This week, instead of writing my final essays for the session, I have been mostly reading:

• VCs Go Missing In Action As University Whistleblowers Speak Out On Four Corners - Max Chalmers at New Matilda: "The highly anticipated program was partially based on a recent Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) investigation which warned the pressure on academics to pass students in universities was so extreme it could be conducive to corruption." Shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
• Waiting for the fallout: Australia and return of the patrimonial society - John Quiggin on the relevance of Piketty to Australia in the Australian Review of Public Affairs: "The claim that the rich are mostly self-made is already dubious, and will soon be clearly false. Of the top ten people on the Business Review Weekly (BRW) rich list for 2014, four inherited their wealth, including the top three. Two more are in their 80s, part of the talented generation of Jewish refugees who came to Australia and prospered in the years after World War II. When these two pass on, the rich list will be dominated by heirs, not founders."
• A New Deal for Greece – a Project Syndicate Op-Ed by Yanis Varoufakis: "The result of [the troika's] method, in our government’s opinion, is an “austerity trap.” When fiscal consolidation turns on a predetermined debt ratio to be achieved at a predetermined point in the future, the primary surpluses needed to hit those targets are such that the effect on the private sector undermines the assumed growth rates and thus derails the planned fiscal path. Indeed, this is precisely why previous fiscal-consolidation plans for Greece missed their targets so spectacularly."
• Statement on resignation from CPD and alternative - Public Statement by Mark Bahnisch, Eva Cox and John Quiggin: "Current policy making is shaped largely by limited influences and insider advice that fails to read public opinion or evidence. Business-funded lobbyists and think tanks dominate public debate, crowding out the very limited alternatives to current ‘verities’. Many public-minded advocates, active in the past, are silenced by the financial constraints of universities, and too many NGOs are now more dependent on government funding. There is much public disquiet about the state of our society and polity. However, few offer carefully devised and well promoted alternative options."
• Zombies of 2016 - Paul Krugman OpEdding at the NYT: "Pundits will try to pretend that we’re having a serious policy debate, but, as far as issues go, 2016 is already set up to be the election of the living dead."
• The BBC Trust: a work in progress - Jacquie Hughes at openDemocracy: I know nothing about the current structure of the BBC, which leaves me eminently qualified to speculate that BBC Worldwide appears to be the money-spinning tail that has for many years wagged the emaciated public service dog. Any avenue for genuine public accountability (as opposed to philistine euphemistic demands for financial sustainability - i.e. bleeding the patient) seems something to be welcomed.
• Miliband Goes the Full Henry Jackson - Craig Murray: "But Miliband was not admitting that the Guernica style massacre was wrong – he voted for it. No, he was going the full Henry Jackson and arguing that what had been needed was neo-colonial occupation of Libya in order to reform its institutions – precisely as had been done in Iraq. And we all know how that went."
• Rorschach Tests at the Nuremberg Trials - Neurosceptic
• After the recent tragedy in the Med, why can’t we talk about free migration? - Morten Thaysen, openDemocracy: Capital and products are assets to be welcomed, people are a liability to be demonised, spurned, and left to die. Discuss.
• Hello World Intellectual Freedom Organization - Mike Linksvayer: Mike is in the top tier of the world's smart people, and an all-round good egg. This [c|sh]ould be huge.
• The Cops Have Met Their Enemies: They Are Us - Ted Rall at aNewDomain: Bull Connor has won; it just took a while.
• The Killing of Osama bin Laden - Sy Hersh at the London Review of Books:

  Some of the Seals were appalled later at the White House’s initial insistence that they had shot bin Laden in self-defence, the retired official said. ‘Six of the Seals’ finest, most experienced NCOs, faced with an unarmed elderly civilian, had to kill him in self-defence? […] The rules gave them absolute authority to kill the guy.’ The later White House claim that only one or two bullets were fired into his head was ‘bullshit’, the retired official said. ‘The squad came through the door and obliterated him. As the Seals say, “We kicked his ass and took his gas.”’

• Did I ever mention that I fucking hate the fucking web - Chris Bloom and a language warning: My obvious tl;dr is "Don't use a web service for anything you can do on your own computer."
• Greatest Threat to Free Speech Comes Not From Terrorism, But From Those Claiming to Fight It - Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept: 'Basking in his election victory, Prime Minister David Cameron unleashed this Orwellian decree to explain why new Thought Police powers are needed: “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens ‘as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.'” It’s not enough for British subjects merely to “obey the law”; they must refrain from believing in or expressing ideas which Her Majesty’s Government dislikes.'
• 10 Writing Tips from Legendary Writing Teacher William Zinsser, May He Rest in Peace - Ted Milles on Open Culture: "Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard."
• Democratically controlled, co-operative higher education - Joss Winn at openDemocracy: "In short, co-operative higher education is entirely compatible with the idea of the ‘public’ if we reconceive it as an autonomous, open, democratically governed ‘commons’: An academic commons, democratically controlled by academic and support staff, students, cleaners and others."