Utopia, you are standing in it!

Jim Callaghan, Britain’s Labour Prime Minister in the late 1970s told a great story which I read about last week.

In the early Thatcher years he received a telephone call from a zealous young woman, campaigning on behalf of Labour.

“Can we expect your vote?” she asked.

“Oh definitely”, Jim replied.

Encouraged by this, she asked whether he’d be prepared to become more deeply involved with the Party.

“Well,” Jim said, “I was Prime Minister last year”.

What ‘getting ready for Summer’ means in South Australia & Victoria.

As Summer approaches, Australia’s wind and solar obsession means more mass blackouts are guaranteed.

During January 2018, load shedding caught power consumers short in South Australia, Victoria and NSW. Energy hungry businesses such as aluminium smelters and even hospitals were forced to power down during a run of scorching days and nights, when temperatures soared and wind power output plummeted: Australia Closes Coal-Fired Power Plants: Hospitals Forced to Cut Power Use & Power Prices Rocket

On the Australia Day long-weekend in January 2019, the barbecue stopper was that week’s round of what’s euphemistically called “demand management”: Soviet era power rationing, an integral part of Australia’s ludicrous attempt to run on sunshine and breezes. If it wasn’t deadly serious, it’d almost be hilarious.

STT spelt out the truly ‘inevitable’ consequence of attempting to run on sunshine and breezes back in…

It’s six a.m., I am sipping my first cup of coffee on the small balcony near the tall coconut tree. It’s still dark but I can see a short stocky woman sweeping the ground of the open space in front of the hotel next door. Right away, I detect that something is wrong in the picture although I am not fully awake. The broom the woman is using is too short, its straw end is frayed. She is bending over more than should be necessary; some of her energy is being misspent because she pushes harder than she would have to with a newer broom. No big deal! Except…

Mexico is the kind of country where the dentist kisses you when you leave. (This particular dentist is a pretty willowy blonde.) Perhaps, Mexico is the only country of its kind. I don’t know; I have not been everywhere. No American…

We’ve been hearing a lot about “White Privilege” lately, with the Democrats’ shift from collusion to race, race, race. Interesting to find out where it all comes from.

The green is always ready to spear hundreds of giant 240m (787ft) industrial wind turbines – into your backyard, but goes nuts if the ‘favour’ might be returned. Destroying your patch of paradise is a sacrifice that he is always willing to make.

When former Greens leader, Dr Bob Brown started railing about the prospect of a few of these things being planted in the North-West of his home State, Tasmania, the cry of ‘monstrous hypocrite’ could be heard far and wide. But in the green hypocrisy Olympics, Dr Bob is far from alone.

There’s an almost uncanny relationship between the location of the loudest proponents of these things and the likelihood that they will ever be forced to suffer life in their flickering shadows.

But it’s not simply ignorance of the plight of those rural residents driven mad in their homes or driven out of them by the practically…

by Judith Curry

We need to raise the bar on how we think about the possible worst case scenario for climate change.

by Judith Curry

My new manuscript is now available.

Roughly four hours after a terror attack took place near Dolev on August 23^rd the BBC News website published a written report headlined “Israeli teenage girl killed in West Bank bomb attack” and a filmed report titled “West Bank bomb blast kills 17-year-old Israeli girl”.

The synopsis to the filmed report states: [all emphasis added]

“An Israeli teenage girl has been killed and her father and brother injured in a suspected Palestinian militant attack at a natural spring near a settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military says an improvised explosive device was used.”

All four versions of the written report similarly opened by telling readers that:

“A 17-year-old Israeli girl has been killed in a bomb attack near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military says.”

A Tweet promoting the article used the same terminology:

“Israeli…

Since I had robotic surgery yesterday, I’ve become fascinated with this marvelous innovation in medicine. I’ve looked at a bunch of videos, and found two to post: one with a general introduction to the machines and their use, from the BBC, and the other showing how dextrous the robot is.

When I was wheeled into the operating theater, I asked to see the robot, and I’m pretty sure it was one of the da Vinci machines. It was all covered with plastic, for it had been sterilized, and it was on the other side of the room. (I don’t know whether the surgeon was next to me when he wielded it.)

I can see now why they told me I couldn’t have local anesthesia, as I had requested, to observe my operation: imagine how freaked out you’d be to see those big metal arms descending on your belly! But I…