Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Worth Reading for April 2006

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?

Worth Reading for March 2006

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.

Worth Reading for February 2006

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: And Pamela at the Atlas Shrugs blog has a post and some gruesome pictures of the Muslim holiday of ‘Ashoura’.

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 Last night I enjoyed very much “Something the Lord Made” (2004), a gripping movie about the pioneers of heart surgery. Alan Rickman and Mos Def star as surgeons Dr. Alfred Blalock and Dr. Vivien Thomas, and Mary Stuart Masterson plays Dr. Helen Taussig. Their first patient was a baby girl named Eileen Saxon, one of the oxygen-starved “blue babies” Dr. Taussig was treating. I was reminded of Sherwin Nuland’s description of the first operation: “Several of the members of the team that assembled in the operating room on the morning of November 29, 1944, have recorded their alarmed impressions on first seeing the wizened nine-and-one-half-pound blue-gray bundle of breathlessness that was gingerly lifted from her crib and placed on the table by Dr. Taussig and her associates. It seemed impossible that grown men could reach into the open chest of such a tiny birdlike creature, isolate her fragile little blood vessels, and sew them into each other.”

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.

Worth Reading for January 2006

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.)

Worth Reading for December 2005

12/31 Year 2005 round-ups: a
Lileksian chronology of the year’s events; the Internet has passed the one-billion-users mark; Roger Ebert’s top ten movies of the year; and the American Institute of Physics’ top physics stories of the year.

12/30 Fruits of the Enlightenment: Edward Hudgins remembers a very cool entrepreneur. And a post at Café Hayek on philosophy’s contribution to the wealth of nations: “Capital largely is a process of peaceful cooperation; a division of labor ever-deepened by market signals that contain more information than noise; an openness to economic dynamism; a culture of suppressing envy and applauding (or at least tolerating) honest success; a widespread acceptance of the difference between mine and thine, and an abhorrence of those who refuse to accept this distinction; an acceptance, at least in practical affairs, of science, logic, and reason and a rejection in these affairs of faith, mysticism, and tradition-for-the-sake-of-tradition.”

12/28 Philosopher Andrew Bernstein’s new book: The Capitalist Manifesto (which I am using as a text in my Business and Economic Ethics course next semester)—a wide-ranging historical and philosophical companion to economist George Reisman’s Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. At The Atlasphere, Joshua Zader has a review of Bernstein’s book.

12/28 At 88 Keys: a 1927 interview with Rachmaninoff.

12/26 Creativity in the graphic design process: The development of a map of travel times on the London Underground. And creativity in the dating scene: Joel demonstrates why you should date him.

12/24 Reason’s Jesse Walker on Santa versus Jesus. Worth revisiting are Steven Landsburg, who hails Ebenezer Scrooge as a great benefactor of mankind, and Doug Kerns, who imagines the results if Ayn Rand, Richard Dawkins, or Stephen King had written A Christmas Carol. Here is a rash of Bad Santas. Meanwhile, these morally-deficient individuals make me want to max out my credit card this Christmas. Finally, David Mayer praises the commerce of Christmas.

12/23 Novelist Erika Holzer has a new book out: Ayn Rand: My Fiction-Writing Teacher. And here is William Thomas’s helpful
review of two short books on Ayn Rand: philosopher Allan Gotthelf’s
On Ayn Rand and philosopher Tibor Machan’s
Ayn Rand.

12/22 A problem looking for a solution: While primary schools do a decent job of educating students, Jay P. Greene has data showing
high schoolers merely tread water. And at the D.C. Education Blog, Nathan writes about a charter school success story. (Via Mark Lerner.)

12/21 Something old: Archaeologists have unearthed a city in Syria that was wiped out 5,500 years ago. And something new: New Jersey has become the first U. S. state to fund stem cell research.

12/20 A fine collection of
Bible Quizzes over at Landover Baptist Church. And here is Sam Harris’s strongly written Atheist Manifesto.

12/19 Peter Cresswell has a great post on Eric Clapton’s playing of Robert Johnson’s blues music, creativity and the psychology of “flow”.

12/17 In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Lindsay Waters calls for literary aesthetics to abandon sterile “interpretation” and
return to robust literary criticism. (Via About Last Night.)

12/16 The Idea Shop—where the dismal science gets groovy: Andrew Chamberlain has a good eye for economically intriguing phenomena. Check out these posts on
the economics of prostitution, taxes then and now (ouch), Australia’s baby economics, and advertising as self-defense against antitrust fervor.

