Utopia, you are standing in it!

John Rawls: Reticent Socialist by William A. Edmundson has provoked a renewed attempt, written up in Jacobin and Catalyst, to link the totemic American liberal political philosopher with an explicitly socialist program to fix the problems of 21^st century capitalism, and especially the domination of the political process by the super-rich. I found the book a powerful and enlightening read. But I think it ultimately shows that Rawls was right not to weigh his philosophy down with an explicit political program, and that socialists have yet to respond effectively to James Buchanan’s exploration of the challenges non-market decision-making – challenges that bite more when states take on more explicit economic tasks. The large-scale public ownership of industry at the core of Edmundson’s democratic socialism is plausibly compatible with a stable, liberal political community in some circumstances but it is unclear how such a regime is supposed to reduce…

by Judith Curry

A careful look at the early 20th century global warming, which is almost as large as the warming since 1950.  Until we can explain the early 20th century warming, I have little confidence IPCC and NCA4 attribution statements regarding the cause of the recent warming.

On the occasion of the publication of the paperback edition of his book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Steve Pinker has published a response to his critics (as well as other reflections) in Quillette. While that’s not the usual kind of place where Steve publishes, it’s all to the good because what other place would publish 10,000 words of reflection, reaction, and rebuttal? And Quillette is worth your attention.

As you probably know, Pinker’s book has been widely attacked, often for no reason I can discern than that people either didn’t read the book or have some psychological aversion to the facts that the world has progressed economically, morally, and in other aspects of well being. And no, Pinker didn’t ignore exigent threats like Trump and environmental degradation, and no, he didn’t limn a continuous rise in well being every year. I’ve defended…

Read the working paper here.

Contact Nick Huntington-Klein here.

Is education a process by which individuals acquire useful skills, or one whereby individuals who already possess skills set themselves apart from others? In theory, the distinction between these two visions of the education process carry radically different implications for whether education is an enterprise worthy of public subsidy. While it’s hard to argue that either theory is completely false, much ink has been spilt in the tussle over whether one or the other predominates. Prior estimates of the proportion of returns to education attributable to signaling range from 10% to 80%.

In practice, argues Nick Huntington-Klein, these models are so difficult to disentangle from one another that there’s no point trying.

Huntington-Klein’s persuasive if somewhat depressing argument begins with a basic mediating variables framework: if there is a causal link between education and individual outcomes, signaling and human…

Should Flying Spaghetti Monster worshipers be allowed to wear colanders on their heads in drivers’ license photos? Maybe so. Today, four conservative justices hinted that someone might want to bring them a good Free Exercise case soon so they can unseat a long-standing and long-criticized case called Employment Division v. Smith. That case, penned by Justice Scalia, had in turn uprooted several decades-worth of precedent that had built up a robust bulwark of religious rights under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.

It’s a funny twist. Liberal justices like Justice William Brennan had built up strong protections under the Free Exercise Clause, such as allowing Amish to pull their children from high school early because of their faith, or allowing Saturday Sabbath worshipers to enjoy certain exceptions to work requirements for unemployment benefits. Then the penultimate conservative justice, Antonin Scalia, dealt a severe blow to those precedents in Smith

The UK Guardian reports Australia’s agriculture minister, David Littleproud, has urged the animal rights group Aussie Farms to remove a map the group published online revealing the locations of farms and abattoirs. Littleproud is concerned that its presence would enable people to conduct acts of terrorism and trespassing.

Aussie Farms denies their map would lead to any such results claiming animal rights activists are peaceful and non-violent. The information they provide, group spokesman Chris Delforce told the Guardian, can be found online anyway.

Littleproud’s concerns are justified since animal rights supporters with ulterior motives can use the map as a means of picking out targets to harass or attack. Plus also, as the agriculture minister points out, there is no way to verify the authenticity of the photos and videos uploaded to the website.

Aussie Farms’s claim that they want to allow consumers to make informed choices is nothing…

The New York Times is rapidly becoming an anti-Israel paper. For every Bari Weiss op-ed (and there’s a good one today), there are several anti-Israeli articles, often filled with lies and misconceptions, like the piece below that appeared Friday. As CAMERA wrote after seeing Alexander’s article:

The New York Times‘s disproportionate focus on criticism of Israel, including its very existence, is hardly a new phenomenon, despite Alexander’s assertion to the contrary. In her op-ed, she argues: “Not so long ago, it was fairly rare to hear this perspective,” i.e., that Israel is committing “horrific human rights abuses” and “legalized discrimination.” (Her position seems to contradict Levy’s [Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy], who argued that “it’s getting more difficult” to publish such views.) In fact, CAMERA’s comprehensive study (“Indicting Israel: New York Times Coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict“) found that in the period from July 2011 through March 2012…

Serious green goes to faux ‘green’ lobby groups peddling wind power.

The only way of explaining the push for subsidised wind and solar is money. And when we say money, we mean hundreds of billions of dollars of other people’s money.

In Australia alone, the Federal Government’s Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target will redirect over $60 billion in subsidies to wind and large-scale solar operators (all drawn from Australian power consumers and added to their power bills) over the life of that scheme.

Although, to use the term ‘scheme’ is to add varnish to one of the greatest scams in history.

Rocketing power prices and a grid on the brink of collapse are the only ‘dividends’ to be returned from the LRET, the largest single industry subsidy scheme in the history of the Commonwealth.

Australia’s obsession with chaotically intermittent wind and solar means not only spiralling retail power prices, but…