Pretty much every calculation you have ever seen relating to “green” energy–cost estimates, productivity claims, and so on–has been wrong. “Green” energy really is a scam, as President Trump says. It is consistently sold on the basis of fake science.
The latest case in point comes from Great Britain, via the Telegraph: “Miliband admits wind power less reliable than expected.”
The Government has slashed forecasts for the amount of electricity it expects wind farms to generate in a blow to Ed Miliband’s net zero plans.
In documents published before an auction of green energy subsidies this week, officials said they were revising down the predicted efficiency of wind turbines by more than a quarter as a result of “updated modelling”.
Presumably that “updated modelling” is the result of experience and observation rather than the pie-in-the-sky models on the basis of which wind energy was sold.
The Government’s new estimates slashed the predicted “load factor” – the proportion of the year turbines are expected to generate power – from 61pc to 43.6pc for offshore wind. The estimated load factor for onshore turbines was also revised down, from 48.7pc to 33.4pc.
Those are major changes. Apparently the industry had been aware of the shortfall for a while, but the Labour government has only now acknowledged it:
Industry sources claimed developers had previously warned officials that estimates for power generation were unrealistic, but that the Government had stuck with them anyway. One said: “The numbers were statistically absurd.”
“Statistically absurd” sums up most of what we are told about “green” energy by liberals.
One might assume that this downward revision, along with all the other blows wind energy has suffered in recent years, might cause the British government to climb down from its unobtainable and economically devastating “net zero” commitment. But no:
Experts said the change would mean that the Energy Secretary would have to pay higher subsidies to wind farms to secure the same amount of energy, making it harder to hit Labour’s clean power targets.
Sure: if wind energy works significantly worse than we thought, spend more money on it. This is the path to permanent British decline.
With support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement cresting at unprecedented levels in the United States, those who value Israel continuing as a Jewish state should have no illusions with respect to that movement's goals. The normalization of BDS has been gradual but reached an inflection point with the Gaza war. The movement went from being supported in campus newspaper editorials to wide ranging and ever growing academic, artistic and athletic boycotts. These actions have further expanded to economic and weapons boycotts.
The goals of BDS, in addition to seeking an end to the "occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall", are often cloaked in terms of either support for an undefined Palestinian liberation or Palestinian’s inalienable rights such as equality and an inclusive democracy that celebrates diversity. Some who are even sympathetic to Israel's right to exist rationalize their endorsement of BDS as a vehicle to condemn the Israeli government rather than support for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. The latter, however, is the fundamental goal of BDS as stated by one of its founders, Omar Barghouti, who said: "Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine." Ironically, if Israel were to become an Arab majority state and provide for the same political rights as other states in the region, the Arabs in what is now Israel would no longer be able to vote freely.
The opposition to Israel as a Jewish state is the ideological progeny of the long discredited UN resolution proclaiming that Zionism is racism. The connection is reflected in UN sponsored reports that identify Israel as an apartheid state (without being solely limited to policies in the West Bank and Gaza). As stated by the American political scientist Virginia Tilley in an article published by the Arab Center in Washington DC , "[s]ince the only rationale for two states in the cramped territory of Mandate Palestine is to preserve apartheid in one of them (that is Israel as Jewish state, in its present institutional configuration as a system of domination over Palestinians), a two state solution makes no sense." Similarly , Barghouti has stated that "[a] Jewish state in Palestine in any shape or form...perpetuate[s] a system of racial discrimination that ought to be opposed categorically."
The vehicle of BDS for the elimination of a "Jewish state in any part of Palestine" is the stated goal of the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees to the 1967 and even 1948 lands. As Barghouti has said, "if the refugees return, you would not have a two state solution. Like one Palestinian commentator said, "you would have a Palestine next to a Palestine, rather than a Palestine next to an Israel.""
The prospect of Jews being a minority in a Palestinian state would present risks ranging from the expulsion and confiscation of property that took place in Arab countries in the fifties and sixties to an October 7 solution to the Jewish question. One would be dangerously naive to believe that a Jewish minority in a Palestinian state would, as contended by BDS activists, be "respected and protected". Moreover, a Jewish minority in a state called Israel would undermine the entire rationale for Jews to have some country which is theirs, which was to establish the one country in the world where Jews could avoid prejudice and persecution from being a minority. As stated by Hannah Arendt, "a people can be a minority somewhere only if they are a majority elsewhere."
