Utopia, you are standing in it!

Following reports that the UK government is considering abolishing the ‘English Votes for English Laws’ procedures in the House of Commons, Daniel Gover and Michael Kenny argue that, although EVEL has some flaws as a solution to the ‘West Lothian Question’, abandoning it will also leave open bigger questions about how England should be represented within British parliamentary government.

According to a recent report in The Times, the UK government is preparing to abolish the ‘English Votes for English Laws’ standing orders in the House of Commons. This suggested that ministers have already been consulted on the move and look set to lend it support. The change would also need to be approved by MPs, but only a single vote in the Commons would be needed to make this important constitutional change.

That such a move is being considered by the current government is surprising and unexpected in equal…

In another thought-provoking post on Facebook (does the guy ever write mediocre stuff, I wonder?) Barry raised the question of the relation between classical liberalism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism. He wrote the following:

“On the capture of classical liberal/libertarianism by anti-cosmopolitans. This is very influential at the heart of the ‘leave’ ‘elite’ in the UK, and can only be destructive of classical liberalism/libertarianism. The immediate political consequence of Leave is the elevation of Theresa May to Tory leadership/Prime Minister’s office on a much more ‘Red Tory’, communitarian, corporatist foundation than existed under Cameron. ’To the extent to which the current wave of populism maps into a conflict over national versus transnational identity (Dan Drezner is unconvinced), the problem is not an excess of cosmopolitanism but rather its absence, especially on the conservative, free-market right.”

He seems to take a positive relation between classical liberalism and cosmopolitanism as the default position…

This week Kevin Vallier published a new entry on neoliberalism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:Neoliberalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). It is a well-written, well-researched piece. However, it is also symbolic for the greatest deficiency of American classical liberals: they are unable or unwilling to defend the name, or label if you like, of the ideas they are associated with. Given the influence of American academia and thinks tanks on the rest of the world this is especially important. It has happened before, and it is happening now. It sucks.

This is how Vallier starts his entry:

“Though not all scholars agree on the meaning of the term, “neoliberalism” is now generally thought to label the philosophical view that a society’s political and economic institutions should be robustly liberal and capitalist, but supplemented by a constitutionally limited democracy and a modest welfare state. Recent work on neoliberalism, thus…

When a mass blackout thrusts your State onto the international stage, as an outrageous possibility, there just could be a little something wrong with your energy policy. Here’s the view from the USA.

Australia Has Serious Problems With Green Energy Triggering Blackouts
The Daily Caller
Andrew Follett
23 November 2016

South Australia is still struggling to figure out how to keep green energy from triggering blackouts and crashing the electric grid, according to an article published by Inverse Tuesday.

The Australian state invested heavily in solar and wind power, but those power sources’ inherent reliability issues place a massive strain on the state’s power grid, according to the article.

Australia’s Energy Council noted in early September that increasing use of solar and wind power in the state “has not only led to a series of technical challenges” but “also increased wholesale price volatility as the state rebalances its supply from dispatchable plant to…

There’s nothing innately predictable about the weather, so trying to rely on it for your power needs doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Sure, solar panels might deliver somewhere between 4-6 hours of useful power on a sunny day. But, don’t expect much during periods of heavy rain and overcast conditions. Oh, and desert dust storms have been known to knock out solar supplies, as Californians experienced last summer.

And as any kite flyer or sailor knows too well, breezes have a mind of their own.

As Viv Forbes points out below, it might not be too much of a stretch to think that those peddling chaotically intermittent wind and solar have their very own agenda.

The Blackout Agenda
The Richardson Post
Viv Forbes
16 June 2021

Solar power fails every day from sunset to sunrise as well as during rain, hail, snow or dust storms. No matter…

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The Ardern government is weakening many of the pillars of the free market reforms implemented in the 1980s and 1990s, including undermining the Reserve Bank and Fiscal Responsibility Acts.

 More alarming is its failure to learn that bestowing privileges on a few results in enormous costs for the many.

So says Nicholas Kerr, son of the late Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr.

A marketing consultant in Dallas, Texas, Nicholas Kerr delivered a  speech last month to the Dallas chapter of the Bastiat Society, an organisation established by the American Institute for Economic Research as a forum for business professionals to help advance peaceful trade and human flourishing.   

The speech (the full version can be read here) was headed Unleashing New Zealand’s Potential and Suppressing Washington State’s — Lessons for Texas.

Here’s an edited version: –  

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While the New Zealand I grew up in during…

In recent years, a strand of economic literature has argued that warming
not only negatively affects the level of economic activity,
but also the rate of income growth. PHOTO BY BLOOMBERG

Ross McKitrick explains in his Financial Post article Why climate change won’t hurt growth.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

There is no robust evidence that even the worst-case warming scenarios would cause overall economic losses

It has long been observed that global poverty tends to be concentrated in hot, tropical regions. But persistent poverty in African and South American countries has political and historical roots, especially their embrace of Soviet-backed communism in the 20th century. In places where economic reforms were adopted, like South Asia, growth took off and they quickly converged with the West, despite having tropical climates. So the connection to climate may be coincidental.

But in recent years, a strand of economic literature…

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you were able to travel back in time to the medieval ages and had to start your life all over again? Could you make the transition from the 21st century to the medieval period with no electronic technology and different customs? What would you wear? How would you get around with no cars and horses being very expensive? Where would you live? What job would you have? These questions and quandaries are answered in the latest nonfiction book by Toni Mount aptly entitled, “How to Survive in Medieval England”.

I would like to thank Pen and Sword Books and Net Galley for sending me a copy of this book. I have found time travel books really interesting in the past few years, so I was intrigued when I heard about this title.

Mount has created a fun and creative guide…