Utopia, you are standing in it!

Stardate: 4523.3 (2268)
Original Air Date: December 29, 1967
Writer: David Gerrold
Director: Joseph Pevney

“Where they’ll be no tribble at all…”

At last we arrive at this classic fan-favorite, a campy light-hearted romp featuring everyone’s favorite tiny furry alien creatures. The Enterprise is approaching Deep Space Station K-7 (perhaps foreshadowing for DS9) which is located in a disputed quadrant near a planet known as “Sherman’s Planet” which has been claimed by both the Federation and the Klingons since the Battle of Donatu V which took place about 23 solar years ago. Spock notes the Enterprise is within one parsec of the nearest Klingon outpost so this will be a tricky mission. However the quadrant which includes Deep Space Station K-7 and the nearby Sherman’s Planet is actually protected by writ of neutrality under the Organian Peace Treaty (the treaty was established in the…

It may well take some time for the dust to settle on Kwasi Kwarteng’s first Budget (yes, ‘Budget’: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s fair to call it a duck).

The initial reaction from most economic commentators and in the financial markets has been a loud boo! There are some things I would have done differently. But the overall strategy is sound and sentiment should recover as the economic benefits become clearer.

There are two aspects I particularly liked. One is the emphasis on breaking the ‘doom loop’ of weak economic growth and rising taxes, both with tax cuts and – at least as importantly – structural reforms on the supply-side.

The second is the willingness to take decisions that are unpopular but still right for the economy, such as scrapping the cap on bankers bonuses and abolishing the…

When it comes to historical documentary series over the past 30 years the undisputed master has been Ken Burns. His blockbuster 9-part The Civil War broke new ground in the way documentaries were produced. After that game changer anytime a new Ken Burns doc was announced it became appointment viewing for history buffs and casual fans alike. He and his production company have since become synonymous with PBS with each work guaranteed to be a critical and commercial hit. Because I am a history geek I thought today would be a good day to shine the spotlight on Ken Burns.

The Civil War (1990): The 9 part series that transformed a humble documentarian into a household name. Over 30 million viewers were captivated by his telling of this dark period in American history. Creating a technique dubbed the “Ken Burns effect” he brought a new perspective to archived material allowing…

There have been some incredible long-range sniper records set over the years in Afghanistan, often by Canadian teams. Distances of two or three miles are not unknown in the thin air and barren countryside that makes such shooting a little easier than in sea level rainforests.

But you don’t hear much about such things in the civilian world, so this news from the Cowboy State of Wyoming is interesting, At 4.4 Miles, Wyoming Team Sets New Rifle Shot World Record:

From the pull of the trigger, roughly 24 seconds elapsed before forward spotters heard the telltale plunk of a 422-grain copper bullet piercing the thin metal target.

The shooter was 4.4 miles away, a distance so great, the Earth’s rotation came into play.

It was a new world record for a rifle shot, set by the Jackson-based Nomad Rifleman team led by Schott Austin and Shepard Humphries. The shot was…

Mark Twain noted reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated. So too, the ‘death’ of coal-fired power.

For years, the wind and sun cult have been bleating triumphantly that ‘coal is dead’. Energy markets, however, don’t share their peculiar worldview.

Thermal coal prices are off the charts, with record demand driving record prices: Australian thermal coal prices hit $US$400 ($548 a tonne) in March, with prices still on the rise. For an energy source that should be suffering rigor mortis, coal is displaying a remarkable resilience.

Newcastle coal sets record as global energy crisis deepens
The Australian
Perry Williams
5 September 2022

One of Australia’s biggest commodity exports has surged to record levels, with the price of Newcastle coal soaring to all-time highs as miners cash in amid a deepening energy crisis in ­Europe.

The thermal coal rose to a new high with Newcastle futures trading above $US440 ($648) a…

Fracking: note the deep shaft
The battle of the crises – energy and climate. One real, one…not so much. Silence continues on the renewables intermittency question.
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The Government’s climate change tsar was told he needs to ‘live in the real world’ after he warned Liz Truss against lifting the fracking moratorium despite the energy crisis, reports the Daily Mail.

Lord Deben said approving fracking would have no impact on energy prices – and urged her to focus on renewables instead.

The Prime Minister is set to end the ban on the gas extraction method today, after pledging to take action during the leadership campaign.

Scotland and Wales still rely on large amounts of gas, but their governments don’t want to be reminded of that as it tarnishes their imaginary climate halos. Arguing that there are no worthwhile benefits to be had looks lame when gas shortages are currently forcing global prices ever higher. If there’s public resistance they will have to accept their energy bill pain for the foreseeable future.
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Britain on Thursday formally lifted a moratorium on fracking for shale gas in England that has been in place since 2019, saying strengthening the country’s energy supply was an “absolute priority”, reports Reuters (via Climate Change Dispatch).

Energy prices have soared in Europe after Russia invaded Ukraine, and Britain is subsidizing bills for households and businesses at a predicted cost of more than 100 billion pounds ($113 billion).

New Prime Minister Liz Truss said earlier this month that fracking –…

Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe
by David Maraniss
672 pages
Simon & Schuster
Published: August 2022

“Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe” by David Maraniss was published last month and has spent most of its life as a New York Times best-seller. Maraniss is associate editor at The Washington Post and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of thirteen books including biographies of Roberto Clemente, Vince Lombardi, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Jim Thorpe (1887-1953) is a name only somewhat familiar to most members of my generation. More familiar to me are sports icons such as Earl Campbell, Rickey Henderson and Carl Lewis. But during his own time, and for decades thereafter, the myth and legend of “about five-eighths Indian” Jim Thorpe was widely known. And the story of his life, legacy and resting place has only been settled within…

Cultural differences between countries are quite large, and likely affect differences in economic development. But how did these differences arise in the first place? Consider recent history: it’s not a stretch to believe that Europeans who immigrated to the US were generally individualistic, adventurous, entrepreneurial people who potentially did not fit in well with their existing society; they were possibly non-conformist, less obedient that those who stayed.

Values such as individualism, innovativeness and entrepreneurialism gave these immigrants an edge in the longer term, and this made the US very successful, even relative to Europe. Can such a story apply over the much longer term? Can it explain how cultures diverged thousands of years ago?

The rate of time preference or in other words long-term orientation has been found to be an important determinant of human behavior. Generally, it is associated with better educational outcomes, and even better physical and emotional health. On an aggregate level it can affect differences in GDP across countries.

This post presents a new paper that asks how differences in time preference arose. Clearly, we see substantial variation in time preference across countries, so the question is what caused this.

A few weeks ago there was the debacle of the government introducing one afternoon a bill that would have imposed GST on investment management fees, ministers defending that bill the next morning, but then by lunchtime the policy was gone.

The proposed law change seemed on the face of it perfectly sensible in principle. I even read the Regulatory Impact Statement that was published with the bill, and most of the reasoning and argumentation made sense there too.

But it contained this little section

Perhaps unsurprisingly, those big numbers got a fair amount of media and political attention. As an example, here was an RNZ story

I was a bit curious about this “modelling”, which was not published at the time the bill was introduced. It wasn’t described in the RIS, the numbers weren’t put in any sort of context, they were just baldly stated. Quite probably ministers don’t read…

We have evidence of a sea change against leftist politics, recently in Sweden ousting the long incumbent left wing parties. Boom! Leftists Ousted in Sweden  Next up this month is Italy where a similar change is expected. Italy’s right heads for clear election victory, final polls indicate.

Closer to home, in Canada keen observer Rex Murphy reports in Epoch Times  Poilievre’s Star Rises as the Liberals Fumble and Falter.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

There wasn’t much drama to the event.  Ever since the Conservative leadership race was announced, it was clear from the crowds that showed up at Pierre Poilievre’s rallies that he was the enthusiastic favourite, and by a long shot. He did not merely win. He was a rocket. The rest were Volkswagens.

Secondly, he also demonstrated from the first he was serious, by which I mean the tone and substance of his speeches

Vlad Putin is being accused by pundits as the only reason why Europe’s power prices are spiralling out of control. Not so. Sure, his grip on oil and gas supplies to Europe has put the squeeze on, particularly in Germany, but its so-called wind and solar ‘transition’ – the ‘Energiewende’ – was in serious strife long before Putin invaded Ukraine.

Germans were already suffering Europe’s highest power prices; Putin’s invasion of Ukraine simply revealed how badly his gas was needed to run the fast-start peaking gas plants, that cover wind and solar output collapses, whenever the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in. Something like revealing the Emperor was naked, all along.

The crushing prices being experienced by German households and businesses are taking their toll. Unemployment is on the rise and a no doubt bitter winter – a month or so away – can only add to the misery…