Utopia, you are standing in it!

Renewable energy rent seekers keep telling us that our power bills will inevitably fall because wind and solar power are ‘free’ and getting cheaper all the time.

In the lead up to the Federal election in May, Labor’s Anthony Albanese promised that all Australian households would see a $275 cut to their power bills, as soon as he and his wind and solar obsessed Labor took the reins and put Australia’s ‘inevitable’ wind and solar transition, back on track.

Instead, households and businesses have just been whacked with an annual minimum increase in their power bills of between 18-20% on top of double-digit increases last year and the year before that, and the year before that, with much worse to come.

Australian households and businesses are now suffering power prices amongst the highest in the world; 20 years ago they enjoyed the cheapest prices on the planet. But, chaotically intermittent…

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 to 43 BC), without the benefit of coming from a patrician or aristocratic family, rose by hard work to become the leading Roman lawyer and orator of his day. For a generation he dominated the Roman courts, usually appearing for the defence. We know of 88 law speeches he gave and an amazing 58 of them survive in whole or in part. The Oxford University Press publish an excellent paperback containing five of his most famous defence speeches.

(Note that the Latin word pro simply means ‘for’ and takes the ablative case i.e. changes the ending of words and names to ‘o’, so that the speech ‘for Caelius’ is known as ‘Pro Caelio’ and so on – unless the name ends in ‘a’, in which case it stays the same, or already ends in ‘o’ in which case it adds ‘ne’ to the end. These are…

The arrest of the Premier of the British Virgin Islands in April and a Commission of Inquiry’s finding of ‘parlous failings in governance’ have raised questions about the British government’s relations with and stewardship of its Overseas Territories. These issues are raised in moments of crisis, following natural disasters, acute periods in the several sovereignty disputes linked to the Territories, or headline-grabbing scandals. George Fergusson argues that they merit more regular review.

The decision on 8 June of a British official to reject the principal and firm recommendation of a Commission of Inquiry by a former Court of Appeal judge has produced little political or media stir. This is largely explained by the decision being one concerning a British Overseas Territory, in this case, the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

The recommendation was that a period of…

Stardate: 3198.4 (2267)
Original Air Date: March 23, 1967
Writer: Gene L. Coon
Director: John Newland

“You don’t have to be sheep. You can be wolves!”

In this wonderful episode which first introduces the Klingons, the Enterprise arrives in a hot situation near the planet Organia (a Class-M planet). Negotiations between the Klingons and the Federation have recently deteriorated and Starfleet Command anticipates an imminent surprise attack. We learn that Organia is a non-aligned planet near the edge of the Klingon border and it is thus vulnerable to attack. The Enterprise heads to Organia to protect it from invasion, but a lone Klingon Bird of Prey attacks. The Enterprise easily destroys the Klingon ship via phaser fire but Starfleet quickly relays a “Code 1” alert –war has once again been declared on the Klingon Empire. The mood aboard the Enterprise is one of alarm.

When…

A recent decision of the NSW Supreme Court has applied a rarely used provision in legislation setting up Australian universities to provide a legal remedy for a student penalised for her comments on a controversial issue. In Thiab v Western Sydney University [2022] NSWSC 760 (10 June 2022) Parker J ruled that the actions of Western Sydney University (“WSU”) in penalising the student, Ms Thiab, for comments she had made expressing disagreement with the State’s compulsory vaccination requirements, were unlawful. The case is an interesting example of protection of a student’s freedom of speech through application of the legislation establishing the University, and would apply not only to “political” comments as in this case, but also to religious beliefs.

Shackleton: By Endurance We Conquer
by Michael Smith
443 pages
Oneworld Publications
Published: Oct 2014

Michael Smith’s biography of Ernest Shackleton was the first full biography of this legendary explorer in nearly three decades. Smith is a British author and journalist with a focus on polar exploration. Among his half-dozen other books are “An Unsung Hero – Tom Crean” and “Captain Francis Crozier – Last Man Standing?”

Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) is best remembered for the dramatic heroics and tragic misfortunes associated with his Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917 which resulted in the loss of three men. But this was just one of four such trips he would undertake before he died at the age of 47. During a less star-crossed expedition in 1907 he hoped to be the first person to reach the South Pole but, running critically low on supplies, had to turn back 100 miles…