (Via Protagoras.) Race, culture, and personal choices and commitment—is education a “whites only” value? A report on the problem of under-achieving black students in wealthy school districts. And Nelson Hultberg reflects on nature, nurture, and choice: Womb-Seekers and Misguided Idealists. 7/10 Free the New Youth 4 and Kareem Amer: a website devoted to the freeing and the free-speech causes of Chinese and Egyptian political prisoners. (Via Agoraphilia.) And as Arts & Letters Daily puts it, “The body count among Russian reporters is now thirteen murders since Putin came to power. In each case the reporter was working on a story critical of government or business officials.” 7/9 New York University economics professor William Easterly has some welcome good news from Africa. And here is a quirky but fascinating political piece from South African and Australian author J. M. Coetzee’s forthcoming novel. (Thanks to Tibor for the link.) 7/8 “Black Button”: a good The Matrix-meets-Christian-morality-play video. (Thanks to Beverly for the link.) 7/7 Radical Islamists hate him. So do leftists. And evangelical Christians led the battle to deny him tenure. This guy must be doing something right. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) 7/5 Yikes: more data on the divide between the sciences and the humanities. You can’t be an educated person without knowing some literature, but when will we stop thinking of the scientifically illiterate as educated too? And what about the politically and economically illiterate? Bryan Caplan’s new book probes the issue of whether democracy is self-defeating. 7/3 Reason's Tim Hartford on why poor countries are poor. 7/2 Martin Firrell’s coolly passionate public art project. (Thanks to Kristen for the link.) 6/30 Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal comments wryly on the Supreme Court’s latest free speech decision: “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”. 6/29 A visually rich online video: Michael Newberry’s artistic manifesto, based on a presentation he gave at Rockford College, Illinois. 6/27 In Canada's National Post, a reflection on the phenomenal Arts and Letters Daily, which “does for ideas what the Bloomberg service does for commerce.” 6/26 On the 100th anniversary of the opening of the first Montessori school: the state of Montessori education. And here is Alexandra York on teaching the fourth “R” in education. (Via Not PC.) 6/23 Lester Hunt is walking in Nietzsche’s footsteps. And Johan Norberg on why you don’t need to read Atlas Shrugged—just follow the news. 6/22 The next generation of extremely cool computer interfaces: no more keyboard and mouse. (Thanks to Tom for the link.) And here are some beautiful photos of Moscow at night. 6/21 Robert Service: “Communism, like nuclear fuel, has a long afterlife”. On the Red to Green transition: Czech president Vaclav Klaus asks whether politically-correct environmentalism is now the greatest threat to mankind. (Thanks to Charles for the link.) 6/19 A. C. Grayling’s meaningful answer to a meaningless question. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) 6/18 John Stossel explains why “profit” is not a dirty word. David Holcberg goes after the real gasoline price gougers. And Rich Karlgaard directs our attention to Sarbanes-Oxley’s harmful effects on Silicon Valley. 6/16 Roger Scruton has the best piece I’ve seen on Richard Rorty’s legacy. Update: Tibor Machan on Rorty. (Via Not PC.) 6/14 Stumbling and Mumbling argues some strong links between economic growth and family breakdown. Here is good list of human universals. (Via E pur si muove!) And fascinating data from Bernard Harcourt on crime and the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill. 6/13 Café Hayek excerpts Steven Landsburg on human progress. While the rankings are suspect, here’s an intriguing list of intrepid explorers. And here’s a neat graphic of science’s family tree. 6/12 Elaine Pagels on the Judas Gospel and what Christianity did not become. Atheist Wager one-ups Pascal. And here are some fun quizzes to test your Bible knowledge. (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) 6/10 Economist Bryan Caplan on novelist Ayn Rand’s prescient grip on public choice economics. And philosopher Lester Hunt deflates the most over-rated novel of the 20th century. 5/30 The Skeptical Optimist has a good post on not falling for the single scenario gambit. Professor Jeff Cornwall on not socializing entrepreneurship. At Café Hayek, a reminder that many businesses are opposed to free markets. And here is the one-minute case for profit, part of a great idea of a series. 5/28 The evolution of the climate change debate: Not PC reports on former warmists now cooling their jets, so to speak. Robert Bidinotto has a good visual on the long view on climate change. From the Great White North of Canada, indoctrination in the schools. And Glen Whitman on putting one’s money where one’s mouth is and making: meaningful bets on climate change. 