Utopia, you are standing in it!

From the Emperor’s Desk: although this blog post is about the accession of Emperor Franz Joseph on the throne of the Austrian Empire during the revolutions of 1848, I will not be addressing the complicated relationship between Franz Joseph and the kingdom of Hungary which was also going through a revolutionary period in 1848. I will deal with the accession of Franz Joseph as king of Hungary in a separate blog post on Monday.

Franz Joseph I (August 18, 1830 – November 21, 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from December 2, 1848 until his death on November 21, 1916. In the early part of his reign, his realms and territories were referred to as the Austrian Empire, but were reconstituted as the dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867. From May 1, 1850 to…

The Opening Salvo in the Speech from the Throne: “Standing Up to Ottawa”

On 29 November 2022, the Salma Lakhani, the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, read a Speech from the Throne containing a pugilistic sub-section on “Standing Up to Ottawa,” with which Her Honour presumably disagrees based on her public musings three months ago that she would reserve or veto an eventual Alberta Sovereignty Act.[1]

Believing that industrial wind power and solar panels are destined to improve our environment requires high-level cognitive dissonance. It demands that the true believer ignores the wholesale environmental destruction required to mine and process the minerals in rare earths needed for turbines and panels, not to mention the mega-batteries are supposed to lovingly store the power they occasionally generate; it helps to be able to ignore the millions of birds and bats (often rare and endangered) being smashed to smithereens every year by wind turbines; the wholesale destruction of wood lands and forests doesn’t signify, either; neither does the destruction of landscapes once prized for their visual and splendour.

Of course, ruining someone else’s backyard, never troubles the inner-city eco-zealot, who couldn’t care less about your community; he’ll never visit, let alone live there, so why should she?

As Matt Ridley outlines below, what passes for environmentalism these days has…

Laurence Fox breaks apart the lies repeatedly fed to the public and details the manipulation by the billionaire-funded lobby groups and activists, says Climate Change Dispatch.

If you’re skeptical about climate change or the impact of the environment on our planet, this video is for you.

Since we are currently in Advent time, I reckon it’s safe to start talking about Christmas again.

My all-time favourite Christmas song is Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. my all-time favourite Christmas song. It’s hard to believe that they recorded it 45 years ago. It’s not just a song about the yuletide festivities and presents and the birth of Christ, but it is foremost a song of hope for a peaceful planet.

The duet was one of Crosby’s final recordings before his death in October 1977.

Following the special’s broadcast during the 1977 holiday season, “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy” went unavailable for many years. It was eventually released as a single by RCA Records in November 1982 and was a commercial success, peaking at number three on the UK Singles Chart. It was Crosby’s final popular hit. It became one of the best-selling…