Utopia, you are standing in it!

Genetically altered insects could save millions from malaria but are anathema to ‘agroecologists.’

A child under 5 dies from malaria about every two minutes world-wide. Yet radical environmentalists are mobilizing against an important measure to stop mosquitoes from spreading the disease.

Target Malaria is a Gates Foundation-supported research effort to develop genetically modified sterile mosquitoes. Its approach is to drive modified genes through a mosquito population to produce sterile females or cause the breeding of only males. The goal is to reduce mosquito populations so much that the malaria parasite cannot be spread from person to person.

This spring Target Malaria ran a carefully controlled experimental release in Burkina Faso. The test followed years of research and similar successful releases in Latin America and the Caribbean. None of that mattered to the coalition of 40 leading environmental and “civil society” organizations demanding the project be shut down immediately.

The activist…

Here we have Michelle Goldberg, a New York Times staff writer, making a deeply misleading argument about why anti-Zionism isn’t always anti-Semitism. And indeed, I agree with that premise, but not with Goldberg’s interpretation of what has happened and what’s happening now. The kind of “anti-Zionism” Goldberg apparently favors is indeed anti-Semitism, for it’s a recipe for the elimination of Israel and a bloodbath of Jews.

First, Goldberg notes that both Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the two new female Muslim Congresswomen, are in favor of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, which is true. Tlaib, however, didn’t endorse BDS until after she was elected (that’s a slimy move), and even before her election she wasn’t in favor of even a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine problem.

Goldberg seems to favor BDS as a way to solve the issue—by pressuring Israel. But she doesn’t dwell on the fact that BDS, and…

If you don’t know about B.D.S. (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement, the New York Times article below, from Saturday, will give you the basics. As for the title question, well, it’s not answered; the article gives the views of both supporters and detractors of BDS.

I’ve always thought the movement was anti-Semitic, but even if you don’t agree, it’s clearly aimed not just at pressuring Israel to arrive at a land settlement with Palestine—an aim, if not a tactic, that I agree with—but to eliminate the state of Israel completely, at least as a Jewish state. In the end, the movement’s aims will result in a big “Israel” with an Arab majority, and that would be the finish, not just of a Jewish state, but of the Jews themselves. And that is the movement’s aim.

Here are the aims of BDS as the Times shows them:

via climate science

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July 29, 2019 at 01:30AM

(Richard Holbrooke)

Perhaps the most colorful and able diplomat in American history has been Richard Holbrooke.  The possessor of an irascible personality who was not the most popular individual with colleagues and presidents that he served but was a highly effective strategic thinker and negotiator with a number of important accomplishments to his credit.  The success that stands out the most is his work that produced the Dayton Accords in 1995 that brought closure somewhat to the civil war that raged in the former Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s.  But he should also be given credit for his work as Ambassador to the United Nations, Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs, and his last position as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan for which he gave his life.

Holbrooke exhibited a powerful ego that did not always play well with others be they friend or foe, but in the end,  he…

A few months ago, I gently chided scolded like a drill sergeant sociologists for not building a platform for creating policy influence. I noted that economists taught policy analysis in the curriculum, hired economist PhDs with policy experience, founded organizations to spread economic ideas and sociologists … kind of didn’t.

People have asked me many times since then, “do we need to copy economists?” My answer is “you can learn a lot from them.” Notice that I did not say that we need to completely mimic them. That would be crazy as economics is simply different than sociology. They are essentially applied decision scientists while sociologists have a more holistic and multi-method approach. Economists are very comfortable in the halls of power and sociologists tend to be oppositional in attitude.

Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t learn a lot. What are the lessons? Here are a few simple ones:

• Actionable…