Utopia, you are standing in it!

Desperate times, call for desperate measures and there’s no group more desperate than the wind and solar ‘industries’. With the global economy in meltdown – thanks to crippling and seemingly interminable coronavirus lockdowns – investment in the unreliables has plummeted.

In the USA, the wind and solar sector lost 106,000 jobs in March, with many more jobs lost since then. That slaughter prompted a march on Washington, as rent seekers clamoured for relevance and cash; only to be rebuffed and sent packing without a penny: Corona Mania: US Wind & Solar Industries Demand $Billions In Subsidies From Virus Stimulus Package

Now that they’re faced with their very own doomsday, the ‘End of Days’ rhetoric has changed course. As JoNova reports.

In the pandemic, investors fled from “Green Energy”. Desperate industry predicts 40 deaths a month in wake
Jo Nova Blog
Jo Nova
24 June 2020

Is that the dark smell of…

In another timely blog from our History of Parliament researchers, today Dr Simon Payling, senior research fellow for the Commons 1461-1504 project, discusses Parliament’s response to another plague outbreak as the courts of justice were suspended in June 1464.

On Wednesday 6 June 1464, at the beginning of Trinity term, a small piece of theatre was played out in Westminster Hall. Three justices of the court of common pleas ordered everyone present to hear the King’s command. The seal of a royal writ, dated ten days earlier, was then broken and the writ read aloud: the King, absent in the north campaigning against the Lancastrians, had heard of the plague raging in London and Westminster and decided to suspend the court for the whole of Trinity term. This sensible precaution reminds us that, although no visitation of the plague to these shores approached the devastating mortality of the Black…

I certainly don’t intend to do this for everyone who has made it to the White House, but I have produced big-picture economic assessments of several presidents.

• Herbert Hoover
• Franklin Roosevelt
• Richard Nixon
• Ronald Reagan
• George H.W. Bush
• Bill Clinton
• George W. Bush
• Barack Obama

Today, let’s go back farther in history and take a look at Woodrow Wilson.

At the risk of understatement, he did a very bad job. Indeed, it’s quite likely that he ranks as America’s worst president, at least when judging economic policy. His mistakes were either huge or disgusting.

Creating the income tax – The internal revenue code began when Wilson signed into law an income tax on October 3, 1913. The initial tax wasn’t overly onerous – with a top rate of just 7 percent – but it predictably evolved into the punitive levy that currently plagues America.

Creating the Federal Reserve – You…

Fine summer weather [image credit: BBC]

In climate fantasy world, everything is near-constant except human-caused trace gas emissions. Pathetic that this is considered to be serious science, rather than juvenile nonsense.
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Humans may need to “wait for decades” to see the results of large emission cuts on global surface temperatures, scientists have said.

Researchers in Norway used computer simulations to analyse various scenarios that looked at the effects of rapid reductions in several types of greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and black carbon, says TalkTalk.

They found that although large-scale emission cuts are needed to achieve the global climate goals, it may take decades before the effects of the reductions on temperatures can be measured.

Edward I (June 17/18, 1239 – July 7, 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Before his accession to the throne, he was commonly referred to as The Lord Edward. The first son of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, the second daughter of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence (1198–1245) and Beatrice of Savoy (1198–1267), the daughter of Thomas I of Savoy and his wife Margaret of Geneva. Edward was involved from an early age in the political intrigues of his father’s reign.

Edward I was a tall man (6’2″) for his era, hence the nickname “Longshanks”. He was temperamental, and this, along with his height, made him an intimidating man, and he often instilled fear in his contemporaries. Nevertheless, he held the respect of his subjects for the…

My Ph.D. alma mater Harvard has announced its attendance policy for the 2020-2021 academic year. As the articles below report (click on screenshots), at that school every single class, large or small, will be taught online. Further, only 40% of the undergraduate students will be allowed on campus at one time. In the fall semester, the first-years (freshmen) will be on campus, as well as those with a pressing need to be on campus to further their education. The first-years will then return home and be replaced in the spring semester by seniors.  The article below doesn’t say whether second- and third-year students will also be present in the spring, but with 40% attendance tops, it seems unlikely.

Nevertheless, Harvard is charging the students full freight: the year’s tuition, about $54,000—a total bummer for students who might not even be on campus. While they’ll save meal and housing fees, and…

Although Steve Pinker is perfectly capable of defending himself against insane charges by the Woke, as instantiated in a letter asking the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) to remove him from the position as a Distinguished LSA Fellow and designated media expert, I figured that I’d save him the trouble. After all, I’m just a lay reader who is able to compare what the letter said with the actual evidence supporting its indictments. My verdict: the letter should be dismissed with prejudice.

