Monday 4 April 2016

Random links for Monday

 

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“The Police Association is backing decriminalisation of drugs as a way of reducing the harm done by drug-dealing gangs.”
Decriminalised drugs 'would reduce gang harm' - RADIONZ.CO.NZ

To be fair, something similar can be said about every UN programme.
Report slams Clark's programme: unable to bring significant change to the world's poor – STUFF

“Of all the wildly impossible assertions made by Donald Trump, the notion that he could eliminate the nation’s $19 trillion in debt in just eight years ranks near the top. Trump suggests he can manage this feat simply by cutting better trade deals; if only it were that easy.”
Trump’s nonsensical claim he can eliminate $19 trillion in debt in eight years – WASHINGTON POST

Imagine Donald Trump with the immense power of the presidency…
Authoritarian-in-chief – Jeff Jacoby, JEFF JACOBY.COM

“Trump is a consummate bully and crony capitalist who has never been shy about using government to coerce people who get in his way.”
Remember when Donald Trump Tried to Bulldoze an Elderly Widow's Home to Build a Limo Parking Lot? – Daniel Bier, FEE

"What happens when the liturgies of our greedy culture train evangelicals to love money and power? What happens when the liturgies of talk radio train evangelicals to love anger and paranoia? What happens when the liturgies of social media train evangelicals to love sensational sound bites more than thoughtful discourse? What happens when the liturgies of modern worship services train evangelicals to love novel, flashy, and glib emotional experiences that feel more like a rally than corporate worship? What happens when the conference culture of the church trains evangelicals to love the big celebrity leader? What happens when preaching that prioritizes relevant, shocking, and brash sermons trains evangelicals to love “tell it like it is” ranting? What happens when the liturgies from the days of the Moral Majority train evangelicals to love America as much as Jesus, which then leads to an incessant longing within churches to ‘make America great again!’
”What happens? Evangelicals in love with Donald Trump happens."
In Love With Donald Trump – Rev. Robert Cunningham, TATES CREEK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

10 things to hate about Bernie Sanders’s economic policies . . .
Bernie’s Bad Ideas – REASON

“We don’t get to dream up a flawless candidate and make him real. We have to choose among the actual alternatives, or enter a protest vote, or choose not to vote. Those are our only alternatives. Given the foregoing facts, Cruz is the clear-cut best choice for America.”
Ted Cruz for President—Craig Biddle, OBJECTIVE STANDARD

“A new report offers a breathtaking estimate of how the rich have gotten richer: 74% of billionaire wealth was gained through socially useless activity.”
Report: 74% Of Billionaire Wealth From Rent-Seeking - SHADOWPROOF.COM

Reminder …
Priceless: How The Federal Reserve Bought The Economics Profession – HUFFINGTON POST, 2013

"Contrary to the popular narrative of the 2008 financial crisis, RegData reveals that in actuality, financial regulation increased 17.9 percent in the years leading up to the crisis."
Did Deregulation Cause the Financial Crisis? Examining a Common Justification for Dodd-Frank – MERCATUS CENTER

“In an engineering feat that could revolutionise the way we buy medicine, researchers have built a refrigerator-sized machine that can synthesize drugs on demand. The machine is capable of producing drugs start-to-finish—from chemical raw materials to consumable medicine—in hours.”
The Dial-a-Drug Machine - SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

“The leftist prophets of doom are always wrong: Hundreds of millions of people have not starved to death after 1970s as this evil guy proclaimed and yet he continues to be lauded by the media and certain governments.”
Paul Ehrlich still prophesying doom, and still wrong – TELEGRAPH

A look at the paper behind the latest climate disaster headlines.
DeConto and Pollard – An Antarctic Science (Fiction?) Disaster - Chip Knappenberger and Pat Michaels, CATO’

“Crop output is up, the world is greener, storms are down in frequency and number, and on and on, despite the forecasts of doom foisted on the public by politicians and media.”
More ‪#‎CO2‬, not less. Let's do our part!”
Climate Surprise: Why More CO2 is Good for the Earth – THE STREAM

And Britons want to save this institution?
Former NHS director dies after operation is cancelled four times at her own hospital – MAIL ONLINE

