Utopia, you are standing in it!

By Sara M. Butler; posted 15 August 2019.

About six months ago, I stumbled across an intriguing 2011 article by Stephen Alsford on the subject of medieval serfdom and the myth that “town air makes free” – that is, escape to a town for the period of a year and a day earned a fugitive serf his freedom in medieval England.[1] The subject aside, what surprised me most about the article is the fact that it appeared in the journal Slavery & Abolition. Equating serfs with slaves is a bold move, and something that we emphatically do not do in medieval historical circles. The medieval unfree were undoubtedly the descendants of the Roman Empire’s chattel slaves; but, as the medieval history textbooks pronounce, their status was wholly different. Admittedly, after that strong stance the explanation in the textbooks tends to get a bit hazy, and for good reason…

It can be hard to know quite what to make of the Governor of the Reserve Bank, even setting aside the substance of his policy choices and formal policy communications.

I’ve been puzzled almost from the start.  When his appointment was announced two years ago this week, my post began with several positive aspects I saw in the appointment.  His communications skills were always both a potential plus but also quite a risk.

What of his communications skills?  He can be hugely entertaining, and quite remarkably vulgar (an astonishingly crude analogy involving toothbrushes springs to mind).   Just the thing –  perhaps –  in an old-fashioned market economist.  Not, perhaps, the sort of thing we might hope for from a Reserve Bank Governor.   …..No doubt he will rein in his tongue most of the time –  and perhaps he has calmed down a bit with age – but it…

Another COP flop seems likely. After the usual fig leaf of the closing declaration, they’ll kick the panic can down the road to the next bloated gab-fest in Glasgow 2020. And so the bickering circus goes on, and on…

UN climate talks in Madrid enter their final scheduled day with divisions emerging between major emitting countries and small island states, reports BBC News.

Negotiators are attempting to agree a deal in the Spanish capital that would see countries commit to make new climate pledges by the end of 2020.

But serious disagreements have emerged over how much carbon-cutting the major emitters should undertake.

Consider the post-Hayek/Rothbard/Friedman era of libertarianism.

Who has stepped up to fill their shoes? It’s hard to say, but 4 academics who stand out are Tyler Cowen, Mike Munger, Robert Higgs, and Bryan Caplan. Their scholarly output is comparable to our own Jacques Delacroix, and their influence within the libertarian quadrant is – or was at some point in time – much greater than Jacques’.

All four of these scholars cut their teeth blogging. The blog is how they teach. The blog is how they vent. The blog is how they share news and knowledge. The blog is how they went from well-respected to essential. All four write opinion pieces for professional outlets, but that’s not how they became essential to libertarians across the globe. Sharing their day-to-day thoughts about the world, to the world (and not just their walled-off social media accounts), is how they…

The wind and solar ‘industries’ were built on lies and run on subsidies. As to the former, for more than 20 years a phalanx of propagandists has worked overtime to literally turn night into day.

Lines like the ‘wind is always blowing somewhere’, ‘sunset’s not a problem’, this ‘wind farm will power XXX hundred thousand homes’ and (in answer to perpetual problem of their chaotic intermittency) ‘mega-batteries will fix it’, sit comfortably with old chestnuts like ‘I’ll pay you next week’ and ‘the cheque’s in the mail’.

As Norman Rogers details below, the propagandists may have become more sophisticated – and now include some clever little darlings from Deloitte, but their message is just as vacuous as ever.

Green Energy Studies: Consulting, or Advertising?
American Thinker
Norman Rogers
27 November 2019

Wind and solar aren’t remotely competitive with traditional fossil fuels and cannot replace them. They would scarcely exist if…

On December 12, 1936, at the accession meeting of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, the new king, George VI, announced he was to create his brother the “Duke of Windsor” with the style of Royal Highness. He wanted this to be the first act of his reign, although the formal documents were not signed until March 8, 1937 that following year. During the interim, Edward was universally known as the Duke of Windsor. George VI’s decision to create Edward a royal duke ensured that he could neither stand for election to the House of Commons nor speak on political subjects in the House of Lords.

King George VI of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Emperor of India.

