Tim Worstall

Miliband’s remarks are designed to illustrate the government’s overall approach to meeting the 2050 target which will not involve imposing a blanket 80% cut on all areas of the economy. The white paper is expected to build on government plans to tolerate relatively high emissions in one area if action is taken in other areas [...]

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A Berlin brothel has come up with a novel way to offset the impact of the global economic crisis and target a new group of customers at the same time – offering a discount to patrons who arrive on bicycles. Hmmm. Not sure about this: A study in 2002 found that ED can also be [...]

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Yes, yes, I know, educating children without charging the State for doing so: that should be enough to ensure charitable status for a school. However, of course, our Lords and Masters don’t think that way, this we know. So schools are now being brow beaten, through the threat of losing their charitable status (and no, [...]

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Says James Lovelock. Britain should abandon its “vain” attempts to stop climate change by increasing its reliance on renewable energy and concentrate on flood defences, the environmental pioneer James Lovelock has said. Essentially, in the debate over whether to mitigate climate change or adapt to it, Lovelock is saying adapt, not mitigate. There is some [...]

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Rev. Charles Boykin — who once told Mike Royko that “There’s a definite relationship between illicit sex and any music with a syncopated beat” But the Reverend was right: thank goodness.

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Certainly a step up. After all that faffing about on the TV n’ stuff Kim Cattrall finds out that she has in fact a famous relative. Our Alfie. Alfred the OK. Certainly a step up to respectability for her, isn’t it?

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Us pesky libertarians: These people – who wish to undermine society as we know it and who would end all social security, state pensions, public health services, state education and much more besides – want to overturn society as we know it. Jeebus. I’d be fascinated if Ritchie could find any single person in the [...]

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Those who forget the past are condemned to hear a Santayana quote. Bill Easterly

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As usual, they’re wittering along without paying a blind bit of notice to the real world outside their windows. Houses are taxed too little Really? Property tax as a percentage of total tax collected by the country. Showing latest available data. Rank Countries Amount # 1 United Kingdom: 11.9% # 2 Japan: 10.3% # 3 [...]

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Can art succeed where science is proving insufficient to generate the will to act effectively on climate change? If you’re going to do things like this: In 1982 she planted wheat on two acres of wasteland on Battery Park, two blocks from Wall Street; her harvest was worth £158, produced on land valued at $4.5bn. [...]

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No, none of the piglets in Cabinet. Not yet.

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At direct government urgings, there are large tracts of land that are given over to the cultivation of the palaver somniferum, for the very good reason that the opium is essential for the NHS. It is of course papaver somniferum but given the nonsense that is talked about the subject the error makes a certain [...]

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His comments follow AA figures showing falling petrol and diesel sales in the first three months of 2009 produced £97.3 million, or 2 per cent, less in fuel duty income than in the same period last year. The fall is despite a 2p a litre, or 4 per cent, rise in fuel duty on December [...]

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The art of pricing something is a dark one. Forget the academic models for a moment and think how the seller of an item tries to price their offering. They of course want the maximum they can get (perhaps as a one off but more often as a continuing series of sales). The buyer wants [...]

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At the ASI. The Fawcett Society has finally caught up: it’s a mothers’ pay gap, not a gender one.

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The trend is set to continue, the report says: “The likelihood of having a garden is greater for larger detached dwellings than flats. Stating the obvious in a report from DEFRA.

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Annunziata Rees-Mogg New-look? Dear God Above. Oh, yes, time to mention again that she did a Comment piece for the Telegraph in which she repeatedly referred to “sclerosis” of the liver.

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Health chiefs are preparing to vaccinate the entire population against swine flu. Hmm. Vaccinating people has a risk all of its own: some people do react and do die. There’s also some number of people who actually get ‘flu from the vaccine. No, not very many but it isn’t entirely unknown. So, there needs to [...]

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Politicians who cash in on lucrative directorships in the private sector could receive lower salaries than MPs with no outside interests under reforms being planned by Whitehall’s pay watchdog. The Senior Salaries Review Body is to conduct a full review of Commons pay which is expected to examine whether MPs with second jobs should face [...]

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