VOM, Australia:

Pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scott have settled the religious vilification case they had been fighting in Australia’s state of Victoria for the past five years. According to a press release by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the Islamic Council of Victoria and Catch the Fire Ministries have agreed that citizens have the right to “robustly debate religion” and “criticize religious beliefs” within the limits of the law. The pastors have spent more than $500,000 defending their right to present their views and insights about Islam. Pray for Christians in Australia and other parts of the world to be bold witnesses for Christ despite attacks against them.

A new book is asking a not-so-new question: is democracy nothing more than a not-too-smart formalization of mob rule? Here's more analysis from WORLD and The New Yorker.

Caplan is the sort of economist (are there other sorts? there must be) who engages with the views of non-economists in the way a bulldozer would engage with a picket fence if a bulldozer could express glee.

The argument of his book is that economists and political scientists have misunderstood the problem. They think that most voters are ignorant about political issues; Caplan thinks that most voters are wrong about the issues, which is a different matter...