Like a gilded coating that makes the dullest things glitter, today’s thin veneer of political populism covers a grotesque underbelly of growing inequality that’s hiding in plain sight...

In parliament, Alan Duncan for the government has just rejected yesterday’s stunning result at the International Court of Justice, where British occupation of the Chagos Islands was found unlawful by a majority of 13 to 1, with all the judges from EU countries amongst those finding against the UK.

In The Politics of Chinese Media: Consensus and Contestation, Bingchun Meng explores how the media industry in China has shaped and been shaped by different agents, showing how consensus and contestation have emerged in different locations. In offering a subtle account that aims to unsettle the oversimplified academic discourse that applies Western theory to Chinese contexts, this book lays a solid foundation for future research on Chinese media, finds Meng Hin Ng.

Critics say the U.S. can't afford a Green New Deal. AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Not thinking much about your own death? You might have your own personal avoidance strategy.

The Global Challenges Research Fund has engaged many researches with Overseas Development Aid and the auditing and assessment infrastructures associated with it. In this post Valeria Izzi and Becky Murray outline how researchers can adopt a value for money (VfM) approach that can justify North/South research projects in a way that accounts for economy, efficiency, effectiveness, as well equity. Since […]

The gambler, the quantum physicist and the juror all reason about probabilities: the probability of winning, of a radioactive atom decaying, of a defendant’s guilt. But despite their ubiquity, experts dispute just what probabilities are. This leads to disagreements on how to reason about, and wit...

By Nevin Climenhaga

Read at Aeon

Trying to make sense of Trump policies.

More proof (as if you needed it) that CalPERS is clueless.

By J.D. ALT Whenever I get frustrated—which is quite often these days—I vent some steam (and feel somewhat better) simply by imagining a response that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might give to some conservative pundit when they … Continue reading →

The post New Wordology appeared first on New Economic Perspectives.

The right-wing backlash against the Green New Deal has begun, most especially in the USA. The Washington Post ran a lengthy editorial yesterday making clear its opposition to the Green New Deal. It said:

WE FAVOR a Green New Deal to save the planet. We believe such a plan can be efficient, effective, focused and achievable.

Georgie Pell has been the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice! I know this because Andy Bolt told me. Andy Bolt knows this because this isn’t the first time that old Tiger Pell has been accused and he hasn’t been convicted before. As we all know if someone is accused of something more than…

It’s Jackie Gleason’s birthday. Jackie was born on this day in 1916 in Brooklyn, and like many rough-and-tumble kids who came of age during Prohibition,  he cut his teeth on bootleg gin before he hit his teens. Once he’d made his scratch, however, he immediately switched to Scotch.

M’lady...we humbly submit our sole wish that the earth NOT be ravaged and sown with salt for future generations.

It’s Occam’s Razor, really.

A month to go to Brexit and Corbyn finally, and reluctantly, endorses the idea of a second referendum on the issue, as he promised he would last September.

But, he does so knowing three things. The first is that there is no time for such a referendum to take place now. Second, in that case no one thinks that this is now the priority, and it will therefore not win support in Parliament at present. And third, the issue now is whether an extension to Article 50 is needed, meaning that Labour has missed the issue on Brexit, yet again.

2019-02-26 00:00:00 | Report
Louis Brailsford, Annika Dean, Greg Bourne, Andrew Stock

Climate Council of Australia

[field_teaser]

Built environment, Natural environment

2019-01-03 00:00:00 | Article
Isabel Hilton

Yale Environment 360

[field_teaser]

Built environment, Politics

tumblr_pkv2l8Tbjs1xrhrgmo1_1280.jpg

Introduction to the theory and practice of self-management.

Together, we can create a world worth living in!

read more

Is May about to make a big Brexit U-turn or just fake one to hold a Cabinet revolt in abeyance?

Cardinal Pell has been convicted and everyone I want to call is dead. Elation slid into rage. That instant of ‘we got him’ flashed and passed and made way for instants of ‘you bastards, you absolute bastards’ with electric ease. Here was a man so cloaked in authority, sanctity, and righteousness for so long by so many that his abuses of power—his abuses of children—went unchecked, unmarked, and unmasked for half a century. Not that there weren’t whispers. Confessions. Men half-shadowed by curtains, faces blank with the knowing of what had been done. Loud sounds made quiet.

