Not that there's much of England left to save, but this won't help

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I haven’t been following England — why would I? — but this caught my eye: the Extinction Now people appear to have won, and their goal of extinction is on the cusp of success.

Election spells end of North Sea as Labour policies doom oil industry

Starmer victory would prompt operators to give up on British waters, warn analysts

The looming early election threatens the end of the North Sea oil industry, according to experts, with Labour’s threat to extend the Government’s windfall levy set to hasten the sector’s decline.

Analysts said a likely victory for Sir Keir Starmer would prompt operators to give up on British waters, meaning some of Britain’s biggest oil and gas reserves may never be recovered.

“If Labour deliver on their promises, the UK continental shelf is finished,” said Ashley Kelty, research director at Panmure Gordon, a leading investment bank.

The future of the North Sea oil industry was thrown into doubt in 2022 when the Government imposed a windfall levy on the profits from oil and gas production that took total tax to an eye-watering 75pc.

Labour has pledged to add another 3pc, along with banning new drilling and, perhaps most damaging of all, stripping offshore companies of the tax breaks they get when investing in new fields. The plans were confirmed by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves at a meeting last week.

How does a manufacture compete when its energy costs are 10X greater than competitors in other countries? The U.S. might wonder the same thing, because Biden et als are hoping to even the playing field by matching England’s and Europe’s prices. China, and the rest of the coal burners in Asia must be delighted.

...Britain has been going down this path since 2008, when Parliament wrote an 80 percent decarbonization target into law, which it raised to 100 percent, or net zero, in 2019. This luxury net-zero policy, which only the rich can afford, has been devastating for both businesses and ordinary Britons just trying to heat their homes and get to work.

...In 2020, even before the recent surge in energy costs, everyday Britons were paying about 75 percent more for electricity than Americans, the result of a double whammy—cap-and-trade policies on the one hand and renewable subsidies on the other. And then came the Ukraine shock. During the 2022 energy crisis, electricity rates for British businesses were more than double the average paid by U.S. businesses.

In Britain, the impact of cap-and-trade on the cost of fuel to generate electricity is massive. In 2022, government-imposed carbon costs averaged $128 per megawatt hour (MWh) for coal-generated electricity and $51 per MWh for natural gas. Those costs are on top of actual fuel costs, which averaged $150 per MWh for electricity generated from coal and $160 per MWh for natural gas. These mean that it cost $278 to generate 1 MWh of electricity from coal and $211 from natural gas.

...So in the U.S., the fuel cost per MWh of electricity generated from coal was $27 per MWh (versus $278 in Britain) and $61 per MWh for natural gas (versus $211 in Britain).

Britons also have to pay the cost of subsidizing politically favored wind and solar. Analysis of the renewable portfolios of Britain’s Big Six energy companies shows that the average price for wind- and solar-generated electricity between 2009 and 2020 was well over £100 per MWh, whereas the price for reliable electricity from gas- and coal-fired power stations fell from £60 per MWh in 2013 to less than £50 per MWh in 2020.

I'll admit that I'm somewhat ambivalent about Tucker Carlson, but he's priceless here

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Twitchy is right:

Love him or hate him, but you, dear readers, are going to LOVE this clip of Tucker Carlson laying absolute waste to an Australian 'journalist' who asked him the most absurd interview questions this writer has heard in a long time. And we listen to the nonsense that comes from Democrats for a living here.

Watch, it's totally worth the near 6 minutes:

REPORTER: So you talked a little bit about immigration, and in the past, you've talked about how white Australians, Americans, and Europeans, are being replaced by non-white immigrants in what is often referred to as the great replacement theory. 

CARLSON: Have I said whites have been replaced? 

REPORTER: Well...

CARLSON: I don't think I've said that.

REPORTER: Well, it's been mentioned on your show 4,000 times, and...

CARLSON: Really, when did I say that? I've said whites are being replaced?

REPORTER: You have said that before. Yeah.

CARLSON: Really? I would challenge you to cite that because I'm pretty sure I haven't said that. I said native-born Americans are being replaced, including blacks. 

REPORTER: Native-born Americans? 

CARLSON: Native-born Americans, Americans like black Americans, African Americans have been in the United States, in many cases, their families for over 400 years, and their concerns are every bit as real and valid and alive to me as the concerns of white people whose families have been there 400 years. I've never said whites are being replaced, not one time, and you can't cite it so..

REPORTER: I believe that's untrue...

CARLSON: We've just met, but when our relationship starts with a lie, it makes it tough to be friends. 

REPORTER: Well, you've been lying about (inaudible)...

CARLSON: You actually can't cite it because I didn't say it.

What you just witnessed is my favorite tactic for dealing with dishonest journalists. To put it simply, never accept their premises. Remember, we are often talking about pampered trust-fund kids when it comes to modern reporters. They don't like to work, and they see their job as making headlines, not news. In other words, they are lazy, and they will very often make an allegation based on something they've read on social media without ever verifying it themselves. 

Has that reporter actually watched thousands of episodes of Carlson's show to know "white" replacement has been brought up "4,000 times?" Of course, she hasn't. In this instance, she was repeating a stereotype and one that just so happened to be false. Carlson could have gotten defensive and attempted to defend the ground she laid out. Instead, he pulled the rug out from under her, challenging her to cite where he's ever said "white people" are being replaced. That left her stammering and unable. 

At that point, he had already won the exchange in the first minute. He wasn't done, though. After explaining his actual position, the reporter then circled back to the so-called "replacement theory," claiming it has inspired mass shooters. 

