Utopia, you are standing in it!

Thirteen animal rights thieves with the NSW Hen Rescue have been charged by New South Wales police in connection with a raid they conducted on a chicken farm near Camden, Australia.

According to News.com.au, the group of hoodlums stand accused of forced entry of a shed on a farm at Mowbray Road at Lakesland in which they also threatened the owner with bolt cutters. The terrorists are not only alleged to have stolen or intent to steal a domestic animal or bird but one of them was charged with assault on a police officer along with a variety of other assault offenses including using a deadly weapon.

The NSW Hen Rescue thugs initially demanded the farm owner be prosecuted and his operation shut down with one gang spokesperson claimed that horrific cruelty was being conducted and the hens given medical attention. One messy little detail the human haters didn’t…

Reason.com, a libertarian site, reports on a leaked memo from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that makes it pretty clear that the organization wants to ratchet back on defending free speech that is “hate speech”, i.e., speech that goes after “marginalized groups” (see below). You can discount the Reason.com article if you want, but do read the leaked ACLU memo (called “confidential attorney work product) as well as Wendy Kaminer’s Wall Street Journal piece (below) and see for yourself. The pdf of the ACLU’s memo is here.

While the ACLU memo repeatedly assures its readers that the group is not giving up on defending speech considered widely offensive, it’s pretty clear to me, and to former ACLU board member Kaminer, that for the ACLU “free speech has become second among equals.” (Link below, but probably paywalled; judicious inquiry will get you a copy.)

The ACLU’s new guidelines…

Fool Me Once Shame on You,
Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me.

It was just 30 years ago this week that James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during a prolonged heat wave, which” he described as a climate event of cosmic significance.” Just to be sure he arranged for the meeting room to be warmer than usual. He expressed to the senators “his high degree of confidence” in “cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming.”

There was an accompanying paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research, and it ignited a world wide panic that continues today about the energy structure of the entire planet. So 30 years on we can pause and take a look at just how well his predictions have turned out, and check on how we are doing.

Mr. Hansen’s testimony described three possible…

A colleague didn’t know what to make of it recently when I explained that I almost never watch TV.

What about Game of Thrones, she gasped? Never seen one second of it. Ah, but surely you’ve seen The Wire? No. Brooklyn Nine-Nine? Nope. Breaking Bad? Nay pet. The Walking Dead? Errr, that’s a negative. Well what do you watch? she demanded.

And I had to come clean that the only show I watch with any real level of commitment is Columbo. Still. Even though I’ve seen every episode multiple times. Even though I can quote verbatim my favourite episodes from first line to last. Even though the show is now 50 years old and virtually no one I know in ‘real life’ knows anything about it.

Now if I’m totally honest, I must admit to being familiar with other TV shows. I love Stranger Things

The headline atop a press release from the National Party complained the Government had again showed a contempt for expertise:  “Govt arrogantly dismissing experts and academics”.

The Ardern-Peters Government continued to arrogantly show it didn’t want its ideas challenged and that it is willing to insult those who disagree with its ministers, National’s Deputy Leader Paula Bennett says in the statement

Point of Order was aware of some recent examples she referenced.

Housing Minister Phil Twyford scoffed at the ‘kids’ at Treasury who were ‘fresh out of university and … completely disconnected from reality’ when they produced a forecast which raised questions about the impact of the KiwiBuild policy on residential construction.

A Life well and powerfully lived. Paralyzed from the neck down after a swimming pool accident, Charles Krauthammer became a psychiatrist, and a good one. And he became a columnist and author, and was an outstanding one. Of his own predicament, he said:

“Better to be paralyzed from the neck down
than the neck up.”

—”The Indispensable Man” by Steven Hayward

— “Charles Krauthammer” by the WSJ Editorial Board

—“America Lost Its Greatest Political Commentator”by Roger S. Simon

And here are a few of his columns”

—“Did the State Make You Great”by Charles Krauthammer

—“The Bush Legacy” by Charles Krauthammer

—“Moving from Left to Right” by Charles Krauthammer

—“Trump’s ‘Madman Theory’ Diplomacy” by Charles Krauthammer

Introductory

Litigation about Brexit continues to throw light on constitutional principles, both new and well-established. In the case of Wightman & others, petitioners [2018] CSOH 61, advised on 8 June 2018, the Court of Session was called upon to consider whether the UK’s Article 50 notification could be unilaterally revoked by the UK in good faith such that the UK could continue to be a member of the European Union after 29 March 2019 on the same terms and conditions as it presently enjoys.

In refusing to make a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) and dismissing the petition for judicial review, Lord Boyd considered the issue was hypothetical because there was in fact no suggestion the notification would be revoked. His Lordship also considered several aspects of Parliamentary privilege, and commented on the proper boundary between the legal and the political parts of constitutional…

Oh, the irony.

In one breath we’re told that the climate is changing so rapidly – although, these days, most climate alarmists don’t seem prepared to lay a bet on whether things are getting hotter or colder – that carpeting the world in wind turbines and solar panels – which cultists believe will solve the ‘problem’ – is a matter of the most pressing urgency.

Then, we’re being told by the likes of Australia’s most notorious wind power outfit, Infigen that it can’t spin a dollar because of ‘poor wind conditions’; not just once, but year, after meteorologically miserable, year.

The thing about irony and its cousin, sarcasm, is its ability to make idiots look like idiots, without them realising it.

It’s this simple, really: when your power supply depends wholly upon the weather, expect it to vary entirely at the whims of Mother Nature.

Which brings us to this…

On June 13^th BBC Arabic reporter Nida Ibrahim sent the following tweet:

The story behind that tweet is as follows:

“Palestinian Authority Security Forces broke up protests in Ramallah on Wednesday night, after a week of rare public displays of opposition to the Palestinian leadership. Demonstrators called for an end to sanctions on the Gaza Strip, blaming PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA for its role in isolating the Hamas-run enclave.

PA Security Forces – which include numerous layers of police, plainclothes officers, riot police and more heavily armed units – sought to prevent a mass protest by Palestinians in central Ramallah. They erected “flying checkpoints” at entrances to Ramallah, according to tweets by activist Mariam Barghouti. A group of predominantly young men and women chanted “Freedom, freedom,” as police used stun grenades and physical force to remove them, Barghouti wrote. “Downtown Ramallah is like a war zone…

Author, scientist and politician Matt Ridley delivered a speech to the IdeaCity conference in 2014 pointing out not only how human life spans and standards of living are getting better, but what is really happening with climate change.