Religious Freedom

 HERE is an article which goes into this subject in quite a bit of detail.

A few points.

1. Christian schools which teach and operate according to the bible are threatened by attempts to repeal protections offered to faith based schools
2. It appears most states and territories will not allow any religious body or school from making staff decisions that preserve their religious ethos and mission. In other words they could no longer insist paid staff either are Christians or model Christian beliefs.
3. This would undermine the right of parents to have their children brought up in surroundings that reflect their faith
4. It is unlawful in Victoria to give biblical counsel or even pray for someone struggling with unwanted sexual desires or gender dysphoria even if they ask and consent to it. Other states are following suit.
5. Health practitioners are forced to allow euthanasia even though their conscience does not allow them to proceed.
6. Secular judges will be allowed to make decisions in relation to ordination, employment worship etc.

I could also add we still do not know whether employers can sack people because of their faith. In this instance the outcome of the Folau case was highly unsatisfactory.

In this case and the Thorburn case people have conflated entry into heaven with playing a sport which is absurd. In both cases neither person talked about their sport. In Thorburn's case we do not even know if he agrees with the sermon!

Australia is becoming very secular and  intolerant

Read and weep

 A  Study  finds excessive deaths for registered republicans much much higher than for registered democrats.

This came about because these people swallowed the lie of that they had no need to get vaccinated.

Fox and co are murderers!

Around the Traps 7/10/22

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Tim Nelson on so-long-loy-yang-shutting-australias-dirtiest-coal-plant-a-decade-early-wont-jeopardise-our-electricity-supply
• Raina MacIntyre on if-you-think-scrapping-covid-isolation-periods-will-get-us-back-to-work-and-past-the-pandemic-think-again
• Ross Gittins on the-knowledge-economy-is-behind-soaring-price-of-land
• renew economy on stunning-week-of-early-coal-closures-opens-path-to-100-pct-renewables, stunning-week-of-early-coal-closures-opens-path-to-100-pct-renewables, when-the-ceiling-hits-the-floor-how-electricity-prices-are-turning-everything-upside-down, energy-windfall-tax-offers-much-better-economic-relief-than-petrol-excise-study-finds, coal-shortage-causes-shut-down-at-wa-collie-power-station, australias-climate-bill-is-the-beginning-of-the-journey-not-the-end, another-fail-as-network-companies-pocket-supernormal-profits-at-consumers-expense, coalition-nuclear-power-bill-dead-on-arrival-but-somehow-the-debate-lives-on, fracking-the-simple-test-of-whether-it-should-happen-or-not
• croaking cassandra on towards-this-weeks-ocr-review, once-an-export-and-import-powerhouse, where-will-the-ocr-be-in-10-years
• James Pittock on how-to-ensure-the-worlds-largest-pumped-hydro-dam-isnt-a-disaster-for-queenslands-environment
• Richard Kingsford on the-magnificent-lake-eyre-basin-is-threatened-by-831-oil-and-gas-wells-and-more-are-planned-is-that-what-australians-really-want
• Greg Barton on australia-is-well-placed-to-make-the-long-overdue-repatriation-of-islamic-state-women-and-children-work
• Rodger Shanahan on islamic-state-women-justice-complex-impasse
• Yee-Fui Ng on will-the-national-anti-corruption-commission-actually-stamp-out-corruption-in-government
• William Partlett on why-increasing-support-for-ukraine-is-critical-to-australias-security-as-a-middle-power
• Brendan Walker-Munro on optus-data-breach-regulatory-changes-announced-but-legislative-reform-still-needed
• Simon Orme on australian-consumers-are-paying-too-much-electricity-networks

Northern America

• Dylan Mathews on mancur-olson-rise-decline-nations-abundance-nimby
• Mark Stern on supreme-court-scotus-decisions-law-school-professors
• Liz Zhou on herschel-walker-georgia-senate-raphael-warnock
• Rachel Cohen on philadelphia-progressive-prosecutor-midterms-larry-krasner-impeachment-pennsylvania
• John Cassidy on trumps-threats-of-violence-are-too-dangerous-to-disregard
• Kruggers on is the era of low interest rates over Thanks Brad
• the conversable economist on how-much-of-the-gasoline-price-is-crude-oil
• Jonathan Bernstein on herschel-walker-shows-why-republicans-have-a-candidate-problem Thanks Brad
• Timothy Snyder on how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war-end Thank you Stephen Kirchner
• Donald Moynihan on covid-deadlier-republicans-study

