Utopia, you are standing in it!

The hoarymedia myth about Richard Nixon’s “secret plan” to end the war in Vietnam is circulating anew, and being presented as if genuine.

The tale was invoked yesterday in a Washington Postessay that argued societal rifts and recent civil disorders in contemporary America don’t match those of 1968. “America is polarized today — but not like in 1968,” the essay said. “Today’s polarization is tidy by comparison.”

Maybe. But it’s not a far-fetched assessment. The essay stumbles, though, in claiming without attribution or qualification that Nixon’s “secret plan” was a “tantalizing” pledge that figured significantly in his run for the White House 52 years ago.

The Post presented the claim in this convoluted manner:

Won without a ‘secret plan’

“Besides law and order, he touted a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. Later, we learned that the plan was secret because it didn’t…

Recent reconstructions and computer simulations reveal the operating principles of the most powerful weapon of its time.

by Paul E. Chevedden, Les Eigenbrod, Vernard Foley and Werner Soedel

Centuries before the development of effective cannons, huge artillery pieces were demolishing castle walls with projectiles the weight of an upright piano. The trebuchet, invented in China between the fifth and third centuries B.C.E., reached the Mediterranean by the sixth century C.E. It displaced other forms of artillery and held its own until well after the coming of gunpowder. The trebuchet was instrumental in the rapid expansion of both the Islamic and the Mongol empires. It also played a part in the transmission of the Black Death, the epidemic of plague that swept Eurasia and North Africa during the 14th century. Along the way it seems to have influenced both the development of clockwork and theoretical analyses of motion.

The trebuchet succeeded…

One giant white elephant deserves another…

When Crescent Dunes, the world’s biggest solar-thermal power plant went bankrupt, US taxpayers were left to pick up the tab, with their liability running into hundreds of $millions.

South Australians (victims of their government’s obsession with chaotically intermittent wind and solar) can count themselves lucky that they didn’t end up with a carbon copy of the Crescent Dunes debacle.

Back in August 2017, STT reported on efforts by the Weatherill Labor government to build a solar-thermal plant at Port Augusta with the ‘help’ of the characters behind Crescent Dunes. It was designed with a trivial 150 MW (notional) capacity, but came with an absolutely staggering $1.2bn pricetag: South Australia: Sublime One Day, Ridiculous the Next – Premier Set to Squander $1.2bn on Solar-Thermal Boondoggle

Fortunately for South Australians that big, shiny white elephant never did get off the ground and Jay Weatherill’s Labor government…

In 2019, the Irish Supreme Court decided two cases concerning speech in parliament. The same seven judges sat in each case. The seven agreed in each case: Frank Clarke, the chief justice, wrote a single judgment for the Court each time.

The applicant won in the first case, decided in late February. The Supreme Court granted a declaration of unlawfulness sought by Angela Kerins against a parliamentary committee on foot of that committee’s unfair interrogation of her on matters relating to her leadership of a publicly-funded charity. In ruling as it did, the Supreme Court overturned a Divisional High Court ruling that Kerins’ claims were non-justiciable. The Divisional Court had interpreted the Article 15 provisions in light of the early modern English laws to which they owe their provenance. “For upwards of four centuries,” Kelly P said, “it has been recognised in common law jurisdictions throughout the world that the…

Yesterday’s column focused on how police unions protect the bad apples who misbehave and therefore cause some people to resent law enforcement, especially in the minority community.

Curtailing the role of those unions would be an important step to create better bonds between the police and the citizenry.

Today’s column will explain the need to repeal or substantially curtail the doctrine of “qualified immunity,” which was created by courts to protect cops who trample on people’s rights.

It’s not a complete answer, just as fixing the union problem isn’t a complete answer. But getting rid of the doctrine at least will give citizens the opportunity to bring lawsuits when cops disregard their civil liberties. This tweet is a good summary for those who don’t have time to dig into the topic.

But hopefully you do have time to investigate this issue.

Here are excerpts from four articles about problems with…