5/26 Shawn Klein asks: Why are the Nazis the epitome of evil while the Communists “have body counts that are orders of magnitude larger”? John Enright also has part of the answer, nicely connecting the nature-versus-nurture debate to different kinds of genocide. 5/25 Race-conscious art funding: Nathalie Rothschild asks, “Can’t non-white people ever just make art?” And Christina Hoff Sommers has a strongly-written piece on Western feminism and its response to the subjugation of Islamic women. 5/24 Practical politics for advocates of the free society: Cato’s David Boaz reports on a Gallup poll showing that 27% of Americans are “conservative,” 24% are “liberal,” 20% are “libertarian”, and 20% are “populist.” Which leads to a Prometheus Institute editorial on why American libertarians should work within the two-party system. By contrast, Rossputin argues that voting libertarian is not a waste. 5/22 Some hotels now have a 13th floor. (Thanks to Carl for the link.) And as we move erratically into the modern world, John Stossel has advice on how to worry about the right things. 5/21 Graduating students: tips on resumé design. The BusinessPundit has tongue-in-cheek advice on how to sound more important than you are. More seriously, here’s a good list of attitudes and habits of creative individuals. And another good list: executives pick the best business books of all time. (Via The Atlasphere.) 5/19 Dan Klein explains why economists must pay more attention to the distinction between free choice and coercion. (Via Agoraphilia.) And Hans Rosling goes after cotton subsidies in the Soviet Republic of Texas. 5/17 Street dance and cutting-edge advertising. Here are some visually-striking ads on busses. Finally—this line is too good to resist: How Hollywood saved Zen Buddhism. 5/15 Glen Whitman has two, uhhh, romantic posts about the Annual Rite of Overdue Dumping, the Spring Mating Season, and why some people stay in relationships Long Past Their Expiration Date. 5/14 Homework for advocates of limited government: a provocative list entitled “Government Success Stories.” How many of the historical claims are true? How many functions would be, as the author claims, impossible free markets to accomplish? How many would the government do better than a free market would? How many actually involve legitimate government functions? (Thanks to Eric for the link.) 5/11 Night shots of Yokohama, Japan. And here are ten striking designs for futuristic hotels. And Michael Blowhard and his wife visit the new, cool Pittsburgh and the semi-Warhol-ish Warhol Museum. 5/10 Ilya Somin has a thought-provoking post: Do we need tenure to protect academic freedom? And an article in The Washington Post article on the state of charter schools. (Via Mark Lerner.) 5/9 Russell Roberts interviews John Allison on sound banking strategies, pride, justice, and Atlas Shrugged. 5/8 The last sentence of this essay comes out of nowhere, but Theodore Dalyrymple has a good comparison of Karl Marx and Sayyid Qutb. (Thanks to Carl for the link.) And worth reading again is Virginia Murr on Sayyid Qutb, Islamism, and Al Qaeda. Here is more on the pomo-left/theocracy connection: Foucault and the Ayatollah. (Via David Thompson, who has a post on the, ummm, interesting radical cyber-feminist, Carolyn Guertin and a strong connection to an important book here.) 5/7 A cool old thing: a recently-found 2nd- or 3rd-century commentary on Aristotle. And a cool new thing: recent photos of Jupiter. 5/5 Will we catch up with the eastern Europeans? Now the Czechs have also adopted the flat tax. And economics professor Don Boudreaux has a list of his ten favorite economic books of all time. 5/4 Speech Code Sensitivity-Police Warning: Do not hurt anyone’s feelings at Texas A&M University. Ten (hilariously?) crazy lawsuits. And for some reason this amused me: Nietzsche’s typewriter. (Thanks to Joe H. for the link.) 5/3 Taxes, debt, and monetary policy: Professor George Bittlingmayer discusses the years 1905-1935 and several hypothesis about the causes of the Great Depression. And here is a good visual on who owns the U.S. national debt. 5/2 Stephen Browne’s review of Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions, which is now out in a new edition. 5/1 Dysfunctionalities of the mixed economy: Andy Morriss on politicians and creative rent extraction. Microsoft joins the party in using antitrust as a weapon against its competitors. And what is the effect of taxation on CEO compensation? 4/28 John Stossel proposes: How About Economic Progress Day? (Thanks to Eric for the link.) John Tamny wonders why, despite the clear data, some academics consistently undersell capitalism. And marketing professor Jerry Kirkpatrick, author of In Defense of Advertising, nicely debunks subliminal advertising. 