The right of return is not a throwaway issue in a larger Palestinian-Israeli dispute but rather underlies every failed proposal to separate the Jews and the Palestinians. The right of return is interlocked with the repeated Arab rejection of a Jewish state with an Arab minority. This underlied the Arab's rejection of the 1937 Peel Commission partition plan of the British mandate, the 1947 UN partition plan, and the Oslo accords. With the latter, the unresolved issue of the right of return was a key reason that the Oslo accords foundered. Similarly, the rejection of a Jewish state fuels the battle cry of “from the river to the sea.” To achieve this call to action, BDS's weapon delivery system is the right of return. A demographic Trojan horse.
The acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is foundational to peace in the region because the rationale for Israel's existence is inseparable from it being a Jewish state. There is no Israel without Zionism and there is no Zionism without Israel. The existential implications of the BDS view of Israel’s future was recognized by Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, " It's clear to me that one can't be Jewish without Israel. Religious or non-religious, Zionist or non-Zionist, Ashkenazi or Sephardic--all these will not exist without Israel."
John Finley is senior managing director and chief legal officer of Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative investment firm, based in New York City. The opinions expressed here are his own.
Federal funding for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also called food stamps, runs out on Saturday due to the government shutdown. The funding cut-off will hit illegal immigrants hard. The Center’s 2023 analysis of government survey data shows households headed by illegal immigrants make extensive use of the welfare system, particularly food assistance programs.
Among our prior findings:Of households headed by illegal immigrants, CIS estimated that 59 percent use one or more welfare programs — cash, food assistance, Medicaid, or housing. Illegal immigrant households have especially high use of food programs, with 48 percent enrolled in one or more of these programs — SNAP, WIC, or school lunch/breakfast. In particular, our analysis found that 17 percent of illegal immigrant households used SNAP. In addition to food programs, 18 percent of illegal immigrant households were enrolled in one of the cash programs; 4 percent were using a housing program; and 39 percent used Medicaid. Illegal immigrants often receive welfare on behalf of U.S.-born children, and illegal immigrant children can receive school lunch/breakfast and WIC directly. Some states provide Medicaid to illegal immigrants, and a few offer SNAP. Several million illegal immigrants also have been issued Social Security numbers allowing them to receive cash payments from the earned income tax credit if they work. Many immigrants have modest levels of education and low incomes, so suspension of WIC and SNAP will impact a large share of this population. But this situation raises important policy questions, including whether it makes sense to have an immigration system that allows in so many people who turn to taxpayers to support their children
Senators left Washington Thursday after another week of failing to reopen the government—ensuring that the federal government shutdown will go on for at least 34 days—one day short of the record.
By the time senators get back on Monday, there will be a mere 18 days left on the funding extension that Democrats have continually rejected. It was originally meant to provide seven weeks for appropriators in both chambers to hammer out funding agreements.
And the worst is yet to come. On Nov. 1, per announcements from the United States Department of Agriculture, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will be cut off, the first ever lapse of its kind for the food stamp program, which was formed in 1939.
Amid this partisan gridlock, it is unclear how Congress plans to get the government open. But once the government is open, it’s just as unclear how Congress will continue to fund the government for the fiscal year. The choices at Congress’ disposal are the continuing resolution and the appropriations process.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., met with top Republican appropriator Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on Thursday, telling reporters afterward that Republicans will need a longer-lasting continuing resolution to fund the government in order to buy time for appropriations.
“We’re going to need a longer date if we’re going to do [appropriations] bills,” Thune told reporters. Thune has warned of the risk of having to pass a long-term CR if Democrats do not work with Republicans.
Nevertheless, some appropriators in the House remain optimistic and say that if they end up needing a CR, it will not have to be long-term. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., for instance, wants to only have a short-term continuing resolution, insisting “There’s no reason why this needs to go much beyond the calendar year, if we started now."
On Thursday, Rep. Riley Moore,R-W.Va., a freshman member of the House Appropriations Committee, told The Daily Signal he was bullish on the process, and that negotiations have continued throughout the shutdown.
“If the Democrats want to step back from the abyss and actually reopen the government and pass that CR, we are ready to go forward and pass these appropriations bills,” Moore told The Daily Signal. “And we got an anchor for all of them to go through the minibus, probably [a] package, on all of them. So, whenever the Democrats want to open back up, we’re ready to go.”
A minibus is a handful of funding bills that Congress votes on as a package. Republican leadership had intended to pass bills funding military construction and veteran affairs, agriculture, and the legislative branch in a package to be negotiated by both chambers.