CARLSON: How about no more lying in your questions and then I'll answer it. 

REPORTER: Okay, well, umm, this is the same theory, or as you say idea, that has inspired the New York Buffalo shooting where eleven black Americans were killed, two white Americans were killed...

CARLSON: Oh, God, come on...You know what I mean...

REPORTER: It's also inspired the worst, it's inspired the worst, one of the worst Australian gunman of all time 

CARLSON: How do they get people this stupid in the media? I guess it doesn't pay well. Look, I'm sorry, I've lived among people like you for too long, and I don't mean to call you stupid, maybe you're just pretending to be, but I've never, I'm totally against violence. I'm totally against the war in Ukraine, for example, which doubtless you support, and like all dutiful liberals support more carnage. I don't. I hate mass shootings, actually. 

Nothing I've said, what does it mean to inspire something? My views are not bigoted against any group, they're honest, they're factual. That's not hate. That's reality, and my views derive from my deep concerns for Americans, actually.

The reporter then sarcastically asked if Carlson's opposition to violence means he supports "gun control." That went about as well for her as you'd expect.

The same geniuses who wouldn’t buy A&W’s burger in 1980 grew up to develop vegetable mush-meat, and then tried to sell it to consumers

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I checked this story: it’s true. Focus Group: “Why should we pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as we do for a quarter-pound of meat?”

McDonald's points to soft customer demand for plant-based food options

Jun. 26, 2024

Beyond Meat traded lower on Wednesday after McDonald's U.S. President Joe Erlinger highlighted at a business forum that the restaurant chain's plant-based burger tests failed in the San Francisco and Dallas markets.

Erlinger said customers simply were not showing strong demand for plant-based options on the company's menu at participating locations. Expectations have already been dialed back for Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods due to similar feedback from other restaurant companies.

In separate plant-based food news, a review of previous studies by the Canadian Journal of Cardiology found that risk factors for heart disease, including total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and body weight, improved when various animal-based meats were replaced with a substitute made from plants. Plant-based meat alternatives may be healthier for the heart than meat, according to the study.

But:

Other studies have also found that plant-based food is only healthier if it is not ultraprocessed.

(Studies like this: Plant-based ultra-processed foods may raise heart disease and mortality risk)

This may have occasioned an awkward conversation between the agent and his clients

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44 Orchard Drive, in Milbrook, was listed at $3.495 million last July, and the current owners “won” the ensuing price war by offering $4.175. They closed in September and relisted it last month — presumably, the ashtrays were full — at, first, $3.895 and then dropped it to $3.475. It’s now pending.

The owners are using the same agent who represented them on the buy side, so either they have a fine sense of humor or, and this can happen in bidding contests, he advised them to stay out of the fray, but they went ahead anyway.

Anti-disirregardless, even if the house sells for that final asking price of $3.495 million, $680,000 is a lot to pay to rent such a relatively modest house for just 11 months.

Well, these owners did better than the previous ones

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398 Stanwich Road, which sold new in 2004 for $5.550 million; $5.350 in 2010 (after 366 days on the market); and spent literally years on the market after that, starting at $5.695 in 2012 and finally, finally selling to these owners for $2.9 in 2020. They, in turn, put it back on the market in February of this year at $6.880 million, had an accepted offer immediately, and sold it today for $7 million.

That giveaway price in 2020 was probably because the owner, a (very) wealthy shipping executive, spent much of his time in Singapore, and probably just finally grew tired of it. From what I can find on the Internet, he could afford to take the hit, and may not have even noticed it.

That said, these sellers made out well here.

Uh huh

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“C’mon, man, let’s put this in context: The number of fatal terrorist attacks undertaken by undocumented migrants who crossed our southern border is zero, and the number of Americans injured by foreign-born terrorists who entered the country illegally is zero.”

DHS identifies over 400 migrants brought to the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network

Over 150 have been arrested, but the whereabouts of over 50 remain unknown, officials said. ICE is looking to arrest them on immigration charges when they are found.

But nit to worry, according to Congressman Himes, and according to ICE: “The official added that since ICE began arresting migrants brought to the U.S. by the ISIS-linked smuggling group several months ago, no information has emerged tying them to a threat to the U.S. homeland.” This is the same rationale the Democrat mouthpiece the New York Times used last year when the NYT labelled as false DeSantis’s statement during a debate last year that terrorists have enter entered our country through our southern border. The Times claimed that the statement was false because “no one’s been hurt so far.” Here’s that “fact-check”

DeSantis spox dunks on NYT 'fact-check' on terrorists entering southern border: 'Awaiting your correction'

The Times has refused to correct their false fact-check despite this report from NBC on June 11:

8 suspected terrorists with possible ISIS ties arrested in New York, L.A. and Philadelphia, sources

The men from Tajikistan came to the U.S. through the southern border and their criminal backgrounds checks came back clean at the time they crossed, officials familiar with the matter said.

The Times did report the June 11 story, and even admitted that there might be a danger here, but hasn’t retracted their label of DeSantis’ statement as false, and Jimbo Himes even disputed that, saying, in effect, “we must wait for another 9/11 before we sound the alarm”.

Will “The Paper of Record” issue a correction to its readers after today’s news of 400 ISIS members slipping across the border? Of course not; and it won’t recant even when the first wave of terrorists attacks hits, because that would be to admit they and their co-conspirators in the administration were wrong. That’s just not going to happen.