Utopia, you are standing in it!

(Stalin and Svetlana during her early teens)

When one thinks about the demonic characters that dominated the twentieth century most people do not focus on the impact their lives have had on their offspring.  But with Rosemary Sullivan’s remarkable new biography, STALIN’S DAUGHTER: THE EXTRAORDINARY AND TUMULTUOUS LIFE OF SVETLANA ALLILUYEVA we have just such a book.  Sullivan’s narrative and analysis is thoughtful and reasoned and by the conclusion of her 623 page effort the reader will feel they have entered a surreal world that explored not only Stalin’s child, but the author of the cult of personality that dominated Russian history from 1924 until his death in 1953.  What emerges is a portrait of a child who is raised in the ultimate dysfunctional family.  Svetlana had to endure the suicide of her mother, Nadya in 1932, the erratic emotional roll a coaster that was her father, and the demands…

(Soviet leader Joseph Stalin)

In her first book, THE SPY WHO CHANGED HISTORY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF HOW THE SOVIET UNION WON THE RACE FOR AMERICA’S TOP SECRETS Svetlana Lokhova argues that in the early 1930s Joseph Stalin came to the realization that if the Soviet Union was to survive drastic measures needed to be taken to improve the state of Soviet technology visa vie the west.  The Russian dictator stated that “We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries.  We must catch up in ten years.  Either we do it, or they will crush us.”  Stalin feared that large numbers of enemy aircraft could easily release poisonous gases over Soviet territory resulting in the death of millions.  The Soviet dictator’s solution was multifaceted; starve millions of peasants to death through collectivization to acquire hard currency to assist in Russia’s industrialization, show trials/purges/murder of those who opposed…

If you like quizzes, you might want to see this one at the New York Times, though it’s pretty lame. It’s not one that you can get graded on, but a series of 35 question (with clicks for the “reveals”), asking how much you know about the primaries, the caucuses, how and when you should vote, who’s ahead, and, at the end—where it gets really lame)—”Are we going to be o.k.?” and “When is this all over?”. Sure, maybe those are lighthearted questions, but they’re dumb. Click below if you want to inflict more politics on your beleaguered carcass:

Here’s question 11 with the reveal, though of course it’s way early in the election to prognosticate about winners:

At least it’s an interesting race, with a centrist in a narrow lead, followed by a socialist and then a progressive, with all the rest bunching up below 10%. When I…

The long quote below, about obsession, instability and indifference to reality, is from George Orwell’s essay “Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945, Polemic). Orwell presciently captures accurately the mental outlook of contemporary Race & Gender Identity Politics social justice warriors, who are nationalists in his sense:

By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests.

From: Notes on Nationalism

Obsession. As nearly as possible, no nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority…

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…