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Today there is a report in The Australian on the latest official news about Snowy2.0. It is still going on, so we can expect more bad news for some years to come:) My comment was published on line, with a reference to our briefing note 22.8 which shows that it is a dog of a…

This week in The Spectator Mike Ryan revived the idea of the citizen-initiated referendum. This is a welcome suggestion and it recalls the memory that in 1987 the Centre For Independent Studies published a very well researched book on the various forms of the citizen’s vote, including the provision for recalling politicians who don’t take…

We read in The Spectator this morning that Captain Cook has been effectively cancelled in the National Curriculum for schools. To set the record straight, there is a stirring account of Cook’s career in the very first edition of Quadrant in 1956 which appeared in 1956. This is the article, with the editor’s introduction to…

Cockup or conspiracy? The fourth in the series of Spectator articles on wind droughts pointed a finger of suspicion at the meteorologists for failing to issue wind drought warnings. Was it just bad luck and bad judgement that accounted for the failure of the meteorologists to notice wind droughts? Or did it suit them to…

Australia is on the cusp of a surge of private investment in climate initiatives, according to the new chairwoman of the Climate Council, well-known businesswoman and philanthropist Carol Schwartz. “What’s exciting now for business is that we have a government that’s very supportive of initiatives to address climate action, and we have businesses that are…

The dark side of J K Rowling Thanks to Bettina Arndt for ventilating a side of J K Rowling that escaped my attention up to date. Rowling makes no attempt to hide her blinkered view about women’s vulnerability. A blog two years ago revealed that key to her concern about trans activism was her belief that women’s…

Penton (1904-1951) is forgotten because he died in mid-career. He almost certainly would have been the standout editor and commentator through the 1950s and the 1960s., flying the flag for classical liberalism and especially free speech. Fortunately there is an excellent biography by Patrick Buckridge and a short version on line. He was born in…

Britain and Germany are in deep trouble with their power supplies and wind droughts are the root of the problem. You can imagine a book to be written one day called How Wind Droughts Destroyed Western Civilization. Texas in 2021 gave us a glimpse of the future when the wind died and the temperature fell…