Serious questions have to be asked about the silence of meteorologists on wind droughts. At the same time the responsible authorities need be called to account for their failure to check the wind supply before connecting intermittent energy to an increasingly enfeebled grid

Too much money chases too few ideas and the distorting pressure to obtain grants for fashionable topics, such as climate alarmism, makes the damage worse. Karl Popper saw all this coming more than 70 years ago. The remedy he offered remains both viable and needed

As he noted almost 70 years ago, with the possible example of Iceland there are virtually no nation states of the kind ethnic separatists demand when pushing the barrow of self-determinism. Where they have achieved their ends disaster has followed. It's a lesson taken to heart by Gary Johns in The Burden of Culture

The Scientific Method is not a contribution to the academic literature -- it is much more important and helpful than that. As a guide to research and the evaluation of research findings it will be much appreciated by anyone with a serious interest in science as a source of knowledge and a social institution

The George Floyd case is presented as a paradigm of systemic racism expressed by white police killing blacks. The symbolism is powerful, especially when taken up by mainstream and social media, but at bottom it is a gross distortion -- a 'noble lie', as Plato would have it, wielded by opportunists of the Left

Nigh on 80 years ago, Jacques Barzun embarked on a tour of US schools and what he observed, even then, was cause for concern. Later bringing the same critical eye to universities, he lamented the rise of a credentialled ignorance as institutions abandoned their key responsibilities. All these decades later, his work reads as a warning unheeded

'If democratic culture yields,' he warned, 'no prospect lies ahead but that of increased animosity among pressure groups … In social and cultural relations the law rarely intervenes effectively; the protection of rights and feelings only comes from decency and self-restraint.' Decades after penning those words and eight years since he went to his grave, who now can disagree?

Truly, we live in interesting times, the grand scheme to run an industrial civilisation without the 24-hour contribution of conventional power sources being the most interesting development of all. Given the legions of rent seekers and their shills in state and federal parliaments, it will pay to think ahead: get in early, beat the rush, install a diesel generator today!

If there is anything good to be said for the China virus, it is that it has mercifully nudged advocates of renewable energy out of the spotlight. But make no mistake: they'll be back as COVID-19 fades -- and their advocacy will be no less addled in refusing to acknowledge that there are plenty of days when the wind just won't blow