Utopia, you are standing in it!

Much commentary has presented the hung parliament that resulted from last week’s general election as a source of damaging instability. In this post Albert Weale argues that democrats should in fact welcome a hung parliament, where a parliamentary majority approves measures on the basis of the merits of the arguments rather than on the basis that they were included in the majority party’s manifesto.

The UK now has a hung parliament. Does that mean that British government is no longer strong and stable but weak and wobbly? To listen to much commentary, you would think so. But for democrats there are good reasons for welcoming a hung parliament.

The prevalent view of parliamentary democracy in Britain runs something like this. General elections are occasions of accountability of governments to the people. Parties stand on their manifestos, and if they secure a majority of seats, their democratic responsibility is to implement…

Time for an update on the perpetual motion machine of Keynesian economics.

We’ll start with the good news. The Treasury Department commissioned a study on the efficacy of the so-called stimulus spending that took place at the end of last decade. As discussed in this news report, the results were negative.

…a scathing new Treasury-commissioned report…argues the cash splash actually weakened the economy and damaged local industry… The report, …says the…fiscal stimulus was “unnecessarily large” and “misconceived because it emphasised transfers, unproductive expenditure…rather than tax relief and/or supply side reform”.

The bad news, at least from an American perspective, is that it was this story isn’t about the United States. It’s a story from an Australian newspaper about a study by an Australian professor about the Keynesian spending binge in Australia that was enacted back in 2008 and 2009.

I actually gave my assessment of the plan back…

The abortion laws of Ireland are a travesty: you still can’t get one in that country unless the mother’s life is in danger—from either health risks or possible suicide—or the fetus has fatal abnormalities. This draconian policy has led to horrible outcomes, the most notable being the death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012 from sepsis after doctors wouldn’t let her abort her fetus, although they were sure it would miscarry, because it still had a heartbeat. Mother and fetus succumbed, but how was that a good outcome? Only for Catholics, I suppose.

These laws need to be changed, and it’s the damn Catholic Church and the cowardly Irish politicians who won’t do what is right, even though most Irish people favor liberalized abortion laws.

The latest case, reported by The Irish Times, involves a “young girl” (age not given) who was pregnant and had strong views about…

The Times: wind turbines may have caused the death of 3 whales

May 22 2017

Click on picture to enlarge and read the text

Over a year ago WCFN published an article where we suggested that the beaching of 17 sperm whales – a toll that finally reached 29 – had been caused by offshore wind turbines, numerous in the southern part of the North Sea where the tragedy happened: 17 sperm whales stranded on beaches in a vast offshore windfarm zone

Above: 2 of the 29 sperm whales beached in the 2016 event

None of the media, and the experts interviewed at the time, even named wind turbine low-frequency noise and vibrations as possible causes. But it would appear that experts are now thinking these wind machines may be the cause, says the Times. Progress at last!

But how many more years will have to pass before governments, and the…