eHarmony Forced to Create a Dating Service for Gay Singles

In a free society, what is equality? In a free society, what are gay rights?

Bush's Final Attacks on Abortion and Contraception

Bush is making some last-minute attempts to make it more difficult for women to get emergency contraceptive and abortion services, in the name of religious freedom, of course.

A Positive Account of Property Rights

I found a positive account of property rights by David D. Friedman. It's a long and difficult read for the uninitiated, but quite rewarding, if you have an interest in philosophical and economic bases for property.

Prescription Drugs Kill Three Times More Americans Than Illegal Drugs

A study of 170,000 autopsies in Florida in 2007 found that prescription drug overdoses cause three times the number of deaths that illegal drug overdoses did. Another notable result: 466 deaths from alcohol poisoning vs. ZERO deaths from marijuana.

Washington's $5 Trillion Tab

The running total of government bailouts and related expenditures is approaching 5 Trillion Dollars. In comparison, the cost of the Iraq War thus far has been about $850 Billion, with a total estimated cost to the economy of about 3 trillion.

A new legal puzzle

There's a lot of interesting stuff in this talk by David Friedman, the son of Milton Friedman, but one legal puzzle stood out to me as particularly fun and interesting.

Suppose we have a corpse cryonically frozen to be reanimated when the proper technology arrives that could do so, like Ted Williams. Suppose that there is a new advancement in technology to make reanimation finally feasible in the coming months. Suppose that a family member of the preserved does not want this person to be resuscitated , so they break into the lab and thaw out the body so that it cannot be resuscitated.

Is this person guilty of murder? The person was already dead. How should this be thought of, legally, and ethically? Does a cryonically preserved person just become property? This seems to be a crime more serious than vandalism if it is just property.

A fundamental premise of anarchy

Consider this fundamental premise of anarchy. Is this axiomatic, and if it is, does it necessarily imply anarchy as a moral goal?

Triumph and Tragedy for Civil Rights on Election Day

While the Obama victory is surely a huge step forward in racial equality, the passage of California's Proposition 8 (as well as similar measures in Arizona, and Florida that also banned gay marriage, and in Arkansas that banned gay adoption) reveals that discrimination is still a major problem.

I haven't linked to an article, but I think this is a topic worth discussing. The aspect I found particularly saddening was that black voters supported the proposition overwhelmingly, showing that even those who have themselves faced discrimination are not averse to discriminating against others.

Truly this is a tragedy for freedom and equality.