12/15 Marsha Enright is a philosophically-astute and Montessori- trained educator. Check out her wonderfully ambitious new project: The College of the United States.

12/14 George Washington died on this day in 1799. Here are Thomas Jefferson’s fine, considered remarks in
remembrance of George Washington, the White House’s official
overview of Washington’s life and presidency, and the web site for Washington’s
Mount Vernon estate. I also enjoyed reading several years ago Richard Brookhiser’s brief, biographical character study of Washington:
Founding Father.

12/13 Fruits of the Enlightenment: Business Week has its round-up of best-of-the-web sites. And what is the state of the science of aging? (Via InstaPundit.)

12/12 German feminist Alice Schwarzer on the anti-woman dysfunctionalism of Islamism and its role in European crime and the French riots. And on dysfunctionalism closer to home, the wise David Mayer has a comprehensive Hurricane Katrina post-mortem, three months after the disaster.

12/10 Good advice on
how to survive this season’s holiday parties.

12/9 Wow: A philosophical interview with “Batman Begins” director Christopher Nolan. (Via Stan Rozenfeld’s Journal.) And for those who like action thrillers, Robert Bidinotto has recommendations. I second his recommendations of Stephen Hunter, the early Alistair MacLean, the early Wilbur Smith, and the early Robert B. Parker. The rest I haven’t read yet.

12/8 Michael Blowhard happily acknowledges that he is an arthritic coot who thinks much of the contemporary art world is given over to masturbatory pointlessness—but nonetheless he has a good discussion and pictures of
aesthetic revivalism in painting and architecture. And for more revivalism, check out this site lovingly dedicated to target=_blank">the Pre-Raphaelites.

12/7 In what country is it easiest to start a business? Where are the most onerous licensing hurdles? Where are contracts best protected? At DoingBusiness.org, 155 countries are ranked along ten dimensions. And: The internet makes us more productive, right? Merlin at 43 Folders explores the trade-off between increased productivity and being able to “procrastinate with lightning efficiency”.

12/6 At Health Care Renewal, professor of medicine Roy Poses asks: Is postmodernism threatening the teaching of medical science? And at Tech Central Station, Michael Cook comments on a recent scandal in cloning and stem cell research.

12/5 lank">The Huygens probe has landed on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and here are the latest reports. (Thanks to Karen for the link.) If you have never seen the Powers of Ten, check out this fascinating perspective on our universe.

12/3 Yesterday I became an American citizen. Here are two documents that mean a great deal to me:
The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America. Here also at the National Archives site is a comprehensive collection of
America’s historical documents.

12/2 Mark Lerner of Washington, D.C., was a guest lecturer in my Philosophy of Education class on Wednesday evening. He talked about charter schools and vouchers. Thanks, Mark! Here is
Mark’s web log, devoted to education, art, and political issues. And at Reason, here is more on teachers’ unions versus education.

12/1 Unintended consequences of expansive government: Journalist John Stossel explains how government aid drives out private aid. (Via Not PC.) And here is economist Gordon Tullock’s introductory article on government spending and rent-seeking. FDA Review explains why the regulators at the Food and Drug Administration have an incentive to delay the approval of beneficial drugs. And while we’re on the topic of safety, here is a strident call for an end to SUV violence.

Worth Reading for November 2005

11/30 Episteme Links, a valuable philosophy resources site, has several useful new features. Also check out these fun and serious philosophy-related products as well.

11/29 Read Peter Gordon’s web log.

11/28 The proceedings of the
2005 Libertarian Alliance Conference in London are now online.

11/26 Orangutan pee collector? Popular Science has
the ten worst jobs in science. (Via Geek Press.) And you’ve probably been wondering: What’s up with Mozart’s skull these days?

11/25 Now this is cool: Interesting data and fascinating presentation:

Human Development Trends 2005.

11/24 The morality of Thanksgiving: worth reading again are Roger Donway on whom we should thank and David Mayer on why we celebrate Thanksgiving. And Alex Tabarrok
puts it well.

11/23 A free trade success story: Peter Mork on
Mexican avocados and Chinese shoes.

11/22 A Saudi schoolteacher spoke freely about religion with his students—and was found guilty and sentenced to 750 lashes. (Thanks to Joe K. for the link.)

