Utopia, you are standing in it!

A small fight broke out as Parker made her way through the barricade to speak to the crowds. She was escorted out again shortly before 11.30am, as crowds booed at her. She appeared to have been pelted by paint.

A Stuff reporter at Albert Park said from the moment Parker entered the barricade, tension between the groups, separated by a ring of barricades, started to boil over.

It took just 3-4 minutes before every side of the barricade had collapsed and counter-protesters had made their way through to surround Parker.

No police could be seen inside where the barricades had stood, and less than 10 security guards worked to keep the crowd from overrunning the band rotunda.

It took only a few more minutes before crowds managed to climb over and Parker was surrounded on all sides.

A group of four security guards formed a human shield around her for…

In Part I of this series, I documented the dramatic decline in living standards ever since socialists took power in Venezuela.

In Part II, I compared Venezuela’s decline to the other Latin American nations, particularly the success story of Chile.

Initially, I planned on this being a two-part series. After all, what else needs to be said when a nation does so poorly that even other socialists try (and fail) to disavow its policies.

But I decided to add Part III because of a remarkable report in the New York Times.

Authored by Isayen Herrera and Frances Robles, it actually acknowledges that socialism has created massive problems. Here are some excerpts.

…a socialist revolution once promised equality and an end to the bourgeoisie. Venezuela’s economy imploded nearly a decade ago, prompting a huge outflow of migrants in one of worst crises in modern Latin American history. …Conditions remain dire…

• Chris Trotter writes –

The Crown is a fickle friend. Any political movement deemed to be colourful but inconsequential is generally permitted to go about its business unmolested. The Crown’s media, RNZ and TVNZ, may even “celebrate” its existence (presumably as proof of Democracy’s broad-minded acceptance of diversity).

Should the movement’s leader(s) demonstrate a newsworthy eccentricity, then they may even find themselves transformed into political celebrities. The moment a political movement makes the transition from inconsequentiality to significance, however, then all bets are off – especially if that significance is born of a decisive rise in its parliamentary representation.

Te Pāti Māori (TPM) is currently on the cusp of making that crucial transition from political novelty to political threat. The decision of the former MP for Waiariki, Labour’s Tamati Coffey, to step away from his parliamentary career at the end of the current term will be welcome news to…

Depend on the weather for your power needs, then get ready for plenty of routine disappointment.

Time and time again, Britain’s coal-fired power plants are called in to prevent total blackouts during calm and cloudy weather, of the kind that causes total collapses in wind and solar output. Notwithstanding efforts to drive them out of existence with massive subsidies to – and guaranteed set price contracts for – wind and solar.

Every winter, it’s the same story. A burst of frigid, calm weather sees demand spike which coincides with a total collapse in wind and solar output; grid managers scramble to keep the grid from a total collapse, ordering Britain’s remaining coal-fired power plants back into action.

Peter Caddle reports on another such event.

UK Forced to Use Emergency Coal Generators as Green Energy Fails to Keep Up
Breitbart
Peter Caddle
9 March 2023

Britain’s crusade for net zero saw…

Today sees the publication of a new book by the Unit’s Meg Russell and Lisa James, The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit. Here the authors summarise some of its key findings about why parliament was drawn into such controversy over the implementation of Brexit. They reflect on what these events teach us about our constitution, as well as what may need to change in order to avoid repeating such problems, and to mend the damage done.

The UK’s arguments over what became known as Brexit began long before the June 2016 referendum, and continued with increasing bitterness afterwards. Parliament was often central, both as a venue for such arguments, and in terms of disputes about its proper role. It and its members frequently faced criticism and blame. Our new book, published today, charts The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit, from the early pressures for a referendum, through disputes about…

Don Braid reports at Calgary Herald Liberals are striving to change Canada’s very nature. The future rests with Supreme Court.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The Liberals want more than just climate action — they want to change the nature of Canada

It’s nonsense, plain and simple, to paint opponents of the Liberal Impact Assessment Act as climate-change laggards and deniers.  But the epic Supreme Court case that started March 21 is the ultimate clash of climate-change virtue signals, with Ottawa on one side and the provinces — especially Alberta — on the other.

The federal Impact Assessment Act, formerly Bill C-69, has been in force for several years. The federal Liberals will fight to overturn an Alberta Appeal Court ruling that the Act is unconstitutional.

