A Miami Herald column suggests that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez should be awarded the Milton Friedman Prize for advancing liberty and free-markets. The rationale? No other head of state has done so much in such a short time to wreck his country’s economy, and to discourage his neighbors from engaging in the kind of finger-waving populism […]

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A piece on Enter Stage Right looks at the increasing uneasyness of the conservative/libertarian coalition that passes for “the right” in America. He notes that things are being shaken up as the hot-button issues of the day change. I’ve written a bit on this myself, and predicted some coalitional juggling as military adventurism, biotechnology, and […]

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Brooke reports on Texas lawmakers who’ve gone AWOL in order to prevent a quorum and stall passage of a redistricting plan that would hand new seats to Republicans. Clearly, this is a clash of titans in the realm of sleazy political maneuvering.

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I was a little surprised to see that the new On Nozick from the Wadsworth Philosophers Series includes a reference to my 2001 interview. I’ve only skimmed it so far, but first reaction: it’s not as awful on face as the A.V. Lacey survey from Princeton’s series, and it looks like an excellent introduction to […]

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Atrios thinks that folks who are connecting the Blair bruhaha to affirmative action must be bigots. Ditto CalPundit. I don’t know. Folks point out that nobody raised the issue of race where various other recent fabulists and plagiarists were concerned, and that’s true enough. But that’s because race wasn’t already an issue in those other […]

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Yep, it’s that time again: Thursday, May 22, the Cato Blog Mafia invites you to join the D.C. metro area’s webloggers, blog readers, and assorted sexy people for the fourth occasional Blogorama on Kalorama at the scenic Rendezvous Lounge. Every one so far has been a blast in my book. Check out some photos from […]

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Cute line from il capo di tutti bloggo: Bloomberg seems to want to turn New York into Singapore — only without the efficiency or prosperity.

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Ok, I’m now able to divulge the news mentioned a few posts ago: At the end of May, I will be leaving my much-beloved Cato Institute to take on the job of assistant editor at Reason magazine. In other news, Cato will now be looking for a new staff writer. (The job description should be […]

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Over on The Corner they’re taking potshots at libertarians with the predictable invocation of Emerson’s dictum that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” But as Glen Whitman once pointed out to me, back when we were roomies in Manhattan, that just ain’t what Emerson meant. In other words, he wasn’t saying there […]

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My friend Aaron over at SecureTheory has a fascinating post on the use of distributed networks to safeguard sensitive locations. And no, it’s not just TIPS with fancier jargon. Aaron thinks there’s not much point to it, because they still intend to pay the distributed camera-watchers. I’m a little more sanguine about the project, because […]

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