Utopia, you are standing in it!

Decades ago when I was young Reserve Bank annual reports were – uninteresting accounts aside – mostly a bit of an essay on the economy (I got to write some of 1984’s and if I recall correctly one sentence survived to publication). Since the Bank had no independent authority over anything – power rested with the Minister of Finance – that model of Annual Report made a certain amount of sense. If there was any “accountability” involved, it was mostly about judging the fine line involved in offering some analysis without at the same time unduly upsetting the Minister of Finance. (The Bank was, at least in principle, accountable for analysis and advice offered to the Minister, but nothing much of that ever saw the light of day, the then recent innovation of the OIA notwithstanding).

These days, of course, the Reserve Bank is a power in the land, conducting…

Using logical thinking is an effective way of solving problems and rooting out untruths. Unfortunately, logic can be replaced in many instances with repeated phraseology that has been absorbed and memorised for quick regurgitation without thought, such as arguments using the Bandwagon Fallacy:

1. X is popular.
2. Popular things are always true (unstated).
3. Therefore, X is true.

Bandwagon Fallacy: Why the Majority Isn’t Necessarily Right

Here is the Bandwagon Fallacy argument used to justify the safety of The Shots:

1. 11 million + shots have been given to people in NZ.
2. Popular things are always safe (unstated).
3. Therefore, the shots are safe.

Implied in this fallacy is the idea that if the shots were not safe, then people would be seeing the effects in those around them, that damage would be widespread and noticeable. However, ironically the argument is then used against anyone who says the shots are not safe because they…

Oh but this is going to hurt, and judging by the online Twitter meltdowns from Leftists it’s a burn that’s going to last a long time, certainly past the Mid-Term elections next month.

Just a few years ago Tulsi Gabbard, as a House Rep. from Hawaii, was being talked up as yet another youthful face of a rising Democrat Party poised to do great things in the 21st century. Military veteran, mutli-ethnic, female, etc. She was the Vice-Chair of the Democrat National Committee (DNC). When she ran for the Democrat Presidential nomination in 2019 she did better than many others with higher profiles but faded for the usual reasons such young, first-time candidates do; lack of money and support from inside the upper echelons of the Democrat Party – including the DNC – who eventually plumped for “moderate” and easily controlled Joe Biden over True Believer Socialist Bernie Sanders.

Stardate: 2268 (technically no stardate is given for this episode)
Original Air Date: February 16, 1968
Writer: John Meredyth Lucas
Director: Vincent McEveety

“Even historians fail to learn from history…”

The Enterprise is searching for John Gill (David Brian), a missing Federation historian. Gill is a widely respected intellectual among Starfleet, he once taught Kirk during his Starfleet days, and even Spock praises Gill for his treatment of earth history as a series of “causes and motivations” rather than a mere timeline of events. Gill had been sent by the Federation as a “cultural observer” of the planet Ekos some years prior, but he has since disappeared. What happened? First, a bit of exposition about Ekos. The Ekosians are known to be a primitive warlike people, living in a state of anarchy, whereas its sister planet of Zeon is known to be technologically advanced. As the…

Image credit: BBC
Some pushback against the excesses of climate obsession.
– – –
Liz Truss is poised to ban solar projects from most farms in England in a move that will dismay climate change campaigners and some Tory backbenchers, says Yahoo News.

The prime minister has long been opposed to solar farms on agricultural land, condemning them as “a blight on the landscape” when she was environment secretary in 2014.

And during the Tory leadership campaign this summer, she said she wanted to see farmers producing food with crops and livestock, “not filling fields with paraphernalia like solar farms”.

The destruction of once reliable and affordable electricity supplies is so evidently deliberate, it can no longer be put down to ignorance, alone.

Nothing but brazen ideology sits beneath the claim that we are a heartbeat away from a transition to an all wind and sun powered future. We are continually told that, putting aside the need for a few trillion dollars’ worth of imaginary grid-scale storage systems, we’re almost there.

Well, that’s the meme, anyway.

Back on terra firma, things haven’t exactly panned out as planned unless, of course, the plan was economic destruction starting with entrenched energy poverty and, ultimately, deindustrialisation.

If you’re looking to understand what the ‘inevitable transition’ means for you, Britain’s power pricing and supply calamity is as good a place as any to start.

James McSweeney and Paul Homewood layout what’s in store below.

British Energy Planning (A Horror Story)
The Critic
James McSweeney

What is the purpose of the referendum proposed in the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill? Is it, as s 1 (1) of the Bill itself says ‘to ascertain the views of the people of Scotland?’ Or is the aim – either directly or indirectly – the dissolution of the United Kingdom? If the purpose is only to ascertain the views of Scots, the Lord Advocate suggests, then it cannot impact reserved matters. Her suggestion is that the referendum cannot impact reserved matters because the referendum is merely advisory, and so it can have no legal effect if it has no legal impact. This post argues that it is right to construe the purpose of the Bill narrowly, as only ascertaining the views of Scots. Even the narrow purpose of ascertaining the views of Scots, however, still relates to reserved matters. To see why, it is necessary to distinguish between the 

The Ardern government is claiming a world first in its policy to cut agricultural emissions.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern asserts  that its proposal “delivers a competitive advantage, enhancing our export brand”, and…

“No other country in the world has yet developed a system for pricing and reducing agricultural emissions, so our farmers are set to benefit from being first movers.”

Farmers  themselves  may be bemused, if  not bewildered, by  the Government’s spin because critics claim the  scheme  aims to reduce sheep and beef farming in New Zealand by 20% and dairy farming by 5%, to achieve  what   Federated  Farmers  labels “the unscientific pulled-out-of-a-hat national GHG targets”.

Agriculture Minister Damien  O’Connor  seeks to put  the  best  face  he  can on the government’s  policy, saying  that

“… by rewarding farmers who take action to cut their emissions we can support more farmers to improve their productivity and profitability while achieving climate goals.