The Year 2022 in Review

From arguably the best channel on all of Youtube: Ordinary Things.  Let's all look back on a year of uprisings from Sri Lanka to China to Iran.  Also, I finally learned who Andrew Tate is.

Have a safe and Happy New Year everyone and see you in 2023!

Um, yeah, don't be a Viking

I'm just finishing up "Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings," an excellent book about the rise and fall of the Vikings.

So imagine my surprise to see this opinion piece: "Viking virtues can help defeat woke enemies of America."

Uh, yeah, so about that.  There's been a fair amount of favorable fictionalization of the Vikings both in television and in professional sports.  And, yes, they were ahead of their time in naval technology and exploration.  But they were bad.  Any kind of atrocity you could assign to an invading military force was committed by the Vikings including - ahem - "contributing to the DNA" of England and Ireland.  For hundreds of years, they either pillaged and killed or took a sizable ransom to go away.

Fun fact to balance off this heavy post: Viking helmets did not have horns.  Just a complete myth.

Oh, we know the (D)ifference

NY Post: "George Santos takes the cake, but why does Joe Biden get a pass for his lies?"

Related - American Spectator: "Release Pelosi’s Tax Returns."  

Today's top headline

NY Post: "Biden signs $1.7T spending bill after it’s flown 1,500 miles to St. Croix." 

This should buy us a day without climate change sermonizing. 

Electric slide

Reason: "Free Market Think Tank Names Georgia Electric Vehicle Plant the 'Worst Economic Development Deal of 2022' - Rivian, an electric truck manufacturer that hopes to compete with Tesla, received a lucrative deal to build a new factory in Georgia despite concerns about its finances."

Check out the hysterical xenophobe

Red State: "Joe Biden's Words Come Back to Bite Him as U.S. Ramps up Travel Restrictions on China."

Fix the border

Hot Air: "Supreme Court leaves Title 42 in place for now and Gorsuch is right."

Gorsuch is the ghost of Antonin Scalia here, who firmly believed that the Supreme Court was not some kind of "super-legislative" branch when Congress wouldn't do its job.  Better to keep shipping illegals to Democrat cities until they care about the border. 

Extra - The Corner: "Neil Gorsuch Gets It Right on Title 42." - "Those who argue that the Supreme Court should serve as a policy-making arm of the Right are adopting the same philosophy that they decried when liberals were doing it."  Yup.

Back to the bunker

Fox News: "Biden has granted only seven formal sit-down interviews with journalists in 2022 - Joe and Jill Biden's most recent interview was with Drew Barrymore."

Yes, that was a hard-hitting interview, complete with a round of "The Newlywed Game."

Over the past five days, Biden has spent 40 minutes at a children's hospital and now he's on vacation again. 

The minimum wage is zero

Fox Business: "McDonald's unveils first automated location, social media worried it will cut 'millions' of jobs."

Covid had a role in this.  The other day, I ordered from Dunkin' Donuts on my phone and picked it up on the way to work.  Human interaction was nil. 

Maybe try a pro-American movie with a strong male lead

Just spitballing here, Hollywood.  Breitbart: "Hollywood Lost More Than $500 Billion in Market Value in 2022." 

Merry Christmas, everyone

Shut up, they explained

Reason: "5 Infuriating Ways People Got the First Amendment Wrong in 2022 - As free speech becomes an increasingly important part of the culture war, people won't stop misinterpreting—and outright violating—the First Amendment."

Joe doesn't remember what he said yesterday

Not the Bee: "President Biden laments our politics have "gotten so angry, so mean" and I'm sure it's because of all you semi-fascist domestic extremists." 

Well, that's good news

THE HOES ARE STILL ALIVE pic.twitter.com/EN5I88wOwt

— erin alyce (@herooine) December 20, 2022

Gulp

Marketwatch: "FTX co-founder Gary Wang, ex-Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison plead guilty to federal charges." 

Can't believe "do not come" didn't work

Hot Air: "Kamala jumps on the bandwagon as she blames Republicans for the Biden border crisis."

Honestly, though, what else is she going to say?  The only solution is to keep sending busloads of illegals to New York City and Washington D.C.

Extra - NY Post editorial: "Mayor Eric Adams is 100% correct: New York’s migrant nightmare CAN’T continue." 

Plausible!

Babylon Bee: "Musk Hides 5 Golden Tickets In Teslas To Find One Worthy Of Taking Over Twitter." 

Mystery in Amherst remains unsolved

College Fix: "Here are 14 times campus hate crimes turned out to be hoaxes in 2022."

This gives me the opportunity to remind everybody about the terrible hate crime that occurred at the University of Massachusetts in September 2021, a crime that remains unsolved to this day.

At the time, it made national news: "UMass Investigating 'Blatantly Racist' Emails Sent To Black Student Organizations" and Umass officials sprang into action:

Dear Campus Community,

The anti-Black racist incidents that have occurred on our campus this semester, described in an email from Vice Chancellor Nefertiti Walker last week, are contemptible and cowardly. We will not be intimidated by the hateful acts of craven individuals who hide in anonymity. We stand with our students who have been victimized, and we will continually strive for a more equitable community grounded in the principles of dignity and respect.

I want to share with you today that we have secured the services of Stroz Friedberg Digital Forensics, a leading national firm in cyber security, to assist us in our investigation of the source of the racist emails that were sent to members of Black student organizations.

Emphasis in original.  Unfortunately, after spending what I assume was thousands of taxpayer funds to track down the perpetrators of this hate crime that definitely happened, nobody has ever been caught.  And if memory serves, Umass hired a different forensic group to find the perpetrators but no dice.

This leads to three potential conclusions: 1) the hate mail senders effectively hid their identity by using VPNs and spoofing Eastern European servers or something, 2) the investigators never found any evidence that the emails were sent at all or 3) they found the emails were sent by somebody in the Umass community.

The fact that this once-national story has been allowed to quietly fade away without any follow-up from the Umass front office says a lot.

The green scam

American Institute for Economic Research: "Green Energy is the Modern “Broken Window”."

Oh, now it's a problem

Fox News: "Eric Adams warns of NYC service cuts to prioritize migrants as Title 42 expires: 'This can't continue'."

Adams asserted that "New York City has managed this crisis entirely on its own," and the city's requests from the state and federal government for funding and other assistance "have been mostly ignored." 

I forget: who are the state and federal authorities that can provide funding to New York?  You should name and shame them, Mayor Adams.

Extra - Legal Insurrection: "El Paso Border Patrol Facility Over Capacity as Agents Feel ‘Completely Defeated’ Days Before Title 42 Expires." 

Reminder: Joe Biden has never visited the southern border.