Utopia, you are standing in it!

The fundamental laws concerning the royal succession In Ancien Régime France, the laws that govern the succession to the throne are among the fundamental laws of the kingdom. They could not be ignored, nor modified, even by the king himself, since it is to these very laws to which he owes his succession. In the French monarchy, they are the foundation of any right of succession to the throne. They have developed during the early centuries of the Capetian monarchy, and were sometimes transferred to other countries linked to the dynasty.

Heredity: the French crown is hereditary. The early Capetians had their heirs crowned during their lifetime, to prevent succession disputes. The first such coronation was in favor of Robert II, in 987.

Primogeniture: the eldest son is the heir, while cadets only receive appanages to maintain their rank. This principle was strengthened in 1027, when Henry, the eldest surviving…

Norway’s Goliat oil platform [image credit: T3n60 @ Wikipedia]
Another attempt to use the courts to impose the will of climate alarmists bites the dust, at least until the next and final appeal, if it happens. When are they going to take Russia to court over Arctic drilling? Too risky perhaps.

A Norwegian court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by two environmental groups which had sued Norway for granting new oil licenses in the Arctic, reports Phys.org.

A Norwegian court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by two environmental groups which had sued Norway for granting new oil licenses in the Arctic.

Greenpeace and Natur og Ungdom (Nature and Youth) had called for the cancellation of exploration licenses granted in May 2016 to 13 oil companies in the fragile Arctic region, saying the concessions violated the Norwegian constitution which since 2014 guarantees the right to a healthy environment.

They argued…

January 22^nd saw the appearance of an article titled ‘Holocaust row bubbles as leaders gather in Israel’ in the ‘Features’ section of the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page.

Written by the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Tom Bateman, the article’s main theme is what he describes as “a row about the distortion of history by rival nationalist leaders in Europe”.

Referring to the Polish president, Bateman tells readers that:

“Mr Duda has said he will not attend this week’s Holocaust remembrance ceremony at Yad Vashem, the official memorial centre in Jerusalem. […]

Mr Duda complained that he has not been allowed to address the audience, whereas Mr Putin and other leaders will speak.”

He goes on to claim that what he again describes as “the row” over speaking arrangements at the Jerusalem event “has aggravated a bitter dispute between Russia and Poland – whose leaders have been…

Once upon a time, electricity had a value defined by demand, not by the weather. Power that can’t be delivered as and when it’s needed has absolutely no commercial value.

Which brings us to weather-dependent wind power; generated in chaotic, random intervals, it’s a case of either feast or famine.

But businesses and households don’t tend to run to nature’s fickle pulses. Indeed, the very point of the Industrial Revolution – central to which was harnessing and employing thermal power – was for society itself to dictate its terms of operation.

There is only one reason that we’re still talking about wind power, at all: endless subsidies.

One of which takes the form of “constraint payments”, by which taxpayers and/or power consumers are forced to literally pay wind power outfits to not produce electricity. [Note to Ed: getting paid for doing nothing is good work if you can get it!]

From the Telegraph Climate activist who climbed Big Ben has ‘Extinction Rebellion psychosis’, judge says. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Aclimate change activist who scaled Big Ben in a green leotard and a blonde Boris Johnson wig has ‘Extinction Rebellion psychosis’ a judge has said.

Tree surgeon Benjamin Atkinson, 43, spent three hours on the scaffolding at Queen Elizabeth Tower last October.

Atkinson climbed the tower and unfurled a rainbow flag from the scaffolding carrying the XR logo which read: ‘No pride on a dead planet’.

He appeared barefoot at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday where he denied a single trespass charge.

His solicitor Jenny Winter indicated he intends to argue necessity in his defence and will call witnesses to give evidence on his suffering from “climate change anxiety”.

