8/31 David M. Brown notes another counter-productive political solution to high gas prices—rationing—and gives some good links to understand the problem and workable solutions. And Don Boudreaux reacts wearily to one politician’s stupid reaction to high gas prices. Meanwhile, tomorrow is No Gas Day!, and here are my suggestions to help the cause. Update: Rand Simburg explains Econ 101, once again, and why we should love price gougers.
8/30 Anna Volk reports on the slave traffic in Belarus. And here is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s 2005 Trafficking in Persons report.
8/29 As the new academic year begins: Dave’s Daily identifies twenty-five differences between high school and college. And here is a survival tip for college students: Get enough sleep. Also: while students usually hear all the sermons in the world about responsible drinking, here’s Radley Balko with some advice parents may not have heard.
8/26 Michael Blowhard asks:
Is something wrong with economics?—and has a useful summary and links to thinking about homo economicus and economic methodology given that economic behavior is not always rational or self-interested. Here is Arnold C. Harberger’s
introductory article on the field of microeconomics in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. And Russell Roberts at Café Hayek explains
why the US economy has been creating so many new jobs for the last several years.
8/25 Ridiculous college speech code of the month. And Bryan Caplan asks a good question: Should egalitarian professors assign grades based on merit?
8/24 At Spiked-Online, Sandy Starr celebrates mankind’s making its mark upon the Earth.
8/23 Physician Henry I. Miller on race and personalized medicine. And here is Sally Satel’s “I Am a Racially Profiling Doctor”.
8/22 In The New York Times, Jodi Wilgoren reports on the anti-evolution marketing device known as “Intelligent Design”. And The Onion gets to the heart of the matter with this report on
anti-gravity religionists who advocate “Intelligent Falling”. (Thanks to Joe for the link.)
8/20 As part of the “Conversations with History” series, an extended interview with Victor Davis Hanson, ranging from his background to classical Greek culture to military history and foreign policy. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) And here is the web log of the series’ host, Harry Kreisler.
8/19 Architect Peter Cresswell on
why and how architecture is an art. And check out architect John Gillis’s beautiful site.
8/18 By far
the best version of the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God that I have ever read. Which goes to show that philosophy is perhaps best practised as a drinking sport. And for the other side of the debate, here’s the God F.A.Q. page.
8/17 Comic books to teach economics? Here are
some produced by the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
And the Foundation for Economic Education has a
useful series of lesson plans on basic economics.
8/16 Liberty Fund’s excellent online collection of
1,100 classic works in philosophy, politics, history, economics and more. Excellent not only for the number of works available and the editorial judgment about what to include, but also for the fact that many selections are available in your choice of PDF, HTML, or E-book formats.
8/15 Are all religions created equal? James from Worthing on some
significant differences between contemporary Christianity and contemporary Islam. (Via Jason Pappas.) And for comparison’s sake, here’s a round-up of some harsh quotations from
the Koran and the Bible.
8/13 Ronald Bailey on the shift of some conservatives to
embracing stem-cell research. And here is Bailey’s new book, Liberation Biology, which I am using as one of the texts in my Biomedical Ethics course this coming semester.
8/12 The horrors of war: Thomas C. Reeves reflects on
the bombing of Dresden, sixty years later. Here is the American Air Force Historical Office’s report, providing details of
the reasons and methods used in the bombings and comparing the Dresden bombings to those of the other major German cities. And here is the
Wikipedia entry on the bombing, including pictures.
8/11 Fascinating: Paleolithic cave art at
Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc. And Friedrich von Blowhard
considers a recent explanation.
8/10 At the Atlasphere: Jeff Perren on another great engineer—Jack Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit.
8/9 Paul Graham is thinking about
what open source and web logs teach us about creativity, working because you love it, and free markets in ideas and products. (Thanks to Joe for the link.)
8/8 A surprise explanation of why Africa goes hungry. Part of the solution? I’m with Arnold Kling: Africa needs more sweatshops.
8/6 Pomo’s death throes?
James Seaton hopes so, in a review of Theory’s Empire, edited by Daphne Patai and Wilfrido Corral. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.)
8/5 Irfan Khawaja has a comment on
Thomas Paine as a founding father of American secular individualism. Here are a
brief biography and links to Paine’s major works online. I recommend Isaac Kramnick’s The Portable Enlightenment Reader, which has well-chosen excerpts from Paine’s works and those of many other major Enlightenment thinkers and activists.
8/4 Is philosophy dying? And what about the few women in philosophy?
Will Wilkinson reflects on Camille Paglia’s worries.
8/3 Martin Peretz reviews Ronald and Allis Radosh’s
Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony’s Long Romance with the Left.
8/2 A profile of
Shawn Klein, co-editor of Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts.
8/1 Julie Burchill explains, quite firmly, why
we should not tolerate the Islamofascists. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.)