Utopia, you are standing in it!

I still think Emmanuel Macron will win reelection, but it is going to be a closer fight than most prognosticators expected before this past Sunday’s first round. In the results of that vote, Macron has the expected plurality, and it was a few percentage points higher than he got in 2017 (27.8% vs. 24.0%). His runoff opponent in both 2017 and later this month, Marine Le Pen, also improved a bit over last time (23.3% vs. 21.3%). What is new–or really accelerating a trend that was already there–is the total collapse of older established parties. The Republican (mainstream right) got 20% in 2017 but only 4.8% this time, fifth place. The Socialists were already in dire shape in 2017 with 6.4%, but did even worse this time, 1.75%, despite (or because?) of running the mayor of Paris. Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise, a far left group, made the race…

Folks on the left tell us that they want to help the less fortunate.

I sometimes wonder if their real motive is to penalize success and punish the “rich,” but let’s be charitable and assume that many of them truly wish to help the poor.

That’s a noble sentiment, to be sure, but this is why it’s also important to look at the consequences of policy, not just the intentions.

I explained last year that certain left-wing fiscal, regulatory, and monetary policies actually harm the poor and help the rich, and I augmented that analysis earlier this year by showing how farm policies line the pockets of upper-income people.

Let’s now add to this research by looking at a new study (h/t: Tyler Cowen) from Mario Alloza of University College London. Here are some of the key findings from the study’s abstract.

Household panel…between 1967 and 1996 is employed…

Thomas Piketty is a big proponent of class-warfare tax policy because he views inequality as a horrible outcome.

But a soak-the-rich policy agenda, echoed by many other academics such as Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, is fundamentally misguided. If people really care about helping the poor, they should focus instead on reforms that actually have a proven track record of reducing poverty.

The fact that they fixate on inequality makes me wonder about their motives.

And it also leads me to find their work largely irrelevant. I don’t care if they produce detailed long-run data on changes in inequality.

I prefer detailed long-run data on changes in poverty.

That being said, it appears that some of Piketty’s data is sloppy.

I shared some evidence about his bad numbers back in 2014. And, in a column for the Wall Street Journal, Phil Magness of the…

Original Air Date: February 1965/October 14, 1986
Star Date: 2254 (unknown in-universe date)
Writer: Gene Roddenberry
Director: Robert Butler

“There’s a way out of any cage and I’ll find it.”

Once notoriously rejected by NBC for being too “too cerebral,” this now legendary pilot episode of Star Trek offers a panoply of rich, complex ideas worthy of consideration. Rather than easily hooking its audience with flashy effects or explosive gun fights, “The Cage” is a slow-burn prison mystery which forces us to examine the nature of evil. Are the Talosians truly an evil alien species? According to the Talosians, the answer is emphatically “no.” The Talosians believe they are mere investigators and conjurers of innocent but deceptive imagery in order to offer a better world, test humanity’s limits, and hopefully save the future of Talos IV, their own decaying planet. The Talosians are anthropologists and…

Original Air Date: September 8, 1966
Stardate: 1312.4
Writer: Samuel A. Peeples
Director: James Goldstone

“Morals are for men, not gods.”

After NBC initially rejected Gene Roddenberry’s pilot episode for Star Trek entitled “The Cage” (they claimed it was too cerebral) Star Trek was offered the rarest of opportunities: a second chance. This was thanks in part to the earlier efforts of Lucille Ball and her company Desilu Studios which was impressed by the show’s diverse cast, in particular its elevation of women to more prominent roles. Somewhat ironically the series’s second chance removed “Number Two” (Majel Barrett) from the show. Instead of Captain Pike’s character (played by Jeffrey Hunter as featured in “The Cage”) he was replaced by Captain Kirk (played by William Shatner). Shatner had previously made a name for himself in a variety of Broadway productions as well as on The Twilight…

Sheep farming in Wales [image credit: BBC]
Another example of unintended consequences caused by the irrational pursuit of climate obsessions by governments.
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A fifth of Welsh farms are running at a loss and there is a risk that farmers will be priced out of agriculture by big corporations buying up farmland for carbon offsetting schemes, according to a new report on family farms in Wales.

The findings of an inquiry by the Welsh Affairs Select Committee published today (7 April) paint a concerning picture for Welsh agriculture, an industry where the average farm size is just 48ha, compared to 87ha in England, says TW News.

From pressure on incomes and land availability to a lack of opportunity for new entrants, the report highlights some of the key concerns and sets out a series of recommendations to governments to address the issues.

During the Glorious Revolution of November 1688 James II-VII, king of England, Scotland and Ireland was deposed and replaced by his daughter Mary II and her husband, stadtholder William III of Orange, the de facto ruler of the Dutch Republic. The Glorious Revolution
can be seen as both the last successful invasion of England and also an internal coup that toppled the reigning monarch.

William III, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Stadtholder of the Netherlands with his Imperial State Crown

The Revolution ended a century of political dispute and strife between the Crown and Parliament by confirming the primacy of Parliament over the Crown, a principle established in the Bill of Rights 1689.

English coronations were traditionally held at Westminster Abbey, with the monarch seated on the Coronation Chair. Main elements of the coronation service and the earliest form of oath can be traced to the ceremony devised by…