The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (No. 31)
December 31, 2021
This Tuesday, January 4, 2022 I will shift away from writing on parents’ rights and will focus on the responsibilities of parents for the education their children.
THE GOOD
RECOMMENDED READING FOR THE WEEK: Jordan B. Peterson on Why I Love Great Britain.
But the people of Great Britain have granted the world a gift whose power stands in permanent opposition to our most appalling proclivities as individuals and societies. That gift is the political expression of the sanctification of the word — freedom in speech, imagination and thought: freedom to engage in the very process that builds and rebuilds habitable order itself from the chaos that eternally surrounds us. And that freedom is expressed in many ways, small and great, in the British Isles: in the wit of its people, in the effectiveness of its institutions, in the beauty of its art and literature, in the political and psychological presumptions that guide private discourse and public conception and action.
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. The Redneck Intellectual likes babies and puppies: Locals find abandoned newborn snuggled in with puppies
YUP. This is a pretty good list. As a fellow immigrant to this country, I can get on board with all ten qualities that make America the best country in the world: 10 Things That Make America the Best Country in the World
IN MY NEVER-ENDING QUEST TO CREATE A MASTER RACE OF REDNECKS, I’VE STARTED CONSUMING CURRY IN MASS QUANTITIES. It’s given me a bit of a tummy upset, but I’m willing to sacrifice for Team Redneck and the future of humanity: Spice found in curries can improve men’s fertility, study reveals.
I’M CONFUSED BECAUSE MY GENDER STUDIES PROFESSOR TOLD ME THERE ARE 49 GENDERS, YA KNOW, JUST LIKE BASKIN-ROBINS ICE CREAM: Sanity Prevails: Overwhelming Majority of People Believe There Are Only Two Genders.
Related: 75% SAY ONLY TWO SEXES.
Related: As the great Genevan political philosopher Jean-Louis de Lolme wrote in his Constitution de l’Angleterre (1771): “parliament can do everything but make a woman a man and a man a woman.” Apparently, this is the one thing de Lolme got wrong! Parliament has now assumed jus dare powers on this matter, whereas Parliament’s traditional powers were once thought to be jus dicere only. But hey, the British Constitution is a living constitution, which means it must keep up with the times and boy-o-boy has it ever! Whoops! Is “boy-o-boy” a transphobic term? Apologies if so.
WHAT KIND OF A COUNTRY ALLOWS NON-CITIZENS TO VOTE? That we’re even talking about this demonstrates the level of “decline and fall” corruption in this country. I lived in this country for almost 40 years and was NOT permitted to vote because I was not a citizen of the USA, and I was 100% ok with that. Republicans move to ban federal funds to states, cities that allow non-citizens to vote.
I’M GOING STRAIGHT TO THE GYM AFTER I FINISH WRITING THIS POST: Fit people drink more than those who don’t exercise: Study finds higher fitness levels associated with greater alcohol consumption.
THIS IS VERY GOOD NEWS, INDEED! Let’s hope it’s more effective than the various vaccines: “Pfizer pill becomes 1st US-authorized home COVID treatment.”
U.S. health regulators on Wednesday authorized the first pill against COVID-19, a Pfizer drug that Americans will be able to take at home to head off the worst effects of the virus.
The long-awaited milestone comes as U.S. cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all rising and health officials warn of a tsunami of new infections from the omicron variant that could overwhelm hospitals.
The drug, Paxlovid, is a faster, cheaper way to treat early COVID-19 infections, though initial supplies will be extremely limited. All of the previously authorized drugs against the disease require an IV or an injection.
An antiviral pill from Merck also is expected to soon win authorization. But Pfizer's drug is all but certain to be the preferred option because of its mild side effects and superior effectiveness, including a nearly 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease.
DECLINING DEATH RATES IS REALLY THE ONLY STATISTIC THAT MATTERS: US records 151,915 new COVID infections thanks to Omicron surge – just 39,000 fewer than Christmas Day 2020 – but deaths have dropped by 72%.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF A GOVERNMENT LOCKDOWN AREN’T ALWAYS BAD: “5M more Americans acquired guns during COVID-19 pandemic.”
DURING TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, THANK GOD FOR THE BABYLON BEE: “To Defeat Delta Omicron Variant, Experts Recommend Doing All The Things That Didn’t Work The First Time.”
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL: “There is no way to save Chinese communism. Deng failed with openness. Xi Jinping is now failing with isolationism. Chinese leaders always tell us their regime is unique, so call it failure with Chinese characteristics”: “China Is Becoming The Soviet Union.”
THIS STRIKES ME AS AN UNMITIGATED GOOD NO MATTER HOW YOU SLICE IT! “CIA Replaces Waterboarding With 12-Hour Lectures On Intersectional Feminism.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.—According to anonymous sources, the CIA has replaced enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding with something even more torturous and effective: 12-hour academic lectures on intersectional feminism.
"Waterboarding has been shown to be very effective," said the anonymous source. "But that's been replaced now. Now we just pop in a tape of Robin DiAngelo, Stacey Abrams, or Joy Behar. Sometimes we'll really ramp things up and make them watch Coca-Cola's diversity training on a 12-hour loop."
Terror suspects will be subjected to lengthy lectures about cis-male privilege, heteronormative patriarchy, and microaggressive mansplaining. Sources say these lectures are 1,282% more effective than regular old waterboarding.
Critics have criticized the new interrogation method, saying that such cruel torture should be limited only to American universities.
GREAT ARTICLE ON A VERY BAD THING: “Coercion Made the Pandemic Worse.”
THIS IS GOOD NEWS, BUT DOES IT MEAN THAT SOMEONE HAS BEEN LYING TO US: Arctic Ocean Warming Began Already In Early 20th Century, Meaning Natural Factors Strongly At Play, Not CO2.
MORE, BETTER, FASTER: In a neuroprosthetic first, ALS patient sends social media message via brain-computer interface.
YES, AND ONLY AN ENGLISHMAN COULD WRITE SUCH A WONDERFULLY WITTY ESSAY: It’s Time for Artists to Do Battle With Cancel Culture
THE BAD
YES, THE RULING CLASS MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE TO THE PEOPLE IT SERVES, OR AT LEAST THAT’S THE WAY IT USED TO BE: We must make public-health authorities accountable for their COVID lies.
THE RULING CLASS LIED, PEOPLE DIED: MARYLAND DOCTOR SAYS PEOPLE ARE ‘GOING TO DIE’ AFTER BIDEN ADMIN USES FAULTY DATA TO SNUB ANTIBODY TREATMENTS:
A doctor in Maryland said he had to cancel potentially life-saving monoclonal antibody infusions for about 250 people over the last week after the federal government stopped distributing treatments made by Regeneron and Eli Lilly because they aren’t effective against omicron, even though the delta variant, which the drugs are effective at treating, was still dominant at the time.
The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response halted the allocation of those two antibody treatments last Thursday amid the rise of omicron, which the CDC had said days earlier was responsible for 73.2% of all new cases.
But the CDC backtracked on that alarming estimate this week, revising it down to just 22.5% for the week ending Dec. 18, more than a 50-point drop.
The delta variant, which Regeneron and Eli Lilly’s treatments are effective against, was actually responsible for 77% of all new cases when the federal government stopped distributing those antibody drugs.
Now, one doctor says the government’s massive miscalculation cost lives.
TO SPEAK OF “AMERICA’S REGULATORY FRAMEWORK” IS TO SPEAK IN A NEUTERED LANGUAGE. A certain political philosophy and the individuals who implement it are responsible for this mess. Better yet, we need to name names. America’s Regulatory Framework Worsened Covid-19 Crisis: Early administrative failings of the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control greatly exacerbated the Covid-19 crisis in the United States.
THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: Lockdown Policies and Mask Mandates Linked With Lower IQ in Children: Psychiatrist.
THIS MAKES MY HEAD HURT, A LOT: “Secret Service: $100 billion in COVID relief funds stolen.” The United States of America has become “The Big Rock Candy Mountains”
One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking
And he said, "Boys, I'm not turning"
"I'm headed for a land that's far away
Besides the crystal fountains
So come with me, we'll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountains"
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
There's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers' trees are full of fruit
And the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go
Where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall
The winds don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
The jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again
As soon as you are in
There ain't no short-handled shovels
No axes, saws nor picks
I'm goin' to stay
Where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I'll see you all this coming fall
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
Go ahead and sing along:
THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE MILITARY DEEP STATE IS A DISGRACE: Unvaccinated Marines claim COVID mandate ‘purge’ as all religious exemption bids are denied.
IT’S COME TO THIS: The Royal Bank of Canada rejected our mortgage because we’re conservative.
AMERICA HAS CHANGED A LOT IN THE LAST FEW DECADES AND NOT FOR THE BETTER: “With monstrous indecency, media outlets shrug at Richard Blumenthal’s Communist Party event.”
In any rational, morally decent media world, this would be a big scandal. There is nothing remotely acceptable about speaking to a group that openly celebrates 102 years of the Communist Party USA. This is not some warm-and-fuzzy, well-intentioned (even if slightly impractical) affiliation. The Communist Party USA repeatedly tried to subvert constitutional democracy and spy on the U.S. government while deliberately and regularly colluding with the Soviet Union. And it could not even claim to be on some supposedly less inhumane side of communism: It openly opposed Mikhail Gorbachev’s semi-salutary reforms known as glasnost and perestroika, instead preferring the old, hard-line Soviet style that sent many millions into gulags.
There is absolutely no moral difference between consorting with a Communist Party affiliate and consorting with a white supremacist or neo-Nazi one. The record of international communist cruelty is indisputable, with its 100 million deaths far exceeding (in number) the genocidal effects of Nazism. To read the record of international communist atrocities is, for any decent human being, to be sickened by communism’s inherent evil. . . .
Yet, a web search shows not a single mention of Blumenthal’s Communist Party event by the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, or CNN.
TAXPAYING AMERICANS: YOU ARE THE PIGGY BANK FOR THE RULING CLASS: Teaching Pigeons to Gamble, Torturing Ferrets, Fattening Eels: The Worst Government Waste of 2021
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky wrapped up the year by releasing his annual “Festivus Report,” spotlighting the most egregious examples of pointless government spending.
A staggering $52 billion of our tax money was wasted on frivolous, left-wing projects that do nothing to help Americans, according to Paul’s 2021 Festivus Report.
“This year, I am highlighting a whopping $52,598,515,585 of waste, including a study of pigeons gambling on slot machines, giving kids junk food and telling citizens of Vietnam not to burn their trash,” the senator wrote.
GEN Z IS SURELY THE EMBODIMENT OF HEGEL’S WORLD SPIRIT. They/it/them/thems/y’all are a gift to world civilization. They/it/them/thems/y’all has/have improved the world with its/their/thems deep philosophic insights into the depths of human nature. Pretty sure this is the “end of history” as predicted by Hegel:
THE UGLY
INITIALLY, I PUT THIS ESSAY IN “THE BAD” CATEGORY, BUT THIS IS SO WICKED ON SO MANY LEVELS THAT I’M MOVING IT TO “THE UGLY” CATEGORY: “The Woke Constitution.” The original article is from The Boston Globe, see here: “EDITING THE CONSTITUTION.” (The Globe’s “Editing the Constitution” edition is an attempt to do for the Constitution what The New York Times did for the Declaration of Independence with its “1619 Project.”) The goal of The Globe editorial staff is to turn the Constitution and the Bill of Rights into the socialist Constitution and Bill of Rights. That’s as clear as day.
NATION’S ARE JUDGED BY HOW THEY TREAT THEIR CHILDREN:
WHAT KIND OF A NATION HURTS ITS CHILDREN ON A MASS SCALE?
WHAT KIND OF “NEWS” ORGANIZATION SILENCES ITS OWN REPORTER IN ORDER TO CONTINUE HURTING CHILDREN? CBS Edits Out Own Reporter SLAMMING School Closures Causing Mental Health Crisis
WHAT KIND OF RULING CLASS DOES THIS TO ITS CHILDREN? Surgeon General alarmed by rise in child suicides triggered by pandemic.
WHEN FAR LEFT AND FAR RIGHT COME TOGETHER THE RESULT WILL ALMOST ALWAYS BE BAD AND UGLY. The progressive Left and the reactionary Right are uniting in their anti-Enlightenment, anti-capitalist, anti-freedom, anti-prosperity, anti-American attitudes. The ruling classes on both sides will also do just about anything for political power: The revolt against modernity
Why keep missing out on The Beautiful: