Utopia, you are standing in it!

The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh reports that Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip intend to renew the ‘Great Return March’ rioting (which was suspended in December) next month.

“Maher Muzher, a member of the Commission of the Great March of Return, a group consisting of various Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, said on Saturday that the organizers are planning mass demonstrations near the border with Israel on March 30 to commemorate the second anniversary of the weekly protests, which also coincides with Land Day. […]

Recently, the organizers of the weekly protests decided to change the group’s name to The National Commission for the Great March of Return and Confronting the Deal, reference to US President Donald Trump’s recently unveiled plan for Mideast peace.

Muzher said that work has begun to prepare for the mass demonstrations. “We will continue to work towards mobilizing a large number of people…

A Feb. 4th Guardian ‘expose’ on what they call a “coordinated far-right operation” using Facebook to profit “from disinformation and anti-Islamic hate” included screenshots from Facebook posts illustrating the problem – posts they claim represent “far-right”, hateful fake news.

Though most of the posts cited are indeed fake, and likely motivated by anti-Muslim animus, one of the posts they use in the article to make their point is in fact based on real news.

The Guardian caption read:

“Coordinated Facebook posts pushing disinformation about “celebrations” of the 9/11 terror attacks”.

However, as we demonstrated in a post on Feb. 5th, and in complaint to the Guardian readers’ editor and the two co-authors of the piece, the image from the Facebook post is a still shot from a widely circulated, authentic video from Sept. 11, 2001 that does show Palestinian celebrating the attacks.

After more than two weeks, and several follow-ups…

Back in 2012, I asked readers to pretend they were criminals and to contemplate whether they would want to rob a house with armed residents.

This “IQ test” was designed to help people understand that cost-benefit analysis applies to all types of human behavior, including criminality. Some criminals are smart and some criminals are stupid, but all of them want to get the most benefit at the lowest cost.

And, at the risk of understatement, the possibility of getting shot is definitely a potential cost.

But don’t take my word for it. A Texas TV station has a very revealing story about burglars engaging in cost-benefit analysis.

In the dead of night, when no one is awake — that’s when it’s most likely that a burglar will break into your home. It usually happens in minutes, but of all the house on the block, the thieves picked yours. What…

by Alan Longhurst

Recipe for Australia’s climate ‘truth bomb’:  dubious manipulations of the historical temperature record, ignorance of the climate dynamics of the Southern Hemisphere, and ignorance of Australia’s ecological and social history.

Don Fairbrother: leads lawyer-ed up band of angry locals.

The wind industry is on the defensive as the number of nuisance cases being pursued by noise affected neighbours mounts.

In Victoria, it all started at a place called Bald Hills with a lawyer named Dominica Tannock – and her firm, DST Legal: Litigation Breakout: Victorian Wind Farm Neighbours Pursuing $Millions from Wind Developers for Noise Nuisance

A couple of years back, Dominica’s clients at Bald Hills began pursing the wind power outfit responsible for their thumping, grinding misery under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act, that prohibits noise “which is, or is liable to be, dangerous to health or offensive”.

In “determining whether a nuisance arising from [noise] is, or is liable to be, dangerous to health or offensive regard must not be had to the number of persons affected or that may be affected; and regard may be had…

As readers may recall, the January 29^th edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Midnight News’ included a report (which is still available online) concerning the US administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan that included several misleading statements.

BBC Radio 4 news implies previous existence of Palestinian state in US plan report

BBC reporter Aleem Maqbool told listeners that “They [the Palestinians] have been wanting the return of occupied East Jerusalem to establish their own capital” and spoke of “Palestinians no longer having a border with Jordan and relying entirely on Israel for access”.

As noted here at the time, Maqbool’s use of the phrase “the return of occupied East Jerusalem” inaccurately suggested to listeners that that location had previously been under Palestinian control (rather than under Jordanian occupation for 19 years). His reference to “Palestinians no longer having a border with Jordan” was also misleading to listeners: none of the areas controlled by the…

The “Efficiency Wage” is a New Keynesian theory aimed to highlight a so-called market failure. Gregory Mankiw describes the theory as follows :

There are various theories about how wages affect worker productivity. One efficiency-wage theory holds that high wages reduce labor turnover. Workers quit jobs for many reasons—to accept better positions at other firms, to change careers, or to move to other parts of the country. The more a firm pays its workers, the greater their incentive to stay with the firm. By paying a high wage, a firm reduces the frequency of quits, thereby decreasing the time spent hiring and training new workers.