Since I posted my critique of the letter, two more defenses of Pinker have appeared. The first is from a famous linguist, Barbara Partee, who was not only an Inaugural Fellow of the LSA, but also a former President.  In 2014 she got an honorary degree from The University of Chicago, which awards such degrees only to distinguished scholars (no movie stars or Garrison Keillors, thank…

Ignore the voluble pomposity and faux moral piety, the sole motivation driving the all wind & solar crowd is money. Lots and lots of other people’s money.

And forget about saving the planet, this is about making a group of cynical, conniving and audacious rent-seekers fabulously, indeed filthy, rich.

In what is the greatest, state-sanctioned wealth-transfer in human history, hundreds of $billions is being funnelled from the pockets of taxpayers and consumers into the coffers of wind and solar power outfits, around the globe.

Aiding and abetting those that profit handsomely from policies that are destroying business and industry, and punishing households, with spiralling power prices, are outfits like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and GetUp! Operations that will do and say anything, provided what’s deposited in their Swiss bank accounts comes with a sufficient trail of consecutive zeros.

Mike Moore’s Planet of the Humans incensed renewable energy rent seekers…

(Richard Sorge)

As early as April 1941 British intelligence informed Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin of German intentions to discard the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 and invade Russia.  Stalin seemed to ignore those warnings and others as he would do on June 21, 1941 when London once again warned him of the impending German attack.  Unbeknownst to many in Europe Stalin did take certain precautions, for example, relocating Soviet industry east of the Ural Mountains and certain military accommodations as he had read MEIN KAMPF and believed eventually war with Germany was inevitable.  By November 1941, the German onslaught would be stymied outside of Moscow as Owen Matthews relates in his superb biography, AN IMPECCABLE SPY: RICHARD SORGE STALIN’S MASTER SPY.

Richard Sorge was a fascinating character and had the personality traits, the skills of a chameleon, and intellect to ingratiate himself with diverse types of people, manipulate them…

Australians are experiencing their first recession in nearly 30 years; its ruinous renewable energy policies are only adding insult to injury.

Australia’s energy market is a shambles – thanks to the $60 billion squandered on intermittent wind and solar, it was already in the midst of a power pricing and supply calamity, with disastrous consequences for energy hungry businesses such as manufacturing and mineral processing.

At the heart of the debacle is politics.

The May 2019 election was billed as a referendum on Climate Change. Labor’s then leader, Bill Shorten pitched up a 50% Renewable Energy Target and a whopping carbon dioxide gas tax, to boot. Bill also promised that he would eradicate Australia’s frequent and punishing droughts, with the aid of windmills and solar panels. Although no one, save Bill, was quite sure how this novel and ingenious ‘plan’ would make it rain on cue.

Having lost…

After years of Dave Rubin trying to get Steve Pinker on his show, he’s finally succeeded. Here’s the first part of their interview: a 34-minute discussion of Pinker’s background, his secular Judaism, blank-slateism, sex differences in preference and behavior (he mentions the Larry Summers and James Damore affairs), whether some scientific scientific questions should be off limits, identity politics, free speech on campus, whether campus censorship helped elect Trump (Pinker says “yes), and the distortion of his views by the Regressive Left. (Part 2, which deals with his new book Enlightenment Now, is here, and the full hour-long interview, which I haven’t yet seen but will, is here). Although some will say that this is Rubin simply interviewing another “alt-righter”, Pinker’s words dispel that characterization. Here he calls himself a “centrist,” though I see him as a classical liberal. He certainly has no kind words for Trump and…

The Woke are after Pinker again, and if he’s called a racist and misogynist, as he is in this latest attempt to demonize him, then nobody is safe. After all, Pinker is a liberal Democrat who’s donated a lot of dosh to the Democratic Party, and relentlessly preaches a message of moral, material, and “well-being” progress that’s been attained through reason and adherence to Enlightenment values. But that sermon alone is enough to render him an Unperson, for the Woke prize narrative and “lived experience” over data, denigrate reason, and absolutely despise the Enlightenment.

The link to the document in question, “Open Letter to the Linguistic Society of America,”  was tweeted yesterday by Pinker’s fellow linguist John McWhorter, who clearly dislikes the letter. And, indeed, the letter is worthy of Stalinism in its distortion of the facts in trying to damage the career of an opponent. At least…

Well, there’s your problem. The climate alarmists need tech toys that don’t exist, and insist that ‘clean’ energy can change the weather.
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Without a major acceleration in clean energy innovation, countries and companies worldwide will be unable to fulfil their pledges to bring their carbon emissions down to net-zero in the coming decades, said the IEA in a new report.

The report assesses the ways in which clean energy innovation can be significantly accelerated to achieve net-zero emissions while enhancing energy security in a timeframe compatible with international climate and sustainable energy goals, says Trade Arabia.

The Special Report on Clean Energy Innovation is the first publication in the IEA’s revamped Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP) series and includes a comprehensive new tool analysing the market readiness of more than 400 clean energy technologies.