Chief Magistrate, Lady Emma Arbuthnot: “No, no, no, this is about climbing a tower, necessity is saving life or…

This is part 5 in the series on the prediction that glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone by 2020. You might want to see to part 1, part2, part 3 and part 4 if you haven’t already

This post is a follow-up on a previous post in this series, more specifically the post of Wikipedia rewriting history by suggesting that the 2030 prediction was a “later estimate”, following the 2020 prediction. Contrary to the reality that the 2020 estimate was an update of the 2030 estimate and the 2030 estimate was in fact rehashed after the 2020 claim was abandoned (probably because it became clear that the 2020 estimate would fail).

My take was that the Wikipedia contributor found that the 2030 estimate was made in an later snapshot of a National Park Service webpage and didn’t look at the estimates in the snapshots before 2010…

Today, the Supreme Court heard  the most important case on the intersection of religion and education to arise in decades–Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. A few years back, Montana had passed its first school-choice program, a tax-credit scheme that allowed a small tax credit for donations to scholarship programs that helped kids afford private school.

As in any state, many of Montana’s private schools are religious. Right after the state legislature passed the tax-credit statute, the Montana Department of Revenue promulgated a rule that immediately gutted the program by forbidding students attending religious schools from receiving scholarship money.

The Department based its rule on Montana’s Constitution, which says the legislature can’t “make any direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies . . . for any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school,” etc. Plenty of states have very similar “no-aid” clauses…

On the evening of January 21^st an infiltration took place on the border with the Gaza Strip.

“IDF soldiers opened fire at a group infiltrating the border fence along the Gaza-Israel border on Tuesday, hitting three Palestinian suspects who used the inclement weather to hide in a wooded area near Kibbutz Kissufim.

The IDF reported that one of the terrorists hurled a grenade or an explosive charge at a force that surrounded the three.”

As local media reported, the IDF released video evidence of the infiltrator throwing the explosive device.

To date the BBC has not produced any reporting on that incident but the next morning the BBC’s Jerusalem correspondent Tom Bateman did put out three related Tweets in which he found it appropriate to focus on the age of the armed border infiltrators and unnecessarily qualify the facts of the incident using the well-worn “Israel says” formula.

I almost never visit the My Modern Met site, but it must be good, as I often get suggestions from readers about articles there. I think I found this one on my own, but probably through Facebook. It’s the story of how an enterprising young photographer, Jon Carmichael, took a spectacular photo of a solar eclipse. Click on the screenshot to see the story.

The date was August 21, 2017, and you may remember that there was a total eclipse that day visible in much of the U.S. (I saw part of it, though it was overcast in Chicago). Carmichael decided to try to photograph the eclipse from in the air—on a commercial flight.

He chose a Southwest flight from Portland, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri, which would put him in the path of the eclipse when he was in the air. But he neglected to buy the early…

The Good Friday Agreement (also known as the Belfast Agreement) is 20 years old today, but recent events in Northern Ireland have shown that power-sharing has proven a difficult exercise. Alan Whysall, who was involved in the negotiations that led to the Agreement as well as its implementation, examines what has gone wrong since the Agreement was signed. A second blog, to be published tomorrow, will discuss what can be done to get the Agreement back on track.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, (‘the Agreement’),  but the system of power-sharing government it established in Northern Ireland has not functioned for over a year. It was widely seen in Britain, as elsewhere, as a significant act of statesmanship, supported by both main parties. But it now appears at risk, as the Irish border becomes a critical issue in the Brexit negotiations.

What has…

In 1973, the UK government organised the country’s first referendum, on the subject of whether or not Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK. Now, as Brexit and its potential consequences make another border poll look like an increasing possibility, David Torrance looks back on the poll, its background, and its later constitutional significance.

Introduction 

The first constitutional referendum in the history of the United Kingdom took place on 8 March 1973. It was held nearly four years after the beginning of ‘The Troubles’ – a sharp deterioration in the security and political situation in Northern Ireland. 

What became known as the ‘border poll’ (although it was also called a ‘referendum’ or ‘plebiscite’, no one could quite agree on terminology) emerged as a means by which to ‘take the border out of politics’, or so it was hoped. In discussions with the Government of Northern Ireland (NIG)…