11/21 Fruits of the Enlightenment: From anesthesia to arthroscopic surgery. Here is a brief overview of arthroscopic surgery at the ESPN site. And here is Dr. Henry Bigelow’s 1846 account of dentist William Thomas Green Morton’s demonstration of
the use of ether as an anesthetic during tooth extractions.

11/19 Architect Peter Creswell has pictures and comments on
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City concept. And here are pictures of Pier Luigi Nervi’s Palazetto dello Sport, built for the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

11/18 Two articles from the latest The New Individualist are now online: Bruce Thornton on multiculturalism and immigration and Edward Hudgins on the means and ends of the Islamists.

11/17

Is Red Lobster restaurant a tool of Satan? Clearly, God hates shrimp. (Via InstaPundit.) Richard Dawkins has a nice take on Marx’s opiate of the masses. (Thanks to Bob H. for the suggestion.) And of course we all know by now that the theory of gravity is only a secularist theory.

11/16 Roger Sandall on the significance of Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

11/15 So sad: Gay marriage has ruined Massachusetts. (Via Tom Palmer.)

11/14 Creativity in advertising facelifts: ReBrand’s 2005 award winners. Urban facelifts and trompe l’oeil: Eric Grohe’s Middle American makeovers. (Thanks to Beverly for the link.) And a short article with pictures of trompe l’oeil in art history.

11/12 Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War is a timeless philosophical history of war and human nature. Here is a brief biography of Thucydides and assessment of his significance as the first to separate myth from history and to assess the credibility of his sources. Also check out Robert Strassler’s indispensable edition, The Landmark Thucydides, which contains the text with accompanying maps, timelines, and sketches of the major actors.

11/11 The always-thoughtful Will Wilkinson has started a Happiness and Public Policy web log.

11/10 Coming soon: the complete works of Charles Darwin online. And if you will be in New York City at some point between now and May, check out the Darwin Exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History. (Via Philosophy of Biology.)

11/9 Technology and education: a brief The New York Times article on podcasting and the future of education. Race and education: Uriah Kriegel explains one reason why blacks are underrepresented in academia.

11/8 The Newberry Archive gets bigger and better with excellent cross-listings by date, subject, and medium. And, after his move to New York City, here is Newberry’s latest studio update for November.

11/7 Socialism versus human health: Dead Meat is an online documentary about the Canadian medical system. Religion versus human health: one more skirmish in the ongoing battle.

11/5 Gruesome, even if you already know the history of communism: A review of the new biography of Mao. And the Left’s Western fellow-travelers do not come out too well either.

11/4 Philosopher Max Hocutt reviews Theodore Dalrymple’s Life at the Bottom. Hocutt is also the author of a justly scathing essay on Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Independent Review.

11/3 Making arguments clear: Truth-mapping is an online, interactive graphical diagramming of arguments and debates.

11/2 Ayn Rand as literary artist. Three recent collections of essays worth adding to your library: William Thomas’s The Literary Art of Ayn Rand; and Robert Mayhew’s two volumes, Essays on Ayn Rand’s We the Living and Essays on Ayn Rand’s Anthem.

11/1 Fruits of the Enlightenment—or, Why we don’t have to worry about the following anymore: “Faeces discharged into water made China the world reservoir of lung, liver and intestinal flukes and the Oriental schistosome, all serious causes of chronic illness. Human excreta were used as a fertilizer, and soil-transmitted helminth infestation was an occupational hazard for the farmer. According to Han Suyin there was ninety percent worm infestation among children in Peking in the early twentieth century and worms were visible everywhere on paths and alongside buildings. … . India, with the unhygienic habit of defecating in public space, often in streams and rivers that also served for washing and drinking, may have been in even worse shape.” (Eric Jones, The European Miracle, pp. 6-7, quoted in David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, n. p. 21)

Worth Reading for October 2005

10/31 So you’ve always wanted to learn witchcraft. Now your tuition may be tax-deductible.

10/29 College football and air travel: Craig Depken on the efficiency of decentralized markets. (Not that I’m envious or anything.) And on the enormous value of free, decentralized trade when compared to centralized tariffs and controls, Johan Norberg cites this striking datum.

10/28 Does the legal system still encourage personal responsibility? Overlawyered’s archive of personal irresponsibility lawsuits.

