An Appreciation of a Wonderful Scholar and Human Being: Leonard Liggio

January 31, 2010

Leonard Liggio

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Now here’s an ugly bit of business….

January 30, 2010

Chait’s Response to the criticism offered below.
And a Little More: Now We Know What Real Humor Is….Or at Least Real Jokes

An old friend, Veronique de Rugy, has been slimed for her defense of some fundamental moral principles. I’ve known her for at least 19 years, since we organized the first English-language IES-Europe seminars (modeled [...]

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Kindle Killer? Some Doubts…

January 30, 2010

I wonder about the claims about the iPad. It does look very cool and all, but if it runs off of a back lit screen, it’s not going to kill my Kindle, that’s for sure. One of the reasons for the Kindle being so popular is that you read it using reflected ambient [...]

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Movie Stories and Collective Property

January 29, 2010

David Boaz and John Locke on the rights of the Na’vi: “Collective Property Rights in Avatar?”
(Note: I haven’t seen the movie, but it’s not necessary to understand the issues involved.)

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Realizing Freedom Reviewed in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

January 28, 2010

The FAZ, one of the most influential newspapers in Europe, reviewed my book Realizing Freedom and Detmar Doering’s very good Traktat über die Freiheit. The reviewer, Professor Michael Zöller, is Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bayreuth. In the review, which is favorable to both books, he refers to my essay [...]

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Cats Can Be Fierce:

January 27, 2010

HT: Andrew Sullivan
And then there’s this famous photos: Photo in the News: Cat Chases Bear Up Tree

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Making Us “Safer” When We Travel

January 27, 2010

All a part of the U.S. government’s plans to make travel impossible and life unbearable.

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It’s a Wrap….

January 25, 2010

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At the Range

January 24, 2010

I took off a few hours from my work today for something a little different. I went out to the Blue Ridge Arsenal shooting range today with a reporter from the Washington Post for some practice. He’s writing a story on the “right to carry” case in the District of Columbia (He [...]

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Our Case for the Right to Bear Arms Argued Today

January 23, 2010

The outstanding lawyer Alan Gura, who won the case before the Supreme Court that struck down the ban on ownership of firearms in the District of Columbia today argued our case for the right, not only to “keep,” but to “bear” arms, i.e., to carry them in public. Alan’s smart and focused and we’ve [...]

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Dirty Harry

January 22, 2010

From XKCD.com
HT: Bill Goodwin

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A Victory for Freedom of Speech!

January 21, 2010

“Free Speech for All,” by John Samples and Ilya Shapiro

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“Energy Independence”….

January 21, 2010

John Stossel on Energy Independence

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Falling Poverty

January 21, 2010

“Although world population has increased by about 80% over this time (World Bank 2009), the number of people below the $1 a day poverty line has shrunk by nearly 64%, from 967 million in 1970 to 350 million in 2006. In the past 36 years, there has never been a moment with more than 1 [...]

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“This situation bears an eerie resemblance to the employment situation during the Great Depression”….

January 21, 2010

Robert Higgs in Investor’s Business Daily: “The Disappearing Private-Sector Jobs“

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A Delight to Behold

January 20, 2010

I have just received the PDF of the Dari (the Persian spoken in Afghanistan) version of the book Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity, by the outstanding economic educators James Gwartney, Richard Stroup, and Dwight Lee. The new think tank, the Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization, will also [...]

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A Libertarian Take on One Year of Obama

January 20, 2010

David Boaz on NPR.org: “For This Libertarian, Obama’s First Year Looks Grim“

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Is the Welfare State Justified?

January 20, 2010

My old friend Danny Shapiro on Book TV on his very good book of the same name: “Is the Welfare State Justified?”
The book is a very serious and — a nice surprise! — readable treatment of the subject. I recommend it highly. Is the Welfare State Justifed?, by Daniel Shapriro (Note: People [...]

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Divided Government Revived…a Little

January 20, 2010

CNN: “Brown wins Massachusetts Senate race”
“A Case for Divided Government”
“Dividing Power”
“Would Divided Government Be Better?”
“Three Cheers for Divided Government”
“We miss you, Bubba”

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Randy Barnett on the Unconstitutionality of the “Individual Mandate”

January 18, 2010

From NPR: “Opponents Threaten Court Battle on Health Mandate”

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