Utopia, you are standing in it!

A summary at The Telegraph of David Frost’s recent lecture, in italics with my bolds.

Some of the worst policies ever pursued in this country have been those which nearly all politicians supported at the time. Keeping Britain on the gold standard. Running down our Armed Forces in the 1930s. Demolishing our historic cities and replacing them with concrete. Joining the EU’s Exchange Rate Mechanism. Only a handful of free thinkers questioned these at the time. But when the disastrous results became clear, suddenly few people wanted to defend them.

Now, of course, consensuses can be correct, too. Most people agree that free trade is a good thing. But no one could say that that policy has been unchallenged. Indeed, although it is repeatedly attacked, both intellectual argument and real life keep proving it right.

That is why challenge and argument are so important. When everyone agrees on a…

Zero Carbon zealots attacking ExxonMobil, here seen without their shareholder disguises.

WSJ reports with a sad tone what is actually good news that investors are pushing back against ESG political correctness. Their article is: ESG Blowback: Exxon, Chevron Investors Reject Climate Measures  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

An investor-driven climate change push at some of the
world’s largest oil companies has stalled out.

On Wednesday, Exxon Mobil and Chevron’s shareholders struck down a raft of proposals urging the companies to cut greenhouse-gas emissions derived from fuel consumption, put out new reports on climate benchmarks and disclose certain oil-spill risks, among other initiatives.

The votes were abysmal for climate activists. All but two of the 20 shareholder proposals for the two companies garnered less than 25% of investors’ vote, according to preliminary results, with some performing much worse than similar proposals put forward last year.

Among the most…

In July 2020, Ron Mark gave $25,000 of your money to the bully and narcissist Aaron Wood and his farcical organisation, ‘No Duff’. Aaron Wood bullies everyone he disagrees with, which is a very wide range of people – No Duff charity founder faces bullying allegations from former soldiers | Stuff.co.nz. He loudly claims that veterans suffer from poor mental health, and need to be treated specially and given lots of taxpayer money.

Journalists like David Fisher swallowed the BS back in 2017:

Our military’s gaps in mental health care for uniformed personnel have been exposed through internal inquiries carried out into six suicides in three years.

A slew of recommendations to improve management of mental health in the military came through Courts of Inquiry into the deaths.

Investigations by theHeraldhave found NZDF suffers the loss of one solider, sailor or air force service member to…

Debate on superannuation focuses on the eligibility age and long-term fiscal sustainability. Only rarely is the connection made between superannuation and retirement savings policies, and economic performance.

Since around 1950 New Zealand has been in relative economic decline, and its productivity has been stagnating for many years. Key to this has been low domestic saving rates, which translate into thin capital markets, investment short-termism and to a low ratio of capital to labour, constraining labour productivity. Low domestic savings rates mean high real interest rates and a real exchange rate that weakens our tradeable sector.

The National Party’s policy is that the entitlement age for superannuation goes up to 67 from 2044. In contrast, Carmel Sepuloni in her 27 May address to the Labour Party’s Congress confirmed that Labour will not lift the eligibility age for New Zealand Superannuation (NZS). She indicated it was affordable as long as we keep…

I’ve been following the defamation case which Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith brought against Australian media, who alleged that he was a war criminal and a bully when deployed in Afghanistan.

His case has been dismissed, he was not defamed, he probably did do what was alleged:

Ben Roberts-Smith VC murdered unarmed civilians while serving in the Australian military in Afghanistan, a federal court judge has found.

Justice Anthony Besanko found that, on the balance of probabilities, Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living soldier, kicked a handcuffed prisoner off a cliff in Darwan in 2012, before ordering a subordinate Australian soldier to shoot the injured man dead.

Ben Roberts-Smith loses defamation case with judge saying newspapers established truth of murders – The Guardian

From what I can gather, the testimony of Federal Liberal MP (and former SAS Captain) Andrew Hastie seems to have been key:

Assistant defence minister Andrew Hastie has told a…

Being an MP during the civil wars and interregnum came with a certain amount of danger. The decisions that MPs made often came with severe consequences. Dr Vivienne Larminie, assistant editor for the House of Commons 1640-1660, reflects on the difficult choices MPs had to make at this time and the financial and personal repercussions they faced for making the wrong decision.

Throughout the history of the Westminster Parliament, there have been times when MPs faced difficult choices which had potentially life-changing consequences. For the MPs who sat in the Commons between 1640 and 1660 there were unique challenges, unparalleled to that date and arguably since. Decisions were required in 1642 over whether to obey Charles I’s commission of array or Parliament’s Militia Ordinance; in 1644 over attendance at Westminster or the rival Parliament at Oxford; in 1648/9 over whether to continue peace negotiations with the defeated…

Charles II (May 29, 1630 – February 6, 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France. After Charles I’s execution at Whitehall on January 30, 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on February 5, 1649. However, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, with a government led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe.

Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the…