4/27 Beautiful photographs of bridges around the world. 4/26 Cultural and religious control-freaks and more cultural and religious control-freaks. Closer to home: controlling yet more “inappropriate” sexual expression. And of course this is just plain control-freaky. 4/25 The entrepreneurial transformation of American business. Key quotation: “since 1980, more than 5 million jobs have disappeared from Fortune 500 companies, while 34 million new jobs were created at small businesses.” In Slate, new data on men’s and women’s work loads. And Warren Farrell has good advice to women on how to increase your income. 4/24 Cultural trends: What do people actually use the Internet for? And the always-worth-reading Grant McCracken on the decline of accidental social networks. 4/23 Fascinated by China: In Far Eastern Economic Review, Carlson Holz worries about the pressures on Western intellectuals' integrity. Depressingly, R. J. Rummel has revised his Chinese democide numbers upwards: 73,000,000 deaths. Rich Karlgaard wonders whether Shanghai or Beijing is the future of China. And Mark Vallen comments on an exhibition of American art in China and quotes this amusing line from Colin Powell: “If you give 1.3 billion Chinamen access to home shopping on television, (communism) is over, because there is no way communism can compete with a salad shooter for $9.95.” 4/18 Philosopher Tibor Machan challenges a false alternative: Are humans by nature good or evil? Ph.D. candidate Joe Duarte reflects on life choices that make a profound difference. And here is an interesting development in artificial brain repair. 4/17 Law professor Larry Ribstein wonders if Hollywood is warming up to business. Key quotation: “rich capitalists have funded films like ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ Why not pro-capitalist films?” (Thanks to Roger for the link.) And over at Uncle Eddie’s Theory Corner, discussion of philosophical themes in two films The Devil Wears Prada and The Pursuit of Happyness. 4/16 Excellent data, dynamic graphics, and passionate presentation: a talk by Hans Rosling on world development. (Thanks to Anja for the link.) Here is Rosling’s web log. And Don Boudreaux has anecdotes and data pointing to the conclusion that cancer is not the killer it once was. 4/15 Business Week’s most livable cities in the world. 4/13 Today is Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. Historian David Mayer remembers Thomas Jefferson. Here are the official White House biography, the website for Jefferson’s home at Monticello, and Genevieve LaGreca’s toast to Jefferson’s achievements. 4/12 An interesting technical and business challenge: the $100 laptop and the rural poor. As my friend Eric Adkins puts it, “Some kid with a $100 laptop and loads of free time is going to invent something brilliant.” 4/11 Is Europe’s economy suffering from Eurosclerosis? Also check out Olaf Gersemann’s Cowboy Capitalism. (Thanks to Anja for the links.) And: socialism or individualism? Craig Depken quotes wise words spoken in 1907 by Nicholas Murray Butler, then president of Columbia University. 4/10 Gramscian warfare: Lazarus Long explains what Americans need to learn about ideological warfare. And Sascha Volokh has some charming word play while exploring postmodernism’s unintended consequences. 4/9 In Topoi, philosophers Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons and Barry Smith ask: What’s Wrong With Contemporary Philosophy. Answer: Lots.
4/7 The creation of Zarathustra—the powerful and passionate sculpture by Peter Schipperheyn. (Thanks to Michael for the tip.) 4/6 An embarrassment to higher education: Florida Gulf Coast University’s speech code. And advice for graduating students: Avoid the seven deadly sins of resumé design. 4/4 Like Che and Mao: another murderous thug not to idealize: Leon Trotsky. (Thanks again to Bob H. for the link.) 4/4 He probably won’t get tenure: teaching evaluations for Professor Socrates. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) 4/3 Good news from the historian’s across-centuries perspective: Steven Pinker on declining rates of violence. (Thanks to Anja for the link.) And uncertain news from Caitlin Flanagan on college women’s sexual judgment and practice across the decades. 4/2 Australia round-up: A review of Donald Horne’s The Lucky Country by Keith Windschuttle. A key quotation: "second-rate has always been the wrong adjective for Australia. It tells more about the insecurities of those who use the label than anything else. It is especially untrue today when to be an Australian is to be a citizen of the world, and yet still live in the best country on Earth." In Spiked, Guy Roth has some choice words for fashionably snobbish pooh-poohing of Australian culture. And that’s not even to mention that one of my son’s favorite television shows, The Upside Down Show, originates in Australia.
