Talk is cheap among economists recommending action vs. climate change.

Half of 365 economists who had written about climate change recommended “immediate and drastic action” by governments. Another 43% want “some action.”

This economist ponders the matter:

It’s possible that most of the 339 economists who advocate government action to combat global warming are investing in these ways.

But I’d make sure that they are so investing before even considering taking their policy advice.

He is Donald J. Boudreaux is a professor of economics and Getchell Chair at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va

Source: Do ‘experts’ believe their own predictions?

Seek knowledge thru justice? Not vice versa?

Where did this Loyola U.-Chicago student get this quote about Jesuit education? 

“This directly contradicts the spirit of Loyola’s jesuit [sic] mission, a mission that encourages students to seek knowledge through the pursuit of justice,” a statement from one group of students said.

“It undermines the Student Promise to care for community, a commitment to making our community and the world more equitable and just. The chilling effect is palpable.”

“Seek knowledge through the pursuit of justice?” Not “Seek knowledge  as guide to pursuit of Justice” or something like it?

This melding of the two is weird

It’s in this story: Entire Loyola Student Government Faces Discipline After Dining Hall Protest – Rogers Park – DNAinfo.com Chicago

All the candidates wanted her, says Donald

The divine Sarah, that is, producing instant tabloid heaven:

New York tabloid seizes on Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump.

That’s not nice, but the graphics are funny. So are some of the wisecracks on Twitter offered below in this Market Watch piece.

On the other hand, Palin is “gold” with Evangelicals, said Faith & Freedom Coalition chairman Ralph Reed.

And we do know Trump burned his bridges with New York intelligentsia quite a while back.

The whole story is here: New York Daily News mocks Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump – MarketWatch

Burt Reynolds looks back

His father, a former Army draftee and then officer in WW2 Euro combat, then a police chief, was distant almost all of the time. Way at the end, a confession and a revelation:

Today I live in Jupiter, Fla., in a five-bedroom house on the water. I’ve lived here for more than 20 years. I love my living room most. When my father was up in his years, he lived with me and sat in there with his pipe.

In his last years, he finally told me he loved me. He also apologized for not telling me so earlier or showing me affection. He said, “Son, I never knew what I was supposed to say or do as a father.”

The whole story, which is easy reading, is here: The Athletic Boyhood of Actor Burt Reynolds – WSJ

From delicious ‘Downton Abbey’ recap at Wash Post: Cora slips, makes up for it

Cora has a bad day at the hospital board meeting room, comes home to find Mrs. Hughes, at Lady Mary’s insistence, trying on her clothes.

She flips on her mean switch. It’s an ugly scene on the eve of the wedding and it’s all very un-Cora like. The only thing that makes it acceptable is Cora’s deeply sincere apology. “I won’t beat about the bush, I behaved badly earlier and I hope you’ll accept my apology.” She asks Mrs. Hughes for forgiveness and beseeches her to keep the coat. Nothing like offering hand-me-downs as a pick-me-up.

This piece is full of such bon mots.

Source: ‘Downton Abbey’ recap: A wedding and a surprise guest – The Washington Post

I hope Wheaton College resists . . . 

 

. . . the threat by alumni to withhold donations in the hijab-wearing-professor case. I think college officials are stubborn enough to withstand it.

The professor and supporters

The problem:

. . . the college has said this action [moving to fire the professor] was not taken because of her decision to wear a hijab but because she failed to clarify what makes Christianity distinct from Islam, a conflict with Wheaton’s statement of faith signed by faculty members.

It leads one to look into the broader question, what’s the difference between Islam and Christianity?

Most item of difference, theologically speaking, is nicely stated here, in the online publication, Christianity in View, namely, who do these religions, Christianity and Islam, think God is?

One God, who exists in three distinct persons (The Trinity): Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). One God (Arabic:Allah), who is not a trinity. The Islamic view of God is called strict Monotheism (Quran 112:1).

So for starters, we have a crucial difference, trinitarian or unitarian?

And while we’re at it, apart from the professor’s improbably using Pope Francis as an authority in an Evangelical context, as she did, what did Francis mean when he said the same thing?

