Utopia, you are standing in it!

Did anyone watch “Save Money, Lose Weight” on ITV recently? Was anyone else SHOCKED how much money they spent in 28 days? Watch the episode HERE! 

Six overweight Brits were put through six off-the-shelf diets for 28 days. All of them successfully lost weight trying 6 different popular plans and were pleased with the results BUT HOLEY HELL – REALLY? How can someone afford a food bill for one person for one month of £400 – £500? Get real! In the real world many of us struggle and carefully budget so it did indeed seemed quite shocking to me the amount of money spent. Surely ongoing over a long period of time this wouldn’t be sustainable?

And then like a terrier down a rabbit hole I decided to break down my food budget based on rationing, and worked out how much it would cost to lose weight ration book style…

I am very pleased to be able to welcome my first “guest blogger” in the person of Professor Michael Quinlan, Dean of the University of Notre Dame’s Sydney-based Law School. Michael’s note on this important issue, which is now becoming more relevant in Australia in recent years, was originally published in “On the Case”, a series of notes on legal issues produced by the UND Sydney Law School. He has kindly agreed to me re-publishing it here.

Issue 9 of On the Case discussed the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States (the US Supreme Court) in relation to same sex marriage in Obergefell [1] and the implications for Australia of that decision.[2] The Obergefell decision received substantial media attention in Australia [3] although the legal position in the two countries is quite different. [4]

In this edition of On the Case Professor Michael Quinlan, the Dean of The…

Some years ago I attended seminars regarding efforts to achieve operational changes in organizations. The notion was presented that people only change their habits, ie. leave their comfort zone, when they fear something else more than changing their behavior. The analogy was drawn comparing to workers leaping from a burning oil platform, or tenants from a burning building.

Al Gore is fronting an agenda to unplug modern societies, and thereby the end of life as we know it. Thus they claim the world is on fire, and only if we abandon our ways of living can we be saved.

The big lie is saying that the world is burning up when in fact nothing out of the ordinary is happening. The scare is produced by extrapolating dangerous, fearful outcomes from events that come and go in the normal flow of natural and seasonal climate change. They can not admit that…

By Colin Talbot

Everyone expects a Vote of No Confidence (VONC) in the Boris Johnson when Parliament resumes in the autumn. Exactly when remains an issue of some doubt, and whether or not it would pass is anyone’s guess.

That has not stopped rampant speculation and heated debate about what happens if and when the VONC passes.

Prominent in this kerfuffle has been the idea put forward by Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters – especially John McDonnell – that Corbyn could simply take over. He has famously said he would “send Jeremy to Palace in a taxi and tell the Queen that we are taking over.” How credible is this?

On 28 September 2016, the automatic shutdown of wind turbines in South Australia during a spring storm delivered a statewide ‘system black’.

South Australia’s hapless Premier, Jay Weatherill led the wind industry’s propaganda charge, claiming that the collapse of a couple of power pylons in the state’s mid-North was what done it.

The collapse of a single transmission line could never has caused the collapse of the State’s entire power supply, but that didn’t stand in the way of a good pro-wind power PR story. The rest of the State’s transmission lines remained untroubled by the strong winds.

South Australia’s fleet of whirling wonders, did not fare so well, because they were never designed to. STT’s report on the story was posted before dawn the following day: Another Statewide Blackout: South Australia’s Wind Power Disaster Continues

Predictably, the renewable lobby went ballistic, as did plenty in the mainstream press.

The…

Last Tuesday, The New York Times published a very interesting article about former vegetarians and vegans who became butchers. The people profiled did so, according to The Times, because they wanted to revolutionize the U.S.’s current food system to embrace what they consider ethical practices. Regardless of their reasons, their efforts should be applauded and choice respected. Hopefully, they will stay well and safe. Unfortunately, three years ago owners of a vegan cafe in Los Angeles decided they were going to serve meat harvested from their northern California farm only to receive death threats shortly thereafter.

“The Vegetarians Who Turned Into Butchers”, by Melissa Clark, August 6, 2019, The New York Times

“At Western Daughters Butcher Shoppe in Denver, Kate Kavanaugh trimmed the sinew from a deep-red hunk of beef the size of a bed pillow.

“Flatiron steak is the second-most tender muscle in a steer’s body,” she said…