3/30 Here is an occasionally snarky interview with the gutsy Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Christopher Hitchens and David Thompson enlist themselves as allies. Ali’s Infidel was published in February. 3/28 You must watch this 30-minute video of a debate at the University of Toronto: Christopher Hitchens on free speech. 3/27 Tom Kirkendall is right to be worried about the criminalization of business: cases that should be handled in civil suits are increasingly being taken to criminal courts. Kirkendall links to a webcast of a law conference at Georgetown University on the theme of Corporate Criminality: Legal, Ethical, and Managerial Implications. The conference was organized by Professor John Hasnas, whose book, Trapped: When Acting Ethically Is Against the Law, documents the increasing frequency with which CEOs and other business professionals must choose between legal and ethical behavior. 3/26 I haven’t read Brian Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism yet, but the discussion around it is very interesting. Here is the text of a Cato Unbound article by Doherty on his book, a response by Tyler Cowen urging that libertarianism evolve to adapt to the current state of the world, and a follow-up response by Bryan Caplan who takes Cowen to task for offering the worst advice ever to libertarians. Update: David Boaz takes The New York Times to task for publishing a clueless-on-libertarianism review of Doherty’s book. 3/24 File these items under “All cultures are equal and worthy of respect”: In Nigeria, a teacher beaten to death. In Indonesia, perpetrators jailed for beheading schoolgirls. And in Pakistan, lovers stoned to death. 3/21 First some good news: several striking photos of Africa from the air. Then the continuing bad news: Africa continues to stagnate while the rest of the world develops. For example, here’s an intriguing comment on colonialism’s legacy. But good ideas are available. Here, for example, is Enterprise Africa, a joint project of George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, The Free Market Foundation of South Africa, London’s Institute for Economic Affairs, and The Templeton Foundation.
3/20 Michael Newberry has three new tutorials posted this month—including a magnificent one on the making of Denouement. 3/19 Are cooler heads beginning to prevail? Not PC summarizes a Scientific American report on a formal scientific debate on global warming: alarmists routed. You can see some scientists' commentary in this online documentary: “The Great Global Warming Swindle.” (Thanks to Robert for the link.) And scientist Hans von Storch raises some taboo questions about climate change 3/17 Professor Mayer reviews the new book by the author of The Fair Tax Book: Neal Boortz's "eloquently blunt" Somebody’s Gotta Say It! 3/16 Big thinker round-up: Economist Brad Delong on how reading Foucault led him to appreciate Adam Smith’s genius. (Via Virginia Postrel.) Jason Pappas launches a good discussion of Cicero’s enduring importance and follows up with this post on Cicero on human nature and society. And here’s a The New Yorker piece on Alfred Russel Wallace. 3/15 A strong profile of Edward Harriman, the railroad magnate, by—of all people—John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) 3/14 What percentage of college professors are atheists? And here is a list of famous atheists. (Thanks to Chris for the link.) 3/13 Government medicine: Reason’s Ronald Bailey has it exactly right about the sorry case of Walter Reed Hospital. And Cato has a scary story from Britain: government-paid witch doctors. By contrast, here’s a post with links to the competitive and successful world of open heart surgery. 3/12 Will we hear calls for progressive taxation on leisure too? Steven Landsburg notes that the poor have more leisure time than the rich and wonders why. Key quotation: “If you think it's OK to redistribute income but repellent to redistribute leisure, you might want to ask yourself what—if anything—is the fundamental difference.” 3/10 Larry Ribstein comments on how hostility to business made Rudy Guiliani’s career. And in a surprise move, J. J. Jackson pushes Wal-Mart for President in 2008! (Thanks to Joe for the link.) 3/9 In The Boston Globe, painter Dushko Petrovich calls for a practical avant-garde. And here is a review of The Unknown Monet exhibit in London. (Both via Arts & Letters Daily.) 3/8 I propose this definition of tetzel: the amount of money one must transfer to an authorized organization to ease one's guilt over carbon emission by one standard emotional unit. For example, if you choose to breathe for one day, that would cost you one tetzel. If you drive an SUV, 10 tetzels. If you jet to an environmentalist conference, 100 tetzels (plus a $200 hypocrisy tax). Meanwhile a cardinal in the Catholic Church argues that comparing global warming hysteria to religious zealotry is unfair and that “The science is certainly more complicated than the propaganda.” (Thanks to Joe K. for the link.) 3/7 Just how “gay” is Oxford University? Apparently the sensitivity police are angry there. The University of Wisconsin’s Lester Hunt has an open letter and updates on the Leonard Kaplan case. And FIRE’s speech code of the month: against “sexism” at Western Michigan University’s. And via InstaPundit: The French authorities have “approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images.” 