Utopia, you are standing in it!

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There’s a saying – “Get woke, go broke.” If a media franchise, like a television or film series, adopts a social justice tone, things will go poorly. The saying draws attention to two issues. Being woke can alienate the fanbase and might also lead to reduced quality. The woke-broke hypothesis isn’t just idle internet chatter. Many in the business world worry about woke-broke because some brands have faced serious backlash over woke advertising or products. This Chartered Institute of Marketing website article has a succinct discussion of the issue. They note that there are definitely cases of woke-broke but other brands have done fine.

But is Woke actually Broke? Future marketing research…

Pin your power supply hopes on sunshine and breezes, and get prepared for mixed results.

South Australians, Californians and Texans know what comes from an overreliance on the unreliables, with plenty of experience of weather-related load shedding and mass blackouts.

Increasing dependence on chaotically intermittent wind and solar is the price we’ve paid for allowing ideology to ride roughshod over sound engineering and solid economics.

Once the engineers were relegated to the back office by wind and solar worshipping ideologues equipped with sociology or arts/law degrees, the end of reliably delivered power at affordable prices was inevitable.

This is the crowd that can’t tell the critical difference between ‘energy’ and ‘power’; that believes the yawning gulf between the promises made by the wind and solar industries and reality can be plugged by a few giant lithium batteries; who berates anybody who mentions sunset and calm weather and renewable energy in…

Milton Friedman on Government Regulations (1973) Capitalism and Freedom – Milton Friedman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDo642kuR7k

Milton Friedman was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy.

Top Milton Friedman Books:

1. Capitalism and Freedom: https://amzn.to/3lJ54bF

2. Free to Choose: https://amzn.to/3vRwTmG

3. Why Government Is the Problem: https://amzn.to/31hjeHi

In the past, as with now, it was not uncommon to find those trained in the practice of law seated on the benches of Parliament. In today’s blog Dr Vivienne Larminie, assistant editor of our Commons 1640-1660 project, looks into the tumultuous political career of one such lawyer in the 17th century, John Whistler.

With their expertise at a premium in the drafting of legislation, lawyers have always found a place in Parliament. When professional experience was combined with long service in the House and a reputation for learning, integrity or judicious pronouncements, a lawyer MP might command such respect that it was considered difficult to operate without him.This was the case with John Selden, a jurist with a European reputation who, when the Long Parliament assembled in November 1640, had the added kudos…

Over the years, I’ve shared some clever images, jokes, and cartoons to expose the flawed mindset of those who hope to achieve coerced equality of outcomes with redistribution and high tax rates.

The size of a pizza vs the share of a slice.

The modern version of the Little Red Hen.

Washington’s Byzantine welfare state.

Chuck Asay’s overburdened tractor.

A left-wing nursery rhyme.

The Wizard-of-Id parody.

Two pictures showing how the welfare state begins and ends.

A socialist classroom experiment (including a video version).

The economics of redistribution in one image.

As you can see, this is a common-sense issue. When you give people money on the condition that they don’t earn much money, you create a perverse incentive for them to be unproductive.

Especially since, when people work more and earn more, they get hit by a combination of fewer handouts and…

During the Obama years, I shared a cartoon strip that cleverly makes the point that some people will choose not to work if they can get enough goodies from the government.

That Wizard-of-Id parody has been viewed more than 56,000 times, which suggests many readers also thought it was worth sharing.

But it obviously hasn’t been shared often enough with the crowd in Washington. Politicians have created a welfare state that penalizes work and rewards dependency.

Especially now that there are bonus payments for staying unemployed. Which makes it hard to businesses to find workers.

Our friends on the left, however, think there’s a solution to this problem.

In his column for the New York Times, David Leonhardt says there is not a labor shortage because employers can simply raise wages.

The idea that the United States suffers from a labor shortage is fast becoming conventional wisdom. But…

June 6, 1944: D-Day

Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, Operation Overlord, the biggest seaborne invasion in history, marking the start of the liberation of France, and beginning the final phase of WWII in Europe.

Around 150,000 troops from Britain, America, Canada, and other Allied countries landed on five sectors of Normandy beach. The victory was costly: over 10,000 Allied casualties, compared to an estimated 5,000 to 9,000 casualties for the Germans.

To read more, click:

Sign up for wind and solar and receive power supply chaos as just one of the added extras, along with rocketing power prices and a wave of social and environmental havoc.

Australia has been on the path since 2001 when Federal Liberal PM, John Howard introduced his Renewable Energy Target. The Target was greatly expanded by Labor in 2009, with the subsidies to wind and solar pumped up to cost Australian power consumers more than $4 billion a year.

But tonight’s post is about something that, barely a decade ago, was almost inconceivable in a country blessed with coal, gas and (completely ignored) uranium. That is, routine power supply disruptions in the form of widespread load shedding (when the grid manager is in control) and mass blackouts (when things get completely out of control).

At the heart of the debacle sits sunshine-dependent solar and weather-dependent wind.

Here’s Chris Kenny’s…

I have just finished reading ‘The Room Where it Happened’ … the story of John Bolton’s tenure as Trump’s National Security Advisor before he resigned. It is a weighty tome … 494 pages supported by extensive notes.

Bolton paints a picture of a wasted transitional period leading to an almost totally dysfunctional White House where policy was made and unmade on the whim of a President who didn’t ‘do’ mornings, didn’t read his briefing books, and who allowed foreign Heads of State (especially KIim Jong Un) to play him like a piano, appealing to his vanity in order to extract concessions from him. I was particularly fascinated to read the detail behind Trump’s abortive attempt to bring the Talaban to Camp David for one-on-one discussions three prior to the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by al-Queda to which the Talaban had given aid and comfort. When it all went tits…

In January 1944 Tedder and Coningham were recalled to Britain to join Eisenhower for the countdown to D-Day. They brought with them enormous experience, the glow of victory and a shared outlook. The nature of the air war fought through North Africa, Sicily and Italy had to some extent been formed by Coningham’s ideas and leadership. In February 1943, he was given command of the British and American tactical forces in Tunisia. The team carried the Allies through the expulsion of the Axis forces from Tunisia, the Sicily landings and the invasion of Italy. At every stage lessons were learned and technologies and tactics were refined that would be applied triumphantly in the next stage of the air war.

On D-Day, 171 squadrons roamed over the troops toiling ashore. The almost total lack of opposition meant they were barely needed and hopes faded for a decisive first-day battle that would…

CO2 is not pollution

Yet another absurdity dreamed up from the foolish demonisation of a harmless trace gas essential to nature’s survival.
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Businesses bidding for major UK Government contracts will have to pledge to work towards a net zero carbon output by 2050 in order to be considered, in what is being touted as a world-first move, reports the Evening Standard.

The Cabinet Office said firms will have to publish “clear and credible carbon reduction” plans before seeking to become public sector contractors.

Officials said the measures, announced to coincide with World Environment Day on Saturday and coming before the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in November, makes the UK Government the first in the world to put such a requirement in place.