Pro-War Lobby Attacks Russian Influencers

by Ted Galen Carpenter, antiwar.com, September 10, 2024.

Excerpt:

But even in the unlikely event that the charges are accurate, other more fundamental issues should concern all Americans. The statutes that he is accused of violating are sufficiently vague as to pose a threat to freedom of speech and to badly needed debates on numerous international issues, especially the tense relations between Russia and the United States. Could, for example, publishing an article in the National Interest or participating in a discussion sponsored by the Center inadvertently violate pertinent statutes? What about a paid interview? How could an author or participant be confident one way or the other? The mere existence of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and various sanctions laws directed against specific countries pose an intolerable threat to the 1^st Amendment.

 

Surface Transportation News: Questions about the Key Bridge replacement

by Robert Poole, Reason, September 10, 2024.

Excerpt:

In a recent release, the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA), said:

“The formal designation of the I-695 corridor as an Interstate highway…federalized the bridge replacement project, extending all the limitations on revenue uses contained in Section 129 of Title 23 of the U.S. Code.”

This statement implies that there would be a federal problem with using toll financing to replace the Key Bridge. That’s false. Congress explicitly revised that section of the statute in 1991 to make clear that toll financing can be used to replace bridges on the Interstate system, regardless of whether they were tolled or not. That is how Louisiana is underway replacing the aging Calcasieu River Bridge with a toll-financed new bridge. (italics in original)

 

The Islamic Moses: The Key to the Judeo-Islamic Tradition

by Mustafa Akyol, Cato at Liberty, September 10, 2024.

Excerpt:

It is, in a sense, a sequel to my earlier book, The Islamic Jesus (2017), which examined the Qur’anic depiction of Jesus Christ, revealing the intricate connections between Christianity and Islam. This time, I examine the Quranic depiction of Moses, who, curiously, is the most dominant human figure in the Islamic scripture, eclipsing even the latter’s own prophet, Muhammad.

The Quranic Moses is just the key to a much larger story, though. The Jewish prophet was so central to Islam’s founding text because he was the role model for Islam’s own prophet. Muhammad embraced the core ideals of Judaism — a staunch monotheism with a comprehensive religious law — only to proclaim them to his people, the Arabs. The theological continuation between two faiths was so strong that modern Jewish historian Shelomo Dov Goitein (d. 1985) defined Islam as “from the very flesh and bone of Judaism.” This new religion, Goitein added, was “a recast, an enlargement” of its Jewish precursor.

For many people in the West today, all this may be surprising to hear, because they are used to hearing about the “Judeo-Christian tradition,” while Islam is often considered, at best, a distant cousin. But the Judeo-Christian tradition is a modern concept popularized only in the twentieth century, when Western civilization finally began to question its dark history of antisemitism, while parts of the Muslim world sadly began to absorb it.

 

The Supreme Court Reined in Federal Regulators. What Happens Now?

by Peter Suderman, Reason, October 2024.

In 1984, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in favor of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule stemming from the Clean Air Act. The EPA rule allowed states to treat all pollution from a unified industrial group as a singular pollution source for regulatory purposes. A cohort of environmental groups challenged the rule, arguing that it allowed pollution-emitting devices to operate that would not have passed regulatory muster considered on their own.

It was a technical exercise in statutory interpretation—but the case’s long-term impact had little to do with pollution or the intricacies of the Clean Air Act. Embedded in that decision, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., was a small revolution in administrative law.

DRH comment: When I taught a public policy class, one of the examples I gave of how we could get a lower cost of reducing pollution was the Chevron case. I liked what the EPA did, but I now understand that it went beyond its mandate. The EPA allowed an industrial polluter to hit the targeted reduction by reducing pollution more from the source for which the cost was lowest. That meant that it hit the target at least cost. You can see why, I, an economist, liked it. I wasn’t familiar with the law.

We Still Live in the Physical World

by Virginia Postrel, Reason, September 10, 2024.

Excerpt:

Unfortunately, the book fails to meet an author’s obligations to the audience. It is riddled with contradictions, cherry-picked examples, and question begging. It is bereft of historical context. And contrary to the promise of the subtitle, it never reveals how Rosen imagines “being human.” That ideal seems to involve writing handwritten letters to distant loved ones—but not texts! never texts!—and embracing the boredom of long lines at Disney World.

Rosen gives some of her most promising evidence short shrift. She accords pandemic Zoom classes about a page. She doesn’t explore why online schooling is ineffective, nor does she consider when instructional videos—such as the how-tos found on YouTube—do work. Letting the abysmal effects of Zoom schooling stand in for all online instruction, she simply ignores the value of digital convenience for teaching such real-world skills as making a sewing pattern, fixing a garbage disposal, improving your passing game, or tying a tie. Perhaps she simply doesn’t know that how-to videos are common on YouTube. (Khan Academy also gets no mention either.) From Rosen’s viewpoint, if something is online it has nothing to do with the real world except to undermine it.

Virginia is at her best in laying out the huge benefits to virtually everyone of much technological change.

BTW, when I saw the title of her review, I thought of Madonna and I wanted to add, “And I am a physical boy.”

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