Europe

• John Authurs on uk-can-t-afford-to-look-as-ridiculous-as-truss-kwarteng-have-with-gilts-crisis thanks Brad
• Lana Haworth on ukraine-war-vladimir-putins-mobilisation-order-was-legal-but-will-russians-see-it-as-legitimate
• Martin Jones on ukraine-war-why-russians-fleeing-conscription-should-be-treated-as-refugees
• Jonathan Guyer on future-ukraine-russia-war
• Tim Harford on how-to-waste-a-couple-of-hundred-million-pounds
• coppolla comment on what-was-real-reason-for-bank-of-england-intervention
• Mainly Macro on the-budget-has-left-uk-economy-with-no-good-options
• Menzie Chinn on the-recent-pound-plunge-in-context-50-years-of-the-real-rate
• Mathew Sussex on is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-vladimir-putin
• Jet Heer on meloni-putin-far-right-nato
• Kaushik Basu on entrenched-authoritarians-incarceration-game Thanks Brad
• Joseph Nye on what-caused-russia-ukraine-war Thanks Brad

Asia

• Tim Harcourt on a-sham-sentence-after-a-secret-trial-for-aung-san-suu-kyis-australian-economic-adviser
• Gabriela Bernal on hot-button-issue-north-korea-s-bold-new-nuclear-stance
• Shaddi Hamid on iran-mahsa-amini-protests-islam-ayatollah-ruhollah-khomeini
• Shadi Rouhshabaz on personal-political-iran-protests-normal-life
• John Cluver on how-we-would-know-when-china-is-preparing-to-invade-taiwan Thanks Brad

Wonk

• Jacob Soll on how-christianity-influenced-the-development-of-capitalism-in-medieval-europe Thanks Brad
• noahopinion on a-concrete-vision-of-the-liberal-democratic-future, time-for-a-little-global-financial, we-still-havent-solved-the-nuclear-age, authoritarians-are-not-governing-effectively

General

• Love Dalen and Anders Gotherstrom on nobel-prize-svante-paabos-ancient-dna-discoveries-offer-clues-as-to-what-makes-us-human
• Alison Hutton on one-of-the-worst-stadium-tragedies-in-history-an-expert-explains-what-led-to-the-soccer-stampede-in-indonesia
• Robert Young on nobel-prize-physicists-share-prize-for-insights-into-the-spooky-world-of-quantum-mechanics
• Mark Ford on an-age-of-prudence-t-s-eliot

Climate

• real climate on new-misguided-interpretations-of-the-greenhouse-effect-from-william-kininmonth
• noahopinion on i-come-bringing-good-news-about-hydrogen
• construction physics on why-did-we-wait-so-long-for-wind thanks Tyler

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

• wow-this-classic-article-from-1955-on-betting-and-probability-has-a-really-high-math-to-content-ratio
  
• ecologists-push-for-more-reliable-research
  
• some-things-are-more-difficult-than-you-might-think-literary-interviewing-edition
  
• dow-36000-but-in-graph-form
  
• not-frequentist-enough
  
• what-nested-r-hat-teaches-us-about-the-classical-r-hat
  
• now-that-faculty-arent-coming-into-the-office-anymore-will-universities-ever-recover
  
• one-of-the-hardest-things-about-differential-privacy-could-also-be-seen-as-opportunity
  
• chess-cheating-how-to-detect-it-other-than-catching-someone-with-a-shoe-phone
  
• mira-magic-a-probabilistic-card-trick
  
• Kaiser Fung on critics-stories-and-ethics

Econometrics

• No Hesitations on the-latest-in-observation-driven-tvp-models

Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)

• nuttin

Vox Wonk

• exposing-child-sunshine-first-six-months-life-reduces-their-risk-obesity
  
• catching-and-falling-behind-russian-economic-growth-1690s-1880s
  
• dynamic-disequilibrium-randomness
  
• potential-impact-gas-supply-disruptions-europe-update
  
• climate-and-debt
  
• gendered-references-and-career-success-economics-profession
  
• central-fiscal-capacity-tackle-stagflation
  
• tale-tier-3-cities-china
  
• making-eu-macroprudential-framework-fit-next-decade
  
• euro-area-government-bond-spreads-tale-different-ecb-policy-regimes
  
• policy-uncertainty-state-level
  
• free-riding-yankees-canada-and-panama-canal
  
• productivity-amenity-value-and-future-remote-work
  
• central-bank-communication-general-public-challenging-yet-worthwhile
  
• unequal-effects-labour-market-reallocation
  

Should we bring the women and children home from Syria

 A couple of informed people write on this.

• Greg Barton
• Rodger Shanahan

Other countries have brought home people without any of the problems some seem to foresee.

The RBA goes safe and steady

 The RBA yesrday raised rates 25 basis points. Clearly they are worried about going too quickly and too far in raising rates. My guess is they will raise another 25 points on Melbourne cup day and then take a rest and see what happens. The guess continues that the RBA will probably have to tighten again near the end of summer.

Monetary policy involves guesswork because of the lags involved. I get the feeling people do not need to reduce spending yet. It is because of this I would not be surprised if the RBA has to go a little too far in raising rates and then when the pips squeak have to reduce them even the the end of next year.

We shall see.

Climate and Debt

 A nice column on a book from what I call vox wonk.

A short but interesting read

Is scrapping covid isolation a good thing

 A bunch of qualified people argue we are scrapping the covid isolation rule prematurely.