• David James wrote about the world's spiral into debt and how debt-for-equity swaps may provide a way out of the looming crisis.
• I wrote about the myths that continue to prop up the Australian Defence Force’s religious-based wellbeing support model.
• As part of our 'Timeless Pieces' series, James Fodor explored differences between progressives and conservatives in the debate over income redistribution.

Misinformation is rampant in the realm of health and nutrition. Findings from nutrition research is rarely clear-cut because diet is just one of many behaviors and lifestyle factors affecting health, but the simplicity of using food and supplements as a cure-all is especially seductive. In my view, countering the voices of social media influencers and health activists promoting pseudoscientific health claims requires leaning into the science of disease prevention.

The biggest financial challenge facing the world is how to deal with unsustainable debt. Global debt is pretty much out of control; it is running at more than double the world economy. Different countries are facing different challenges. In Australia, the main problem is household debt fuelled by a once-in-a-century housing bubble. It is running at about 116 per cent of GDP, whereas government debt is a more modest 44 per cent of GDP – less than half the OECD average.

In the Australian Defence Force, there’s an oft-repeated line about the role that religious chaplains play. You hear it from chiefs at Senate estimates, in letters from government ministers, and in comments by chaplains themselves. And it goes something like this: “Chaplains support people from all religions and also people of no faith.” The problem is: it’s a myth. And this myth remains seemingly unchallenged by government and Defence hierarchy.

The trouble with ‘Islamophobia’ is that the term conflates two things: (1) dislike of or disbelief in the tenets of Islam (the religion); and (2) fear of, or dislike of, people just because they are Muslims. I have no problem with 1, as it applies to me; but 2 is clearly unethical – as is dislike of people just because they are Catholics, Chinese, French, German, Irish, Jewish or Romanies. We need separate terms for each meaning. 

One of the most remarkable and persistent features of American life is that, alone amongst the economically advanced countries, its political life and civil society in general are overshadowed and greatly affected by the power and influence of religious groups. This is not, of course, a new feature. From the days of its founding, some of the communities which grew up in North America were often ones which were marked out in many ways by a kind of theocratic government.