Friday, November 21, 2008
eHarmony Forced to Create a Dating Service for Gay Singles
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Bush's Final Attacks on Abortion and Contraception
Sunday, November 16, 2008
A Positive Account of Property Rights
Friday, November 14, 2008
Prescription Drugs Kill Three Times More Americans Than Illegal Drugs
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Washington's $5 Trillion Tab
Saturday, November 08, 2008
A new legal puzzle
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
Friday, November 07, 2008
Triumph and Tragedy for Civil Rights on Election Day
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.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Free Speech and Religion
Protectors of free speech speak out at last at UN
How the West was lost for free speech
Thursday, October 23, 2008
David Letterman's Revenge
Nor is Gordon Liddy the only questionable acquaintance of McCain. One of his major supporters, Carl Lindner, was CEO of Chiquita when it began illegal protection payments to the AUC (a Colombian terrorist organization), and the district attorney of Medellin has called for him and other top executives to be extradited to Colombia to face criminal charges of financing terrorism.
Government Supported Religious Discrimination
Monday, October 20, 2008
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Socialism
Friday, October 17, 2008
Does Religion Make People Nicer?
Friday, October 10, 2008
UK Plans Computer System to Tap ALL Calls and Emails
Sunday, October 05, 2008
What if neither candidate is eligible to be president?
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Restrictions on purchasing cold medicine
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Obama Promising To Lower Employee Pay If Obama Wins
Also, I cannot post a link because my information is hardcopy, but I'll make a copy of an article I came across, about government promotion of 'homeownership.' I think this is important to discuss, especially the role of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and the influence it's had on the finance industry, especially banks.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Businesses Promising To Lower Employee Pay If Obama Wins
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Who Is Against Evolution?
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Re-post: Link to POWs article
http://www.nationinstitute.org/p/schanberg09182008pt1
Saturday, September 20, 2008
American POWs abandoned in withdrawal from Vietnam? Don't ask McCain!
Election Fraud - It's Back!
Republican Mailing Leaves Florida Voters Confused
Warning for College Student Voters
Why is McCain Running a Dishonest Campaign?
Friday, September 19, 2008
Some Libertarian Perspectives on the Election
The Libertarian Case for McCain
The Libertarian Case for Obama
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Just Christian Enough
Wasilla Assembly of God Clip
Friday, September 12, 2008
Scientology on Trial In France
Scientology 'faces French trial'
Keeping Your Information Private
First, a post from the Cato Institute blog on ID checks. It's ot very long but it raises a good point.
ID Checks are About Control, Not Security
Second, how you can try to retain some privacy of information.
RFID Blocking Passport Billfold
Third, some ridiculous conceptual technology designed to make shedding your privacy even easier.
Exchange information with Handshake
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Follow-up on CIA drug plane
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Don't Talk to Cops
It's sort of long, and in two parts, but worth a viewing.
Don't Talk to Cops, Part 1
Don't Talk to Cops, Part 2
Thanks to Robbie Barton for forwarding these links to me.
Friday, September 05, 2008
And you thought Comcast had bad service!
Operation Bright Eyes
Bush: President or Elected King?
Bush claims more power than King George III
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tasers: 100% non-Lethal
Judge Orders Taser Removed from Autopsies
Contraception is the New Abortion
Article from Science Progress
D.C. v. Heller
I have included two links:
A NY Times article on the case
A Reason Magazine article on DC's new laws in response to the case
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Subjects, objects, justice
"... [DNA-based decreased culpability arguments are causing] a gradual invasion of personal responsibility by genetic determinism. It's a conceptual shift from thinking of people as subjects to thinking of them as objects. The shift helps defense lawyers who need excuses for their clients' behavior. But it comes at a price: If your client is an object, why should we treat him like a subject?"
Monday, April 21, 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7359880.stm
Last year, a similar issue was the focus of a Reason Foundation discussion. If you get the chance, part 1 is probably applicable:
http://www.reason.tv/video/show/246.html
Monday, April 14, 2008
Plan 9/Satellite Ballroom buyout
Attached: A facebook group and two articles--
http://uva.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24641668256
http://www.nailgunmedia.com/blog/?p=297#more-297
http://www.the-declaration.com/index.php?issuedate=2008-03-20&showarticle=1953
Saturday, April 12, 2008
A parent lets a nine-year-old find his way home on the NYC subway
Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn’t strike me as that daring, either. Isn’t New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It’s not like we’re living in downtown Baghdad.
Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.
No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn’t want to lose it. And no, I didn’t trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn’t do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, “Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I’ll abduct this adorable child instead.”
Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.
Long story longer, and analyzed, to boot: Half the people I’ve told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It’s not. It’s debilitating — for us and for them.
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-subway-alone
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Child Protective Services raids polygamist compound, removes 500+ women and children
At what point should the ability to practice religion freely be limited by the need to protect basic human rights? Should the government force extremist religious groups to be more transparent in order to prevent abuse? Why has the FLDS, which has long been associated with physical and sexual abuse of its women and children, been tolerated for this long?
Monday, April 07, 2008
Smoking Bans Kill
Smoking Bans Kill, Part II
Jacob Sullum | April 7, 2008, 12:33pm
A new study reported in the Journal of Public Economics finds that smoking bans are associated with increases in alcohol-related traffic deaths. "We observe an increase in fatal accidents involving alcohol following bans on smoking in bars that is not observed in places without bans," the researchers report. They surmise that drinkers respond to bans by driving further to find bars where they're allowed to light up, either because the bars are in a different jurisdiction or because they have outdoor seating. That means more time on the road in a less-than-sober condition:
"The increased miles driven by drivers who wish to smoke and drink offsets any reduction in driving from smokers choosing to stay home after a ban, resulting in increased alcohol-related accidents," the study says.
