The Voting Rights Act Is Outmoded, Unworkable | Ilya Shapiro | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Voting Rights Act Is Outmoded, Unworkable | Ilya Shapiro | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Section 5 was a valuable tool in the fight against systemic disenfranchisement, but it now facilitates the very discrimination it was designed to prevent. Indeed, the prohibition on retrogression effectively requires districting that assures that minority voters are the majority in some districts — an inherently race-conscious mandate. The law, most recently renewed in 2006 for another 25 years, is based on deeply flawed assumptions and outdated statistical triggers, and it flies in the face of the 15th Amendment's requirement that all voters be treated equally.'

'Even as Section 2 requires race-based districting, Section 5, along with the 14th and 15th amendments, prohibit it. These tensions cannot but produce chaotic proceedings like those here, which are replicated every redistricting cycle.'

For decades, U.S. was major copyright pirate | Media Maverick - CNET News

For decades, U.S. was major copyright pirate | Media Maverick - CNET News: 'one of the most lucrative revenue streams for U.S. publishers during this period involved grabbing copies of British books and racing to duplicate them before rivals. Authors weren't compensated a dime, say Burrows and Wallace. But don't feel too bad for the British publishers as they had done the same to French authors.
From the book: "Some (U.S. publishers) sent agents to England with orders to grab volumes from bookstalls... and ship them west by fast packet. Copy was then rushed from the dock to the composing room, presses run night and day, and books hurried to the stores or hawked in the streets like hot corn."
According to Burrows and Wallace, one of the most successful pirates was a company that eventually became HarperCollins, now owned by News Corp.'

The Irrelevance of Worker Need and Employer Greed in Determining Wages - George Reisman - Mises Daily

The Irrelevance of Worker Need and Employer Greed in Determining Wages - George Reisman - Mises Daily: 'People ... conclude that if employers were free, wages would be driven down by the force of the employers' self-interest ... and that no resistance to the fall in wages would be encountered until the point of minimum subsistence was reached.'

'The consequence of the scarcity of labor is that wage rates in a free market can fall no lower than corresponds to the point of full employment. At that point the scarcity of labor is felt, and any further fall in wage rates would be against the self-interests of employers because then a labor shortage would ensue. Thus, if somehow wage rates did fall below the point corresponding to full employment, it would be to the self-interest of employers to bid them back up again.'

The Skeptic's Case - David M.W. Evans - Mises Daily

The Skeptic's Case - David M.W. Evans - Mises Daily: 'There are literally thousands of feedbacks, each of which either reinforces or opposes the direct-warming effect of the extra CO2. Almost every long-lived system is governed by net feedback that dampens its response to a perturbation. If a system instead reacts to a perturbation by amplifying it, the system is likely to reach a tipping point and become unstable (like the electronic squeal that erupts when a microphone gets too close to its speakers). The earth's climate is long-lived and stable — it has never gone into runaway greenhouse, unlike Venus — which strongly suggests that the feedbacks dampen temperature perturbations such as that from extra CO2.'

'his climate model predicted that if human CO2 emissions were cut back drastically starting in 1988, such that by year 2000 the CO2 level was not rising at all, we would get his scenario C. But in reality the temperature did not even rise this much, even though our CO2 emissions strongly increased — which suggests that the climate models greatly overestimate the effect of CO2 emissions.'

'It's 20 years now, and the average rate of increase in reality is below the lowest trend in the range predicted by the IPCC.'

'the earth gives off more heat when its surface is warmer. This is the opposite of what the climate models predict. This shows that the climate models trap heat too aggressively'

'the "debate" is about politics and power, and not about science or truth.'

Affirmative Action And Diversiphilia Return to the Supreme Court | Trevor Burrus | Cato Institute: Commentary

Affirmative Action And Diversiphilia Return to the Supreme Court | Trevor Burrus | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Diversity, as used by university officials and the Supreme Court in Grutter, is an ideal that treats people as members of a group first and as individuals second. It is explicitly and offensively racial, insofar as it regards any member of a group as a sufficient placeholder for any other.

This would be bad enough if the groups that concern diversiphiles even made sense. But they don’t. The category of “Asian,” for example, may include Indians, Pakistanis, Japanese-Americans, Cambodians, Chinese, and Koreans, just to name a few. These groups come from wildly different religions, languages, and cultural traditions. Some even hate each other. Nevertheless, American universities will group them into a nice little package. Similarly, the category of “Hispanic” is equally un-illuminating, describing anything from a Puerto Rican, to an Italian-Argentinian, to a Mexican of European descent.'

'They have been free to use racial characteristics as a proxy for “unique worldviews” and “authentic perspectives” despite the fact that the concept of race is both too broad and vague to capture these traits adequately. Moreover, by focusing on race as a proxy for experience, they have ignored a more important type of diversity to an educational setting: diversity of opinions and ideologies.'

'Justice John Marshall Harlan penned some of the most prescient words in American legal history: “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens'