2025-03-15 00:32:33
1. What explains the global Islamic revival?
2. Sofia Gubaidalina, RIP (NYT).
3. Europe’s oldest universities that are still open.
4. Civic Future Talent Programmes.
5. Do we need a more assertive Congress?
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2025-03-14 19:55:39
It seems this ought to happen soon, though it is not (yet) a major news item. Iranian air defenses are severely disrupted, though not forever. The “Hezbollah counterattack” has been more than neutralized, and no alternative deterrent has been put in its place. That too may be temporary. Israeli public opinion is still close in time to October 7, and Netanyahu is not so far from the end of his reign. The countries that will get very mad at Israel for such an attack are already close to maximally mad at Israel. Trump has signaled plenty of support, yet there is no guarantee that will last forever.
Most of all, Iran is getting closer to having a workable nuclear weapon.
I also find it striking how many people discuss the Ukraine negotiations without considering the two issues may be tied to some degree. How much will Putin, if at all, shore up Iran in such a scenario?
Just a reminder that you should not forget about this issue, it could be the most important thing that happens this year.
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2025-03-14 14:43:05
Despite arrests and legal aggression from the Greek Orthodox Church, the First Hellenic Polytheist Temple in 1700 Years is now open. Located near the village of Kalliani in the Peloponnese, in the wild mountains of Arcadia, Pan is once again being honored in his native lands.
The Wild Hunt reported in Pagan Community Notes on February 27, 2025, the government and faith community have not been so supportive of Hellenic religion. A Greek court has prohibited the inauguration of the Temple of Zeus and Pan, currently under construction near the village of Kalliani in Arcadia, and has ordered a halt to all ongoing construction work.
On March 8, 2025, a new temple to Pan and Zeus was unveiled, blessed, and sanctified in Greece for the first time in 1700 years; but not without a major fight with the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek government.
Here is the full story.
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2025-03-14 12:20:52
From Samuel Watling, in the new Works in Progress:
By the early 1900s, Progress and Poverty was more popular than Shakespeare among Labour MPs. In 1910, the Liberal government of Henry Asquith implemented a tax on increases in land value and undeveloped land with a view to reforming Britain’s system of property taxes.
Asquith’s gambit failed spectacularly. Britain in the early 1900s became a case study in how administrative complexity can derail land value taxation. The tax cost more to administer than it collected, and it was so poorly worded that it ended up becoming a tax on builders’ profits, leading to a crash in the building industry. As a result, David Lloyd George, the man who introduced the taxes as chancellor in 1910, repealed them as prime minister in 1922. The UK has never fully reestablished a working property tax system.
This history serves as a cautionary tale for modern Georgist sympathizers who believe a land value tax will solve the world’s housing shortages. While Georgists argue that land markets suffer from inefficient speculation and hoarding, Britain’s experience reveals more fundamental challenges with both land value taxes and the Georgist worldview. The definition of land value was impossible to ascertain properly and became bogged down in court cases. When it could be collected, it proved so difficult to implement that administration costs were four times greater than the actual tax income. Instead of increasing the efficiency of land use, it became a punitive tax on housebuilders, cratering housing production.
Worst of all, it not only failed to solve the fundamental problem with British local government – that it had responsibilities that it could not afford to cover with its narrow base – but actually contributed to the long-term crumbling of the property tax systems Britain did have.
Here is the full new issue of Works in Progress.
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2025-03-14 03:41:41
Sir Keir Starmer is abolishing NHS England as Labour embarks on the biggest reorganisation of the health service for more than a decade.
The prime minister said that scrapping the arm’s-length body would bring “management of the NHS back into democratic control” and reduce spending on “two layers of bureaucracy”.
He said the quango, responsible for the day-to-day running of the health service, was the ultimate example of “politicians almost not trusting themselves, outsourcing everything to different bodies … to the point you can’t get things done”.
Starmer argued: “I don’t see why the decision about £200 billion of taxpayer money on something as fundamental to our security as the NHS should be taken by an arm’s-length body.”
NHS England will now be brought back under the control of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and the two organisations will be merged over the next two years, leading to about 10,000 job cuts.
Here is more from the Times of London.
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2025-03-14 02:31:00
Chad’s PM2.5 levels were more than 18 times higher than the WHO guideline, with mineral dust in the Sahara Desert as the primary source of air pollutants.
Here is the full article, most of all noting that six of the world’s ten most polluted cities are in India. Via the excellent Samir Varma.
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