The authors, Scott Adams of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Economics Department and Chad Cotti, currently at the University of South Carolina, call the results "surprising."
"We thought we would see a reduction," Adams said. "Our first thought was, 'Throw it away, it must be wrong.' "...
The 2-year study looks at highway fatality data involving a driver with blood alcohol content over 0.08 in cities and counties with bans and compares it to incidences in surrounding areas without bans. The study was not funded by outside organizations, the authors said.
Results show an increase in accidents in areas after smoking bans were enacted and near the jurisdiction lines.
A Wisconsin anti-smoking activist quoted by Madison's Capital Times seems irritated by the study and reacts skeptically. But the results need not be seen as an argument against smoking bans (the interpretation I'd favor). They could be seen as an argument for stricter bans that forbid smoking even outdoors and for wider bans that do not allow escape to more tolerant jurisdictions. Adams tells the Times "a well-enforced national smoking ban would get rid of the drunken driving increases related to smoke bans."
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Notes
"[Hillary supporters believe that] their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid."
I just thought that it was particularly expressive.
Also, there is a lot of good material on www.reason.tv . Some of my favorite videos are:
Living Large: The American Middle Class
http://www.reason.tv/video/show/61.html
Organ Transplants: Kidneys for Sale
http://www.reason.tv/video/show/333.html
Gridlock: Hell on Wheels
http://www.reason.tv/video/show/6.html
These are really great commentaries about different issues that don't often get debate, and might make for interesting discussions.
Olympics Official Warns Against Boycott
What would a boycott of the Olympics mean? When is it a duty of a nation to boycott an Olympics? What would the consequences be of doing so?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Prostitution debate
ABC Friday at 9:00pm
20/20 Prostitution in America: Working Girls Speak
http://abcnews.go.com/2020
I thought it would be an interesting supplement to our conversation.
Reaction to Obama's answer
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video_log/2008/03/brian_ross_reports_on_obamas_c.html
Lively speaker, especially with the hand gestures on the chickens (quoting Malcolm X there).
It's hard to find any negative reaction to Obama's speech, but here are a couple:
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/894ztiry.asp
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MichaelMedved/2008/03/19/three_big_problems_with_baracks_speech
Obama is a much smarter fellow than McCain, and I'm not sure his close friendship with this pastor will stop him from becoming President. It is troubling to be electing someone whose primary loyalty seems not to be to America. But he has the nomination pretty much wrapped up and people are so eager to vote for him, and he knows so well how to arm himself with all the ways Americans want to make war on reality (the American dream), and he offers forgiveness for the things for which Americans most crave redemption, that I don't think this will sink him, especially against the old defender of an unpopular war and President.
(p.s. Journalists are out of touch with the views of many black Americans in thinking that Obama's pastor is "out of the mainstream." He is only slightly out of the black mainstream, since a third of black churchgoers, at all churches, believe that AIDS was at least in some way the result of a government attempt to commit genocide. A Rasmussen poll released Monday found that 29% of blacks surveyed said Wright's comments made them more likely to support Obama, while only 18% said the opposite, and half said Wright's comments would have no effect on them.)
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Obama's Answer
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Who is Obama? links
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aktQHpFJxzsM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/community/groups/index.html?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3aa70e3396-6663-4a8d-ba19-e44939d3c44fForum%3a5543a34c-af92-4736-b81b-4aad0ab02e2eDiscussion%3a60ef6534-c61d-41e4-860f-7c49bec7920d
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/
http://stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/02/23/obamas-terrorist-friends/
Who is Obama?
Topics Today
-- Larry Lessig is not running for Congress
-- In Cuba Raul has assumed power
-- Putin has a puppet
-- Eliot Spitzer
-- Over 900,000 people on the government watchlist
--Does Bush have a disorder?
-- Alcohol Use vs. Marijuana Use
-- Tibet still isn't free.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
NIU Shooting
DeKALB, Ill. — The day after five students were gunned down in an afternoon science class on the campus of Northern Illinois University here, survivors struggled to manage their grief as the authorities released more details about the shooting and the gunman.
Link
Is gun control the answer?
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Who wins from the "war" on drugs?
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure
"Until age 56 y, annual health expenditure was highest for obese people. At older ages, smokers incurred higher costs. Because of differences in life expectancy, however, lifetime health expenditure was highest among healthy-living people and lowest for smokers. Obese individuals held an intermediate position."
Monday, February 04, 2008
Rational scale of harmfulness of various substances, licit and otherwise
Though advocates of decriminalization tend to gloss over any real harm done by intoxication and addiction, proponents of continued criminalization often conflate the physiological actions of all the illicit substances with heroine. Here's a graphic presenting the "harm" versus "dependence" for a variety of drugs of abuse. The colors aren't helpful, but the legal substances are: khat, solvents, alcohol, and tobacco.
The linked article details the way in which harm and dependence were assessed; the graph is someone else's representation of the data presented in the article, whihc is too bad, because I'd like to know the scale of the axes.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
The fatties vs. druggies question
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Battle Against Obesity
(Click title for the article)
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Can the government create jobs?
Yes, says Charles Wheelan: by education, not by economic policy.
So is there a skills shortage in America today, and should the government do anything about it?
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Freedom and Science
Let's discuss the relationship between the government and science, where profit motives lead to, and what a proper relationship should be.
On a somewhat related note, Dr. Jarvik is being harassed.