After the Supreme Court declared an end to the use of race criteria in college admissions, many administrators pledged to find a way around the decision. Schools are using essay prompts to flag race while rejecting the use of standardized testing to boost diversity in admissions. In the meantime, these schools are rejecting students with […]
A global team of gambling whizzes hatched a scheme to snag the jackpot; millions of tickets in 72 hoursBy Joe Wallace and Katherine Sayre of The WSJ. Excerpts:”There were 25.8 million potential number combinations. The tickets were $1 apiece. The jackpot was heading to $95 million. If nobody else also picked the winning numbers, the…
Peter Dunne writes – A tense and intriguing political chess game is being played out in Parliament’s Privileges Committee at present. It is a game none of those involved can afford to lose, yet inevitably someone will. On the face of it, the issue at hand is whether the spontaneous haka performed by three Te […]
The Canadian election is on Monday (Tuesday NZ time) and the Liberal Party has gone from being 20% behind a few months ago and facing a loss of well over 100 seats to leading in most polls and projected to win re-election. They may not get a majority, which needs 172 seats. Current projections have […]
The Nazi regime, targeted numerous groups during its reign from 1933 to 1945. Among those persecuted were Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination whose beliefs and practices placed them in direct opposition to Nazi ideology. Unlike many other victims of the regime, Jehovah’s Witnesses were not targeted based on race or ethnicity, but because of their […]
Building on my four-part series (here, here, here, and here) explaining the case against socialism and my five-part series (here, here, here, here, and here) on socialism in the modern world, today’s column will look at the economic argument against that statist ideology. Practically speaking, this seems unnecessary. After all, we can simply look at […]
Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a major parental rights case in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a challenge to Montgomery County (Md.) requiring their children to participate in instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes. It is a case that could produce sweeping changes across the county as parents object to the use of public […]
By Paul Homewood The King has attracted criticism for becoming directly involved in political issues. He has shared a rare message on energy transition, which was read by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband at a summit focused on the future of energy security.
Thomas Catenacci reports at Washington Free Beacon: Trump Admin Axes Biden-Era Climate Office John Kerry Used To Assault Fossil Fuels. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. State Department official says climate office was ‘captured by ideology’ The State Department is formally removing the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, the […]
Absolute pacifism—the belief that all forms of violence and warfare are unjustifiable—is morally appealing in theory but dangerously flawed in practice. History vividly illustrates situations where such unwavering commitment to nonviolence could lead to disastrous consequences. George Orwell, the renowned British writer and political thinker, recognized this peril during World War II, arguing compellingly against […]
The NYT’s associate editor Lauren Jackson is doing a year-long series on “belief” for the paper. In her latest piece (click below to read, or find it archived here), she pulls out all the stops, averring the several points that we’ve seen appearing over and over again in the MSM. To wit: 1.) America needs […]
My latest paper, Pandemic Preparation Without Romance, has just appeared at Public Choice. Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic, despite its unprecedented scale, mirrored previous disasters in its predictable missteps in preparedness and response. Rather than blaming individual actors or assuming better leadership would have prevented disaster, I examine how standard political incentives—myopic voters, bureaucratic gridlock, and […]
Vernon Smith reviews Joe Stiglitz’s book The Road to Freedom: Stiglitz did work in the abstract intellectual theoretical tradition of neoclassical economics showing how the standard results were changed by asymmetric or imperfect information. He is oblivious, however, to the experimental lab and field empirical research showing that agent knowledge of all such information is […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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