
Simon and I had a fantastic journey through Japan, or at least the east coast of Honshu. We started in Tokyo, then took bullet trains to Hiroshima, Himeji, Kyoto, and Mount Fuji before heading home. 1,504 more words
Reflections on Japan
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
19 Jan 2023 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of crime, economics of education, growth miracles, human capital, industrial organisation, international economics, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, liberalism, poverty and inequality, Public Choice Tags: Japan

Simon and I had a fantastic journey through Japan, or at least the east coast of Honshu. We started in Tokyo, then took bullet trains to Hiroshima, Himeji, Kyoto, and Mount Fuji before heading home. 1,504 more words
Reflections on Japan
18 Jan 2023 Leave a comment
No country in the world is running on wind and solar power alone; no country ever will.
Calm weather and sunset guarantee it.
Every routine collapse in wind and solar power output (for the reasons above) requires the total capacity lost in consequence to come from somewhere, and that ‘somewhere’ is going to be a plant running on nuclear, coal or gas or, in certain places, hydro plant.
Every single MW of wind or solar is to be matched by another MW of the aforementioned dispatchable power sources. The alternative (ie the world without coal, gas and nuclear power) is no power at all, every time the wind drops and the sun sets.
Ah, the wind and solar cult retort, ‘you’ve said nothing about battery ‘storage’.
Well, in truth there’s not really much to say.
At this point in time the so-called giant batteries – ordinarily a bank of lithium-ion…
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18 Jan 2023 Leave a comment
After weeks of speculation, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack, has blocked the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill from receiving Royal Assent. The law seeks to simplify the process of changing one’s legal gender in Scotland,[1] and Jack has justified his actions on the grounds that the Bill would have an adverse impact on matters reserved to Westminster.[2]
Unlike at Westminster, where Royal Assent is essentially automatic,[3] the Scotland Act 1998 created a formal mechanism for withholding Royal Assent to Scottish legislation. Strictly speaking, it’s not a veto: the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament simply doesn’t submit the Bill to the King. There are several situations in which Assent might be withheld, such as when the UK Supreme Court rules that legislation is ultra vires.[4]
However, this case involves section 35 of the Scotland Act. It allows the Scottish Secretary to block…
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18 Jan 2023 Leave a comment
in television
17 Jan 2023 Leave a comment
From Trump that is, I think according to the Washington Post?
They ran a FACT CHECKING scam on Trump for four years in order to keep their click-bait TDS fans engaged to a degree that Mark Zuckerberg could only dream of with Facebook.
And then they dumped it all when Biden replaced Trump, the argument being that since nobody lied as much as Trump – it being implied that Biden was only a standard political liar like the rest of them, and therefore not worthy of their time.
One farcical aspect of it was that often it was not a “lie” or a “fact-check” but simply an alternative argument. You were supposed to sit there and say, “Well of course the fact checker is correct and Trump lied”. Pure click-bait for the internet age.
But not as farcical as the idea that Biden was less of a liar, either…
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17 Jan 2023 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of crime, economics of education, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: gender wage gap
Here’s another outstanding Rob Montz production, a wide-ranging interview on feminism, academia, and more. Granted, the video’s title (“Don’t Let Your Daughter Be a Feminist”) is a bit weird, because no one can actually withhold permission from anyone to believe an idea. 92 more words
Don’t Be a Feminist: The Montz Interview
17 Jan 2023 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics
16 Jan 2023 Leave a comment
Remember the class clown? The idiot who couldn’t help himself, always in trouble and too witless to know why. Well, he’s now firmly in charge of energy policy, which in its design and implementation resembles the chaos of a mismanaged three-ringed circus.
As the adage goes, don’t put down to conspiracy what can be chalked up to incompetence.
Although, with all of the evidence available, the fact that the likes of Australia’s Hapless Energy Minister, Chris Bowen (presumably a former class clown?) are completely oblivious to the subsidised wind and solar-fuelled energy disasters playing out in Germany, Britain and elsewhere makes it hard not to consider planned and deliberate action, rather than good old-fashioned bungling.
While Peter Smith works his way through the idiot factor in the piece below – in an attempt to explain our thoroughly inexplicable energy policy – he appears to plump for something like a grand…
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16 Jan 2023 Leave a comment

On February 4 1974, 19-year-old newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was abducted from the apartment she shared with her fiancée in Berkeley, California.
Stephen Weed, Hearst’s fiance, was beaten unconscious by the two abductors. Soon, a ransom demand came from the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a radical activist group led by Donald DeFreeze.. But a few short months later, Patty Hearst appeared to be on their side.

On March 5, 1973, Donald DeFreeze escaped from prison. Radical penal activists and future SLA members Russell Little and William Wolfe took DeFreeze to Patricia Soltysik’s house.The SLA was led by DeFreeze, who, after a prison acquaintance named Wheeler left, was the only African American in the group. By the time the group became active, most of the members of the tiny group were women, some of whom have, like Soltysik and her roommate Nancy Ling Perry, been described as in lesbian relationships. The members included William and Emily Harris and…
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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