Utopia, you are standing in it!

Start placing serious reliance on wind power and you can safely place your bets on daily disappointment. Such it is in Britain, with month upon month of pitiful performance from its fleet of whirling wonders.

During most of September and into October, Europe’s wind farms were the victims of the Big Calm.

The Wind Gods had the last laugh, with wind power output reduced to a risible trickle across the continent. The Brits were forced to fire up their mothballed coal-fired power plants, and wholesale power prices went through the roof.

Natural forces continued to conspire into November: on 2 and 3 November, wind power output across the UK once again plummeted, delivering a pitiful 5% of its nameplate capacity; wholesale power prices went through the roof, topping out at £4,000/MWh – the price charged by Britain’s two remaining coal-fired power plants for literally saving the day.

As…

December 06, 2021

This episode was produced in partnership with The Gettysburg Museum of History. See how you can support history education & artifact preservation by visiting their website & store at https://www.gettysburgmuseumofhistory…

Part 5 of the “Normandy 1944” Series Of the 150,000+ men who landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, it’s hard to argue that there were any who were more unique than British commandos Lord Lovat and his bagpiper, Bill Millan. In this episode, we’re going to Sword Beach to the show where Lord Lovat and Bill Millan landed with the 1st Special Service Brigade on June 6th and fought to link up with the men of the Ox and Bucks at Pegasus Bridge. Much to see and learn here! CORRECTION: In the video, I say that Lord Lovat’s link up with the Ox & Bucks was the first linkup between the seaborne and airborne forces…

December 1641 was a month of high tension in Parliament, as Dr Vivienne Larminie from our Commons 1640-1660 project explores…

It was after fierce debate that on 9 December 1641 MPs expelled three of their number from Parliament. After months of leaks, rumours and investigations, the Commons finally resolved that Henry Wilmot, William Ashbournham and Sir Hugh Pollarde stood accused of misprision of treason, a felony punishable by life imprisonment. Their offence was to have witnessed other army officers and courtiers making plans to stage some kind of military coup and rescue Charles I’s chief minister from the Tower of London before his execution, but then to have failed to inform the relevant authorities. The trio – and co-accused Sir John Berkeley – were lucky. Their implication in the ‘Army…

This is good news and one of a number of incidents that have occurred worldwide where the entire green energy/renewable regime started to crumble soon after the U.N.’s COP 26 conference. It can’t happen a moment too soon.

Fifteen States Respond to ‘Woke Capitalism,’ Threaten to Cut Off Banks That Refuse to Service Coal, Oil Industries
By: Brittany Bernstein, November 22nd, 2021, National Review

A coalition of financial officers from 15 states sent a letter to the U.S. banking industry on Monday warning they plan to take “collective action” against banks that adopt corporate policies to cut off financing for the coal, oil, and natural gas industries.

The group threatens to scrutinize or potentially curtail future business with banks that adopt an “economic boycott” of those industries in a letter obtained exclusively by National Review.

“Just as each state represented in this letter is unique in its governing laws…

One thing you’ll never, ever hear from the crony capitalists profiting from wind and solar is a call to cut the subsidies that sustain them.

Remarkably, whether in Germany, Australia, the States or Europe renewables rent seekers all speak the same language.

When talk turns to subsidies, you’ll only ever hear words like ‘more’. Challenge them about their nonsensical claims that wind power is cheap and truly competitive with coal and gas, they’ll start pleading about not doing away with subsidies, ‘just yet’.

Some cynics might suggest a needy form of addiction. STT likens it to the Never Ending Story.

Back in 1983 the American Wind Industry Association claimed that solar and wind would be “competitive and self-supporting on a national level by the end of the decade if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D”. That was 38 years ago. And there was no lack of…

With the collapse of the old ruling class in Europe came a string of familial despots who governed under the heel of Napoleon Bonaparte and his empire which stretched from Spain to Poland. The shadow of France had descended almost all of Europe –Britain stood almost alone against the upheaval. And at this critical juncture, the kingship of Britain fell from the mad King George III to his pompous, hedonistic son Prince George, who served as regent until his insane father finally gave up the ghost in 1820. Today, despite certain revisionist historians, George IV is not remembered fondly and with good reason. With vague pretensions of being “the first gentleman of Europe,” in truth George IV was a feckless, indulgent, roly-poly dandy –a “preposterous preening prince.” Lord Byron dubbed him “Fum the Fourth” and other writers poked fun at his girth dubbing him “Prinny.” From a young age “Prinny”…

On December 7,1941, 80 years ago today, a hurried dispatch from the ranking United States naval officer in Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, Commander in Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, was sent to all major navy commands and fleet units provided the first official word of the attack at the ill-prepared Pearl Harbor base. It said simply: AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL.

