Dr. Soh: Gender is NOT a Social Construct
08 Mar 2019 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, health economics Tags: political correctness
On a dismal note
08 Mar 2019 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of bureaucracy, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: economics of revolutions
Debunking the Guardian myth that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic
08 Mar 2019 Leave a comment
In a long Guardian op-ed, Peter Beinart argues that anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitic. In his piece (Debunking the myth that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, March 7), Beinart argues that the 30 countries who’ve adopted the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which defines as antisemitic denying Jews the right self-determination, have made a tragic mistake.
First, he claims it’s wrong to suggest it’s racist to deny Jews the right to self-determination by making the following argument:
The Kurds don’t have their own state. Neither do the Basques, Catalans, Scots, Kashmiris, Tibetans, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Lombards, Igbo, Oromo, Uyghurs, Tamils and Québécois, nor dozens of other peoples who have created nationalist movements to seek self-determination but failed to achieve it.
Yet barely anyone suggests that opposing a Kurdish or Catalan state makes you an anti-Kurdish or anti-Catalan bigot.
However, these aren’t currently states, whereas the Jewish state actually exists. Opposing Israel’s right to…
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Jonathan Pie on the Will Smith “colorism” flap
08 Mar 2019 Leave a comment
I wasn’t aware of this controversy, which borders on the risible. It turns out, as reported by the BBC, that actor Will Smith is set to play Richard Williams, the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, in a movie about their lives (dad coached his two daughters).
Although Will Smith is black, he’s apparently not black enough, because he was immediately criticized—on social media, of course, which attracts the entire Offense Brigade—for playing an African-American who is blacker than he is. Some examples of the offense:
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Murrow-McCarthy, 65 years on: Tenacious media myth and a telling reminder
07 Mar 2019 Leave a comment
The 65th anniversary of Edward R. Murrow’s report about Joseph R. McCarthy — extravagantly called “television’s finest half-hour” — falls this week. Over the intervening years, the program has become infused with a tenacious media myth.
Murrow
And yet the program resonates still, particularly in Murrow’s comments about dissent and false allegations.
The program about McCarthy, the senator from Wisconsin who had unsettled the country with allegations about communist infiltration of U.S. government agencies, aired on the CBS “See It Now” newsmagazine show on March 9, 1954.
The myth has it that Murrow, alone in American journalism, had the courage, will, and stature to stand up to McCarthy and expose him as the demagogue he was.
That makes for an appealing trope about media power and the agency of a committed, high-profile journalist. But neither Murrow nor his producer, Fred Friendly, embraced…
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@oxfamnz honestly believes everything is getting worse because we have a few more self-made billionaires
07 Mar 2019 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape
Seed improvement explained
07 Mar 2019 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics Tags: anti-GMOs movement, antiscience left
The approach of @Greenpeace, @NZGreens and @oxfamnz to science and progress has deep roots
07 Mar 2019 Leave a comment
in development economics, economics of regulation, health economics Tags: antiscience left, The Great Enrichment
David Friedman | strong key privacy
07 Mar 2019 Leave a comment
in David Friedman, economics of crime, law and economics, property rights
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