Utopia, you are standing in it!

In a Guardian op-ed published today (“Labour’s antisemitism code is the gold standard for political parties”, July 12) British Labour Party official John Lansman defended his party against criticismbynearly every major UK Jewish group over their new policy on antisemitism, which departs significantly from the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.

(You can see a short rebuttal of his risible claim that Labour’s policy is actually stronger than the IHRA Working Definition here.)

In an attempt to justify his party’s decision not to label it antisemitic to charge that the state of Israel is a racist endeavor, Landsman alleged that the state is in fact deeply racist, citing as evidence the following:

And ethnic minorities within Israel have been treated appallingly, such as the Sudanese and Eritrean refugees who have been detained and deported, and questions over the treatment of Ethiopian women, including allegations…

Federal deposit insurance grew out of a turbulent time in American history: the Great Depression. During two waves of bank failures in the 1930s an astonishing 9,000 banks closed and millions of depositors lost some or all of their savings. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) began operations in 1934, insuring deposit accounts up to $5,000 per person (roughly $80,000 in today’s money).

The bank failure rate then dropped dramatically and never again rose anywhere close to the level of the 1930s. And such bank failures that have occurred have cost insured depositors nothing; many uninsured depositors were made whole as well. Bank runs are a distant memory, revived occasionally by reruns of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Yet it may be premature to pronounce deposit insurance a success. It can take a long time for an unsustainable program to unravel: Witness Social Security and Medicare. Seventy-five years after the…

When the BBC News website published its July 10^th report concerning Israeli actions in light of three months of arson attacks from the Gaza Strip, it also offered readers some background reading.

Titled “Israel-Palestinian conflict: Life in the Gaza Strip“, that backgrounder first appeared in November 2012, was revamped in July 2014 and has been amended on numerous occasions since then, most recently in May 2018.

In its second paragraph the backgrounder tells BBC audiences that:

“It [the Gaza Strip] is under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and between 2007 and 2014 was ruled by the militant Islamist group Hamas. They won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 but then had a violent rift with the rival Fatah faction.” [emphasis added]

Obviously those claims are not accurate: the PA does not exercise control over the territory and Hamas rule did not end in 2014.

Readers are…

H/T Brett Keane for pointing to research by Paul Kench regarding viability of Pacific islands. Paul S. Kench, Murray R. Ford & Susan D. Owen published: 09 February 2018 Patterns of island change and persistence offer alternate adaptation pathways for atoll nations Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Sea-level rise and climatic change threaten the existence of atoll nations. Inundation and erosion are expected to render islands uninhabitable over the next century, forcing human migration. Here we present analysis of shoreline change in all 101 islands in the Pacific atoll nation of Tuvalu. Using remotely sensed data, change is analysed over the past four decades, a period when local sea level has risen at twice the global average (~3.90 ± 0.4 mm.yr−1). Results highlight a net increase in land area in Tuvalu of 73.5 ha (2.9%), despite sea-level rise, and land area increase in eight of nine atolls. Island change has lacked…

There have been times in history when young people accomplished incredible deeds of courage and valor. One of these was the remarkable teen-ager, Lady Jane Grey.

Lady Jane Grey also known as The Nine Days Queen of England, was de facto monarch of England for just over a week in 1553.

Executed on 12 February 1554, Lady Jane Grey’s claimed rule of less than two weeks in July 1553 is the shortest rule of England in the history of the country.

Lady Jane had a reputation as one of the most learned women of her day, and she has been described as having one of “the finest female minds of the century.”  She was fluent in French, Italian, Latin, and Greek, and could also read Hebrew. She was a real child prodigy. Through the teachings of her tutors she became a reformer.

Born around 1537, Jane was the eldest daughter…

An explosive new report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that efforts to recycle plastic are a major cause of the marine litter problem. The report, written by public health expert Dr Mikko Paunio, sets out the case for incinerating waste rather than trying to recycle it. The below video gives an overview of Dr. Paunio’s findings.