In the Senate, Republicans have already attempted to move forward with additional appropriations bills during the shutdown, but with no success.
A defense funding bill, for example, failed in mid-October when all but three Senate Democrats voted against advancing it. Part of the difficulty is Democrats’ insistence on receiving health care concessions before the government can reopen.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Top Democrat appropriator Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told reporters Thursday that she will not assist with passing appropriations bills until Republicans negotiate with Democrats.
“I’d love to see appropriations move, but the fact is, until the leaders meet and talk about getting a bipartisan CR and health care, we’re not going to be able to move.”
Murray’s remarks point to a major philosophical divide between Republican and Democrat leadership. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., has repeatedly rejected the idea of the government being funded by backroom deals rather than by the larger body.
“That’s not how this works. I don’t operate that way,” Johnson said in a recent interview when asked about Democrats’ request for a meeting of leaders. “When I became speaker, I vowed to my colleagues that I would return to regular order,I would decentralize the speaker’s office, and it would not be a top-down, hoisted-upon-the-membership kind of program anymore. This is a member-driven, consensus-driven operation.”
What is more, Speaker Johnson is also warning that inserting Democrat demands into any spending agreement would not even be possible without buy-in from all members. The House has a large conservative faction opposed to the extension of COVID-19-era subsidies that Democrats are demanding.
The Founders “did not want four people to go into a backroom and make a deal,” Johnson said. “By the way, I couldn’t do that on something as complicated as extension of Obamacare COVID subsidies because we have to find the consensus. There’s a hundred different ideas on how to improve that.”
What is at stake in this shutdown is nothing less than the future of the appropriations process, which Republican leaders have said they want to resurrect after years of leadership-crafted funding deals.
Some in the House, however, are growing more skeptical of the usefulness of attempting to achieve bipartisan negotiations with Democrats.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, for instance, is advocating a long-term continuing resolution to go through 2026, arguing that it would keep spending flat—a victory in Washington—and would leave room for further cuts to federal largesse.
Multiple members of the House Freedom Caucus have previously entertained this idea, which would be a change in direction for a Republican conference that has been attempting to resurrect the regular order appropriations process.
Thousands of men living with hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (HSPC) in England and Wales will gain access to abiraterone – both Johnson & Johnson's Zytiga brand and generics – under new guidance from reimbursement authority NICE.
Final draft guidance on NHS use of the drug marks a "significant shift" from NICE's 2021 decision on the drug as a first-line treatment for newly diagnosed, advanced HSPC in combination with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and prednisolone or prednisone.
That was heavily criticised by cancer specialists as it created a disparity in access within Great Britain. Patients in Scotland have been able to get access to abiraterone for this indication since 2020, but until now, the drug was not an option for those in England and Wales.
"Our positive recommendation addresses this inconsistency, expanding access to a clinically effective medicine with as many as 4,000 people now able to benefit from this additional treatment option," said NICE in a statement.
The agency said that in 2021, abiraterone did not represent value for money for the NHS. However, with prices now much reduced, thanks to generics reaching the market, the cost-effectiveness calculation has shifted in favour of access.
It's the second new guidance from NICE for men with this form of prostate cancer in around a week, coming after Bayer's Nubeqa (darolutamide) was also recommended for use in combination with ADT if docetaxel, a chemotherapy agent, is not suitable.
Big cost savings predicted
NICE said that it expects the NHS can save millions of pounds a year through greater use of the generic version of abiraterone rather than using Astellas' Xtandi (enzalutamide) and J&J's Erleada (apalutamide), currently the two other drugs recommended in this setting.
The savings can be reinvested in "breakthrough treatments and care improvements," it added.
"By seizing the opportunity of generic medicines that deliver better value, we're making sure thousands of men with prostate cancer can now access this vital treatment – delivering better care while also driving the smarter spending our NHS desperately needs," commented Ashley Dalton, the UK's Minister for Public Health and Prevention.
Prostate Cancer UK also welcomed the decision, but said it "will not save or extend lives as these men already had access to equally effective treatments" as "evidence shows abiraterone must be prescribed earlier for men with high-risk but non-metastatic disease – when it can halve their] risk of death."
The charity's assistant director of health improvement, Amy Rylance, said that the NHS has so far failed to act to approve abiraterone for earlier-stage patients despite the evidence for its benefits.
For every week this goes on, another 13 men will die as a result," she added. "With this approval, the NHS has shown it can cut through the red tape and make effective, affordable treatments available when it chooses to. It must now do the same to help these men, who simply cannot afford to wait any longer."
