Utopia, you are standing in it!

Standard M4A2(76mm) Sherman

M4A3(76mm) Sherman

The US Army made a conscious decision in 1943: to ignore calls for rapid development of the heavy, 90mm-gun T26 (Pershing) to take on the Panthers and Tigers, and instead to mass produce the M4 – a medium tank that would do the job well enough rather than brilliantly, and at a practical cost in time, talent, treasure, and shipping weight.

Its 75mm gun and 50mm (2in) frontal armor were not good enough to take on a late Panzer head-to-head; but Sherman crews used their numbers, speed and agility to swarm round the Panthers and Tigers. The Panzer might survive long enough to kill one, maybe even two M4s; but in the meantime the rest of the platoon, working round onto its flanks, would be putting rounds into its more vulnerable sides and engine compartment from close up.

The Sherman also lent itself to adaptation…

The Godfather Part II (1974) Director: Francis Ford Coppola

“I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart…”

★★★★★

The beauty of the Godfather Part II lies in it being both a sequel –perhaps the greatest sequel in cinematic history– and yet also a prequel. The two narratives, sequel and prequel, are beautifully interwoven in a way that forces the audience to contemplate the distinct lives between the old generation of Vito Corleone and his rise from Sicilian orphan to American mafia Don, and the new generation of Michael Corleone whose reign as mafia Don is plagued by political infighting, legal crackdowns, and familial collapse.

Shortly before the original Godfather was released, a sequel was approved by Paramount and Mario Puzo began working on the script for a sequel. Throughout the film we see Francis Ford Coppola quoting himself and re-working or reimagining scenes from the first film in…

The New Zealand Herald was not alone in reporting on the discomforting results for National in the latest Curia opinion poll and the petition mounted by Maori Party leaders to have the name of this country officially changed to Aotearoa.

The first matter was headlined The National Party’s polling company has the party crashing to within six points of Act

The writer of the report beneath this headline seemed to delight in noting who had conducted this poll.  

The National Party’s historic pollster has the party’s support crashing to historic lows, while Act is on the verge of overtaking it.

A Curia poll, conducted for the Taxpayer’s Union, has National on just 21.2 per cent, with Act close behind on 14.9 per cent.

The result is only a whisker above National’s worst-ever election result, 20.93 per cent in 2002. It is the closest National and Act have ever been in…

The Godfather (1972) Director: Francis Ford Coppola

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

★★★★★

The Godfather is simply a perfect movie -beautifully shot, an impeccable script devised by Director Francis Ford Coppola and original novelist Mario Puzo, a transcendent score by Nino Rota, excellent acting from an all-star cast (even the actors considered but ultimately denied roles in the film included an extraordinary line-up, Laurence Olivier, George C. Scott, Orson Welles, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Redford, Robert De Niro, Martin Sheen, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson and so on). The Godfather is about a Sicilian family now living in America and running a criminal enterprise. The year is 1945 in New York City. We are dropped into the wedding celebration of Vito Corleone’s daughter, Connie (played by Coppola’s sister Talia Shire). Per Sicilian tradition, Don Vito Corleone (played by a cotton-mouthed Marlon Brando and based on real mobster Frank…

If insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results, then California’s a clear candidate for the asylum.

Over the last 20 years, its maniacal wind and solar obsession has cost Californians dearly: they suffer America’s highest power prices and, when the mercury soars, are lucky to get any power, at all. Energy poverty is an entrenched part of daily life now for millions of its poor and underprivileged.

But, that’s the price to be paid for the unsubstantiated belief that all your power needs can be delivered exclusively by sunshine and breezes.

California’s wind and sun cult reckon that the solution to its power pricing and supply calamity is simple: endless banks of giant batteries – which will store wind and solar power on those occasions when it’s purportedly being produced in excess, to account for sunset and/or calm weather.

It’s never worked anywhere on Earth, but…

James II-VII (October 14, 1633 – September 16, 1701) was King of England and Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII, from February 6, 1685 until he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland; his reign is now remembered primarily for struggles over religious tolerance. However, it also involved the principles of absolutism and divine right of kings, and his deposition ended a century of political and civil strife by confirming the primacy of Parliament over the Crown.

James, the second surviving son of King Charles I and his wife, Henrietta Maria de Bourbon of France, the youngest daughter of Henri IV of France (Henri III of Navarre) and his second wife, Marie de’ Medici, and named after her parents was born at St James’s Palace in London on October 14, 1633. Later that…

In addition to being a contest over expanding the burden of government spending, the Democratic primary also is a contest to see who wants the biggest tax increases.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have made class-warfare taxation an integral part of their campaigns, but even some of the supposedly reasonable Democrats are pushing big increases in tax rates.

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute opines about the anti-growth effect of these proposed tax hikes, particularly with regard to entrepreneurship and successful new firms.

The Democratic presidential candidates have plenty of ideas about taxes. Wealth taxes. Wall Street taxes. Inequality taxes. And probably more to come. So lots of creative thinking about wealth redistribution. Wealth creation? Not so much. …one way to look at boosting GDP growth is thinking about specific policies to boost labor force and productivity growth. But there’s another way of approaching the issue: How many fast-growing growing new…