Utopia, you are standing in it!

The contributions of American athletes to the war effort during World War II has been well documented. The experiences of Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Hank Greenberg, Tom Landry, Ed Lummus and hundreds of others have been recognized for their impact in defeating Germany and Japan. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Buzz Bissinger’s latest book, THE MOSQUITO BOWL: A GAME OF LIFE AND DEATH IN WORLD WAR II chronicles events leading up to a game between the 4^th and 29^th Marine Regiments on Guadalcanal in late 1944 and the fate of many who fought at Tarawa, Saipan, and Okinawa. The soldiers were made up of former All-Americans from Brown, Notre Dame and Wisconsin universities twenty of which were drafted by the National Football League. Of the sixty-five men who played in the game, fifteen would die a few months later at Okinawa.

Bissinger, the author of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, a…

*Editors’ note: This post is part of a series on ‘The Human Rights Act After 22 Years’, following the SLS Annual Seminar held in November 2022. You can read the first post in the series here.

Rising like an arguably rather dark phoenix from the ashes, the Bill of Rights Bill now appears back on the legislative agenda. Yet again, the repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) seems somewhat inevitable, unless cabinet will once again implode in turmoil. In this light, the potential of the common law to provide a system of rights protection of similar vigour to that of the HRA has rightly gained much attention. The previous debate has largely focused on the content and development of common law rights and the structural potentials of the common law constitution. In contrast, this post will shed some light on what Mark Elliottdescribed as the rigour of…

Once again, well-fed cynical Western elites are berating developing countries about their energy use, hoping to prevent them from using the very sources that drove the Industrial Revolution and dragged millions of Europeans out of agrarian poverty, two centuries ago.

Pontificating windbags are railing against the prospect of real development in the poorer parts of the planet,  like the over-stuffed, Malthusian misanthrope, Antonio Guterres – pictured in full flight above.

Much to their annoyance, the ‘end is nigh, unless we all plump for insanely expensive and chaotically intermittent wind and solar’ rhetoric, is wearing a little thin south of the Sahara.

African leaders are pushing back and presenting an intractable obstacle to global elites keen to deprive them of the ability to use their own natural resources to power their people and drive economic growth and prosperity.

Tilak Doshi reports on how Africans are waking up to the grand wind…

Stardate: 5029.5 (2268)
Original Air Date: October 11, 1968
Writer: Edward J. Lakso
Director: Marvin Chomsky

“Hail, hail, fire and snow.
Call the angel we will go.
Far away, for to see.
Friendly Angel, come to me.”

Responding to a distress call from the science colony on Triacus, Kirk, Spock, and Bones beam down to the surface of the planet to investigate, but they shockingly find a piles of lifeless bodies. One man, Professor Starnes (Craig Huxley) staggers forward and then promptly dies –“he’s dead, captain.” The crew determines this must have been the site of a mass suicide. Then, a cohort of playful children emerge from a nearby cave, seemingly unaffected by the corpses all around them. They give no signs of grief. Perhaps they are suffering from depression, shock, lacunar amnesia, or an invasive bacteria of sorts.

The crew buries the bodies from the Starnes…

Stardate: 4729.4 (2268)
Original Air Date: March 8, 1968
Writer: D. C. Fontana/Laurence N. Wolfe
Director: John Meredyth Lucas

“We’re all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. When it comes to your job, that’s different. And it always will be different.”

The Enterprise has been inexplicably ordered to a remote space station where most of the crew has been ordered to a secure holding facility. What is going on? Kirk demands an explanation from Starfleet and so Commodore Enwright (voiced by James Doohan) decides to send another Starfleet Commodore aboard the Enterprise to explain the situation. Commodore Robert “Bob” Wesley (Barry Russo) arrives and says that the Enterprise is scheduled to be “the fox in the hunt” for a series of covert war games. The purpose is to test the strength and viability of a new “ultimate computer”…

Stardate: 5431.4 (2268)
Original Air Date: September 20, 1968
Writer: Lee Cronin (Gene L. Coon)
Director: Marc Daniels

“What have you done with Spock’s brain?”

At last, we arrive at the infamous season three opener which many fans regard as the worst episode in the whole series! A strange object is rapidly moving through space toward the enterprise via ion propulsion at a high velocity. Scotty marvels at its beauty –it even has its own internal atmosphere. Suddenly, a female humanoid lifeform appears on the bridge. She pushes a button attached to her wrist which essentially renders all lifeforms on the Enterprise unconscious –we later learn her name is Kara (Marj Dusay).

When the crew awaken, they find that Spock is missing. He is later found in sickbay on a table. Is he dead? No, he is “worse than dead” –his brain missing! Thanks to his Vulcan autonomic…

Stardate: 4842.6 (2268)
Original Air Date: October 4, 1968
Writer: Margaret Armen
Director: Jud Taylor

“I am Kirok!!”

Kirk, Spock, and Bones beam down to an idyllic planet rife with pine trees, a lake, honeysuckle, and orange blossoms –it appears to be exactly akin to earth only half a galaxy away. Suddenly, the crewmen spot a strange object composed of alloy and featuring a complex language scribed upon it. Who could have constructed such an obelisk? This planet known as Amerind (only in the script, not in the episode), has primitive tribes who seem to live peacefully alongside the banks of the water. The tribes carry a mixture of “Navajo, Mohican, and Delaware” characteristics. However, we soon learn that a massive asteroid is en route to destroy this planet, and the Enterprise crew have only thirty minutes on the surface before needing to depart and hopefully…