3/5 Keith Windschuttle calls it “the English-speaking Century.” The opening two paragraphs: “In the past one hundred years, four successive political movements—Prussian militarism, German Nazism, Japanese imperialism, and international Communism—mounted military campaigns to conquer Europe, Asia, and the world. Had any of them prevailed, it would have been a profound loss for civilization as we know it. Yet over the course of these bids for power, a coalition headed first by Britain and then by the United States emerged not just to oppose but to destroy them utterly. “From the long perspective of human affairs, these victories must stand as among the most remarkable of the past three millennia. They were as decisive for world history as the victories of the ancient Greeks over Persia, of Rome over Carthage, and of the Franks over the Umayyad Caliphate.” 3/3 I’m on the board of advisors of EpistemeLinks, a great philosophy resource and portal run by Tom Stone. Here is one of its new features: a philosophy-on-the-web search engine. 3/2 Clive James on Moeller and Jünger, two of Hitler’s intellectual supporters. 3/1 Our extreme Earth: a Space.com collection of 101 facts about our planet. I did not know, for example that “70 percent of the Earth's fresh-water supply is locked up in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland. The remaining fresh-water supply exists in the atmosphere, streams, lakes, or groundwater and accounts for a mere 1 percent of the Earth's total.” 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. 1/31 The theodicy problem in a hilarious three-minute video: Mr. Deity. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) And Robert Tracinski explains why Intelligent Design is a pseudo-theory. 1/30 Don't date your optician: Eugene Volokh takes on Washington state’s ridiculous sexual harassment legislation. 1/29 Live Science has a good slide show entitled The Top 10 Ancient Capitals. And great photos of a contemporary financial capital: Hong Kong. 1/27 More good thinking from Tyler Cowen and Don Boudreaux on income inequality. And on happiness and creature comforts: here is Witold Rybczynski’s slide show on the evolution of the luxury bathroom. (Via Virginia Postrel’s Dynamist blog.) 1/26 About: Entrepreneurs interviews productivity expert David Allen, author of Getting Things Done. (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) And Presentation Zen comments on positive competition: Effective competitors operate from an "abundance mentality" rather than a "scarcity mentality". 1/25 At McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a dialogue of a sort on philosophy major career trajectories. (Thanks to Chris for the link.) More seriously, here’s a list of well-known philosophy majors. And here a summary of philosophy majors’ performance on the GRE, LSAT, and GMAT tests. Not that we're bragging or anything. 1/24 Freedom House has released its Freedom in the World 2007 report. One significant point: “Although the past 30 years have seen significant gains for political freedom around the world, the number of Free countries has remained largely unchanged since the high point in 1998.” 1/23 Rossputin posts this insightful essay by George Friedman on Iran’s strategic thinking about Iraq. In connection with that, check out this map of Sunni and Shia Muslim population distribution. Update: Facing the Islamist Menace—Christopher Hitchens assesses Mark Steyn’s new book and offers his own bracing list of steps we should take. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.) 1/22 The pre-Enlightenment mind is still with us: "I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man". (Via 1/20 John Stossel has a good example of an unintended consequences of ill-thought out regulation: shut down those who feed the hungry. And Wise Legislators in Michigan have made adultery punishable by life in prison.
1/19 Fayetteville State University has FIRE’s college speech code of the month
whatever the code likely means, it’s unconstitutional.
1/18 Finally, someone is serious about raising the minimum wage to a realistic level. Of course, that may not be high enough for those who obsess about wealth disparities.
1/17 Professor Mayer on liberty’s prospects in 2007. And Shawn Klein reviews Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl’s Norms of Liberty, a defense of neo-Aristotelian liberalism in ethics and politics.
1/16 Repulsive: slavery flourishing in the 21st century. And here is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report. 1/25 update: Italy arrests 2,000 for human trafficking. (Via ifeminists.)
1/15 Ayn Rand is sometimes charged with exaggerating to the point of absurdity the implications of the abstract philosophical principles she rejects. And then, as Protagoras reports, along comes a philosopher who advocates the principle and the absurdity. Compare that with this prescient example from Rand’s 1963 essay, “Collectivized Ethics”: “It is medically possible to take the corneas of a man’s eyes immediately after his death and transplant them to the eyes of a living man who is blind, thus restoring his sight (in certain types of blindness). Now, according to collectivized ethics, this poses a social problem: Should we wait until a man’s death to cut out his eyes, when other men need them? Should we regard everybody’s eyes as public property and devise a ‘fair method of distribution’?”
1/13 Testing obedience to authority: Is independence an especially difficult virtue for humans? (Via Cato@Liberty.) Yet has the Enlightenment made us more moral? I’m with Arnold Kling on this one.
1/12 Horace wrote, “Though you drive nature out with a pitchfork, she will ever return.” In that spirit, Bruce Boyd takes on the Theory-is-All followers of Derrida. (Thanks to Bob for the link.)
1/11 115 photos of New York City at night. And more striking science images via micro-photography.
1/10 A review of Alessandro Scafi’s Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth: Fascinating insight into the late mediaeval mind.
1/9 First the hot coffee. Now McDonald’s’ dangerous pickles are harming customers (and their spouses). (Thanks to Beverly for the link.) Bizarre, bizarre, bizarre: Mike Munger on the treatment of ice price-gougers after a storm in North Carolina. Meanwhile, George Reisman shows us how The New York Times is pushing poverty as an environmentally-friendly philosophy.
1/8 Christian Delacampagne reflects on the sorry Redeker affair as a symptom of the decline of France as a serious intellectual and moral power. A key quotation: "Today in France, research on the most contested issues of race and religion is taboo unless one exhibits the ‘right’ politics. To speak at conferences or to be considered for important posts, a scholar must be prepared to describe the colonial era in French history as nothing less than an exercise in genocide and to denounce American policy in the Middle East as barbaric cruelty. Those who refuse to comply find themselves shut out." If true, French universities are not likely to improve their weak standing in studies such as this one.
1/7 On the philosopher of Islamism: What Seyyid Qutb saw in Colorado. Here is the pugnacious Christopher Hitchens on religion. Julian Baggini asks, What is sin? Robert White and Peter Cresswell have some insights into Mother Teresa’s saintliness. Via Philosopher Stone, here are several less-than-popular-but-nonetheless-fascinating Biblical verses.
And I was almost convinced by this decisive refutation of atheism. (Thanks to Joe for the link.)
1/6 A postmodern curator takes a critical hatchet to Ansel Adams’s photographs—or, as Kenneth Brower puts it in The Atlantic Monthy, "The aesthete from the East has come out west and cut Ansel Adams down to size." (Thanks to Michael for the link.)
1/5 100 years after the launching of Casa dei Bambini, Montessori goes mainstream. And educator Lisa VanDamme discusses pattern recognition and conceptual education.
1/4 Johan Norberg’s nomination for the best book of 2006.
1/3 If a business kept its books the way the government does, its owners would go to jail. So why the chronic complacency over this? Ross Kaminsky has a sharply-worded reproof of those caught up in zero-sum government pork-barrel game.
1/2 Shawn Klein posted a funny list of playful questions and observations. For humor and higher education: a series of dispatches from lecturer Oronte Churm of Hinterland University. And in honor of the upcoming Year of the Pig, entrepreneurship-blogger Jeff Belmont has collected some wry observations on pigs and entrepreneurship.
1/1 Let’s start the new year with this Presentation Zen review of Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. One of many insights: ‘Indian physician Madan Kataria points out in Pink's book that many people think that serious people are the best suited for business, that serious people are more responsible. "[But] that's not true," says Kataria. "That's yesterday's news. Laughing people are more creative people. They are more productive people." Somewhere along the line we were sold the idea that a real business presentation must necessarily be dull, devoid of humor and something to be endured not enjoyed. And if you use slides—and God help you if you don't—the more complex, detailed, and ugly the better. After all this is serious business, not a day at the beach. This approach is still alive and well today, but I hope in future that this too will become "yesterday's news." It's possible. Remember, for example, that twenty years ago or so business—especially big business—rejected the idea of a graphical user interface for "serious computing" because business should be "difficult" and "serious," ideas that seemed incongruent with a mouse (how cute!) icons, pictures, and color, etc. Today, of course, almost every serious business person users a computer with a GUI.’
Archives: Worth Reading 2008, Worth Reading 2007, Worth Reading 2006, Worth Reading 2005, Worth Reading 2004, Worth Reading 2003.
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© Stephen Hicks
Art historian Lynn Catterson speculates on the Laocoön scuplture: 
