When Folly Is Forever
By Adam Keiper
Posted: Thursday, October 22, 2009
Before the digital era, remembrance was expensive: recording the past required trained scribes or artists in ancient times, and even in recent centuries incurred high costs. But now, argues Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, forgetting is too costly: we don't even bother deleting old e-mails or digital photographs, since doing so would waste our time. How much should we worry about the constant presence of our digital pasts? And do we need to relearn how to forget?  [Read More]

Obama's Case Against Obama
Why the president's Notre Dame speech should hearten lifers . . . a little.
By Yuval Levin
Posted: Thursday, May 21, 2009
For all the controversy surrounding his invitation, President Obama's commencement address at the University of Notre Dame actually offered pro-lifers some causes for optimism by unintentionally clarifying the profound and growing weakness of the case for America's radical abortion laws.  [Read More]

Stop ObamaCare
The Democrats' plan would displace tens of millions of happily insured Americans and exacerbate the worst elements of the current system.
By James C. Capretta, Yuval Levin
Posted: Friday, May 15, 2009
President Obama and his congressional allies are pursuing a mammoth, complex, hugely expensive, ill-designed reform that is not likely to be popular when understood.  Conservatives have a very real chance at stopping it if they highlight its key weaknesses and supply a superior alternative.  [Read More]

It's Not Theft, It's Pastiche
College students plagiarize routinely, especially from the Internet.
By Christine Rosen
Posted: Monday, April 20, 2009
In surveys, nearly 70% of college students admit to having taken material from the Internet without properly crediting its source. Ms. Blum comes not to scold these miscreants but to understand their motives. "If more than half of all students plagiarize," she reasons, "then there is clearly some cultural influence urging them to do so."  [Read More]

Machines That Won't Shut Up
By Christine Rosen
Posted: Monday, April 13, 2009
It would be wonderful if the text-to-speech revolution enhanced our brain's functioning, causing us to learn faster and remember more. But somehow a major cognitive transformation seems doubtful. And there are reasons for concern, too -- not least the effect on other aspects of life as those strange artificial voices compete for our attention and require us to enter feedback loops normally reserved for, well, actual human beings.  [Read More]