Last week, Oxfam called for an end to coal subsidies in Australia to reduce poverty. But imagine how much poverty we could eradicate if we stopped subsidising renewables:
That graph is from the Minerals Council of Australia report, ‘Electricity subsidies in Australia – the facts‘. On FreedomWatch last week the IPA’s Brett Hogan wrote ‘10 things Oxfam Australia’s coal report won’t tell you‘.
A constitutional body to represent Indigenous Australians is an excellent idea – it’s called Parliament. In The Guardian on Tuesday, John Roskam described the Referendum Council’s proposal as an attempt to “enshrine racial division in the constitution“. In The Sydney Morning Herald, John and Simon Breheny wrote that “Our nation’s founding document should unify us – not divide us“.
Click here to watch the IPA’s 2015 video on Indigenous constitutional recognition, Race has no place:
Men should speak more like women and curb their over-confidence and “Australian banter” in university tutorials. That’s the take out from a University of Melbourne workshop on white male privilege. As the IPA’s Dr Bella d’Abrera explained on The Bolt Report last Thursday, identity politics proposes that “gender, race, and biology determine your destiny“.
Two weeks ago Hey featured this excellent Dilbert cartoon on the state of climate science. In rebuttal, Yale University created this not so excellent 5 minute video. On Tuesday on the Cato Institute’s blog, Ross McKitrick wrote a forensic and entertaining analysis of how the Yale video completely proves Dilbert’s point.
What’s the worst part about an American student in the middle of a protest demanding extensions on her assignments because she’s protesting “on her own time“? The college president, who was the target of the protest, agreeing to it on the spot.
I don’t blame her for getting out of doing her coursework. After all, there are an estimated 31,600 Marxist humanities professors in the US according to Phil Magness in Areo.
Have you ever wondered about the link between male genitalia and climate change? Cogent Social Studies obviously have, because they published this hoax academic journal article on that very subject. Matt Ridley in The Times last week explained how the ludicrous paper never would’ve been published had it not “fitted the prejudices of much of academia“.
Article of the week:
This strong piece by Richard Cohen for The Washington Post on Monday compared those shutting down freedom of speech on American colleges campuses to Mussolini’s followers and says they are engaged in the cultural appropriation of “the culture of fascism“.
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: Evan Mulholland
In the wake of American college graduates walking out on Vice President Mike Pence and booing Betsy DeVos, Fareed Zakaria’s CNN video editorial, ‘Liberals think they’re tolerant, but they’re not‘, has gone viral. Zakaria, an avowed centrist, rightly points out, “American universities seem committed to every kind of diversity except intellectual diversity. Conservative voices and views are being silenced entirely.”
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- John Roskam, Fairfax Media and Liberal Party face same survival dilemma in a changing world – The Australian Financial Review
- Morgan Begg, Letter to the Editor: Section 18C – Law Society Journal of NSW
- Matthew Lesh, University regulator backs down on free intellectual inquiry attack – FreedomWatch
