Utopia, you are standing in it!

As you drive, walk, or bike around your city, what do you think about as you see the various buildings and other structures? Perhaps you think about the lives of the people in them, or the architecture of the buildings themselves, or the products and services that the businesses offer for sale. For me, lately I’ve been thinking about one thing as I make my way around town: zoning. It’s not something I had thought about before very much, but after reading Nolan Gray’s new book Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It, I’ve been thinking about zoning a lot more.

(Disclosure: I know the author of the book, but I paid for my own copy and got it in advance through the luck of the Amazon-pre-order draw.)

The book does a wonderful job of explaining what zoning is (and importantly, also what…

Today marks the 807th anniversary of the Magna Carta. The full name is Magna Carta Libertatum, which translates into “The great charter of Freedoms”, but in common use it is known as the Magna Carta. It was agreed by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215.

The document is basically the foundation of the British constitution. The Magna Carta still forms an important symbol of liberty today, often cited by politicians and campaigners, and is held in great respect by the British and American legal communities, Lord Denning describing it as “the greatest constitutional document of all times—the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot”. Ironically the anniversary of the Magna Carta comes a day after the British Government was suppose to send a group of refugees to Rwanda. It is only because of the intervention of the…

This week is the inter-round period in the French two-round assembly elections. The first round was on 12 June. The French way of electing members of the National Assembly is not top-two majority-runoff, like the country’s presidential elections (or most elections in California). Rather, it is majority-plurality. That is, it is possible to have more than two candidates in the second round in any given single-seat district, and when this happens, the winner is the one with the most votes, even if it is less than 50%+1.

In any system within the broader family of two-round systems, there need to be threshold provisions for both (1) determining whether a runoff is required, and (2) deterring who is eligible to participate. Under typical majority runoff, the provisions are (1) 50%+1 in the first round, or else (2) there must be a second round in which only the top two…

Yes, you read the headline correctly. Ever since the current broad-yet-narrow coalition government in Israel was formed, it has been something of a sport for various journalists covering Israeli politics to predict its early demise. I cautioned otherwise at the time.

It may be that the coalition really is in its death throes, even as it has only just passed the one-year mark of its planned three-year term. I have lost count of the number of individual members of coalition parties who have announced a “strike” or a “freeze” whereby they stop voting with the coalition for a period of time to try to get some measure they favor passed (or something they oppose stopped). Most of them have made clear that they would not defect to the opposition or vote to call an early election. But some (I think three dating back to the original investiture vote) have…

Though I’m a bit late with this, I wanted to look at the name Louis given to the new Prince born to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. It isn’t a name that has a large history within the British Royal Family (this includes both England and Scotland), Louis has never been used as a first name in the British Royal Family, but it does have some history as a secondary name and a name associated, or connected to, other relatives of the British Royal Family.

Today will be Part I of examining the name Louis and it’s association with the British Royal Family. The name Louis has a long tradition within the French Monarchy and various German States in its long history of monarchy.


Before I get into detail about that, did you know there was almost a King Louis of England? The future King Louis VIII of France…

Julius Caesar’s 130-page account of his civil war with Pompey up until the latter’s defeat at the battle of Pharsalus is always published alongside three shorter accounts – of the Alexandrian War, the African War and the Spanish War – even though there is nowadays scholarly consensus that Caesar didn’t write any of these. No one knows for sure who did. Maybe his lieutenant Aulus Hirtius, who is recorded as writing the eighth and final commentary in Caesar’s Gallic Wars, wrote the Alexandrian War, but probably not the African and Spanish texts which are stylistically below Caesar’s standard and also incomplete.

The Alexandrian War

1 to 4: Military preparations

Julius Caesar had arrived with a fleet and army in Alexandria, in pursuit of Pompey. After disgustingly being presented with the head of Pompey, Caesar set about interfering in the civil war between King Ptolemy and his sister Cleopatra, and found…

Louis VIII (September 2, 1187 – November 8,1226), nicknamed The Lion was King of France from 1223 to 1226. From 1216 to 1217, he invaded and claimed the Kingdom of England. Louis participated in the Albigensian Crusade in southern France, driving it to its successful and deadly conclusion. He was the only surviving son of King Philippe II of France by his first wife, Isabelle of Hainaut, from whom he inherited the County of Artois.

In 1215, the English barons rebelled against the unpopular King John in the First Barons’ War. Following a request from some of the rebellious English barons, the prince sailed to England despite discouragement from his father Philippe II and Pope Innocent III.

The barons offered the throne to Prince Louis, who landed unopposed on the Isle of Thanet in eastern Kent, England, at the head of an army on May 21, 1216.

There was little…

John (December 2504, 1166 – October 19, 1216) was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216.

John was the youngest of the four surviving sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was nicknamed John Lackland because he was not expected to inherit significant lands.

John lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philippe II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin Empire and contributing to the subsequent growth in power of the French Capetian dynasty during the 13th century.

The baronial revolt at the end of John’s reign led to the sealing of Magna Carta, a document considered an early step in the evolution of the constitution of the United Kingdom.

John held a council in London in January 1215 to discuss potential reforms and sponsored discussions in Oxford between his agents…

It’s taken longer than I expected but the reality of President Biden’s uselessness is finally catching up with him.

The only surprise I have is that so many Democrats are surprised by this.

For almost a year now, every poll has seen increasingly worse numbers for Biden. The trigger was the Afghanistandebacle, no matter how the MSM and his many sycophants around the world tried to spin it.

Since then nothing has gone right for him. But saying that makes it sound simply like a hapless, hopeless President has been overwhelmed by events beyond his control, and while it’s true that this low-IQ, senile, husk of a human being is incapable of dealing with problems that land on his desk, many of those problems stem directly from the idiocies of “his” policies. Actually they’re the policies of the Nancy Pelosi Democrat Party and his Obama-retread staff, policies that…