JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support.jonova AT proton.me
Statistics
Are renewables causing the UK grid margin problems that are allegedly being covered up?
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15982181/amp/UK-near-blackout-wind-power-Neso.html
There’s an attempt to make it seem all power sources were to blame, but CCGT is only slightly less efficient at an ambient temperature of 40v20C, perhaps down 10%. That’s compared to 30GW or so combined wind/solar electricity production that may rapidly come or go.
130
At 6am on Saturday interconnectors from the continent are supplying a whopping 22% of our UK electricity as the sun has only just risen and solar is supplying us 1%. Wind some 30%. Battery storage is at minus 1.5% presumably having discharged overnight.
60
And in Oz on Friday night at 6pm, across the AEMO grid solar, wind and batteries delivered just 15% of demand, and just 13% through the night.
Thank goodness we still have coal to provide over 70% of demand, supplemented with gas and hydro.
70
Tommy Robinson Podcast: Australian political veteran, Pauline Hanson, joins Tommy for an unfiltered conversation about three decades on the front line of politics.
170
Got a link?
I haven’t been able to find one.
Thanks
41
On 9 News last night the news reader appeared to rejoice at revealing Pauline had appeared with “far right” activist Tommy Robinson.
Tommy has been more right than he has been wrong.
The MSM in this country is woeful.
310
Aunty gave it a run.
‘Pauline Hanson has singled out the end of the White Australia policy as the beginning of migration issues in Australia.
‘In an interview with convicted felon and far-right activist Tommy Robinson, she suggested without evidence migrants came to Australia “purely for the welfare system”.
77
As someone very, very famous said once “by their actions you shall know them”. He was talking about real followers of course, but the saying is right about humans generally.
10
Far-left criminal broadcaster refuses to interview anyone interviewed by Tom Robinson and Joe Rogan for three hours. The British Soviet Socialist Broadcaster complains that everyone who does not vote Labour, is a far right and correct, Christian free speech fanatic.
President Trump said that the BBC is clearly a “leftist propaganda machine” and “100 percent fake news”. Elon Musk said “The BBC is complicit in the destruction of Britain… you’re forced to pay for your own destruction, it’s insane, it’s unfair, it is wrong”
191
The Brits have a choice to support their BBC or not. All Australian taxpayers support their ABC without a choice on the spend.
Australia’s kleptocracy is light years ahead of the UK government’s mandated theft.
70
All of the media are ganging up. Saturdays Australian paper are laying into Hanson. Establishment at work – the same old games.
91
When the Left report on Tommy they nearly always feel obliged to say “whose real name is…”. Well plenty of people including Leftist activists change their name but that never rates a mention.
As for being a “convicted felon” his main “crimes” have been thought crimes in the Orwellian sense and for exposing what is happening in Once-Great Britain.
Others crimes related to stupid decisions on his part in his youth for which he paid his price to society. Is he not able to be reformed? And if he was not white, Christian or working class he likely would never have been convicted of anything.
It goes without saying that like most prominent conservatives who question the Official Narrative on climate change, covid or social engineering he is banned from entering Australia. Australians will never get to see him in person.
251
I’m sure many of the sophisticates here are way ahead of me on this.
I just learnt a new fun acronym today.
SaaS
SaaS stands for Software as a Service, which is a cloud computing model where software applications are delivered over the internet on a subscription basis, allowing users to access them without installing or maintaining them locally.
Uncle Jed, Jethro, Granny, and I think this sort of thing may be driving Data Center mania.
You will own nothing and be happy or else.
Your car will just be the hardware you rent so that you may turn it on after you set the monthly deduction from your social credit account.
Heat, well that’s extra.
An acquaintance claims he bought a new truck and found out he can’t replace any light bulbs (LEDs?) without paying the manufacturer for the on line unlock to the light housing.
300
BMW already have this junk on their cars, options by subscription, want the heated seats to work in winter, pay up and we’ll enable it for you.
John Deere is the acknowledged leader in this extortion in farm equipment, and they are finding out by plummeting sales that large farms are peed off with this setup and are madly buying up pre-electronic equipment by the acre.
270
It’s this kind of stuff that makes the DSA attractive.
The productive middle getting leeched from both ends.
The progressive governments demanding handouts for handing out.
And globalist corps constructing forced extraction at the other end.
And the average trapped citizen goes for anything but.
100
Apple have been presenting the editing program Final Cut and Adobe have offered Photoshop as monthly fee subscription for well over a decade. Rockstar Games have announced that Grand Theft Auto VI (to be released later this year) will be a download only product. When you download a song from iTunes you don’t actually own the file, you’ve essentially purchased a licence to play the song (there’s a interesting case involving Bruce Willis’s intentions to bequeath his music collections to his children).
You could argue that pharmaceutical companies started the whole business model. Many of the companies don’t want to create cures, they want subscribers by way of prescriptions. I’ve remarked to many people that Big Pharma was doing Netflix before Netflix.
