Utopia, you are standing in it!

Whilst this blog takes no position on the legality of Israeli communities across the green line, we do take a strident stand on holding British media outlets accountable to the accuracy clause of the UK Editors’ Code of Practice. So, over the past several days, we’ve pushed back against multiple outlets – including the Guardian, Independent, Economist, Telegraph and Financial Times – that have misrepresented longstanding US policy on settlements in the context of reports on the new US decision that they’re not illegal.

As we noted in a recent post, these outlets have erred in claiming that the new US position breaks with “four decades” of US policy, which, they assert, deemed Jewish communities in the West Bank “illegal”.

This is not true, as between the late 1970s and 2016, there was not one President or Secretary of State who labeled the settlements “illegal”. …

Guest post by Indy Bhullar and Debbie Challis

There is much more research to be made in these areas, particularly the relationship of eugenics to demography and LSE’s role in training for colonial administration. This is just an outline of some of the material in LSE’s Library Collection and Archives. A good starting point to read more is the blog post by Shikha Dilawri.

The Webbs

In 1883 Galton published Inquiries into Human Faculty, a
collection of experiments, correspondence and data on inheritance, human
ability and psychological tests. It was in this book that Galton created the
word ‘eugenics’ to describe the science and idea of breeding human ‘stock’ to
give ‘the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing
speedily over the less suitable’ in a footnote. ‘Eugenics’ came from the Greek
words ‘genus’, translated as race or kin, and ‘eu’, meaning good…

Franz Joseph I (August 18, 1830 – November 21, 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, and monarch of many other states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from December 2, 1848 to his death. From May 1, 1850 to August 24, 1866 he was also President of the German Confederation, the successor state to the Holy Roman Empire. He was the longest-reigning Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, as well as the third-longest-reigning monarch of any country in European history, after Louis XIV of France and Johann II of Liechtenstein.

Franz Joseph was born in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna (on the 65th anniversary of the death his great-great grandfather Holy Roman Emperor Franz I of Lorraine) as the eldest son of Archduke Franz Karl (the younger son of Holy Roman Emperor Franz II), and his wife Princess Sophie of Bavaria. Because his uncle, reigning from 1835…

By John Kruzel – 11/21/19 – The Hill

The Supreme Court on Friday will consider whether to take up a prominent climatologist’s defamation suit against a venerated conservative magazine, in a case that pits climate scientists against the free speech rights of global warming skeptics.

The dispute between scientist Michael Mann and the National Review has drawn attention from lawmakers, interest groups, academics and media, as the court weighs adding a potentially blockbuster First Amendment showdown to an already politically charged docket.

Scientists hail Mann’s lawsuit as a necessary defense against efforts to erode public confidence in the scientific consensus that climate change is an urgent threat, while free speech advocates have rallied around the iconic conservative publication.

The case has made for strange bedfellows, with the National Review receiving backing from the Center for Investigative Reporting, which has produced award-winning coverage of climate change; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

Last week, a nominee to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency generated fireworks when, during his confirmation hearing, he said he does not know the cause of climate change. The comment reignites the debate over how FEMA, which provides subsidized flood insurance and disaster relief, should respond to the risk climate change poses for both functions. Fortunately, given FEMA’s role, the cause of this increased risk shouldn’t matter. If FEMA recognizes the risk, the only question is figuring out whether and how to respond to it.

Climate change, to the extent it increases the risk of sea level rise and destructive natural disasters, substantially affects FEMA programs. It increases the National Flood Insurance program’s liabilities, if the risks are not appropriately priced (as they’re usually not). And it may increase the frequency and costs of FEMA disaster responses. But that climate change may pose risks that FEMA should account for…

Prof Geoff Jones of HBS has recently written a case on role of IBM in Nazi Germany.

He discusses the case and its broad lessons in this superb interview:

It is rare that you pick up a book and just say, ” wow, this is an achievement.” For the last five years or so, Bryan Caplan has immersed himself in the extremely large social science literature on immigration and its impacts. You would expect a 300 page academic monograph. But that’s not what you get. Instead, he teamed up with Zach Weinersmith of SMBC fame to write a graphic novel. Open Borders: The Science and Ethnics of Immigration is truly something else. It’s a slim tome that lays out the argument for unrestricted migration. It’s joyful , it’s beautiful, and most importantly, it’s right.

Not unlike the OECD, our Productivity Commission tends to lean left.  Not usually in some overtly partisan sense, but in a bias towards government solutions, a disinclination to focus on government failures as much as “market failures”, and a mentality that is often reluctant to look behind symptoms (which government action can sometimes paper over) to look at deeper causes and influences.

Sometimes the cheerleading for the left becomes more overt.   There was a streak of that evident in their climate change report a year or two back, but it seems particularly evident in their latest draft report out this morning.    Reflecting the change of government, the political complexion of key personnel of the Commission, the Commissioners –  while each individually capable –  appears to have shifted leftwards.

The Productivity Commission’s inquiries are into topics selected by the government of the day.  The current Minister of Finance has…

The wind cult works overtime to avoid the bloody reality that their beloveds are responsible for millions of bird and bat deaths, every year. Lying, dissembling and attempting to bury the evidence is just the start. There follows a game of moral equivalence, asserting that more bats and birds are clobbered by cars, cats and tall buildings.

Cars, cats and skyscrapers don’t kill healthy Eagles – like the critically endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, but 60 m wind turbine blades with their tips travelling at 350 Kph routinely smash them out of existence.

As part of the same race to the periphery, wind worshippers also spin the line that evil fossil fuels are responsible for even more avian carnage. Except, as James Taylor points out below those claims ring just a little hollow.

Wind apologists laughably claim fracking harms wildlife
CFACT
James Taylor
3 November 2019

Apologists for wind power…

Today I will begin a series on the life of King Charles I of England. In the coming weeks I will include entries on his marriage his accession to the throne, his reign and the English Civil War, culminating in his trial which I will cover on its anniversary this January.

Charles I of England was the second son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, Charles was born in Dunfermline Palace, Fife, on November 19, 1600. At a Protestant ceremony in the Chapel Royal of Holyrood Palace in Edinburghon 23 December 1600, he was baptised by David Lindsay, Bishop of Ross, and created Duke of Albany, the traditional title of the second son of the King of Scotland, with the subsidiary titles of Marquess of Ormond, Earl of Ross and Lord Ardmannoch.

James VI was the first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth I of England…