Utopia, you are standing in it!

The word baron comes from the Old French baron, from a Late Latin barō “man; servant, soldier, mercenary” (so used in Salic law; Alemannic law has barus in the same sense). The scholar Isidore of Seville in the 7th century thought the word was from Greek βᾰρῠ́ς “heavy” (because of the “heavy work” done by mercenaries), but the word is presumably of Old Frankish origin, cognate with Old English beorn meaning “warrior, nobleman”.

Cornutus in the first century already reports a word barones which he took to be of Gaulish origin. He glosses it as meaning servos militum and explains it as meaning “stupid”, by reference to classical Latin bārō “simpleton, dunce”; because of this early reference, the word has also been suggested to derive from an otherwise unknown Celtic *bar, but the Oxford English Dictionary takes this to be “a figment”.

Britain and Ireland

In the Peerage of England…

Decades ago when I was young Reserve Bank annual reports were – uninteresting accounts aside – mostly a bit of an essay on the economy (I got to write some of 1984’s and if I recall correctly one sentence survived to publication). Since the Bank had no independent authority over anything – power rested with the Minister of Finance – that model of Annual Report made a certain amount of sense. If there was any “accountability” involved, it was mostly about judging the fine line involved in offering some analysis without at the same time unduly upsetting the Minister of Finance. (The Bank was, at least in principle, accountable for analysis and advice offered to the Minister, but nothing much of that ever saw the light of day, the then recent innovation of the OIA notwithstanding).

These days, of course, the Reserve Bank is a power in the land, conducting…

Using logical thinking is an effective way of solving problems and rooting out untruths. Unfortunately, logic can be replaced in many instances with repeated phraseology that has been absorbed and memorised for quick regurgitation without thought, such as arguments using the Bandwagon Fallacy:

1. X is popular.
2. Popular things are always true (unstated).
3. Therefore, X is true.

Bandwagon Fallacy: Why the Majority Isn’t Necessarily Right

Here is the Bandwagon Fallacy argument used to justify the safety of The Shots:

1. 11 million + shots have been given to people in NZ.
2. Popular things are always safe (unstated).
3. Therefore, the shots are safe.

Implied in this fallacy is the idea that if the shots were not safe, then people would be seeing the effects in those around them, that damage would be widespread and noticeable. However, ironically the argument is then used against anyone who says the shots are not safe because they…

Oh but this is going to hurt, and judging by the online Twitter meltdowns from Leftists it’s a burn that’s going to last a long time, certainly past the Mid-Term elections next month.

Just a few years ago Tulsi Gabbard, as a House Rep. from Hawaii, was being talked up as yet another youthful face of a rising Democrat Party poised to do great things in the 21st century. Military veteran, mutli-ethnic, female, etc. She was the Vice-Chair of the Democrat National Committee (DNC). When she ran for the Democrat Presidential nomination in 2019 she did better than many others with higher profiles but faded for the usual reasons such young, first-time candidates do; lack of money and support from inside the upper echelons of the Democrat Party – including the DNC – who eventually plumped for “moderate” and easily controlled Joe Biden over True Believer Socialist Bernie Sanders.

Stardate: 2268 (technically no stardate is given for this episode)
Original Air Date: February 16, 1968
Writer: John Meredyth Lucas
Director: Vincent McEveety

“Even historians fail to learn from history…”

The Enterprise is searching for John Gill (David Brian), a missing Federation historian. Gill is a widely respected intellectual among Starfleet, he once taught Kirk during his Starfleet days, and even Spock praises Gill for his treatment of earth history as a series of “causes and motivations” rather than a mere timeline of events. Gill had been sent by the Federation as a “cultural observer” of the planet Ekos some years prior, but he has since disappeared. What happened? First, a bit of exposition about Ekos. The Ekosians are known to be a primitive warlike people, living in a state of anarchy, whereas its sister planet of Zeon is known to be technologically advanced. As the…

Image credit: BBC
Some pushback against the excesses of climate obsession.
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Liz Truss is poised to ban solar projects from most farms in England in a move that will dismay climate change campaigners and some Tory backbenchers, says Yahoo News.

The prime minister has long been opposed to solar farms on agricultural land, condemning them as “a blight on the landscape” when she was environment secretary in 2014.

And during the Tory leadership campaign this summer, she said she wanted to see farmers producing food with crops and livestock, “not filling fields with paraphernalia like solar farms”.

The destruction of once reliable and affordable electricity supplies is so evidently deliberate, it can no longer be put down to ignorance, alone.

Nothing but brazen ideology sits beneath the claim that we are a heartbeat away from a transition to an all wind and sun powered future. We are continually told that, putting aside the need for a few trillion dollars’ worth of imaginary grid-scale storage systems, we’re almost there.

Well, that’s the meme, anyway.

Back on terra firma, things haven’t exactly panned out as planned unless, of course, the plan was economic destruction starting with entrenched energy poverty and, ultimately, deindustrialisation.

If you’re looking to understand what the ‘inevitable transition’ means for you, Britain’s power pricing and supply calamity is as good a place as any to start.

James McSweeney and Paul Homewood layout what’s in store below.

British Energy Planning (A Horror Story)
The Critic
James McSweeney

What is the purpose of the referendum proposed in the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill? Is it, as s 1 (1) of the Bill itself says ‘to ascertain the views of the people of Scotland?’ Or is the aim – either directly or indirectly – the dissolution of the United Kingdom? If the purpose is only to ascertain the views of Scots, the Lord Advocate suggests, then it cannot impact reserved matters. Her suggestion is that the referendum cannot impact reserved matters because the referendum is merely advisory, and so it can have no legal effect if it has no legal impact. This post argues that it is right to construe the purpose of the Bill narrowly, as only ascertaining the views of Scots. Even the narrow purpose of ascertaining the views of Scots, however, still relates to reserved matters. To see why, it is necessary to distinguish between the 

The Ardern government is claiming a world first in its policy to cut agricultural emissions.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern asserts  that its proposal “delivers a competitive advantage, enhancing our export brand”, and…

“No other country in the world has yet developed a system for pricing and reducing agricultural emissions, so our farmers are set to benefit from being first movers.”

Farmers  themselves  may be bemused, if  not bewildered, by  the Government’s spin because critics claim the  scheme  aims to reduce sheep and beef farming in New Zealand by 20% and dairy farming by 5%, to achieve  what   Federated  Farmers  labels “the unscientific pulled-out-of-a-hat national GHG targets”.

Agriculture Minister Damien  O’Connor  seeks to put  the  best  face  he  can on the government’s  policy, saying  that

“… by rewarding farmers who take action to cut their emissions we can support more farmers to improve their productivity and profitability while achieving climate goals.

Recent debates about the health of the UK political system have raised questions about the core principles underlying constitutional democracy. Meg Russell, Alan Renwick and Lisa James set out some of these principles, and argue that MPs have a particular responsibility for upholding them.

Recent years have seen much discussion of the health of UK democracy, and some concerns about the risk of ‘democratic backsliding’. But this raises the question ‘backsliding from what’?

Widely shared assumptions exist about the principles which underlie constitutional (or ‘liberal’) democracies – the features that distinguish them from autocracies and so-called ‘illiberal democracies’. Although the UK famously lacks a codified constitution, such values are deeply embedded in its constitutional traditions and arrangements.

This briefing identifies and explains five such core principles:

1. Institutional checks and balances
2. Representative government, and free and fair elections
3. Rule of law
4. Fundamental rights
5. Integrity and standards

Reason and logic are in the fight of their lives; ideologues continue to push chaotically intermittent wind and solar, determined to deprive us of the reliable and affordable power that dragged us towards the unparalleled peace and prosperity we currently take for granted.

Net-zero carbon oxide gas emissions targets are only the latest assault launched by anti-human/anti-progress zealots. The net-zero meme, as Walter Stark explains, is merely an extension of the grand wind and solar transition mantra, and attended with the same delusional thinking.

Congratulations Australia. You’re already at Net Zero
Quadrant
Walter Stark
28 September 2022

Achievement of Net Zero in Australia is a no-brainer. Australia is, has been, and continues to be, a net greenhouse gas sink (GHG) with natural sequestration which exceeds domestic emissions. To achieve net zero all that is needed is to do nothing and permit any increases to occur until, at some distant future…

Parliament’s role in the Brexit process has been the subject of widespread controversy among politicians, commentators, and experts. This makes it important to understand exactly what kind of influence parliament wielded in that period. Tom Fleming and Lisa James shed new light on this question by summarising their recent article, Parliamentary Influence on Brexit Legislation, 2017-2019, as published in ‘Parliamentary Affairs’.

Parliament’s role in the Brexit process was – and remains – highly controversial. But despite this controversy, there is widespread agreement that parliament was unusually influential during this period, and particularly during the hung parliament that lasted from 2017 to 2019.

This verdict is largely based on parliament’s high-profile impact on the Brexit negotiations, where MPs famously torpedoed Theresa May’s exit deal, and delayed the UK’s eventual departure from the EU on multiple occasions. But parliament also considered a raft of important Brexit-related legislation, which…

Image credit: livescience.com
Maybe a climate model with no ‘ECS’ factor could do better? But anything that smacks of natural variation inevitably faces resistance from climate alarm promoters.
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A major survey into the accuracy of climate models has found that almost all the past temperature forecasts between 1980-2021 were excessive compared with accurate satellite measurements, says the Daily Sceptic.

The findings were recently published by Professor Nicola Scafetta, a physicist from the University of Naples. He attributes the inaccuracies to a limited understanding of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), the number of degrees centigrade the Earth’s temperature will rise with a doubling of carbon dioxide.

Scientists have spent decades trying to find an accurate ECS number, to no avail.

Stardate: 4768.3 (2268)
Original Air Date: February 9, 1968
Writer: John T. Dugan (credited as “John Kingsbridge”)
Director: Ralph Senensky

“Risk is our business. That is what this starship is all about.”

Mr. Sulu returns! The Enterprise is traveling through deep space, hundreds of lightyears past where any Earthship has explored before. They are tracking a signal from a seemingly lifeless planet –a Class M planet– a place which has been dead for a half million years after its atmosphere was mysteriously ripped away. As the Enterprise approaches, a disembodied voice named Sargon (voiced by James Doohan) suddenly booms throughout the ship: “all your questions will be answered.” Since exploration and contact with alien civilizations is the Enterprise’s primary mission, Kirk decides to risk engaging with the voice. As the ship’s sensors reach outward, planetary coordinates are transferred and Sulu is left at the helm.