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Friday, July 17, 2020

The most ignorant and unfit


A summer of unprecedented bushfires, a global pandemic and economic recession. 2020 is certainly not the year anyone predicted, but it is shaping up to be a year of seismic paradigm shifts. ...


‘The most ignorant and unfit’: What made America’s worst ever leader? (NYRB 3.7.20)

By DAVID ROTHKOPF | On 12 July 2020

“Being president,” former First Lady Michelle Obama has said, “doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” In this moment, we may also need to acknowledge that presidents also reveal much about who we are.

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IAN FRASER. Banks, master criminals of the Universe (Literary Review February 2020)

By P&I GUEST WRITERS | On 12 July 2020

Banks, too big to fail and too big to gaol. A review of “Sabotage: The Business of Finance” by Anastasia Nesvetailova & Ronen Palan.

Russian state-sponsored hackers target Covid-19 vaccine researchers


UK National Cyber Security Centre says drug firms and research groups being targeted by group known as APT29



Sarah B. Lawsky (Northwestern), Situating Tax Experimentation: A Response to Michael Abramowicz’s Tax Experimentation, 71 Fla. L. Rev. F. 76 (2020):

In Tax Experimentation, [71 Fla. L. Rev. 65 (2019)], Professor Michael Abramowicz proposes that the government employ “tax experiments.” In these experiments, a subgroup of taxpayers would be treated differently than other taxpayers, for purposes of the tax law, for some period of time. The behavior of the treatment group could give the government information about tax policies. After briefly summarizing the article, this response suggests that Professor Abramowicz’s proposal has the potential for significant impact and that taking into account additional issues raised by existing tax scholarship—about tax morale, revenue estimation, and sunset provisions—will make the proposal even stronger.


Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend

By IAN MCAULEY | On 11 July 2020

What people in other forums are saying about public policy Continue reading →



Information Technology and Libraries – An exploration of smart voice assistant use and privacy in libraries: “Smart voice assistants have expanded from personal use in the home to applications in public services and educational spaces. The library and information science (LIS) trade literature suggests that libraries are part of this trend, however there is a dearth of empirical studies that explore how libraries are implementing smart voice assistants in their services, and how these libraries are mitigating the potential patron data privacy issues posed by these technologies.


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