150
Ive never looked at prescriptions in that light, Jon. It certainly rings true. So, for a monthly fee I’m renting my health, such as it is.
00
He’s probably lucky he can replace the bulbs, in some vehicles they are sealed and you have to replace the entire unit for about 5K, at the dealer.
80
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service
00
They also ‘implant’ a tracking device, recording your every move.
00
FWIW
Today’s Coffee & Covid newsletter looks at Trump’s speech of last night
“Shortly before last night’s historic speech, at least three of the alphabet networks reneged on their agreements to give Trump prime time. Then corporate media sullenly refused to link to certain parts of the story that are arguably more than a little important.
So, here are a few helpful resources before we dig in:
A PBS streaming video on YouTube of Trump’s entire speech. I put an index to the video with topical links below.
The new White House Election Integrity website. It should be titled, “Here is the evidence.”
Not one single “news” platform published a transcript of the whole thing. So I did it. The unedited transcript is included at the end of today’s post, along with helpful subtitles for easier navigation.”
New York Times coverage gets “inspected”
More at
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/trump-card-friday-july-17-2026-c?
160
i asked Grok to fact-check (as in FACT check) Donald Trump’s address. It found all true or maybe, none false. No claim of fraud was found proved, so all those issues are still open. One interesting follow-up was that the late postal surge in Democrat votes was a one-off – it hasn’t happened before or since. Democrats would say it was because of Covid. I say you can’t tell whether it was Covid or a Democrat plan to subvert the election, the facts fit both. I feel that if Donald Trump can’t produce the smoking gun he loses this one even though so many facts line up for him. What he is doing, though, is to try to tighten up the electoral process against fraud, and obviously all honest parties support that.
130
Interesting idea that. Getting grok to fact check something.
It has no idea of truth only what people have said and written. And more often than not it cannot drill down into source material.
20
“What he is doing, though, is to try to tighten up the electoral process against fraud, and obviously all honest parties support that.”
Let’s set aside tightening things up for a moment. What is the electoral process, who is responsible for controlling it, operating it and policing it?
10
Trump’s address to the nation:
So more to come as we move toward the mid term elections.
10
Passing the SAVE Act would be a start.
We should have Voter Id in Australia. And the AEC should publish an exhaustive audit of voting practices in a fairly decent number of seats. I’ve never heard of an audit being done and we need to be able to view it. Justice needs to be seen to be done.
10
FWIW – for the “Might File”
“Seizing the Day
Will Trump invoke the Guarantee Clause to impose election integrity? A prediction.”
More at
https://instapundit.substack.com/p/seizing-the-day
Via https://instapundit.com/810709/#disqus_thread
81
Fascinating stuff, ‘I kind of hope Trump does invoke it.’
That would be exciting to watch.
12
May you live in interesting times?
00
“Statistics of hot summers”.
Here’s a snapshot from The Observer newspaper 1852. A compilation of hot and dry weather events and periods over a few centuries in Europe.
https://postimg.cc/BXQxLThS
100
FWIW – the outline of a “saga”
“New York Court Refuses To Block State’s Plan For A “Renewables” Program”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/07/17/new-york-court-refuses-to-block-states-plan-for-a-renewables-program/
40
FWIW
“Climate truths the IPCC rejects”
https://harryr.substack.com/p/climate-truths
40
‘CO2 changes lag temperature changes. It is impossible for the cause to be the effect. ‘
Like it.
52
There is much to discuss and our colleague leaf will undoubtedly offer a critique.
https://notrickszone.com/2026/07/17/new-study-highlights-the-dominant-role-of-aerosol-cloud-interactions-in-shaping-climate/
02
Absolutely zero chance of a leaf appearance.
It’s the weekend.
50
Correct.
The leaf works office hours.
I actually wonder if he is paid by his institution to read the blog and make irritating comments. Otherwise he is taking a lot of liberties with his employers time.
My guess is that he works at the ANU in Canberra or the nearby CSIRO.
51
Office hours? you are kidding. In Canberra maybe
20
Canberra? Work? Surely a gross exaggeration?
30
FWIW
“So much for meat and water!”
“I’m sure most of my readers have grown used to vegetarians vegans anti-meat activists trumpeting that it wastes far too much water to produce a pound, or a kilogram, of beef, compared to just eating vegetables and fruit. Turns out they’ve been fudging the numbers, to put it mildly.”
More at
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2026/07/so-much-for-meat-and-water.html
130
What’s their beef ?
90
Lab grown
20
As I have posted in the past, a kilo of beef weights extactly that, one kilo. The water consumption BS was always that, BS. For every 100 litres of water that a cow consumes 99 % is back out in the water cycle within 24 hours. Exactly the same with humans, dickie birds and reptiles. I say get rid of all the elephants in the world , they drink a lot of water every day. Think of how much water would be left to evaporate if the elephants were gone.
60
FWIW – re voter ID in USA
“Democrats Mocked After Olive Garden’s ID Policy Goes Viral- Stricter Than Some Blue State Voter Requirements-‘Pasta Deals Are Literally More Secure Than Our Elections’ ”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/07/democrats-roasted-after-olive-gardens-id-policy-goes/
40
Used to be the same for renting a video back in the day.
40
When the MSM join the debate its only a matter of time before the edifice collapses.
‘Climate change isn’t taking food off your table.
‘The headlines say climate change is wiping out your coffee and olive oil. The long-term data says the opposite.’ (Oz)
22
India have fallen for the “low carbon transport “ delusion..
https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2026/jul/doc2026716922801.pdf.
Their first Hydrogen fueled train.” Most energy efficient public transport system” ..??🙄🙄
01
And it uses compressed gas for storage, rather than as a liquid or in a chemical carrier.
Very inefficient.
It’s a nightmare fuel in any case.
20
I guess that they can all ways blame Pakistan for any explosions?
10
Victor Davis Hanson: Trump Is Preparing for the Final Phase Against Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ggr3HvyS4
61
FWIW
More information would help – there is all ways the “seagul chequers game final phase”
00
Just look down the right-hand side at the videos it keeps company with.. A total load of bollocks, lies and pure propaganda!
03
10
In the time of armies yes. But no armies have been used. In a nuclear age, armies mean nothing. Gone in an instant. Cities too. Navies. It’s the one thing which has kept the world from total war for 80 years.
China is working on that problem every day.
However Iran is the one country which, as Trump says, if they had the atom bomb they would use it. That is the real problem with Islamic fanaticism. Mutually assured destruction is an incentive.
And their chief negotiator made this very point, that Israel has the bomb. Therefore they need it. Except Israel would see it as a deterrent where Shiite Muslims believe in the certainty of Armageddon.
30
Did the Iran chief negotiator make the point that Israel hasn’t destroyed Iran over all these years?
In this whole Iran debacle the fact that Iran has been 1) threatening the US and Israel with mass destruction by whatever means available, and 2) the realistic attempts at making atomic bombs and interest-continental ballistic missiles have been getting closer and closer to fruition, has been forgotten. Everyone, it seems is focussing on the actions of the US and Israel and becoming “social justice warriors” speaking “ truth to power”.
Basically shining their metal armour so that the world can see what champions of the light they are. Unfortunately for them, the body inside the armour is often crumbling from neglect, corruption and lies.
20
Intercontinental missiles not interest …..couldn’t get preview to work …..gggrrrr.
10
FWIW
“Ozempic Regrows Cartilage – Bad Knees Take Note!”
Video at
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2026/07/18/ozempic-regrows-cartilage-bad-knees-take-note/
00
Fat chance!
20
FWIW – USA
“Reigning in U.S. EPA Abuse: A Legislative Opportunity”
““It is time to stop the EPA from acting like an economic planning agency and instead get it focused on its mission of environmental protection.” (Coalition letter, below)
Executive Orders reflect the party in power. Congress sets the rules for administrative agencies. To this end, a group of 40 free market groups led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) sent a coalition letter in support of legislation to reign in the overly politicized, climate-activist U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/07/17/reigning-in-u-s-epa-abuse-a-legislative-opportunity/
10
FWIW – some network reading
“The Wyoming Disturbance”
“On November 13, 2025 a network outage occurred in central and northeastern Wyoming (the Northeast portion of the Western Intertie) that affected 250,000 customers, including many industrial customers. Some of these were without power for up to 10.5 hours. The North American Electrical Reliability Council (NERC) and Western Electric Coordinating Council (WECC) have released a report on this major event, and a hearing about was scheduled to take place at the Wyoming Public Service Commission on Wednesday July 15, 2026, but has now been postposed until August 7.
I have read the 49 page report, reports that it references, and I have collected additional information, or what I could collect from EIA, in order to be informed to some degree before the meeting, which I plan to attend. The event was complex to say the least.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/07/17/the-wyoming-disturbance/
00
FWIW
“Are We Still A Member Of This Thing?”
“The U.N. has finally admitted that Hamas has been stealing aid, sort of: They don’t even call Hamas out by name, even though those are the ‘de facto authorities—who were elected by the people of Gaza, mind you.”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2026/07/15/un-admits-hamas-is-stealing-aid-n2679387
Via https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2026/07/17/are-we-still-a-member-of-this-thing-37/
20
75% of all governments are military dictatorships. And 98% vote for the existing government. They don’t see the need to make the numbers credible.
10
Wondering why the West is failing to have replacement-level children? Blaming the women wanting careers?
No, most you old farts on here have as much testosterone as young guys of 40, so who wants to head out at 9.30pm and chase women?? Thought so… Good book?
“Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said: “All Active Duty and Reserve Component personnel aged 30 and older will undergo mandatory screening for testosterone deficiency during their Periodic Health Assessment.”…Troops with low testosterone levels will be offered voluntary hormone replacement therapy.”
Soldiers, overweight, unfit, can’t be bothered… But we’re gonna beat Russia and Iran and China and..
11