Quotulatiousness

October 19, 2026

“If alternative energy is a ‘lower-cost’ solution they shouldn’t need prodding from a wise and benevolent state”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Environment, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

John Robson points out that words do have meanings and calling expensive things “cheap” and cheap things “expensive” doesn’t actually change their economic or environmental value in the real world:

Martian fighting machines striding over Horsell Common … no, wait, these are actually wind turbines on Wolfe Island, near Kingston, Ontario.

When it comes to the alleged green energy transition and its flood of cheap power and paradisaically green, lucrative and fulfilling jobs, those with even fairly short historical memories will recall that the “Green New Deal” legislative package was meant to do for the US economy what Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” had supposedly done in the 1930s. Those of us who think the main achievement of the “New Deal” was to extend a sharp recession into a decade-long depression through a massive set of taxes and regulations driven by inane economic theory, for instance plowing crops under to fight hunger under the AAA, didn’t even find that claim appealing. But others sure did, and with about as much to show for it.

As Wikipedia put it, after tracing uses of the term back to 2007:

    The 2019 United States congressional resolution Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey advocated a ‘just transition’, counteracting previous systemic injustices that had disproportionally hurt vulnerable communities. A ‘just transition’ relies on increasing social and economic equity and access to opportunity which are crucial components of the Green New Deal and principles of environmental and social justice.

For these hyper adherents to Thomas Sowell’s “unconstrained vision”, just saving the planet isn’t enough. You also have to save the economy, eliminate injustice and after lunch world peace.

In Canada, where we pride ourselves so fiercely on our “elbows up” independence from the United States that we call our system of socialized medicine brought in back in 1966 “Medicare” after um uh the American program from 1964, there are calls for “A Green New Deal for Canadian Sovereignty” which appears to be the US version with maple syrup:

    This will allow us to quickly transition from an economy excessively reliant on serving the United States and based on exploitation and the burning of fossil fuels, to one that is more self-reliant, driven by dignified work, clean renewable energy, more equitable and with efficient public services for all.

Oh. Just that? Who knew giving up oil and gas in a cold northern country could fix government health care? Well, Greenpeace Canada, for one, with their 2019 infographic that includes “Create a plan for 1 million good green jobs” (shades of Mole from Pogo exclaiming “A plan! You’re right! I’ll need a plan!”). And with this one, wait, you also get “Indigenous rights” and “proportional representation” and “BETTER LIFE FOR ALL” and “Build clean industries”. Oh and “Grant personhood protections to forests and bodies of water”. And interfaith harmony and a guy in a wheelchair and all that there.

Mind you, the bit where you “Build clean industries” still appears to face a few minor hurdles, like building clean industries. And why just 1 million good green jobs? Why not 5 million, or 53 million, or 628 billion? Since climate transition enthusiasts don’t do practical well.

For instance Canary Media just launched a publication “California Wire” dedicated to telling you the transition that failed in California worked in California:

    I’m launching this newsletter at an intriguing moment in California politics. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom – who everyone knows is eyeing a run for the White House – has one last chance to show his true colors on energy and climate change. Rising electricity costs are a major issue in California, and Newsom must decide by the end of this month whether to sign a host of bills that could help cut utility rates while also advancing the state’s clean energy transition. What message does he want to send to Californians and the rest of the country?

Dude, he already “sent a message” that this GND is pie in the sky and energy gets more expensive not less. And not because he hid his “true colors on energy and climate change” but because he waved them in everyone’s face while shouting about the subject. So now all he needs to do is wave his pen? Yup:

    a few bills on his desk now could at least start the long slog of reforms that experts say will help make power more affordable.

Oh wait. Experts say. But long slog? Help make it more affordable? Why the Dickens isn’t it already more affordable since these kinds of people keep telling us wind and solar are now cheaper than oil and gas, and let’s not even mention coal, and Newsom’s true colours are wind and solar?

Indeed, he calls for:

    a precursor to setting up regulations that could steer them [utilities] toward prioritizing lower-cost solutions over expensive grid upgrades.

Talk about leaping into verbiage. And also error, since if alternative energy is a “lower-cost” solution they shouldn’t need prodding from a wise and benevolent state, and if they’re not, you’re just making things worse by persisting in your delusion.