His was not a doctrinal statement, explained Todd Aglialoro at the Catholic Answers blog, in March of 2013. Speaking at a major inter-faith gathering, he made the Muslim-God reference — among other “diplomatic niceties and specific expressions of good will aimed at Orthodox, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims” which characterizes such a gathering.

His remarks to the latter recognized that Muslims “worship the one living and merciful God, and call upon him in prayer.”

In this he echoed the 1964 [Vatican II] dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium, which gave a nod to “the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.”

Both the Vatican council and Pope Francis spoke with “a pastoral rather than doctrinal purpose,” however, which can be risky coming from one who historically has spoken as one with authority. Gets confusing sometimes.

The Catholic Answers writer has a lot more to say here, including that in an age of increasing “secularism and moral relativism,” Christians

. . .  look across creedal lines for friends and allies—comrades-in-arms in the fight for unborn life, traditional marriage and morality, religious rights, and a continued place for believers in the cultural conversation.

It can be an encouragement and a temptation, then, to look at Islam and see not warriors of jihad against Arab Christians and a decadent West, but fellow-soldiers of an “ecumenical jihad” against an anti-theist culture.

It’s a sort of an any-port-in-the-storm approach, gathering allies where we may.  In this regard the writer asks whether Islam can be a reliable ally and recommends

the newest book from Catholic Answers Press: Not Peace but a Sword by Robert Spencer [who is no love-a-Muslim patsy]. The evidence he presents will help us understand Islam’s God more clearly, and make us examine more shrewdly the prospects for any future alliance with followers of the Prophet.

The punk ran, got shot  . . . 

. . . by cop who says he saw a gun.  We should put ourselves in cop’s place.

According to the police records released Friday, the incident unfolded shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2013, when Chatman and two friends — Akeem Clarke and Martel Odom — beat and robbed a man inside his Dodge Charger while negotiating a deal to buy cellphone service from him. After the beating, Chatman took off alone in the victim’s car.

Fry and Toth, meanwhile, had been on routine patrol when they said they spotted the Charger rolling through a stop sign at 75th and Essex Avenue. They ran the car’s Wisconsin license plates, but the car came back clean, so they didn’t stop it at the time. When the call came over the radio minutes later about the carjacking, they doubled back and caught up with Chatman at the intersection of 75th and Jeffery Avenue.

The surveillance videos show Chatman bailing out of the car almost as soon as Toth and Fry get out of their unmarked Ford Crown Victoria.

Toth told detectives he was running to keep up with Chatman and didn’t notice an object in his hands, according to the reports released Friday. As they neared the corner, Toth said, he saw Chatman “make a move to his right” just before the shots rang out, according to the case incident report.

Like the shooter, he saw the victim turn to his right. Unlike him, he says he did not see an object, as shooter-cop says he did.

But in shooter-cop’s place, what would our split-second decision have been, with our partner at risk?

We should ask ourselves.

As for “punk,” it’s justified. He’d just joined two others in a beating-up of a man. We know that, shooter cop didn’t. In fact, he and his partner, spotting a stop-sign violation and probably seeing the driver, a young black man, maybe not, had  let it go until, minutes later, they realized the car was stolen.

Chase, shooting followed abandoning by thief and running and turning toward cop very close to him — and you have split-second time for shooter cop. Let him or her cast the first guilty vote who has never made a bad split-second decision.

More here: City releases hundreds of pages of documents in fatal shooting of teen – Chicago Tribune

To negotiate is to legislate . . . 

 

Public unions are different from non-public ones. They are political. To belong to one is to make a political statement.

When a public sector union negotiates higher wages and benefits, that requires more money from taxpayers or less spending on other government services.

Teachers unions negotiate on such hotly debated public issues as tenure and merit pay. Some teachers disagree with the union position on those issues.

As Justice Anthony Kennedy said in oral arguments on Monday, “the union basically is making those teachers compelled riders for issues on which they strongly disagree.”

Those teachers being ones who object to paying so-called fair share of union expenses, including bargaining expenses.

For more, read this: The teacher who went to the Supreme Court – Chicago Tribune