10/27 Alex Tabarrok on the secret history of the minimum wage: Minimum wages lead to unemployment and, early in the 20th century that was the whole point. Here is Linda Gorman’s clear overview of the unintended consequences of minimum wages.

10/26 Historian Keith Windschuttle has a collection of lectures and essays on postmodernism that are worth browsing.

10/25 Three giants from Renaissance medical history—passion, hard work, and the new scientific method in action: Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey, and Anton Leeuwenhoek.

10/24 Racism is alive and kicking in North America. And here is an analysis of another sickly symptom.

10/22 Are parents competent enough to feed their children breakfast? TOC’s Edward Hudgins on why we should not take yet another step toward the nanny state.

10/21 Kathy Sierra explains why conversational writing kicks formal writing’s ass. (Thanks to Joe K. for the link.)

10/20 A dramatic lessening of the number of wars and deaths in war: Johan Norberg summarizes the newly-released Human Security Report. And John Stossel explains why gun control laws don’t work—and may even kill people. (Via InstaPundit.com.)

10/19 And if not truth, character, and real liberalism, then what are colleges teaching? Non-judgmentalism, hiding behind euphemism, and tolerance for mass-murdering dogmatists? Mark Steyn rips into the foreign policy implications of fashionable multiculturalism. (Thanks to Barbara and Karen for the link.)

10/18 Do colleges really believe in truth, character, and liberal education anymore? Norman Levitt offers a simultaneously charming and disturbing portrait of the contemporary American university. Levitt is co-author with Paul Gross of Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. (Via A&L Daily.)

10/17 In Business Week—another great engineering story: How P&G and Ideo developed the CarpetFlick. (Via Dynamist.)

10/15 Law professor David Mayer argues that, just as twenty-two Democratic senators voted irresponsibly against John Roberts, Republican senators would be irresponsible if they were to vote in favor of Harriet Miers.

10/14 At Tech Central Station, Edward J. Renehan Jr. introduces the historians’ War Over the Robber Barons. And Burton Folsom’s fine The Myth of the Robber Barons is a brief survey of the achievements of six great nineteenth-century capitalists, distinguishing “market entrepreneurs” who create value from “political entrepreneurs” who get money by playing Washington games.

10/13 Great idea: TIA Daily has a new Human Achievements blog.

10/12 Multi-sized replacement testicles, alarm clocks that run and hide, exploding trousers, and stressed-out frogs: This year’s Ig-Nobel Prize Winners. And The Onion profiles that one philosophy student who just needs to shut up.

10/11 Very helpful: Don Boudreaux has a brief, clear explanation of the distinction between micro- and macro-economics. And here is CEE’s profile of the great David Ricardo.

10/9 Are your politics
Mussolini or Mandela? (Via
Not PC.) Worth visiting again is the classic World’s Smallest Political Quiz. This sobering site is well worth exploring: R. J. Rummel’s Freedom, Democide, and War. And this study shows that economic freedom correlates strongly with peace.

10/7 One face of the future of textbook publishing: Wikibooks. And here is another face: Google Print.

10/6 In The New York Review of Books, Richard Lewontin reviews two recent books in the wars over evolution.

10/5 How many athletes, Jews, short people, nerds, and Asians should a college admit? Malcolm Gladwell explains and reflects upon elite college admissions processes. (Thanks to Joe K. for the link.) And at the excellent Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Samantha Harris exposes an illegal speech code at Northern Arizona University.

10/4 Phil Sage’s sage tips for modern life. (Via Not PC.) And at The Onion: Can philosophy help you find your true self?

10/3 Virginia Postrel asks: Which country is more liberal—Canada or the USA? And Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute has a directly relevant comparison of prostate cancer death rates in the U.S., Canada, and other countries. (Via Café Hayek.)

10/1 The great Gannibal of St. Petersburg: the Dark Star of the Enlightenment.

Worth Reading for September 2005

9/30 At The Wall Street Journal: Bloggers and economists Russell Roberts and William Polley discuss American economic literacy and hopeful prospects for improvement. (Thanks to Joe K. for the link.) Meanwhile, Joe Duarte compares the Fair-Tax and the Flat-Tax proposals and decides in favor of …

9/29 Taking the (sickly?) pulse of contemporary higher education: Victor Davis Hanson looks at four recent, high-profile cases.

9/28 Raymond Carver has advice and inspiration on being a good writer. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

9/27 Fruits of the Enlightenment: Don Boudreaux on why hurricanes now kill many fewer people in the USA. And that in spite of large population increases and the destructive effects of counter-Enlightenment government policies: the welfare state, pork-barreling, and bureaucratic mismanagement.

9/26 In Lysistrata, a female character suggests a law to mandate that older women be serviced sexually by younger males. The Danes may decide to out-Aristophanes the great Aristophanes by passing a law to provide welfare benefits so that the disabled can pay prostitutes for sex.

9/24 At Washington State University: Using “dispositions theory” as a tool for enforcing ideological conformity.

9/23 Should professors who write textbooks make students buy their books? Ian Ayres feels badly about the money issue. Eugene Volokh and Aeon Skoble see no conflict of interest.
I say: Show me the money!

9/22 James Watson of Watson-and-Crick fame on Darwin’s powerful legacy. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

9/21 A new book by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl: Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis For Non-perfectionist Politics. I have not read it yet, but it looks to be the cumulation of over two decades of thinking and writing about the foundations of politics. Jointly and severally, Den Uyl and Rasmussen are the authors of several earlier books, including Liberty and Nature, The Virtue of Prudence, and The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand.

9/20 In the context of a case in New Zealand, Peter Cresswell has some clear thoughts on environmental values and property rights. And here is Richard Stroup’s introduction to Free Market Environmentalism.

9/19 Capitalism as the best foreign policy: Columbia University’s Eric Gartzke on the strong connection between capitalism and peace. Check out especially his strongly-written three concluding paragraphs on pages 38-39.

9/17 What Dallas, Texas can teach us about how to educate MBA’s. And one professor’s advice: How to cure students with ADHD.

9/16 A new web log focusing on private sector development instead of standard government aid:
Private Sector Development Blog, under the auspices of the World Bank. (Via Johan Norberg, author of In Defense of Global Capitalism.) And Tyler Cowen notes the encouraging development of private safety networks in Africa.

9/15 The Fraser Institute’s 2005 Economic Freedom of the World Report has been released. (Via Division of Labor.)

9/14 Is poverty declining in America? Russell Roberts looks closely at some key indicators. And here is Stanley Lebergott’s fine survey of impressive improvements in wages and working conditions in the US during the 20th century.

9/13 Brooklyn College is using intimidation tactics to silence a dissenting professor. Update: Good news.

9/12 David Mayer delineates the criteria by which the chief justice of the Supreme Court should be chosen. And in “Confirmation Abuse”, Professor Mayer speaks directly to the nomination of John Roberts and the Senate’s advise and consent role.

9/11 “I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window—no, I don’t feel how small I am—but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.” (Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead)

9/9 Kathy Sierra has some cool brain-charging suggestions—or, as she puts it, ways to blow your own mind. And Grant McCracken has a brief, evocative essay on “Madeleine” objects and his Uncle Meyer’s crudely stitched canvas wallet.

9/8 I am not a conservative—but Bill Whittle is the kind of conservative I admire. Read his “Tribes”. (Thanks to Robert for the link.)

9/7 How much longer will you live? The Death Clock. And visit The Blog of Death, an online obituary column. Lloyd Cohen and David Undis have a fine proposal to increase the number of organ donors. Here again is LifeSharers, a network of voluntary organ donors.

9/6 Jonathan Rauch argues that the next challenge to limited-government politics will not come from leftists but from communitarian right-wingers such as Rick Santorum. (Via Dynamist.)
Tom Palmer has more on Santorum as representative of the Openly Anti-Individualist, Bigoted, Collectivist, Anti-Liberty Right.

9/3 Daniel Dennett wonders how the intellectual hoax that is “Intelligent Design” came to prominence. At the Philosophy of Biology blog: Michael Ruse, who was one of my professors at my undergraduate university, posts a letter he received on biology textbooks and the evolution-creation controversy. Johan Norberg has a great quotation from Richard Dawkins. And the cartoon is via Franz Kiekeben.

9/2 Michael Totten explains who the Islamists’ long-term strategic enemies are. Christopher Hitchens summarizes what has been achieved since 2001, in contrast to the preceding weak and vacillating decade. Confessions of a neo-neocon includes a psychological hypothesis about Western apologists for terrorism. And Wretchard takes us back to the Left responses to the Nazis and the Gulag and explores the true-believer mindset of the hard and anti-American Left.

9/1 An extended interview with philosopher John Searle.