Utopia, you are standing in it!

Late yesterday afternoon the Minister of Finance issued a new Remit to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee (his statement is here, the new Remit itself is here). The Minister’s statement tends to minimise the entire thing (and nothing really about the inflation target changes), but – no doubt consciously and deliberately – gives not a mention to the most material addition to the Remit.

The lead-in to the more-specific targets section of the Remit is now as follows:

This was the backdrop to the additional words I’ve highlighted

$10 billion of so of losses of taxpayers’ money as a result of Reserve Bank MPC choices around the LSAP programme, choices that had the imprimatur of the Minister of Finance (and apparently no objection from the Treasury). As the bonds are being sold back to The Treasury, the realised component of the losses is mounting significantly each month…

Fossil fuels are consistent at 82% of the global energy cake, so to speak, but the cake is getting bigger. Someone wails that ‘overall global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions increased again’ as the so-called Paris climate agreement fades further into irrelevance. Time to stop clinging to pipedreams and admit realities.
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Record increases in solar and wind installations in 2022 failed to cut into the massive 82% share of fossil fuels in global energy consumption, says OilPrice.com, amid turbulent energy markets and energy security concerns, the annual Statistical Review of World Energy showed on Monday.

Moreover, despite the record growth of global solar and wind capacity additions last year, emissions rose again, to a new record high, and further put the world off track to the Paris Agreement targets, said the report, published by the Energy Institute (EI) and partners KPMG and Kearney, which earlier this year…

Tradition holds that Martin V was the first Renaissance pope, but it was his successor, Eugenius IV (or “Eugene”), who actually brought the flower of the Renaissance to Rome. After spending nine months with the Medici in Florence, he returned to Rome and began serious efforts to bring the city back from its medieval decay. He sought to emulate the magnificence of northern cities like Milan, Genoa, and Venice.

John Julius Norwich offers the following reflections on this exciting epoch, the dawn of the Renaissance:  

“Artistically and culturally, however, Rome was still something of a backwater when Cardinal Tommaso Parentucelli, the son of a modest physician in Liguria, was elected pontiff in March 1447, taking the name of Nicholas V. Of the previous 140 years the popes had been absent for well over half, and thanks to the consequent chaos the flowering of classical and humanistic learning that had…

It was so when humans lived in caves and remains true today.

It must be killed to eat it, It needs to be killed before it kills the hunter, it sometimes needs to be killed as a humane act, some killing can be a defensive act, most rural children learn lessons at a young age, although there will be protein on sale sometime that was never a living animal it remains a fact every bit of flesh on sale to eat was very likely once a living thing, ironically that is a fact of life.

A south sufffolk female sheep was reared by the Dodger Children in the seventies as a lamb, she failed to conceive as a hogget, again as a 2 tooth, and finally as a 4tooth at three years of age it could be accepted infertile was highly probable, A family group conference was initiated and quickly…

It is election year. Political parties are building candidate visibility – they are testing each other in the House before they clash on the hustings – they are refining existing policy and announcing new manifesto commitments.

Democracy requires free, fair and regular elections based on one person, one vote, and all votes are of equal value. It requires freedom of speech, open Government, a critical media, and the rule of law. It assumes human universality and therefore equal citizenship rights. It requires a secular Parliament and other Government institutions.

That is the way democracy is supposed to work in New Zealand. However, the reality is that radical change is now occurring with little scrutiny, and much electioneering is just a side show.

One change driver is the belief that centralization and Government control will give better outcomes than market workings, subsidiarity, individual initiative and local democracy. However, the major driver…

Having considered the matter of finding a new wife for King Henry VIII, his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell suggested Anne of Cleves.

Anne was born in 1515, on either September 22, or more probably June 28. She was born in Düsseldorf, the second daughter of Johann III of the House of La Marck, Duke of Jülich jure uxoris, Cleves, Berg jure uxoris, Count of Mark, also known as de la Marck and Ravensberg jure uxoris (often referred to as Duke of Cleves) who died in 1538, and his wife Maria, Duchess of Jülich-Berg (1491–1543). Anne grew up in Schloss Burg on the edge of Solingen.

In 1527, at the age of 11, Anne was betrothed to François, the 9-year-old son and heir of Antoine, Duke of Lorraine. But because François was under the age of consent (10 years old) at the time of the arrangement, the betrothal was…

Goldilocks-thinking is the basis for the wind and solar transition, which relies on power sources that can only operate when conditions are “just right”.

When the weather turns nasty, giant industrial wind turbines simply turn off. When there’s no wind, they produce nothing; when winds hit gale force, they produce nothing.

Solar panels aren’t any more resilient.

A few fluffy clouds give them grief.

Hailstones make short work of them; a blanket of snow and ice cuts their production to nothing, even when the sun is shining.

A hurricane or tornado soon tears them to worthless shreds.

As the wind and sun cult would have it, however, the answer is always more wind and solar capacity, not less.

Their central and founding myth is that solar panels and wind turbines are gradually, inevitably replacing conventional generators, especially coal-fired power plants.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the weather is…