Utopia, you are standing in it!

Stardate: 1709 (2266)
Original Air Date: December 15, 1966
Writer: Paul Schneider
Director: Vincent McEveety

“In a different reality… I could have called you friend.”

“Balance of Terror” is an absolute classic of early Trek. This brilliant episode examines the true cost of war and asks us to consider who we consider to be “barbarians.” “Balance of Terror” opens with a charming wedding scene between two crewmen –Ensign Angela Martine (Barbara Baldavin) and Lt. Robert Tomlinson (Stephen Mines). Kirk is set to officiate the wedding, however in truth something more sinister is lurking behind the scenes. Spock privately notifies the Captain that two outposts (Earth Outposts 2 and 3) have mysteriously gone silent, and now the Enterprise is headed toward Outpost 4. Kirk hides his consternation and begins officiating the wedding ceremony anyway:

“Since the days of the first wooden vessels, all ship masters…

Since I’m a big fan of spending caps, I’m very happy to be in Zurich as part of the Free Market Road Show.

Switzerland’s spending cap (called “the debt brake“) is probably the best system in the world. It does have an escape clause for emergencies, so the government did increase spending during the pandemic.

But as this chart illustrates, Swiss lawmakers were much more responsible than their American counterparts. Over the past few years, IMF data shows that the national debt (as a share of GDP) increased by about 3.4 percent in Switzerland compared to 12.8 percent in the United States.

Even more amazing, Switzerland is now quickly restoring spending restraint.

Indeed, as reported by Le News, Switzerland already is going to be back to fiscal balance by the end of this year.

The Covid-19 pandemic plunged Switzerland’s budget into the red in 2020…

Edward IV (April 1442 – April 9, 1483) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from March 4, 1461 to October 3, 1470, then again from April 11, 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England fought between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions between 1455 and 1487.

Edward was born on April 28, 1442 at Rouen in Normandy, eldest surviving son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville. Until his father’s death, he was known as the Earl of March. Both his parents were direct descendants of King Edward III, giving Edward a potential claim to the throne. This was strengthened in 1447, when York became heir to the childless King Henry VI on the death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester was the fourth and youngest son…

There’s a lot of good stuff to chew on in this Hollywood Reporter take on Netflix hitting the wall, this time from a content quality and quantity point of view.

They greenlit an insane number of series and movies, threw a lot of money at people who either knew how to indulge themselves in spending it, or have no business spending it in the first place.

Spielberg and I have been saying that for years.

Kim Masters’ piece on their reckoning is here, schadenfreude and all. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/netflixs-big-wake-up-call-the-power-clash-behind-the-crash-1235136004/

Crony capitalists are begging for massive taxpayer-backed subsidies to produce ‘green’ hydrogen gas using wind and solar as a way of converting useless, unpredictable and unreliable electricity into something that might be used as and when consumers need it; rather than something that depends on the whims of mother nature.

The majority of hydrogen available on the market (around 95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming or partial oxidation of methane and coal gasification with only a tiny fraction produced by way of biomass gasification or the electrolysis of water or solar thermochemistry.

Steam-methane reforming, the current leading technology for producing hydrogen in large quantities, extracts hydrogen from methane, usually in the form of natural gas; the process releases carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Which, of course, doesn’t wash with the climate cult.

Another method of creating hydrogen is electrolysis, which involves chewing up enormous…

As part of an ongoing inquiry, the Lords Constitution Committee has sought evidence as to whether ‘the amendment of the role of the Lord Chancellor by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (CRA), and the resulting separation of powers between the judiciary and the Government, [have] been successful’. Robert Hazell argues that the 2005 reforms led to greater judicial independence, a political achievement that requires continuing support from politicians and parliament.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into the role of the Lord Chancellor and the Law Officers, in which it seeks to answer a number of questions, including whether ‘the amendment of the role of the Lord Chancellor by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (CRA), and the resulting separation of powers between the judiciary and the Government, [have] been successful’. Through written evidence, submitted with Professor Kate Malleson, I have attempted to…

What best symbolizes France’s statist political culture?

• Is it bloated public sector that consumes more than half of the economy’s output?
• Is it a tax system that is so onerous that households sometimes pay more than 100 percent of their income to government?
• Is it cossetted bureaucrats with cars and drivers who nonetheless still rack up giant taxi expenses?

Those are good examples, to be sure, but I’ve actually already shared an everything-you-need-to-know story dealing with lavish perks for France’s protected bureaucrat class.

But there’s no rule that says I can’t have multiple everything-you-need-to-know anecdotes.

