What grinds my gears

Who is Lindsay Ellis? Once upon a time, a long time ago, Doug "Nostalgia Critic" Walker, during the raising heyday of his Channel Awesome video sharing website, opened up a position at the website for a female video creator for essentially the same role of Nostalgia Critic, but to make videos about a more feminine category of movies and TV series that he himself hasn't watched nor followed. Many people sent audition videos, and Lindsay Ellis was chosen as the winner for that position. (Several other auditioners eventually also were chosen to the website on their own merits.) However, it turned out that Ellis was not actually the kind of video producer who's just a female version of the Nostalgia Critic, because her videos were pretty much nothing like those (her videos are way too "academic" and with very little quirky humor), but she got to stay anyway and became one of the "top" video producers of the site. It turns out, however, that Lindsay Ell...

Some time ago Joe Biden addressed the nation with a speech about the efficacy and importance of the Covid-19 vaccination. He described how effective the vaccine is at protecting people from the disease. He told how only about one in a thousand vaccinated people get any symptoms from contracting Covid-19, and only one in like a hundred thousand need to be hospitalized (if I remember the numbers correctly. Even if they aren't the exact numbers he mentioned, they were in that order of magnitude.) He reassured people about how safe and effective the vaccine is. Then, in the very next sentence he talked about how "unvaccinated people put us all in risk". He talked about how dangerous it is for some people to refuse to get vaccinated, and how they are a danger to everybody. Wait... what? First he tells how well the vaccine protects people against the disease... and then immediately after he says how dangerous it is for everybody if the disease is still being spread by unvaccin...

The YouTube channel Lotuseaters recently did a video about the situation in Barbados , which I found quite interesting. Barbados recently declared its complete independence from Great Britain, and elected its first president. For some reason there's a big amount of far-leftist BLM activists in the country advocating for... I don't even know what. The population of the country is 91% black, and something like 4% white, with the rest belonging to other ethnic groups. The country is currently a single-party state, with 100% of parliamentary seats belonging to one single political party. A leftist party. 100% of the members of parliament are black. 100% of the government is black. It is my understanding that 100%, or very nearly 100%, of police officers in the country are black. In other words, there doesn't appear to be a single person in a governmental position of power who is not black. Or something else than a leftist. Economically the country seems to be relatively wealthy...

I have lately had a morbid fascination towards the story of Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple cult (which quite infamously ended in the murder-suicide of over 900 of his followers, including himself, in the so called Jonestown massacre). I have written about this once before in this blog, but I think it deserves a more in-depth look. Why have I been morbidly fascinated by this tragic event? Because of the eerie and uncanny resemblance of what Jim Jones believed in and preached, and the modern far-leftist "social justice" ideology and movement. Indeed, much of what Jim Jones preached in the 1960's and 1970's, before the massacre, would have in no way been out of place in the current political climate, and would have fit perfectly into the far-leftist "social justice" activist narrative. Jim Jones's cult arose and rode on the wave of the civil rights movement of the 1960's in the United States, tapping onto the unrest, protests and sentiments of that ...

If you are one of the (very few) readers of this blog, chances are that you are a critic of the far left and likewise watch quite many anti-leftist YouTube videos and read the writings of critics. Perhaps even write such yourself. When one engages in watching, reading and even writing such criticism a lot, one may easily get the impression that society is pretty much divided into half: Those who accept the core tenets of the left (and sometimes everything they claim), and those who do not accept them and are critical of them. In other words, that the vast majority of people are aware of the politics going on, and have an opinion on it (even if it's a very neutral middle-of-the-line opinion). Unfortunately I don't think this is true. It's much more probable that the people who are political activists and/or are very acquainted with current sociopolitics and follow them closely are actually a small minority. The vast, vast majority of people don't care about politics, don...

Some time ago I made a blog post about "The Try Guys" , which is the YouTube channel of four men who act like stereotypical little girls, in a very exaggerated manner, for no rhyme or reason. (And it's not like they are doing some kind of parody or playing a role. They seem to be "genuine" in their demeanor and behavior.) Adult men don't normally behave like this. Adult women don't normally behave like this. Even very young boys don't behave like this. Some little girls might behave a bit like this. It's very unusual and extreme immature behavior. I got reminded of this when I recently watched a video by Pentatonix, The Prayer , which is nice and all, but I couldn't help but notice their somewhat similar demeanor and way of speaking at the end of the video. Not even close to the extent of The Try Guys, but still much more than is normal and usual for adults. Even the deep bass singer behaves like that there. (They don't behave exactly ...

Over the years, the more I have understood the intricate details of notion and concept of universal constitutional human rights in a free democratic society, the more admiration I have grown for the incredible vision, wisdom and foresight of the so-called "Founding Fathers" of the United States, especially when it comes to their crafting of the United States Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights. And from the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment. While the fundamental notions established by the First Amendment were not completely unprecented even when it was drafted (in 1791), it was still quite groundbreaking and way ahead of its time, and it showed an incredible amount of foresight. The First Amendment consists of five fundamental rights of citizens (freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peacebly assemble, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances), limiting the actions of the government, som...