British Columbia’s David Eby

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I barely pay attention to politics in my own province, so my knowledge of British Columbia politics is far less detailed. I do rather think of BC’s political class as maple-flavoured understudies to California politicians, which may not be fair … I’m not sure if it’s not fair to BC politicians or to the folks running California into the ground. At Without Diminishment, Geoff Russ looks at whether David Eby actually seems to love his adopted province or if he just values it for what it allows him to do:

David Eby, Premier of British Columbia
Photo from the Government of British Columbia via Without Diminishment

In the only televised debate of British Columbia’s provincial election, Premier David Eby tried to make it clear that he loves our province.

Are we sure about that?

We know there are people who come from afar to make a home here and go on to do incredible things for B.C. Names like Alberta-born Trevor Linden, W.A.C. Bennett from New Brunswick, and others are all enshrined in the pantheon of West Coast heroes.

If Eby’s record is any indication, he loves what B.C. can do for him. He uses provincial taxes to fund his political experiments and the premier’s office as a pulpit, while milking the treasury to save a buck in his personal life.

The best example of this was the way in which he took advantage of the $10-a-day subsidised daycare program, using it to save money despite the fact that he and his wife earn well over half a million dollars per year.

There was nothing illegal about Eby, a resident of B.C., putting his child in the daycare program. However, that scheme is clearly intended for struggling families and single parents, not a highly paid premier and his well-paid spouse. It was a gross, indecent decision, and there is no way around that.

All of Eby’s alleged affection runs in one direction.

Under his watch, the term “British Columbian” has been replaced in official guides with “people living in B.C.” because the former is allegedly harmful to Indigenous peoples, refugees and other newcomers, like the premier himself. As for British Columbians, the premier seems determined to give away every kilometre of public land in the name of “reconciliation”.

Who British Columbians are has been rendered a source of embarrassment that can only be handled with safety gloves, for they are “uninvited guests” in the government’s cosmology. More broadly, his party’s politics have converted that suspect sentiment into a permanent division between Indigenous peoples and, in the government’s view, apologetic interlopers. This is what constitutes “reconciliation”, according to the one indispensable figure.

That indispensable man arrived from Kitchener, Ontario, with a nose for creating trouble. At both the Pivot Legal Society and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, Eby introduced himself to his new neighbours by disrupting the Olympics and trying to undermine the local police.

Like so many other Ontario-born transplants in the B.C. NDP, Eby decided that he, and he alone, knew what was best for British Columbians. Never mind that the Ontario NDP have only headed one disastrous government.

October 18, 2026

Coriolanus and Science Fiction

Filed under: History, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Feral Historian
Published 19 Jun 2026

Coriolanus is on a core level a story about loyalties, the personal and the tribe. It’s a rich field for science fiction, and this story hinges on a delicate balance of loyalties that can change drastically in different sci-fi settings.

The original edit of this relied heavily on the 2011 film, but for copyright reasons I’m using different performances as examples here. Apologies for any edits that seem a tad off.

00:00 Intro
03:00 The Tribunes
04:50 A World Elsewhere
07:25 Martius and Aufidius
12:39 Loyalties

Corrections: 13:07 I know, I’m technically using “geopolitical” incorrectly.

It also occurs to me that there is a bit of a Coriolanus influence on my book (shameless plug incoming) Stellar Drift, available now. amazon.com/dp/B0GTVXK4CN

And of course book 1 in the series, Ninti’s Gate as well. amazon.com/dp/B0CYXH9BWD
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QotD: The historian’s only real skill

Filed under: History, Media, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

After a few decades studying and teaching History, my basic conclusion is that the Historian’s only real skill is noticing. Everything else — dogged archive work, good writing, excellent teaching — is what the Cajuns call lagniappe (pronounced “lon yop”). Nice to have, but unnecessary. Noticing, that’s the thing. And of course Steve Sailer was right: PostModern life — all of it, stem to stern — is just a war on noticing.

And I’m not sure that’s a skill that can be taught. Maybe a little bit, probably “modeled” more than “taught”. It starts with healthy skepticism. Back when Facebook was first starting out, I’d bring in my “ridiculousness of the day” to class. You know how they did back then (and no doubt still do) — someone would find some fascinating “historical” fact and make a meme out of it. We’d go over it in class. Look, kids, not only is this not true, there’s no way it could possibly ever have been true. Let’s think it over […]

In other words, every single thing about that article is a lie … but what is it designed to accomplish, because I promise you, students, it’s not there by accident. Lots of people got paid a lot of money to put that together and publish it. Who, and to what end?

