Utopia, you are standing in it!

By Duggan Flanakin ~

The rush to decarbonize every nation in the world in one or maybe two decades reflects the “I want it all NOW!” philosophy imbued through modern education systems. Current and recent former students – and their teachers – demand a perfect world (since they can envision one) and exhibit zero patience (hence the nationwide riots in the U.S.).

Hopefully the mad stampede to destroy the West’s ability to use fossil fuels at all will be sidelined by harsh realities of economics, logistics, and resource availability (including a hoped for reticence to rely on child slave labor to satisfy their blood lust). Yet the United Kingdom, formerly a bastion of sanity, has mandated, as part of its drive toward an all-electric society, the installation of electric vehicle charging stations in every home by 2030 and that all new cars and vans be hydrogen or electric vehicles (and…

August 6, 1945, 8:15:17 seconds, a solitary bomb was released from a single B-29 over Hiroshima…

[Lyrics: Peart; music: Lee, Lifeson]

Imagine a time
When it all began
In the dying days of a war
A weapon that would settle the score
Whoever found it first
Would be sure to do their worst
They always had before…

Imagine a man
Where it all began 
A scientist pacing the floor
In each nation, always eager to explore
To build the best big stick
To turn the winning trick
But this was something more…

[CHORUS:] The Big Bang took and shook the world 
Shot down the Rising Sun 
The end was begun
It would hit everyone 
When the chain reaction was done 
The big shots try to hold it back 
Fools try to wish it away 
The hopeful depend on a world without end 
Whatever the hopeless may say

Imagine…

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire occurred de facto on August 6, 1806, when Emperor Franz II abdicated his Imperial title and released all imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Although the abdication was considered legal, the dissolution of the imperial bonds was not and several states refused to recognise the end of the empire at the time.

Although today is the date the empire was dissolved, in many ways it was a mere formality as the empire had been deteriorating since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years War. The treaty gave the numerous states within the empire autonomy, ending the empire in all but name. The Swiss Confederation, which had already established quasi-independence in 1499, as well as the Northern Netherlands, also left the Empire at this juncture. The Habsburg Emperors then began to focus on consolidating…

Once more the courts are asked to intervene in UK transport policy on the grounds of ‘climate change objectives’ and other supposed issues, while the roads get ever more overcrowded.
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Transport Action Network (TAN) has been granted permission for judicial review of the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’ decision to go ahead with the £27 billion roads programme (Roads Investment Strategy 2 or RIS2), reports Ekklesia.

Mrs Justice Lieven gave the go ahead for the review, saying that TAN’s case that Mr Shapps had not properly considered the impact of the multi-billion pound roads-building scheme on climate change objectives, including the carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Paris Agreement, was arguable.

The Judge also declared the case to be “significant” which means it will be fast-tracked and should be heard at the High Court by early November.

In our latest Georgian Lords blog, in keeping with our general focus for the month on the county of Northumberland, Dr Charles Littleton considers the case of the pocket borough of Morpeth and its uneasy relations with the earls of Carlisle.

The Northumbrian borough of Morpeth had returned representatives to Parliament since 1553. From 1601 the Howards of Naworth were lords of the manor, and in 1661 Charles Howard was created earl of Carlisle. He and his descendants controlled Morpeth so thoroughly that in the mid-eighteenth century the selection of MPs was considered to be ‘totally in Lord Carlisle’. Morpeth would appear to be a textbook example of a ‘pocket borough’. However even this personal fiefdom needed careful management, and on occasion the townsmen could resist the earls’ domination.

The franchise lay in those admitted to the freedom of the borough. This provided the earls with a means to control…