Later that day Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor , Hawaii Territory, killing over 2,300 Americans. The U.S.S. Arizona was completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized. A total of twelve ships sank or were beached in the attack and nine additional vessels were damaged. More than 160 aircraft were destroyed and more than 150 others damaged.

The day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, President Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress and declared…

Nov 22, 2021

EThis episode was produced in partnership with The Gettysburg Museum of History. See how you can support history education & artifact preservation by visiting their website & store at https://www.gettysburgmuseumofhistory…

Part 3 of the “Normandy 1944” Series Along the Normandy coastline, there are a few iconic locations from D-Day that stand out above the rest. One of those is undoubtably Pegasus Bridge, which was the first objective to be taken on June 6, 1944 by Major John Howard and the men of the British 6th Airborne Division. In this episode, we’re taking a visit to the location where Howard and his men assaulted this key position over the Caen Canal as well as the museum nearby which houses some fascinating artifacts associated with the attack. We’ll also get the story about how a piece of Pegasus Bridge ended up with Erik Dorr at The Gettysburg Museum of…

That wind turbine will make sure that we stay in poverty

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Dr. Bjørn Lomborg is the Director of Copenhagen Consensus Center and Adjunct Professor at Copenhagen Business School and conducts research into the smartest ways to improve the environment and the world. According to the UK Guardian, he is  one of the 50 people who could save the planet.

Here he writes how the burden of ineffective ‘green’ technologies for generating electricity, such as wind energy, has fallen to the poorest of our community, ensuring they stay in poverty.

The Poverty of Renewables
Bjørn Lomborg
17 March 2014

According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “Climate change harms the poor first and worst.” This is true, because the poor are the most vulnerable and have the least resources with which to adapt. But we often forget that current policies to address global warming make energy much more costly, and that this harms the world’s poor much…

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins a few years ago reacted to Donald Trump’s shock election victory in the United States by urging fellow scientists to move to New Zealand.

He called on this country to offer British and American academics citizenship following the “catastrophes” both countries had suffered at the hands of “uneducated, anti-intellectual” voters.

He might have changed his mind since then, although the mainstream media here either haven’t noticed or don’t think it’s a matter of public interest. 

Dawkins is troubled by what is happening to some of our scientists and is supporting colleagues around the world who contend that myths do not belong in science classes.  He has posted on Twitter the letter he emailed to the chief executive of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

He wrote to Roger Ridley, unaware that Paul Atkins (paul.atkins@royalsociety.org.nz) has succeeded Ridley as CEO.

Dawkins’ letter was prompted by another…

Henry VI (December 6, 1421 – May 21,1471) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. The only child of Henry V, and Catherine of Valois was the youngest daughter of King Charles VI of France and his wife Isabeau of Bavaria.

Henry succeeded to the English throne at the age of nine months upon his father’s death, and succeeded to the French throne on the death of his maternal grandfather, Charles VI, shortly afterwards.

Henry inherited the long-running Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), in which his uncle Charles VII contested his claim to the French throne. He is the only English monarch to have been also crowned King of France, in 1431. His early reign, when several people were ruling for him, saw the pinnacle of English power in France, but…

I remember the celebration in 2016 when Ireland was commemorating the centenary of the Easter Rising. There had already been events months beforehand. On 20 January 2016. Ireland’s first ever commemorative €2 coin went into circulation to mark the centenary year of the Easter Rising.

The Easter Rising , was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an independent Irish Republic. Of course this event needed to be remembered, because it was such an important step towards Irish independence.

However, fast forward to today, December 6 2021, and you will find there are hardly any events planned. Even though today marks the centenary of an even more important event in Irish history, the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty.

The Treaty formally ended the War of Independence, set the stage…

Europe’s persistent and ongoing wind drought spells the end for never-reliable wind power and the renaissance of ever-reliable nuclear.

As a consequence of the Big Calm and a total collapse in wind power output across Western Europe and the UK, the Brits have now enlisted Rolls Royce to build a fleet of small modular reactors.

And the French have rapidly unveiled plans to build 14 next-generation nuclear plants, adding to the 56 plants currently operating and providing the French with over 70% of their power needs, at a cost roughly half that being paid by their wind and solar ‘powered’ German neighbours. Long-standing French government plans to shutter its existing plants have been quietly shelved.

The reason that nuclear power generation is back with a vengeance is twofold: the evident impossibility of relying upon sunshine and breezes for reliable power; and the political desire to reduce carbon oxide gas…