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March 2001 -- At the June 1967 Glassboro Summit, President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara implored Soviet premier

Oct 20, 2010

James S. Robbins

5 Mins

Cloning: Toward a New Conception of Humanity?

The science of genetics, realized through technologies such as cloning, will have a tremendous impact on cultural conceptions of human....

Oct 20, 2010

6 Mins

The Doctor As Lockean

September 2004 -- Thomas Sydenham (1624-89) was one of London's leading physicians in the latter half of the 17th century. As a follower of Francis Bacon's philosophy, and a close friend of John Locke, Sydenham insisted on an intensely empirical approach to the treatment of disease. For the same reason, however, he remained uninterested in the great anatomical discoveries of his day—and in the bizarre physiological theories to which they gave rise—observing that to a practitioner these theories were useless or worse. Unfortunately, because of this anti-speculative outlook, Sydenham's reputation has suffered somewhat in recent years.

Oct 19, 2010

Misbehavioral Economics?

May 2001 -- A new school of economic thought, called "behavioral economics," is beginning to take hold in much of America's academic community. One measure of the movement's growth is a bibliography of the field by Matthew Rabin: it comprises more than two thousand "significant" articles and books. Another measure of growth is the number of behavioralists (as they are called) who have been hired by top schools, including the University of Chicago, Yale, Harvard, M.I. T., Stanford, and the University of California-Berkeley.

Oct 19, 2010

Alexandra York on Ayn Rand

Navigator: What do you think of Ayn Rand 's aesthetic theories and judgments.

Oct 19, 2010

The Illusion of Victim Compensation

While reviewing USA Today’s lengthy exposé of prosecutorial misconduct, I happened upon the following story, which seemed apt in these times of blaming bankers. “ Va. Bankers Scored a Rare Victory against Prosecutors .”

Oct 19, 2010

Art and Education

June 2001 -- Alexandra York is an internationally published author of books, magazine and newspaper articles, book and movie reviews, and

Oct 19, 2010

Alexandra York

12 Mins

The Wealth and Social Health of America

June 2001 -- [BOOK REVIEW] It's Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years. By Stephen Moore and Julian Simon

Oct 19, 2010

Herbert Grubel

10 Mins

Alexandra York and ART

I have been active in the arts and the ideas that inform them since I was very young. At age three, I began studying ballet, and I was in

Postmodernism is the most recent incarnation and the now-reigning cult of the "anti-Enlightenment," having arisen largely from the ravings

May 2001 -- When I was a boy in school, my father told me, often, that mathematics was the most important subject. "And the thing in

July/August 2001 -- California's attempt to reform its electricity industry will no doubt become a textbook case of market regulation gone awry. For it is the state's recent reconstruction of its utility market, in an attempt to create some form of "regulated competition" (as one prominent energy expert calls it), that has resulted in a highly volatile system unable to ration electricity effectively when the market is somehow shocked. That is what happened last year when a variety of factors—a drought, the price of natural gas, and unseasonably warm weather—caused a decrease in the amount of electricity produced and a spike in wholesale energy prices. When wholesale prices rose, retail prices could not follow, because of how the state had structured its electricity market.

Oct 18, 2010

The Poughkeepsie Accords

June 2001 -- First came the Camp David Accords. Then the Dayton Accords. Now another set of accords is needed to bring two rivals together. I speak of Republicans and Libertarians. The importance of peace was recently pointed out by John J. Miller of National Review. In a column he wrote for Investor's Business Daily (May 9, 2001), Miller analyzed the elections of 1998 and 2000 and came to this conclusion: Had Republicans and Libertarians joined forces during the last two years, the GOP would have had a 52-48 majority in the Senate and also two more seats in the House. Two weeks later Miller's analysis took on even greater significance. If the GOP had had a clear majority in the Senate, Jim Jeffords would probably not have defected, for he would not have been able to shift power to the Democrats and reap the rewards of doing so.

Oct 18, 2010

American Anti-Capitalist Exceptionalism

This story in the Houston Chronicle, “Law Makes It Easier to Blow Whistle on Corporate Crime,” written by Philip Hilder, the lawyer for Enron “whistleblower” Sherron Watkins, explains (though not in so many words) how the new “whistleblower” provisions of Dodd-Frank will turn corporate employees into spies and bounty hunters. One effect, he notes, is that employees will no longer report employee misbehavior to higher-ups but will immediately try to criminalize misbehavior in order to secure some big bucks. “The law's impact could be significant as companies may lose the opportunity to self-correct before a government investigation is launched. It is foreseeable that such an investigation could trigger shareholder or derivative lawsuits against the company. It is equally foreseeable that employees in Watkins' situation will now bypass company protocol and proceed to grab for the golden ring.”

Oct 18, 2010

Self-Judgment Days

September 2001 -- At sundown on September 26, millions of Jewish people begin their religious tradition of fasting on Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement. The fast continues on the 27th and culminates in a large break-the-fast after the sun has set. It is one of the holiest, and most celebrated, holidays of the year for modern Jews. The fast is commanded by a passage in the Torah that is often translated as "Ye shall afflict the soul" (Leviticus 23: 23-32). There are other restrictions imposed by Jewish tradition, such as no sexual relations, no work, and no adornments with one's dress. The traditional idea is that on Yom Kippur one must subject himself to self-punishment and self-denial to seek forgiveness and make himself pitiable in front of God.

Oct 18, 2010

What is the West?

David Gress's subtitle seems to indicate that he has but one set of opponents—those who are hostile to "the idea of the West." In fact

Oct 18, 2010

10 Mins

The Essence of Hayek

Part of the Hoover Institution's "essence" series on great twentieth-century economists, The Essence of Hayek is designed for the student of

Oct 18, 2010

Donald Cooper

2 Mins

The Internet in Closed Societies

Apparently the World Wide Web isn't as worldwide as it could be. The Internet—the centerpiece of the "new economy" technology that was