“It is a gross misconception to view multiculturalism as an effort to enrich education. By reshaping the curriculum, the purveyors of "diversity" in the classroom calculatedly seek to prevent students from grasping the objective value to human life of Western culture — a culture whose magnificent achievements have brought man from mud huts to moon landings.
    “Multiculturalism is no boon to education, but an agent of anti-Western ideology.”
Multiculturalism’s War on Education – Elan Journo, A.R.I.
What is the difference between multiculturalism and genuine racial tolerance? – OBJECTIVIST ANSWERS

No, not all Muslim's are bad, but the problem is with Islam.
Islam, Islamism & Jihadism – STUFF

"To the extent we can improve those skills, we can improve outcomes in delinquency and juvenile crime…"
Learning Soft Skills In Childhood Can Prevent Harder Problems Later – NPR: SHOTS

“My kids go barefoot a lot, and it's only natural.”
Why kids should go barefoot more (and probably adults, too) - WASHINGTONPOST.COM

“When I read Kim John Payne's book, Simplicity Parenting one message leapt off the page. Normal personality quirks combined with the stress of ‘too much’ can propel children into the realm of disorder.”
Simplifying Childhood May Protect Against Mental Health Issues – Tracey Gillett,  HUFFINGTON POST

You don’t have to like every thing she’s done to admire the dynamism of her designs, and the way she helped kick architecture out of the mire of postmodernism.
Zaha Hadid, Groundbreaking Architect, Dies at 65 – NY TIMES

“For all the movie soundtracks that jazz has enlivened over the decades, there are almost no good movies about jazz.”
Sketches of Pain – SLATE

“During its Golden Age, the Muslim world, in the arts and sciences, conducted a love affair with the Greek method of observation-based rationality; but—because such method applied to life’s most fundamental questions threatened religious beliefs—could not, and, consequently, did not adopt it in philosophy. When the advocates of a faith-reason mixture lost the intellectual battle to the advocates of unadulterated faith—as, given the basic premises of each side, they had to—reason, in the Islamic world, was doomed.”
Great Islamic Thinkers vs. Islam – Andrew Bernstein, ANDREW BERNSTEIN.NET

"A major source of men’s earned guilt in regard to philosophy—as well as in regard to their own minds and lives—is failure of introspection. Specifically, it is the failure to identify the nature and causes of their emotions…”
~ Ayn Rand, quoted by Louise Lamontagne

“Ayn Rand also noted that only an ethic of rational selfishness can justify the pursuit of profit that is the basis of capitalism — and that so long as self-interest is tainted by moral suspicion, the profit motive will continue to take the rap for every imaginable (or imagined) social ill and economic disaster. Just look how our present crisis has been attributed to the free market instead of government intervention — and how proposed solutions inevitably involve yet more government intervention to rein in the pursuit of self-interest.
    “Rand offered us a way out — to fight for a morality of rational self-interest, and for capitalism, the system which is its expression. And that is the source of her relevance today.”
Is Rand Relevant? – Yaron Brook, A.R.I.

“Economically illiterate politicians who promote trade wars threaten human cooperation, international harmony, and general prosperity. They threaten peace. Good intentions are meaningless if your trade policies lead to war.”
Why Do the Candidates Want War with China? – Barry Brownstein, FEE

Yes, making food and drink is still the way New Zealanders can afford to buy metals, textiles, machinery, oil and electronics..
This map shows every country’s major export – WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Prices and Production – Ludwig Von Mises, HUMAN ACTION

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“Arguing the unarguable, Watkins and Brook blow the top off established wisdom on the evil of income inequality and the culpability of the 1%. Today’s one-sided debate on income inequality amounts to envy politics, not logic or fact, as these authors demonstrate in their explosive and entertaining book, Equal Is Unfair: America’s Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality. This book shows why the profit motive is noble and shows that government intervention in all areas of our lives―not income inequality―is what’s really threatening the American Dream. A must read for those who desire prosperity for more of the world’s people.”
~ Mallory Factor, NYT Bestselling Author of Shadowbosses and Big Tent, FoxNews Contributor, and Professor Oxford and Buckingham Universities

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[Hat tips and quips: Stephen Hicks, Paul Litterick, Phil Oliver, Michael Strong, Monica Beth, Carbon Dioxide, Mark Tammett, Michael John Cyril Fasher, Tina Nixon, For New Intellectuals, Anoop Verma, Australian Centre for Montessori Studies, Betsy Speicher, Aaron Day, Jeffrey Perren, David Prichard, Nelson Brackin, Maria Montessori Education Foundation]

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