Utopia, you are standing in it!

Planet of the Humans has done more than touch a raw nerve among climate cultists and RE zealots, it’s sent them into apoplexy.

Michael Moore’s withering attack on the power and money behind the renewable energy scam – produced by Moore and made by Jeff Gibbs – has been uploaded to YouTube to allow all and sundry to get the message: renewable energy is the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time. STT first covered it here: Blood & Gore: Mike Moore’s ‘Planet of The Humans’ Unmasks The Power & Money Behind Renewables Scam

The film focuses on characters like David Blood and Al Gore who have made $billions by stripping the world’s landscapes and wilderness in order to burn every scrap of timber they can, in subsidised ‘biomass’ fuelled power plants – and leaves them looking like the cynical, mercenary hypocrites that they are.

That Elon Musk, Al Gore…

I missed this because I left out today’s anniversaries in the Hili dialogue. There are two big ones today, both pointed out by Fiona Fox, director of the Science Media Centre in Britain. Dr. Fox quotes remembrances from two of her experts (h/t Steve Jones):

FromProfessor Geoffrey L Smith FRS, Head, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge

Today is VE-Day. [JAC: the 75th anniversary.] It is also the 40^th anniversary of the WHO declaration of the eradication of smallpox, which in the 20^th century alone killed an estimated 400 million people, many more people than in both world wars. Whilst in the midst of another viral pandemic, we should remember the magnificent role that WHO played in ridding the world of smallpox and the power of vaccination. WHO should be encouraged, supported and funded in its efforts to control and eliminate COVID-19.

When making the case against socialism, I’ve pointed out how that coercive ideology is an evil and immoralfailure.

But maybe the best argument is contained in this very short video that was shared by a group of Tory activists in the United Kingdom.

Ms. Badenoch is now a member of the United Kingdom’s Parliament, and she was describing what it was like to grow up in Nigeria, a country where capitalism was not allowed to flourish.

Given the upside-down incentive system created by socialism, it’s no surprise that she endured hardship.

And while her story is just an anecdote, there is overwhelming evidence that nations with more economic liberty generate much better outcomes for ordinary people.

If you’re interested in learning more Ms. Badenoch, the U.K.-based Daily Mailprofiled her back in 2017.

Kemi Badenoch is black; although British-born, she was raised in Nigeria by African parents…

On 8 May, 1973, the controversial psychologist Hans Eysenck attempted to deliver a lecture at the London School of Economics, but faced heavy protests from students. A group of Maoists stormed the stage and assaulted Eysenck. Alongside a sit-in the following month to protest a lecture by US academic Samuel Huntington at the University of Sussex, the shutting down of Eysenck was seen as an example of the grave danger free speech faced at British universities. Occurring less than a year before the ‘no platform’ policy was introduced by the National Union of Students, the Eysenck incident shows that claims that the freedom of speech was under threat at universities has existed for decades and that there has long been debate about the appropriate action to be taken against right-wing speakers who weren’t explicit fascists.

 Cartoon from the Daily Mirror

Before the NUS formalised its ‘no platform’ policy and put…

When making the case against socialism, I’ve pointed out how that coercive ideology is an evil and immoralfailure.

But maybe the best argument is contained in this very short video that was shared by a group of Tory activists in the United Kingdom.

Ms. Badenoch is now a member of the United Kingdom’s Parliament, and she was describing what it was like to grow up in Nigeria, a country where capitalism was not allowed to flourish.

Given the upside-down incentive system created by socialism, it’s no surprise that she endured hardship.

And while her story is just an anecdote, there is overwhelming evidence that nations with more economic liberty generate much better outcomes for ordinary people.

If you’re interested in learning more Ms. Badenoch, the U.K.-based Daily Mailprofiled her back in 2017.

Kemi Badenoch is black; although British-born, she was raised in Nigeria by African parents…

(These notes are just the tip of the iceberg. “Economics in One Lesson” is one of the most brilliant, yet approachable, books on economics ever written, and you can download it in PDF format for free HERE.

Note: All notes below are direct quotations from the book unless surrounded by parentheses.)

———————

The whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups. (5)

[The argument that war helps the economy] confuses need with demand. The more war destroys, the more it impoverishes, the greater is the postwar need. Indubitably. But need is not demand. Effective economic demand requires…

At least in terms of Expected Value it is far better to be a dentist than a rock star, because dentists earn consistently large salaries while the majority of rock stars earn very little, and even those that do become successful and make millions don’t swing the profession’s average salary to the level of dentists.

And if lack of variance is valuable to you, than being a dentist becomes even more attractive!

Statistical example of the lack of variance in the long-term relative to the short-term: “A 15% return with 10% volatility (or certainty) per annum translates into a 93% probability of success in any given year. But seen at a narrow time scale, this translates into a mere 50.02% probability of success over any given second” (65)

“(T)here are Monte Carlo generators designed to structure such texts and write entire papers. Fed with ‘postmodernist’ texts, they can randomize phrases…

“It is not very difficult to hit a target from an altitude of 30,000 feet.”

Theodore H. Barth, Norden Bombsight Co.

Great advances are seldom the products of a single mind; rather they arise from lore and facts previously known. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch draper in the seventeenth century was working in his father’s shop when he wanted a better way of seeing the quality of threads they were using than the then current magnifying lenses. His curiosity led to one of the most significant and technical developments in the history of science: the microscope with its magic enlargements. Countless scientists have profited by van Leeuwenhoek’s curiosity and subsequent knowledge.

Two hundred years after Leeuwenhoek, Joseph Lister, a professor of surgery at Glasgow University, learned more about the French chemist Louis Pasteur’s experiments which showed that fermentation and food spoilage could occur under anaerobic conditions if micro-organisms were present…

I noticed last evening that the Bank of England had released its Monetary Policy Report with some rough and ready GDP estimates/forecasts.  They reckon UK GDP probably fell by about 3 per cent in the March quarter (which would be a smaller fall than in quite a few other big European countries) and then by about a further 25 per cent in the June quarter.   In previous comments both the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility had estimated that during the lockdown itself GDP would be perhaps 35 per cent less than normal.

The Bank of England described their numbers as rough and ready.  I pulled out an old envelope and sketched out on the back of it some week by week stylised “rough and ready”) numbers for New Zealand.   In part I was curious to see what it would take to produce a similar…

Ideologies never die, they metamorphose and are reborn in a new form just when they are thought buried forever.

– Pascal Bruckner, French philosopher and writer (2006)

In 2010, sociology professor Rick Fantasia, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, struggled to explain the results of US Congress elections that were disastrous to democrats and that, at that time, brought a majority to the republicans.  Fantasia was part of a Social Forum, a 15,000-strong army of left activists who gathered in Detroit, Michigan.  Observing this convention, he noted that most people who arrived at this convention mostly represented various minority organizations that were either involved into identity politics or represented immigrant workers.  Fantasia also noted a heavy presence of countercultural and environmentalist elements, including New Age seekers.  Yet, the activist scholar pointed out that one important element was missing: working-class people, especially white workers.  With frustration, Fantasia noted…

They seemed to be  busy, busy, busy in the Beehive yesterday (or some of them were),  using the flow of press statements as our measure.

But much of what emerged related to the same issue – the prospect that Covid-19 constraints on what we can do will be lowered to Level Two.

The PM said Cabinet on Monday will consider moving to the next stage of the Covid-19 response but cautioned that the virus has bounced back in some countries where restrictions have been relaxed. 

Her detailed statement emphasised the need to continue to playing it safe, noting that public health measures remain unchanged, the border remains closed except to Kiwis, and the government wants us to stick to the social distancing rules. But –