Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Carnival of Links

I collect interesting links, group them by topic, and dump each related set of links into a draft post. Then, using the links as a starting point, I convert the draft to a full-blown post, as I have time.

I still have many interesting links in my collection that I probably won't build into full-blown posts. Rather than hoard or discard those links, I present them here, organized by topic and with brief descriptions.

Liberty and the State

Mere Libertarianism: Blending Hayek and Rothbard: Agree or not with the author's premises and conclusions, it's an informative comparison of the two main schools of libertarianism.

Anarchism: Further Thoughts: An analysis of the varieties of anarchism and the faults of each.

Tax Rates Around the World: A brief post about the disincentivizing effects of high tax rates.

Paternalism and Psychology: A different look at the wrongness of "libertarian paternalism."

Principles and Pragmatism: Why one libertarian blogger prefers idealism to pragmatism.

Lochner v. New York: A Centennial Perspective: (go to download link for full paper) The author of this long paper suggests that Lochner's much reviled "substantive due process" holding is in fact the basis for key Supreme Court decisons (e.g., Griswold v. Connecticut, Roe v. Wade, and Lawrence v. Texas).

Terrorism, War, and Related Matters

Apply the Golden Rule to Al Qaeda?: Why it makes no sense to apply Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to terrorist detainees.

Captain Ed's archive on Saddam's Documents: A collection of posts about Saddam's WMDs and terrorist ties.

The ACLU and Airport Security: How the ACLU is trying to depict behavior profiling as racial profiling.

Infinite Hatred: Considers and rejects the idea that it is futile to kill terrorists.

They, the People: An essay that parses the degrees of conflict and suggests that all-out war is the best way to change the hearts and minds of the enemy.

The Brink of Madness: A Familiar Place and The Mideast's Munich: War with the Mullahs Is Coming: Two persuasive arguments that the West's present mindset is like that which prevailed at the time of the Munich Agreement in 1938.

Sustaining Our Resolve: A sober but upbeat assessment of the prospects for the Middle East and the war on terror, by George P. Schultz.

Is the Bush Doctrine Dead?: An analysis by Norman Podhoretz.

Code Red: In which the writer tackles several anti-war and anti-anti-terror shibboleths.

Presidential Signing Statements

Bush's Tactic of Refusing Laws Is Probed: An article about a panel of the American Bar Association's so-called probe of Bush's signing statements. (This WaPo article is anti-Bush, of course, but it sets the stage for the next two links.)

Enforcing the Constitution: A brief post defending signing statements.

The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: A longer analysis of signing statements that also defends them.

Ideas

The Fifty Worst (and Best) Books of the Century: A distinguished panel of libertarian-conservatives compiles a list of the worst and best. The lists of worsts seems about right. The list of bests includes too many boring "classics."

"Fake but Accurate?" Science: A scathing indictment of the "hockey stick" curve -- which purports to show that global warming is only a recent phenomenon -- its author, and its coterie of defenders.

The Problem of the Accuracy of Economic Data: An exposition of the spurious precision of economic statistics and analyses based on them.