Want to help send Charles Johnson under the banner of the Molinari Institute to preach Hayekian feminism to Marxian philosophers in the wilds of Oregon? Well, of course you do; it’s what you’ve been dreaming of all your life. Now you can.
Steal This Course!
Check out Stephan Kinsella’s upcoming course on intellectual property. See more info here and here.
New Institute Instituted
I’m pleased to announce that the Auburn Philosophy Department has created (or discovered, one of my colleagues argues) an Institute for Value and the Arts.
We’ll be kicking off the Institute’s sure-to-be-illustrious career with a two-day conference on philosophy of law at the end of next week.
Elementary, My Dear Bilbo
Very good news! After announcing only the other day that he was turning down the role of Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s upcoming Hobbit movie in order to return as Dr. Watson in Steven Moffat’s marvelous Sherlock series, Martin Freeman has apparently been cast as Bilbo after all – which strikes me as absolutely perfect casting. (Remember him also as Arthur Dent, like Bilbo a bewildered everyman thrown into cosmic adventure, in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.) This means he’ll be doing both Bilbo and Watson, I hope?
Addendum: Yup, he’s confirmed as doing both. And if you haven’t seen Sherlock, the first episode is playing on PBS’s Mystery! this weekend.
We Didn’t Stop the Fire, Part 2
More libertarians have been weighing in on the firehouse issue; see Gary Chartier, Art Carden, Tom Knapp, Bob Murphy, and Kevin Carson.
(I’ll reply to Tom’s, and others’, criticisms after I get back from Libertopia, where I’m headed tomorrow.)
In other news, Libérale et Libertaire explains what libertarians should say when asked about the Civil Rights Act.
Down With IP! Long Live C4SIF!
Stephan Kinsella has started a new anti-IP outfit called the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom. The Advisory Board includes Michele Boldrin, Julio Cole, Karl Fogel, David Koepsell, David Levine, Wendy McElroy, Nina Paley, Jeff Tucker, and your humble correspondent. Here’s our mission statement:
The Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF) is dedicated to building public awareness of the manner in which laws and policies impede innovation, creativity, communication, learning, knowledge, emulation, and information sharing. We are for property rights, free markets, competition, commerce, cooperation, and the voluntary sharing of knowledge, and oppose laws that systematically impede or hamper innovation, especially those enforced in the name of defending “intellectual property,” such as patent and copyright; these should be radically reformed or entirely abolished.
We provide news commentary and analysis and scholarly resources from our unique pro-property, pro-market, pro-innovation perspective.
Subscribe to our RSS Feed!
Also check out our cool logo (designed by Stephanie Long – no relation AFAIK). “The bird … symbolizes freedom, while the origami aspect symbolizes man-made creativity”:
And if you copy it we will totally sue your ass.