2009-09-04 Links & Comments via Twitter

• ROSS DOUTHAT on "THE AGE OF REAGAN: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980-1989" By Steven F. Hayward in the NYTRB http://ow.ly/o7NH #

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2009-08-28 Links & Comments via Twitter

• Seeking suggestions of "important novels written by American conservatives or that espouse a conservative point of view." http://ow.ly/nd2e #

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2009-08-26 Links & Comments via Twitter

• PJTV: The Age of Reagan on Silicon Graffiti: @EdDriscoll interviews Steven Hayward http://pjtv.com/v/2361 #tcot #

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2009-08-25 Links & Comments via Twitter

• Steven Hayward (The Age of Reagan) discusses Ronald Reagan's "idiosyncratic and unorthodox" conservatism w/ John J. Miller http://ow.ly/li3l #

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2009-08-21 Links & Comments via Twitter

• Listen to @hunterbaker on Prime Time America discussing The End of Secularism at 5 central: http://bit.ly/JNrti #

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2009-08-20 Links & Comments via Twitter

• RT: @hunterbaker: The End of Secularism is now available: http://tinyurl.com/lu4nmf #

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2009-08-11 Links & Comments via Twitter

• Win a Copy of Michelle Malkin’s New Book "Culture of Corruption" at Red State. http://ow.ly/jHTE #
• If @ezraklein endorses a health care book (THE HEALING OF AMERICA) that is enough reason to question its conclusions http://bit.ly/rATou #

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2009-08-10 Links & Comments via Twitter

• Red State review of “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do To Stop Them” http://tinyurl.com/l649e7 #
• Books in a Blog World http://ow.ly/jyAR #
• One of my favorite journals, The City, is now available in a fancy high tech online version. A lot of good content. http://ow.ly/jD9r #

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2009-08-04 Links & Comments via Twitter

• This account & blog has not been as active as I'd hoped; I am going to try & restart it by offering daily links that I hope you find useful. #
• John J. Miller talks w/ Jay Richards about Money, Greed, & God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem http://tinyurl.com/n5cmwf #
• JOHN R. COYNE JR. reviews THE HOUSING BOOM AND BUST By Thomas Sowell for the Washington Times http://tinyurl.com/laqhmd #
• Thought this might be of interest: "I get it, you hate Amazon & the Kindle. So what?" via @CollectedMisc http://bit.ly/7LDGs #

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Afternoon Book Links Worth Reading

Image via Wikipedia

–> Rand’s Atlas Is Shrugging With a Growing Load

Imagine a novel of more than a thousand pages, published half a century ago. The author doesn’t have a talk-radio show and has been dead for 27 years.

As for the storyline, it is beyond dated: Humorless executives fight with humorless public officials over an industry that is, today, almost irrelevant to the U.S. economy – - railroads. The prose itself is a disconcerting mixture of philosophy, industrial policy, and bodice-ripping: “The wind blew her hair to blend with his. She knew why he had wanted to walk through the mountains tonight.”

In short, you would think “Atlas Shrugged” might be long forgotten.

Instead, Ayn Rand’s novel is remembered more than ever. This year the book is selling at a faster rate than last year. Last year, sales were about 200,000, higher than any year before that, including 1957, when the book was published.

–> Get Off My (Intellectual) Property

No one should have had to write Digital Barbarism. It’s common sense that copyright laws are important: They protect the creators of art against theft, making it possible for writers, composers, filmmakers, and countless others to pursue their callings full-time. Without copyright protection, we could only enjoy works produced for free — by hobbyists, the very rich, those supported by charity, and those dedicated enough to starve for their crafts. Not to mention the obvious immorality of taking a work that someone labored to create, without permission and without payment, and not to mention that the Constitution explicitly encourages Congress to protect copyright.

But someone did need to write this book, because today there is a war on copyright. The music industry fought the opening battle against Napster (a web site full of copyrighted music available for free download) in the late 1990s. Napster lost, but infringers still won: Better piracy software soon came out, making it possible for users to download files from each other, rather than from a central website. Since then, the problem has spread to movies and books.

The surprising part isn’t that people like to take things without paying for them, but that they think they’re morally entitled to do so. An army of activists, ranging from bratty teenagers to tenured academics, has made the case that copyright itself is outdated or flat-out counterproductive. Some economists have even claimed (ridiculously) that piracy doesn’t hurt sales.

Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto charges fiercely into some of this war’s meanest fights, and the author, Mark Helprin, principally a novelist, is a terrific writer. He explains the history of copyright, offers interesting (if not always strictly relevant) anecdotes from his personal life, and bats down many of the anti-copyright mob’s arguments — even the silly ones he finds in Internet comment sections.

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