Here’s a story that reveals why France is in trouble. The Wall Street Journalreports that a French presidential candidate is arguing people shouldn’t get upset that he used taxpayer money to give his wife a no-show job because a big chunk of the money then went back to the government because of…

I’m in the United Kingdom for the Free Market Road Show and had planned on writing today about the awful economic policies of Boris Johnson, the supposedly Conservative Prime Minister.

Yes, he produced an acceptable Brexit, but otherwise has been a big spender. Sort of the a British version of Trump or Bush.

But I’m going to give Boris a (temporary) pass because I can’t help but vent my spleen about this sign I saw yesterday while touring the Imperial War Museum in London.

As you can imagine, I was irked by this bit of pro-socialist propaganda.

Since when does a government takeover of private industry lead to “a fairer, more caring society”?!?

Maybe that was the intention of the voters who elected Clement Attlee, the Labour Party who became Prime Minister after the 1945 election.

The real-world results, though, were disappointing. Indeed, the sign…

Here are the slides from a virtual talk I gave today to a group of students from years 10 to 13…

Having got things admirably correct with his opinion as Attorney-General on the wretched Rotorua local body bill being promoted by Tweaker Coffey,  it looked  like David Parker had stumbled as Revenue Minister

The impression of a stumble was given by a Stuff headline which read   Revenue Minister David Parker lashes very wealthy for being undertaxed, calls for new tax principles

But if someone is being undertaxed, very wealthy or not, shouldn’t someone at the Inland Revenue Department be hauled into the Minister’s office to explain what’s going on?

And if it turns out that the undertaxed individual is breaking the law, then the next step is clear. Prosecution is the path to be taken.

If the fault lies with the law, then the next step is clear, too, albeit on a different path.  In this case, the law must be changed.

Rent-seekers would have it that giant lithium-ion batteries are the simple answer to wind and solar’s hopeless intermittency, but that notion doesn’t stand first contact with the wind and solar industry’s nemesis: arithmetic.

The wishful claim that we’ll all soon be powered by nothing but wind and solar is, of course, utter nonsense. And, as Francis Menton details, big talk about big energy storage systems is just that.

Report On The Status Of The U.S. Energy Storage Project
Manhattan Contrarian
Francis Menton
7 April 2022

As you likely know, on April 22, 2021 the “United States” “set a goal” of reaching “100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035.” You know that because on that date (Earth Day!) President Biden issued a press release so announcing, although the document does not inform us how Biden was able to commit the “United States” to such an ambitious goal by the device of…

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide
A Climate Overshoot Commission (COC?) will try to dream up ways of altering nature’s carbon cycle. The mind boggles at the futility.
– – –
Fifteen former leaders and ministers are set to address sensitive questions on the role of CO2 removal and geoengineering in climate action, reports Climate Home News.

The chances of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5C, the toughest goal of the Paris Agreement, are increasingly slim. “Well below 2C” is a stretch.

Yet there has been little discussion at an international level on how to handle “overshoot” of those goals. A high-powered commission due to launch in May aims to break the silence.

Climate diplomats are finalising a 15-strong lineup of former presidents, ministers and representatives of international organisations to explore options for deep adaptation, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and geoengineering, Climate Home News can reveal.

Renewable energy rent-seekers are clearly rattled by the Supreme Court decision, that forced a wind farm operator to shut down all of its turbines at night-time and ordered substantial damages in favour of the plaintiffs for the pain and suffering, already caused to its victims.

Being forced to limit the operation of wind turbines to the daytime only, has wrecked the wind industry’s business model in Australia by preventing them from collecting Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) around-the-clock, a permanent loss in the order of tens of $millions, annually. It’s also opened them up to criminal prosecutions for defrauding the Australian Commonwealth; including obtaining $millions in RECs by deceptively claiming to be compliant with the noise conditions of their planning permits.

Predictably, the big end of town law firms that act for these villains, have been forced to recalibrate their advice. Until the Bald Hills decision, firms like Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) gave their wind…

The world is teetering on the brink of multiple food security crises which will lead to famines, political and social unrest and economic collapse across a wide range of regions. A perfect storm of war in the Ukraine (leading to lost food exports and reduced planting this spring), high energy costs, export restrictions on a large number of fertilisers, food commodity price speculation, logistic bottlenecks, financial and economic vulnerabilities following two years of a global pandemic and persistent droughts in many key agricultural regions means that food stresses are baked into world markets before the first crop failure of 2022.

Against this backdrop, the European Commission produced a document last month: “Safeguarding food security and reinforcing the resilience of food systems“. This EU strategy on how to mitigate the coming food security crisis, famines and increased malnutrition is to promote more organic food production, agroecology, reduced fertiliser use…