History class is about the only place you’re allowed to do that anymore. I always made a big deal out of “interrogating sources” for that reason. Can we trust anything reported about the past? How much weight do we have to put on the individual reporter? How do we judge social positions, weigh motives? What, if anything, are facts, and what relies on our own judgement? How can we make our judgement better?

Annnnnd that’s why there’s no more History class. It has been reduced to multiple choice tests, if for no other reason than the traditional essay gives the professor too many opportunities to point out this kind of error. What evidence do you have for that assertion? You seem to be making this or that assumption; why? Here’s an error of logic — your conclusion in paragraph 3 doesn’t follow from the evidence presented in paragraph 1. You’re either missing something, or you drew the wrong conclusion. Revise and resubmit for partial credit …

Obviously that kind of thing can’t be allowed to continue, comrades.

Severian, “History and Human Survival”, Founding Questions, 2022-09-27.

October 16, 2026

Worried you might commit an accidental Islamophobia? Britain’s Greens can help!

Filed under: Britain, Media, Politics, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The British Green Party has been getting a lot of media attention lately, but not for their former environmental concerns: now they’ve effectively converted themselves into the primary political vehicle for British Muslims, as Heydon Prowse explains:

You know you’re in People’s Front of Judea territory when the GEWs (Greens of England and Wales) decree that the majority of JEWs (Jews Everywhere in the World) are “racist“. Meanwhile, the party’s Muslim Greens grouping recently published a handy guide to what is and isn’t “Islamophobic”.

It turns out, pretty much everything is! Including, but not limited to, the following:

1) Criticising the Koran

The guidance warns against saying that the teachings of the Koran are backwards, because nothing says forward-thinking like a pre-Enlightenment ban on questioning religion.

2) Speaking up against Islam’s treatment of women

Koran 2:223 says wives are like farmland that husbands can cultivate as they please. Which, to be fair, is closer than the Green Party has come to discussing agriculture all year.

3) Saying that Islam isn’t a massive fan of the gays

Not a single Muslim country in the world permits or recognises same-sex marriage or lets gay couples adopt. But according to the Muslim Greens, this is all the fault of the Brits.

The guidance says: “Queerphobic legislation in many Muslim-majority countries is deeply tied to colonialism”. Apparently, the British Empire made them do it and has forced them to continue doing it enthusiastically ever since.

4) Going to the pub

Yes, apparently having too many Green Party meetings and social events in venues with alcohol present is racist. Given that Wetherspoons is the closest thing Britain has to a place of worship, I find this one deeply offensive.

Confused? You’re not alone. The Greens seem to have abandoned saving the planet in favour of a much more achievable pastime: making everything racist. It’s a bit like that game show, Is It Cake?, except instead of cutting open a handbag to reveal layers of sponge and jam, you dissect every political opinion to unveil a hidden hate crime.

Almost anything could be racist and you wouldn’t even know it. The guidance encourages Muslims to join the Greens because they “speak out on oppression everywhere”. But careful! It also says that if you assume a Muslim is oppressed, you might be being Islamophobic. Is it solidarity? Is it prejudice? Gotcha! It was cake all along! And now you’ve been referred to a disciplinary committee.

Clarkson’s … goats

Filed under: Britain, Environment, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I started watching Clarkson’s Farm, although I got interrupted after a few seasons so I haven’t caught up to the most recent season. On X, Sama Hoole talks about the goats Jeremy Clarkson recently added to the farm:

Jeremy Clarkson switched on an electric fence so his goats could get used to it, and a goat gets used to a fence the way it gets used to anything, by testing it until it gives.

Lizzie, the goat farmer he bought them from, warned him they would be out, and she was right. A sheep accepts a fence. A cow leans on it and thinks. A goat regards it as a question somebody has asked, and answers.

They had been bought for the half of Diddly Squat no tractor can touch, a bank of bramble and thorn that would take a man with a brushcutter all week. The goats went on it, and in Clarkson’s own words one bramble bush was in real trouble inside five minutes.

Nothing else on four legs can do this. A goat would rather eat a hedge than a lawn. The mouth is small and the lip is split, so it picks a leaf out from between two thorns the way you would pick out a splinter. It stands on its hind legs for the top of the hedge. It leans on a sapling until the crown comes down. It eats gorse, strips bark, chews through leaves that cattle and sheep spit out, and comes back in the morning for the regrowth.

Oakland keeps a herd on its hillsides against the fires. Portugal pays shepherds to walk goats through its mountains before the summer burns. The firebreak that saved the Reagan Library in 2019 had been chewed that spring. Network Rail has put them on the cliffs at Folkestone.

The oldest farm animal there is, 10,000 years in the job, is being rediscovered as green technology, and in all that time it has learned nothing about fences.

The thicket goes in one end and comes out the other as kids and milk.

Clarkson’s land agent has never once told him a goat was a sound investment. The goats have never once asked him.

October 15, 2026

Nearly half of Cornell students report being “harassed”

Filed under: Education, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

William M Briggs discusses the most recent sexual harassment survey results from Cornell, where — if you take the numbers at face value — the situation is dire:

You may have heard of the depressing contretemps at Cornell of late (written in the lady’s (a hotelie) own words here, but I cannot recommended reading it). It is not a coincidence that Cornell recently asked all students about how much sexual assault and harassment they enjoyed. It is that survey which interests us, because it so closely matches the breed and we need to understand their shortcomings.

Don’t put too much blame on Cornell. New York has a law that makes them give this survey every two years. This allows bureaucrats and rulers to think that they have done something good, which is the main reason for their existence, regardless how silly the results are.

Cornell gave the “instrument” — toot, toot — to 6,000 students, but only had “757 full completions”, which is a return rate of just over 12%.

How would the missing 88% have answered? This is a key question. The assumption sociologists make is: exactly the same. Yet, as we’ll see, it is far from impossible that those who blew off the survey would have responded differently than those who did answer, especially on the questions I’ll highlight.

Naturally, a lot more ladies than men answered, because women like to “play quiz” more than men. They also had a handful of students who, it seems, were unable to identify their sex; non-science majors, one supposes. All the extra ladies would have been fine if Cornell had broken the results out by sex, which they always didn’t. It will make a difference.

Cornell reported 49% of the students claimed that they “experienced any form of harassment”. My guess, since I am an arch sexist, is that the great bulk of that 49% were female reports. We never learn, but never mind. Let’s take the number as given.

If we extrapolate the survey results, as all good sociologists and rulers do, we would announce that half of all students were harassed. Half. Half, my dear readers, is an enormous number. Half would suggest that a small army of mouth-breathing harassers, likely from the Poetry Department, skulk around campus hiding behind bushes waiting for their chance to harass. Who could tolerate such an environment where half of all students are so abused?

I’ll tell you who: students. They can tolerate it. Because similar numbers of harassed were also reported in 2021 and 2023. Which can only mean one of two things. One: students come, they get harassed, then they come back for more of that rousing hands-on experience. They must be loving them some harassment to stick around when half get the business.

Or two: the survey and its results are, to use a technical word, bullshit.

I favor the second explanation, though I don’t entirely dismiss the first.

1980s gun myths from TV shows

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

On Substack, John Van Stry discusses one of the myths about guns that were commonplace in 1980s cop shows on TV:

Okay, so he’s talking handguns, but this is still kinda on-topic.

Decades ago, and I do mean decades, on one of the many police drama TV shows that existed in the 70’s, there was one about cops (of course there was!) where they followed a different set of officers (not detectives, street cops — kinda1) each week.

So in that particular episode we had these guys (I think it was two? It was more than one) going around and robbing banks and they were shooting (and of course killing) people at the banks. They were using “HIGH POWERED WEAPONS” (emphasis theirs) of some sort. I don’t remember if it was rifles (AR-15’s weren’t the boogie man back then) or pistols. I think it was pistols though, Magnums perhaps?

Anyway, cutting to the chase, we’ve got two officers “staking out” the bank that they believe is going to be next and all they’ve got are their wimpy-wimpy-wimpy (emphasis theirs) .38 revolvers. Because everyone knows being shot by a .38 is no more dangerous than being shot by a B-B gun!2

So, before the “big shootout” one officer comes up to the other and offers him a Special Bullet.3 He tells the other “I thought maybe we should have a little something to even the odds”.4

The other officer is of course duly horrified because this is NOT “regulation ammo”!

So what was this “special ammo”? Were they .357 magnum rounds? (which you might be able to shoot from some .38’s back then, if you could get them to fit, just once). Were they +P’s?5 Oh no no no no no! They were (Dun dun DAAAA!)

HOLLOW POINTS!!!!

Yup, their first bullet in their revolver was a .38 hollow point.

When the robbers attack, oh the things that happen! One officer blows one of the robber’s heads Clean OFF!! Yes, that’s right! The dreaded hollow point is so powerful it took off the guy’s head! Completely!!! I don’t recall exactly what the other robber had happen, but I think it was a hole blown throw him you could see through.6

But wait! There’s More!7

  1. I forget the details exactly, it was a long long time ago.
  2. In this episode at least — consistency from the anti-gun lefties who wrote this dreck in the 70’s was not to be expected.
  3. I ain’t making this part up.
  4. Or words that effect. Again, 50 years ago, I don’t remember the exact line.
  5. A lot of .38 ammo was ‘+P’ back then, because they hadn’t created the designation yet, look up the specs in the old reloading manuals if you don’t believe me.
  6. Props to these officers however for their first shots in each case being killing ones!
  7. Of course there is!

When your political establishment is controlled by globalists

Filed under: Britain, France, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On Substack Notes, Spiff responds to someone decrying the British media’s concerted efforts to ignore the political protests across the channel:

Britain’s traditional media have long since chosen their side on the culture wars. They have embraced the establishment and their disgust at patriotism and national loyalty. They are globalists.

That is why they are becoming more extreme over time. They have to. They are a crucial part of the establishment narrative machine along with nudge units, elaborately funded NGOs and charities, and the civil service.

A Nuremberg-style trial would likely convict them of treason given how anti-immigration the British public is. We may not know the details but all these institutions point in only one direction; more immigrants, more diversity, the managed decline of the country, the condemnation of its people.

We often have to step back and look at screenshots like the one below to remind ourselves the media class are making a series of conscious decisions to damage and diminish Britain and the British people. It is not an accident. They know what is happening in France and their choice has been to downplay the enormous social changes that were avoidable and are not working in favour of the French people. Mass immigration of North Africans is destroying France. These riots reflect the alliance between immigrant groups and the hard-left who hate the West.

A similar process is now destroying the UK. They have to keep that observation away from the public for as long as they can. But time is now running out.

Prime Minister Burnham will probably follow Mark Carney’s example and start subsidizing the non-state media to ensure that the propaganda is more closely co-ordinated to the establishment’s preferred narrative. After all, it’s working quite well to keep malinformed Canadian elbows up.

October 14, 2026

He really is the model of a modern Major-General

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

InfantryDort reacts to a retired US general’s opinions on public executions on X (that is, the post is on X, not the executions … but now that I think on it …)

Why does it consistently appear that the criteria to be a General officer is historical illiteracy, suicidal empathy, and being toxically egalitarian? How did we get here?

This one thinks its “fundamentally unamerican” to publicly execute people. Well I guess George Washington is unamerican too. Or Abraham Lincoln.

You know what’s “fundamentally unamerican”, General? Simping for terrorists.

I hear this guy talk and I can’t help but think: no wonder GWOT didn’t end the way we wanted it to. The militarily crucial act of killing people disgusts this type of leader.

No wonder why it was so easy for guys like him and Stan McChrystal to make us practice “courageous restraint” on the battlefield. Letting the enemy gain the upper hand in every engagement, on purpose.

Out of what? Some wayward sense of nobility? That we’re the “good guys”?

No, General. Being the good guys doesn’t mean allowing our enemies to have a monopoly on violence. WE MUST HAVE THE MONOPOLY ON VIOLENCE.

Why am I constantly explaining this to Generals? Especially of the retired variety? Why am I having to explain that killing people is not only important to our profession, but for protecting western civilization itself?

The bar for General officer has been so low it’s practically in the basement. And no matter what institutional changes we make, these types always choose themselves to replace…. themselves.

So it’s more of the same. Same bad experience, same bad channel. Same feckless worldview. Incapable of victory. Incapable of common sense. Incapable of doing their jobs. But completely capable of making Instagram videos about how mean and cruel we’ve become.

BEING MEAN AND CRUEL TO OUR EVIL ENEMIES IS THE ENTIRE POINT!

Pathetic filth.

To which Tom Kratman responds:

Did I ever … hmmm … maybe not. Wait a sec …

Not only will you be rated or senior rated by about 100 people, in 30 years in the Army, but you can never have pissed one of them off. These men, however, will range from the bright to the ignorant, the moral to the immoral, and will have vastly diverging experiences which will drive their judgment. And you cannot disagree with them if you want stars. It would be one thing if they were all the same and you learned to echo just one theme. But when they are all different, and you still agree with every trivial thought they ever had, it can only be because you lack any center of your own, any moral compass whatsoever, since everything in the military has a moral aspect to it. In other words — with only very rare exceptions; I thought well of Foss, LeMoyne, and Petraeus, for example — the man who rises to stars usually has nothing, no values of worth, inside him.

Which is worse than contemptible; it’s absolutely pathetic, given how useless it is to become a general.

True story: Some people thought there were stars in my future. There came a day, early 1988, I was on my second company command, of three, and I was shooting the crap with the brigade commander in his office. I’d been ambivalent about stars for some time by then, but it was a very amorphous thing. I couldn’t have told you why. Eventually, I realized that my brigade commander (Annapolis, oddly enough) was trying to mentor me into stars. “You need to do this, Tom, then you need to do that. Then you need to …”

And it all came clear, an epiphany, a blinding flash of the obvious, and I said, “Sir, I don’t want to be a general.”

“Wha … what … WHAT?”

So I stood up, walked across the office to his LCE tree, and took his helmet in hands.

“Sir, do you remember General Meyer?”

“Shy Meyer? Chief of Staff?”

“Yes, sir, him.”

“Sure.”

“Sir, Meyer was a reformer. He had a bag full of good ideas for improving the Army. I counted thirty-seven once, about half and half trivial and important. I may have missed some.”

“Yes, so?”

Then I turned the helmet around to point at him the two silly bits of glow in the dark tape on the camouflage band around the helmet. “Sir, of all that, this is all that’s left of Meyer. Everything else is gone. In a matter of a few years it’s as if he never existed. So what, sir, would be the point of becoming a general, if, even if I rose to be Chief of Staff of the Army, I could not possibly have a good and lasting effect?”

Which is, in any case, why I turned to writing. My brigade commander didn’t get it; he still tried to stick me as the incoming CG’s Aide, but I wanted nothing to do with that.

There’s nothing preventing the Canadian government from using propaganda

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

And now that the majority of the relic media are addicted to government subsidies, the propaganda efforts are that much more effective:

Here’s something that not many Canadians both know and understand in Canada. There are currently zero laws in place regarding our Government’s ability to use propaganda against it’s citizens.
Not only can they do it, but they have teams of behavioral scientists & psychologists figuring out how to do it effectively.

In 2016 there were only 6 federal employees in the role. Since 2021 there are now over 70

In the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) there are over 16

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada there are over 5

Treasury Board Secretariat over 3

Environment and Climate Change Canada over 2

And there are more working in the Privy Council Office

During Covid they admitted to using these individuals to push COVID-19 compliance up amongst the population, They ran research surveys & experiments to test messaging and interventions, and designed choice architecture or communications to drive desired behaviours.

These ghouls manufactured consent amongst the population & nudged people to make decisions they didn’t want to.

Fast forward to today and what we are witnessing in regard to the U.S. and Europe. They are using the same tactics to convince people that the U.S. is our enemy & the EU is our savior. Stop falling for their propaganda, step back and think for a moment, why are they bombarding you daily with anti-U.S. rhetoric, climate fear, pro EU messaging. Are you being manipulated to accept their plan’s & decisions.

Star Trek: Yesterday’s Progressivism

Filed under: Economics, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Feral Historian
Published 12 Jun 2026

Star Trek has always been a progressive cultural phenomenon, but that was in the last century. Now, Star Trek is older than most of its fan base and in some ways has started to look fairly conservative. This not only reminds us how relative those terms are, but also makes us ask, is Star Trek still relevant? Or perhaps more relevant than it ever was?

00:00 Intro
01:42 TNG, Discovery, and the Orville
04:16 Auroville
06:52 History Didn’t End
08:59 Social Cohesion as Technology
13:40 Step Back to Go Forward

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October 13, 2026

No wonder the wokies hate J.K. Rowling

Filed under: Books, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The Harry Potter books used to be sacred lore to the woke generation until the author committed the unforgivable crime of defending the rights of women against the encroachment of trans-women. Yet, it doesn’t take a very close reading of the texts to discover so many things that appear to have slipped under the notice of the progressives and form the core beliefs of the fictional world she created:

Amelia crossing paths with Harry Potter and the gang seems much more appropriate than it might have in the past

    Potential is largely hereditary, family is most important, the media are lying parasites, the state can’t be trusted with education, and children should be taught armed self-defense.

These are not subversive readings. These are the plot.

The Harry Potter series was the most successful publishing phenomenon of the late twentieth century. It sold half a billion copies. Progressive parents handed it to their children as a parable about tolerance and the courage to stand against prejudice. The movies grossed eight billion dollars. The author became an icon of liberal cultural production and then, by a process that remains opaque to the people who made her famous, a figure of political villainy for holding positions indistinguishable from mainstream liberal feminism circa 2005.

Set aside the author. The books exist independently of whatever J.K. Rowling believes or is believed to believe. Read them for what they actually say. The worldview encoded in the narrative structure, the plot logic, and the moral arc is not the worldview the books were marketed as containing. It is considerably more interesting.

Blood Will Tell

Magic is inherited. This is the foundational premise of the entire fictional world and the premise from which everything else follows.

You are either born a witch or wizard, or you are not. No amount of study, effort, practice, or desire will make a Muggle magical. The reverse is also true: Squibs, born to magical families but lacking the gift, cannot acquire it. They are defective members of magical lineages, pitied and often hidden. Argus Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker, is a Squib. His bitterness and cruelty toward the students is the bitterness of a man who can see the gift in others but will never have it himself.

[…]

Family Carries Everything

Harry survives Voldemort’s killing curse because his mother died to protect him. Not a metaphor. A literal magical mechanism. Lily Potter’s sacrificial love created a protection charm encoded in Harry’s blood that made him impossible for Voldemort to kill directly.

[…]

The Press Are the Enemy

The Daily Prophet is introduced early and is corrupt throughout.

[…]

The State Cannot Be Trusted to Educate Your Children

Dolores Umbridge is a government administrator appointed by the Ministry of Magic to reform Hogwarts.

Her arrival at Hogwarts in Order of the Phoenix is the politicization of education made literal. The Ministry does not trust Dumbledore. The Ministry does not want students to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts. A student body trained in combat magic is a student body that might resist. Umbridge’s curriculum is therefore purely theoretical: no spellcasting, no practical application, only reading approved texts about defensive magic that the students are forbidden to practice.

[…]

The books contain other lessons that the progressive readership tended not to discuss.

House-elves are slaves. They are hereditary servants bound to magical families, forbidden to disobey direct orders, and conditioned to punish themselves for disloyalty. Dobby is freed and becomes a hero. But Dobby is the exception. Most house-elves, including the Hogwarts house-elves, do not want freedom. Hermione’s Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare is played for laughs. The elves reject her knitted hats. They are offended by the offer of liberation. Dobby is a weirdo.

The narrative does not resolve this. The house-elves are not freed after Voldemort falls. The epilogue does not mention them. The implication is that hereditary servitude is acceptable if the servants are happy, and these servants are happy. Whatever else this is, it is not an abolitionist text.

[…]

What The Books Actually Taught

The Harry Potter series is a fundamentally reactionary conservative text dressed in the aesthetic of liberal tolerance.

It teaches that ability is inherited and the argument is only about whether pedigree or demonstrated ability should determine status. It teaches that family is the highest loyalty and the source of the most powerful magic. It teaches that the press serves power and the only response is to route around it. It teaches that the state will capture education to produce compliant subjects and that the answer is to arm the children. It teaches that some people are born for greatness and others are born for service, and the main thing is to get the sorting right.

None of this requires reading against the grain. It requires only reading.

October 11, 2026

Britain – “… one starts to wonder if a nation can run out of ruin”

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Government, History, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

In The Critic, Sebastian Milbank reflects on the sage words of Adam Smith during that eighteenth century unpleasantness with some of the North American colonies:

In 1777, Britain lost the battle of Saratoga — a decisive defeat that would spell the end of its rule over the 13 Colonies. A young John Sinclair declared that the nation would soon be ruined. An older and wiser Adam Smith replied that “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation”.

Smith would be vindicated. Despite losing 60 per cent of its North American territories, Great Britain would go on to become the leading economic and military power of the 19th century. But history does not necessarily repeat itself. Today, as the mistakes and catastrophes pile up one on another, one starts to wonder if a nation can run out of ruin.

Consider the news of the past week. The most dramatic scene played out late Sunday night in Gosport, as illegal immigrants were ferried onto shore by the coast guard. Overlooked by the remaining might of the Royal Navy, in sight of HMNB Portsmouth which two thirds of the surface fleet call home, illegal migrants were delivered to tax-payer funded accommodation by the British state. The full coercive power of that state was on display, but it was not directed towards the young men seeking to invade English waters, but against the people of Gosport. The entire town was locked down, and the right of assembly suspended, using a law usually deployed against vagrants and vandals. Legions of high-vis jacked police were deployed across the town, clashing with protestors in the streets of a once-sleepy seaside community.

This is bad enough, but consider what else is going on across the country. Prisoners were being released early, not because of their exemplary behaviour or reformed characters, but simply because we had run out of room to safely house them. The parole services openly admit they cannot cope, and parolees could wait weeks before they are fitted with electronic tags.

The economic situation is no happier. There is a global surge in bond yields, meaning higher costs of borrowing and straitened circumstances for our government as it prepares for the autumn budget later this month. War in the Gulf and the Arabian peninsula looks set to cause a surge in fuel prices over the coming winter, hitting consumers and business alike. Far from being prepared to weather this storm, Britain has some of the lowest diesel reserves in the developed world. Our domestic supplies of oil and gas, already squeezed by reckless environmental policies, could now face strike action that could see a third of production shut down.

If you have faith in British civil society and public life to respond with stoicism and solidarity, one can think again. The country recently had a hysterical and ugly debate over whether Rishi Sunak was a real Englishman, in which a number of right wing ethnic minority figures claimed not to be, and a number of progressives suggested that there is no ethnic English identity at all. In the latest horrific chapter of our coming apart as a culture, the Green Party passed a motion at its conference declaring that Zionism is “racist” and that Israel should be entirely annexed by a Palestinian state. During the same vote, they rejected a proposal promising not to engage in disciplinary proceedings against Jewish party members for affiliation with synagogues or Jewish organisations that support Israel. Given that the majority of British synagogues could be described as Zionist by some definition, this was effectively a declaration that observant Jews were no longer welcome in the party. Nothing like this has been seen in British society for a century.

As a country, we are running up against hard limits to how far we can manage decline and stifle unrest. The patience of the public, the confidence of markets and the state’s own capacity to enforce order are all reaching breaking point. Britain is indeed on the brink of ruin.

But what does ruin look like? Writing three years ago, and looking ahead to a likely Labour government, I warned that temporary disasters can become long term realities: “Argentina, a country economically competitive with the USA in 1900, proceeded to politically wreck itself for over a hundred years, with cyclical economic crises destroying hard-won prosperity. In Argentina, the situation of the ‘precariat’ is all that most of today’s middle-class families have ever known.”

“Reconciliation should never mean suspending critical thinking”

Filed under: Cancon, History, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

L. Wayne Mathison on the social media site formerly known as Twitter:

I watched this video about Indigenous education and reconciliation in BC schools. It raises some questions we should be asking across Canada.

Schools should teach history, including residential schools, treaties, colonization and the treatment of Indigenous people. But history should be taught honestly, with evidence, context and room for disagreement.

When students hear slogans like “Indigenous brilliance” and “land back”, are they being encouraged to examine what those terms mean, or simply expected to agree?

Orwell warned us about political language that substitutes slogans for clear thinking. Sowell taught us to judge policies by their results rather than their intentions. Hayek warned against assuming anyone possesses all the necessary knowledge. Bastiat reminded us to consider the costs nobody bothers to mention.

Those principles belong in every classroom.

Reconciliation should never mean suspending critical thinking. Historical injustices deserve examination, but so do competing historical accounts, modern treaty obligations, property rights, individual responsibility and the consequences of government policy.

Students should be free to question every claim, including those made by teachers, politicians and Indigenous leaders.

If a historical claim is true, it should withstand scrutiny. If a political proposal is sound, it should withstand debate.

Education should produce independent thinkers, not obedient political activists.

We owe young Canadians an honest education, not a preferred political narrative dressed up as unquestionable truth.

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