2019-02-05 00:00:00 | Article
Fred Pearce

Yale Environment 360

[field_teaser]

Built environment, Natural environment

Not surprisingly, climate change, if not checked, will have catastrophic economic effects.

(source, sort of)

2019-02-08 00:00:00 | Journal article
Yuli Shan, Ya Zhou, Jing Meng, Zhifu Mi, Jingru Liu, Dabo Guan

[field_teaser]

Built environment

2019-01-24 00:00:00 | Report
Angela Daly, S. Kate Devitt, Monique Mann

Institute of Network Cultures

[field_teaser]

Communication, Science

“Começamos a revolução política na campanha de 2016, e agora é hora de levar essa revolução adiante”, declarou Bernie Sanders na última semana, ao anunciar sua candidatura a presidente dos Estados Unidos. Vinte e quatro horas depois, ele já havia arrecadado impressionantes 6 milhões de dólares de mais de 200 mil colaboradores.

Rock on.

2014-11-01 00:00:00 | Report
Debbie Wosskow

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (United Kingdom)

[field_teaser]

Culture, Economics

2018-11-28 00:00:00 | Report
Jacki Holland, Helen Forster, Yvonne Lay, Sarah Squire

Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand

[field_teaser]

Social issues

Election Year – More Political Traction for Indigenous Reconciliation? As the slow momentum towards this year’s Australian national elections continues, there are still exciting opportunities for a deepening of reconciliation with the Australian Indigenous communities. Labor’s Reconciliation Plan rekindles the Whitlamesque Spirit and will be a vital campaigning asset in marginal electorates across Northern Australia.…

2019-01-11 00:00:00 | Journal article
Elizabeth Delmelle

[field_teaser]

Built environment, Social issues

from David Ruccio Mainstream economists continue to insist that workers benefit from economic growth, because wages rise with productivity. Here’s the argument as explained by Donald J. Boudreaux and Liya Palagashvili: Firms cannot afford a misalignment of their workers’ pay and productivity increases—the employees will move to other firms eager to hire these now more productive […]

2019-02-25 00:00:00 | Report
Georgina Bowyer

Carnegie UK Trust

[field_teaser]

Communication, Science

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We are supporting a cohort of promising projects that promote good work and robustly support economic security in the UK.

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Lindsay Graham unmasked

by digby

Although there’s never been a strong tradition of cycling in Australia's capitals like there is in many European cities, the availability of battery powered bicycles and scooters is potentially a game-changer.

Trump's pathetic "emoluments" contributions

by digby

Between morning and evening. Perfect.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein may feel like she was treated unfairly by young activists who have hammered her for not backing the Green New Deal resolution, but she has plenty of company. In upstate New York, Utah, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, voters who feel a much greater sense of urgency than their elected officials have been reacting furiously to politicians who say that the attempt to turn the fossil fuel-based economy around in the next 12 years simply isn’t realistic.

This is part of a major series called Advancing Australia, in which leading academics examine the key issues facing Australia in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election and beyond. Read the other pieces in the series here.

Today's Water Cooler: Trump, Sanders, Clinton, AOC, reparations, Democrat consultants, national activity, manufacturing, wholesale trade, moderation and its scaling woes, climate emergency, carbon tax/cap-and-trade, selling the GND, pay gap, the 152nd Pokémon, Tomi Ungerer

It isn't actually pragmatic to devise costly solutions that won't work, and don't even have a better chance of getting through our shitty political sausage maker than ones that will.

By the way, I happen to be at Niskanen's conference on reviving moderation, at which New Democrats co-founder Elaine Kamarck has suggested that we should give up on cap & trade & carbon taxation - not politically "helpful" she said - and focus on CO2 capture & adaptation.

Labour released a statement today, saying that they will support a “people’s vote” on any possible Brexit deal: We will also be backing the Cooper-Letwin amendment to rule out a no deal outcome. One way or another, we will do everything in our power to prevent no deal and oppose a damaging Tory Brexit based on Theresa May’s overwhelmingly rejected deal. That’s why, in line with our conference policy, we are committed to also putting forward or supporting an amendment in favour of a public vote to prevent a damaging Tory Brexit being forced on the country.

He doesn't need no stinking strategy. He has MAGA!

by digby

MMTists often like to position themselves as the only ones to properly understand the ‘operational realities’ of modern monetary systems. Ironically, many of the claims made by MMTists on this topic are misleading at best. One common rhetorical tactic that I’ve noticed they employ, which often catches their critics out, is to use the term […]

Our “fighting chance” against climate change
ipoole
Mon, 02/25/2019 - 11:09

Here’s the latest Mini-Heap.

The writer Graeme Curry has died at the age of 54.

Graeme Curry wrote the 1988 Doctor Who story The Happiness Patrol, starring Sylvester McCoy as The Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace.

1. Adam Smith’s 1759 Rebuke of the Slave Trade by Daniel B. Klein (George Mason University – Department of Economics)

Suppose that instead of one shepherd boy, there are a few dozen. They are tired of the villagers dismissing their complaints about less threatening creatures like stray dogs and coyotes. One of them proposes a plan: they will start using the word “wolf” to refer to all menacing animals. They agree and the new usage catches on. For a while, the villagers are indeed more responsive to their complaints. The plan backfires, however, when a real wolf arrives and cries of “Wolf!” fail to trigger the alarm they once did.

A Questionable Experiment in Motion Sickness

McDonald’s customer flies into rage over apple pie not being ready, gets arrested

(Thanks to Kevin Smith and pharmaross)

A man is being sued by a Chinese airline after throwing coins into the engine for “good luck”.

(Thanks to pharmaross)

Hezbollah’s defeat of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the July war of 2006 was heroic and an essential redress to the Middle East power balance. I supported Hezbollah’s entirely defensive action then and I continue to applaud it now. That, beyond any shadow of a doubt, makes me guilty ofn the criminal offence of “glorifying terrorism”, now that Sajid Javid has proscribed Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. I am unrepentant and look forward to the prosecution.

In the UK, we have various centres dedicated to education such as The Eden Project and more recently, The National Centre for Writing. Why don’t we have a similar centre for Careers? Surely, we should prepare our children effectively for the world of work?

socialismnotstatism.jpg

A spectre haunts the world today. It is the spectre of “socialism”. Commentators of left and right, of reactionary or reformist inclination, agree that “after three decades in the wilderness, socialism is back.”

Austerity in Europe and the global slowdown

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) measures payroll employment with their establishment survey—or, more formally, their Current Employment Statistics survey. The establishment survey records the number of jobs on company payrolls on the 12th of each month. The recent partial U.S. government shutdown presents a good opportunity to look at how shifts in government payrolls might affect payrolls overall.

As the UK moves into the reality of a post-Brexit state, what should that mean - if anything - for the Constitution?

In Alison Bechdel: Conversations, editor Rachel R. Martin collates a number of interviews with the cartoonist Alison Bechdel, known for such works as Dykes to Watch Out For and the graphic novel Fun Home.

  Respiro il silenzio Dei tuoi pensieri Un giorno sarai Tutto quello che speri

We would like to apologise for the delay.
This is due to the wrong kind of deal,
which indeed is any kind of deal
that might make your forward journey possible
at this time.
 
Passengers are advised to seek
alternative countries
where available.

We would like to apologise for the delay.
This is due to a mechanical fault
in the machinery of government.
A team of engineers is working to fix this problem.
We hope to continue on our journey
in the autumn of 2055.

Citing the ecological damage caused by the frequent international flights made by academics, Jürgen Gerhards asks: do academics really need to travel so much? He then presents four simple changes that could be made to reduce the environmental impact of international academic travel.  Students and lecturers alike are worried about global warming and related climate change. With a clear ecological […]

Over the past few decades there has been great interest in taking formal finance to households around the world, especially in emerging economies. Using micro-level data from six emerging economies – China, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Thailand, and South Africa – this column creates harmonised measures of household assets and liabilities. The findings suggest that there is still much work to be done to truly financialise household balance sheets.