Tim Worstall

Speccie.
Population projections and absolute levels of performance and rates of improvement.

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Richard Murphy’s just released a long report, all part of evidence to the Treasury Committee. No, sorry, the whole thing is too dreary even for me to try and point out all of the logical errors.
This does stand out though: 

Inflated financial services sector
Lastly, and importantly, the UK is host to an OFC, as the IMF [...]

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*

Everything’s better with cowbell, isn’t it?

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Viagra-fuelled over-45s having risky sex with people they meet through the internet are being blamed for a surge in sexually transmitted diseases among the middle-aged.

So things will be different next year will they?

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It’s remarkable how we continually get told that the UK is some ghastly, horrible, misogynist society when this is the sort of thing that has happened in recent decades:

Fourteen years ago this week, I discovered I was pregnant with my first child. I was nervous - it was my second pregnancy and I couldn’t be [...]

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The BBC will send 437 staff to Beijing, a level essential, it says, for extensive programming.

Might that not be more than the number of athletes we’re sending?
 
*No, not really.

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A report:

Eastern European migrants working on the construction of a £600m NHS hospital have been taking home as little as £8.80 for a 39-hour week, the Guardian has learned, in what has been described by union bosses as one of the worst instances of employee abuse in the building sector since EU enlargement.
The group of [...]

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Meg Hillier, a Home Office minister, wrote a letter to this newspaper that began: "The Government makes no apology…" and went downhill from there. It added: "There is no evidence that employment checks are either a barrier to volunteering or damage relationships between children and adults."

Not much connection between the two really, is there?

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So the French Marines have a display day. So they have some fake hostage release exercises as part of that display day. All pretty normal so far.

Fifteen civilians and two soldiers were injured in the incident which involved a demonstration by members of a marines parachute regiment of hostage [...]

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So we’ve a number of Froggies telling us that Arthur is simply English propaganda, changed and fitted up from the original very sketchy stories to suit whatever happens to be the cultural and political needs of Perfidious Albion over the years.

Even if a character who vaguely resembled the fabled leader did exist, he would probably [...]

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Oh, tee hee indeed: 

A spy camera, estimated to cost £10,000 and designed to catch fly-tippers, was cleared by council workers after it was concealed in a rubbish bag.
The expensive camera was placed inside a black bag beside a notorious illegal fly-tipping site. The disguise was so good that workers for Chichester District Council, West Sussex, [...]

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Here.

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So, The Express is running a vote. If we had a vote on whether to leave the EU now, would you vote yes, let’s go, no, let’s stay, or don’t you know?
You can vote here.
Current results are 91.6% yes to leaving. I can only assume the majority is so small because the "can we leave [...]

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OK, so there’s ths paper come out about the actual effects of having lots of windpower on the UK grid. Yes, I’ve read the paper and yes, this article gives a fair enough summary.
Now, could someone who really understands the science here (and preferably someone who supports the installation of wind power, if there actually [...]

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Anyone got institutional access to Elsevier journals?
This paper looks most interesting:

Written by an independent consultancy and funded by the Renewable Energy Foundation, the report says backup electricity plants will be needed to meet demand during calm conditions.
…
Published online in the journal Energy Policy, the study confirms concerns among critics that wind around Britain is too [...]

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British MEPs are joining a 200-strong European parliament jaunt to Paris this week, costing the taxpayer up to £200,000.
The three-day trip, organised by the European People’s party (EPP), a centre-right group, will include dinner at the Palais de Versailles and a champagne boat trip down the Seine.

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The government is to allow organs to be taken from people before they are officially brain dead in an effort to tackle the shortage of transplant donors.

Not dead yet, eh?

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OMG! Short selling! It’s an outrage!
Twit. It adds liquidity to the market which is something we want. It’s also hardly new, been around for donkey’s years. Further:

The scale of speculation is eye-poppingly huge. Since Hedgestock, hedge funds have become ever more important. The worldwide industry manages £1 trillion of assets and a leading hedge fund [...]

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Sure, there’s problems in the details, but the basic idea here seems very good indeed.

Easyjet will tomorrow break ranks with the rest of Britain’s airlines and come out in support of the Government’s replacement for Air Passenger Duty (APD).
The low-fare carrier will urge the Government to ignore protests from interests as diverse as British Airways, [...]

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Young women fleeing forced marriages are being betrayed by GPs and benefits staff who "collude" with families to return them against their will, a senior police officer police has revealed.
Doctors and Job Centre workers are breaching confidentiality rules and passing on vital information to families, allowing them to trace and punish Asian [...]

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