The feds will probably succeed, given the leanings and precedents of the justices, but they’ll do it against the wishes of…

It’s difficult to really pin down who these people are. I can’t call them Left, because there are many on the left who oppose them. They are however, strongly attached to the current insane direction of travel. Maybe they are Revolutionaries, who have seen the opportunity to re-imagine society, and are frantic to prevent any reversion back to normality. How else to explain Clint Smith, self described former “Senior Policy and Communications Strategist” to Jacinda Ardern?

I had to highlight Psycho Milt’s tweet, as he is extremely succinct and tireless combating the fool and others like him.

Let’s expand on what Clint was referring to, when he said, “We tried sunlight on fascists a century ago. That led to gas chambers and 60 million dead.” Oh, he is attacking National. What a surprise.

What did National say? I was almost … almost pleasantly surprised…

Lord Protector

On the death of King Edward IV on April 9, 1483, his 12-year-old son, Edward V, succeeded him. Richard was named Lord Protector of the Realm and at Baron Hastings’ urging, Richard assumed his role and left his base in Yorkshire for London. This was in response to the Woodvilles’ attempt to monopolise power, Richard quickly moved to take control of the young king

On April 29, as previously agreed, Richard and his cousin, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, met Queen Elizabeth’s (Elizabeth Woodville) brother, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, at Northampton. At the queen’s request, Earl Rivers was escorting the young King Edward V to London with an armed escort of 2,000 men, while Richard and Buckingham’s joint escort was 600 men.

King Edward V had been sent further south to Stony Stratford. Richard had Earl Rivers, his nephew Richard Grey and his associate, Thomas Vaughan, arrested…

The Left is not quite at that point yet, but between the likes of Trad Lefties such as Chris Trotter and “Bomber” Bradbury slamming the whole thing as failing because…

… rather than debating the material well being of citizens, we are lost in middle class identity politics virtue signalling…

… and the enormous failures of Left-wing parties around the world to improve that “material well being”, I’d say the Woke are on the verge of getting crucified by their supposed allies.

Which is entirely fair since this toxic Black Hole of an ideology will otherwise crucify the Left.

But the real tell that Peak Woke is here is that many on the Left who were extolling this term just a few years ago are now running away from it as far and as fast as possible, all while trying to pull the standard “It’s just RWNJ Scare Mongering”

…. age 18-29 have been diagnosed with a mental health condition. That’s more than DOUBLE the percentage (27.3%) of conservative white women in the same age bracket.

Not self-diagnosed, like people do on Instagram, but actually diagnosed by a medical professional as having a mental health disorder.

Complete with a chart (you should always have a chart)

It explains a lot, from the recent explosion of Trans, to the worshipful, uncritical support of Jacinda Ardern by this group of woman in New Zealand, to what I wrote about the other day in The Sabbath and The Experience Machine:

Could it be that the modern world — the Western world, and every world dominated by modernity (e.g., Japan, South Korea) — has become disenchanted, feels itself dissolving in Chaos, and is choosing to die by not reproducing? It’s commonly observed that primitive tribes often do not survive contact with…

There are some policy fights that focus on technical disagreements (for instance, how much do deadweight losses increase when tax rates go up?) and other policy fights that involve moral disagreements (for instance, should drugs be legalized when that may lead some people to harm themselves?).

Other policy fights, however, involve dishonesty.

Poverty hucksters might be the most irritating example. These are the people who push an utterly dishonest definition of poverty, which I first wrote about back in 2010. But this article from 2019 has the best summary.

…folks on the left have decided to use an artificial and misleading definition of poverty. One that depends on the distribution of income rather than any specific measure of poverty. Which is insanely dishonest. It means that everyone’s income could double and the supposed rate of poverty would stay the same. Or a country could execute all the rich people

Henry IV (c. April 1367 – March 20, 1413), also known as Henry Bolingbroke, was King of England from 1399 to 1413. His grandfather King Edward III had claimed the French throne as a grandson of Philippe IV of France, and Henry continued this claim. He was the first English ruler since the Norman Conquest, over three hundred years prior, whose mother tongue was English rather than French.

Early Life

Henry was born at Bolingbroke Castle, in Lincolnshire, to John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. His epithet “Bolingbroke” was derived from his birthplace. Gaunt was the third son of King Edward III. Blanche was the daughter of the wealthy royal politician and nobleman Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster.

Henry of Grosmont was the only son of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster (c. 1281–1345); who in turn was the younger brother and heir of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster…