Feb 2025 – sillysocksonfriday

Does this dress make me look fat?

Ja-nee, ask someone else maybe ….

When the truth is simple but being truthful is complicated, is a fact of everybody’s life. It takes courage….

But as repugnant as I find the moral and intellectual corruption driving Republicans’ collective decision to lie to protect Trump’s ego and avoid the wrath of his fans, it’s worth keeping in mind that such corruption is a feature of politics more generally.¹

Sadly true….!

Where are the protests?

A year ago, campus Hamasniks were occupying buildings and setting up tent cities to protest Israel’s effort to punish the perpetrators of the October 7 pogrom.

Today the leader of their own country is suggesting a gratuitous American incursion into Gaza to evict the impoverished locals and convert the land into a playground for the rich—the most grotesque conceivable expression of “settler colonialism.”—and seemingly no one cares.

Every day since January 20 this year, the press has been forced to prioritize between covering the end of the American-led world order, the probably illegal subversion of federal agencies by the richest man in the world and his band of twentysomething geeks, the appointment of comically unfit nutjobs to positions of high influence over public health and law enforcement, and more mundane stuff like a new tax-cut bill that’s going to blow another sucking wound in America’s fiscal stability.

Also …. a week after he was sworn in, the president signed an executive order pledging immediate action by the Justice Department to punish unlawful acts of antisemitism on college campuses.

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” it declared, pledging to “also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”²

So the protesters show some have brains and are hiding and the media are focusing on the more important stuff.

I hope the Coalition makes the above a policy in Australia after the pendulum swings right later this year.

But getting back to answering the title question .. my answer is a confident NO!

This is an extract from an article by Jonah Goldberg in The Dispatch of February 26, 2035 ↩︎
This is an extract from Boiling Frogs by Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch of February 26, 2035 ↩︎

A brush with death…

Quite recently I was told that there was a snake in my vicinity which could strike at any time! If it did I should call an ambulance immediately. Also, it would be better if I didn’t move around in case it struck!

I suggested not finishing mowing the lawn. However, that was ruled out at home. “If you are going to die, you are going to die – it’s the same for all of us.”

Well, that was the best advice. No panic, no worrying … almost a secret pleasure. The prospect of imminent death was not at all daunting. Maybe a bit of regret that I wouldn’t be at my wake. I did suggest it as a possibility. Maybe I could be borrowed from the undertakers and propped up in the corner with a beer in my hands…?

That’s not exactly what really happened…

My doctor had cut off a mole and sent it off for checking. She also sent me to a cardiologist to check my ticker. He sent me for some tests.

As arranged, my doctor phoned to report if the mole was dubious or not. It was not.

But, she had the results of my CT test…

I was to take 300 aspirin immediately and one every day forever.
I was not to do anything strenuous and if I had any discomfort, no matter what, I was to call an ambulance!
She was booking me into hospital for angioplasty.

That’s when I asked about the lawn and the washing up.

The snake was a clogged coronary artery, which seemed to be a serious situation.

However, I saw my cardiologist a few days later and he said:

Nah, relax –it’s not a problem, we will treat it medically. It has been there a long time. If it hasn’t killed you by now, it is not likely to do so.

He is a very good doctor – he just prescribed a few pills and didn’t even put me on a diet!

So my plans for a wake are on ice.

Quite an impressive tale to tell and some of my children seemed concerned, which was heart warming.

On a slightly less jocular note, I was surprised. I was not remotely concerned by my doctor’s alarm and urgent arrangements for heart surgery.

On second thoughts, is it depressing that the thought of my death doesn’t alarm me? … I wonder if there is Beck’s in heaven? If the beer is warm, I have probably gone to hell…

Bits and pieces

These are words in my reading that resonated with me and some random thoughts of my own.

The left has long been addicted to the most desired thing in intellectual life today—transgressive edginess, hip nonconformity. … different labels and buzzy phrases: institutional racism, antiracism, anticolonialism

What they all share is a desire to seem authentically rebellious by attacking the foundations of our nation and our civilization.

The problem is that such ideological non-conformity has become so institutionalized that it’s become an expression of ideological conformity

Jonah Goldberg The Dispatch 23 Jan 2024

Is it ironic that there has been an Indian (from India) presidential candidate? There has also been a half Indian Vice-President. Additionally, there are a number of Indian Presidential advisers. Yet, there is no native American Indian in any high government post…

Not How but Why?

This is what the the leading podcaster/ influencer thinks about marketing:

“ It’s nearly always cheaper, easier and more effective to invest in perception than reality “

“Remarkably, the close button in most lifts doesn’t actually work. Lift doors are designed to close after a certain amount of time, for safety and legal reasons…. This illusionary placebo creates the impression of control, decreases uncertainty, makes you feel safer…increases customer satisfaction.”

“Do not wage a war on reality, invest in shaping perceptions.

Our truth is not what we see.

Our truth is the story we choose to believe”

We believe that we are rational

“Our decisions aren’t driven by sense, they’re driven by the nonsense created by social cues, irrational fear and survival instincts “

Stephen Bartlett: Diary of a CEO

Is he saying ‘deceive to achieve‘?

It’s not that I disagree, but that it is very sad.

Bureaucracy has swamped democracy, radical reform is the only solution. Elon Musk and the Donald agree with me.

Interesting ABC News article declaiming the dwindling number of female ministers since that door was opened.

Maybe the Anglican bishops should implement an accelerated advancement for female ministers or seek divine intervention?

Guess who?

“One way he differs from every other president of my lifetime is that sometimes he just says stuff and no one, including some of his own aides, knows whether he means it or not. With good reason: Understanding his motives requires untangling a rat’s nest of strategic considerations, “dark triad” personality traits, anger-control issues, and insatiable avarice, all of it soaked in the logic of populist propaganda in which he’s constantly dousing himself.

Nick Cartoggio The Dispatch

This seems to be the general response to President Trump’s kind offer of refugee status for Afrikaners in South Africa: “Ik wil niet loopen, k’ben een Africaander, al slaat den Landdrost myn doot, of al setten hij myn in den tronk ik sal nog wil niet swijgen.” (Translation from Dutch: I do not want to leave, I am an Afrikaner. Even if the magistrate kills me, or puts me in jail, I will still not keep quiet.) — Hendrik Briebouw, 6 March 1707, at the Stellenbosch Magistrates’ Court.

It’s St Valentine’s Day – love the one you are with!