5/31 We individualists have our work cut out for us. David Boaz notes the collectivist ethic the two leading presidential candidates share. (Via TomPalmer.com.) And John Stossel reports: “I’m the, to my knowledge, lone libertarian in the mainstream media, and I take some heat for that. To my knowledge there are zero conservatives … on the networks.”
5/29 So I paid $4.15 a gallon to fill up my car today. I’m happy to contribute to rising profits of American oil corporations and I thank them for delivering the goods successfully. At the same time I am ticked off at the politicians, both domestic and foreign, who are hobbling production efforts, collecting enormous taxes, and emoting false sympathy for the consumer’s pain. The Tax Foundation notes that between 1977 and 2004 the 29 largest energy companies in the US earned $630 billion in profits. A nice big number. During the same period, however, the US federal government collected $2.1 trillion in taxes ($1.5 trillion in excise taxes on gas and diesel, $518 billion in corporate income taxes, and $40 billion in taxes on “windfall profits”). So at whom should we be pointing fingers of blame? Certainly rising international demand from India and China is a factor, but the foreign governments that control 94% of the world’s supply are refusing to increase supply to meet demand – for example, despite many requests and increasing pressure from the US government, “the Saudis have let their output fall from 9.5m to 8.5m bpd over the last two years”. The Saudi government is the world’s biggest player in the oil markets, along with the other top thirteen oil companies in the world, all of which are owned by foreign governments or are government-created monopolies. Privately-owned Exxon, at fourteenth largest, is a relatively tiny player. At whom should we be pointing fingers? So why doesn’t the US tap its own large reserves in Alaska, the Caribbean, and Colorado? Because the government has consistently forbidden it. Meanwhile, this wicked ignoramus of a politician (at 1:10 in the video clip), has the gall to call for a nationalization of the American oil industry:
. So to whom should we be giving the finger?
5/28 Biology and ethics: Maybe they’re right – gay marriage and polygamy lead to marriage between man and beast? More seriously, Steven Pinker on how some bioethicists are using “dignity” to undermine autonomy.
5/27 Did Aristotle travel to Egypt, take books from the library at Alexandria and plagiarize them? Were the Jews responsible for the slave trade? Brendan Boyle reviews Mary Lefkowitz’s saga of a vicious Ivory Tower battle among classicists, History Lesson: A Race Odyssey (Yale University Press). (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.)
5/26 Larry Ribstein on money and the drive to succeed. On the other hand, all that money might make you a victim of hyper-frantic consumerism.
5/22 At Philosophy 101, Anja puts rising prices into perspective. Gas at $4 per gallon is expensive, but remember that “Starbucks venti latte costs the equivalent of $23 per gallon while Budweiser beer runs $11 per gallon.”
5/21 Johan Norberg quotes a concise explanation of 1968 and the culture wars from Brink Lindsey’s The Age of Abundance.
5/20 Commencement advice from humorist P. J. O’Rourke. And before leaving for his summer hiatus, Professor David Mayer has posted his Thoughts for Summer 2008, ranging from gas prices, ethanol, the upcoming presidential elections, the Supreme Court’s docket, and the John Adams miniseries.
5/19 Live Science profiles Oscar-winning computer scientist Ron Fediw. His algorithms transformed movie simulations in Pirates of the Caribbean and the Harry Potter series, as well as Terminator 3 and Poseidon.
5/17 In Scientific American, science sociologist Harry Collins explains why Scientists Know Better Than You – Even When They’re Wrong. (Thanks to Johann for the link.)
5/16 Little known writings of dietician Friedrich Nietzsche: Eat dangerously!. And apparently “Fat Is Dead is selling briskly, as are the accompanying recipe pamphlets Beyond Food And Evil; Human, All Too Fat A Human; and Swiss Steak Zarathustra.” (Thanks to Chris for the link.) No doubt the next works in the series will be Twinkies of the Idols, including ruminations on the fact that Gouda is dead.
5/15 Talk about cultural imperialism: There are roughly 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States, “more than the number of McDonald’s, Burger Kings and KFCs combined.” I feel so oppressed. Meanwhile, Don Boudreaux has this make-trade-not-war suggestion for our Chinese foreign policy.
5/14 From the Ellwood House and Museum, just down the road from me in DeKalb, Illinois: How barbed wire won the West. (Thanks to Merlin for the link.) Speaking of that, Lester Hunt wonders where all the Westerns have gone.
5/13 This looks extremely cool: Microsoft Research’s Worldwide Telescope. From the site: “Want to see the same images that scientists at NASA use for their research or perform your own research with those images? Or do you want to see the Earth from the same perspective that astronauts see as they descend to Earth? How about taking a 5 minute break and viewing a panorama of a different city? Install WWT and start your explorations.”
5/12 When nutmeg was more valuable than gold: Heather Whipps on How the Spice Trade changed the world.
5/10 Janet Rae-Dupree in The New York Times on brain science, creativity, and changing habits: “don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads.” (Thanks to Beverly for the link.) And Stephen Baker explains why he thinks we need Renaissance people more than ever. For example, “the triumph of the iTunes wouldn’t have happened without someone who could bring together music, software, business, and design. We could even throw in anthropology.”
5/8 At the web log for the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship Anja Hartleb-Parson and I have a series of new posts on business ethics and entrepreneurship. Anja and I will be blogging there regularly now.
5/7 An interesting (though quirky) article by political scientist David Schaefer on Robert Nozick (thanks to Bob H. for the link), which prompted a response from philosopher Lester Hunt.
5/6 For your reading pleasure? Samples of horrible academic writing from Philosophy and Literature‘s Third Annual Bad Writing Contest. (Thanks (?) to Bob M. for the link.)Update: David Thomspon links to several more recent examples, with not one molecule of irony apparent in any of them.
5/5 Artworld round up: Very ordinary political propaganda wins the Turner Prize. On the other hand,
new frontiers in self-deformation and self-destruction. Perhaps this guy has a sense of humor about the art world? (Thanks to Chris for the link.) Notice this deep insight: “Steven’s ‘Trader Joe’s Cashew #4’ is such a complete and absolute brutally dissecting view of the industrial conflict between capitalism and modernism that is hard for even the most verbose of critics to add too. Regardless of Steven’s relation to me as a colleague and studiomate, the intense complexity I feel for this work is also complete and absolute.” The tricky thing about the art world is the problem of indistinguishability – how does one separate the serious from the spoof and the significant from the trivial? A philosophy book waiting to be written. Wait – it already was, twenty-eight years ago, and has been reissued: “Mr. Danto argues that recent developments in the artworld, in particular the production of works of art that cannot be told from ordinary things, make urgent the need for a new theory of art.” I read Danto’s book as an undergraduate in 1980 or so, and he was writing in response to where the art world had arrived in the 1960s. For half a century, the art world has gone … nowhere.
5/3 Erudito describes Richard Hamilton’s Who Voted for Hitler as an excellent example of “how historical sociology should be done.” Which gives me an opportunity to plug this fine documentary.
5/2 The greatest human being who ever lived comes to New York.
5/1 The New York Times on the rising number of college entrepreneurship programs. (Thanks to Bob M. for the link.) “According to the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., more than 2,000 colleges and universities now offer at least a class and often an entire course of study in entrepreneurship. That is up from 253 institutions offering such courses in 1985. More than 200,000 students are enrolled in such courses, compared with 16,000 in 1985.” Which reminds of this cool, new place.