Letters Patent dated May 27, 1937 re-conferred the “title, style, or attribute of Royal Highness” upon the Duke of Windsor, but specifically stated that “his wife and…

We may not yet know the result of the election, but we do know that we will have a new parliament. David Natzler and David Beamish explain what will happen when the new parliament commences next week. No matter the outcome of today’s vote, certain processes will need to be followed: parliament will need to be officially opened, MPs will need to be sworn in, and committees will need to be re-established — and their members and chairs must be elected.

The dates

The first days of a new parliament follow a well-trodden path, and the surest guide to what will happen is usually to look up what happened last time, in June 2017. However, much depends on the political context. And we will not know that context until the early hours of Friday 13 December at the earliest. All we know for sure is that the new parliament will…

Media coverage in this election has been dominated by the Conservatives and Labour, and their competing policy plans. But a key difference between the parties is that, while a Conservative majority government is clearly possible based on the polls, a Labour majority government is not. Hence a Labour-led government would need to negotiate its policy with other parties, which would soften its stance. Robert Hazell and Meg Russell reflect on the lack of coverage of these questions, and what a Labour-led government would actually look like – in terms of personalities, policies and style.

Consistent opinion poll evidence during the general election campaign suggests that there are two possible outcomes: a majority Conservative government led by Boris Johnson, or a hung parliament. In the event of the latter, Johnson might still remain Prime Minister, but he has few allies – even having alienated Northern Ireland’s DUP. So a…

For two simple reasons, I want Boris Johnson to win a clear majority tomorrow in the elections for the British Parliament.

1. He’s not a lunatic socialist, like Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party and the British version of Bernie Sanders.
2. He’s promised a real Brexit, meaning the U.K. escapes a doomed-to-decline, ever-more-dirigiste European Union.

Beyond that, his platform is not terribly exciting for supporters of limited government.

Which makes me all the more nostalgic for Margaret Thatcher, the only good British Prime Minister in my lifetime (just as Ronald Reagan was the only good President in my lifetime).

I’ve previously shared two great videos of Thatcher, one about the real source of government funds and the other about the poisonous ideology of class warfare.

I can’t imagine Boris Johnson giving either speech.

Or making this statement.

Or giving these remarks.

As far as I know, Boris…

Electricity that can’t be delivered as and when it’s needed has no commercial value. Indeed, when the gales rip across the Scottish Highlands and there’s a surfeit of wind power generated, that electricity can’t even be given away. Instead, taxpayers become the ‘buyers’ of last resort; not that they could never be called willing purchasers, and not that any power ever gets delivered to them, or anyone else.

Euphemistically called “constraint payments”, European governments are squandering hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars each year, directing it to wind power outfits, literally paying them to NOT generate electricity, simply because the (wholly weather-dependent) supply they occasionally generate is incapable of matching (wholly human-dependent) demand.

In Scotland alone, since 2010 taxpayers have transferred more than £600 million to Scottish wind power outfits, with the result that around 8.2 TWh of Scottish wind power has been discarded, a quantity that would have supplied…

The next day, after signing the Act of Abdication, the last act of his reign was the royal assent to His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936. As required by the Statute of Westminster, all the Dominions had already consented to the abdication.

Although Edward VIII had signed a declaration of abdication the previous day—December 10, 1936—he remained king until giving Royal Assent to His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act, which he did onDecember 11, at 1.52 p.m., and the Act became immediately effective from that time. Ironically, his last act as king was giving the royal assent to his own abdication.

His brother, the Duke of York, succeeded to the throne as George VI. Instead of becoming King Albert, his given name, he selected the name George to suggest continuity with his father George V. King George VI’s elder daughter, Princess Elizabeth, became heir presumptive.

King George VI of…

Climate Litigation Watch is reporting the ruling by Judge Barry Ostrager ending the case brought by NYAG Leticia James against ExxonMobil.  The loss could hardly be more complete.  The full text of the ruling is here.  The juicy bits are excerpted in italics below with my bolds.

Supreme Court of New York, New York County, the Honorable Barry Ostrager presiding.

Decision After Trial

Nothing in this opinion is intended to absolve ExxonMobil from responsibility for contributing to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases in the production of its fossil fuel products. ExxonMobil does not dispute either that its operations produce greenhouse gases or that greenhouse gases contribute to climate change, But ExxonMobil is in the business of producing energy, and this is a securities fraud case, not a climate change case. Applying the applicable legal standards, the Court finds that the Office of the Attorney General failed…