Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily podcast today is Friday December twenty. Fourth, twenty twenty one wording to more eggs. is on his way from the north pole. This, I think, is one of my favorite actual like remaining Christmas. Things are adaptations of Christmas to the

you out into the twenty first century is the nor red Twitter tracker thing is just it's: it's adorable and it's it's it's. It's really really sweet, even though I dont celebrate Christmas, but. others on this. Punk has do so merry Christmas to senior ETA, Christine rose and high Christine associated or no Rossman high. Now I got an end and some time some time in childhood at Christmas tree Jew a grandma, I jump. That's fair. Right you what sort of a yeah yeah you did. Everything has any any occasion too, as you killed presence. That was like your families. That was my family stay here, but as an adult, no, I don't. I don't celebrate Christmas, but I am a great fan of I wrappings and all their love hollers sounds movies, all the rest of it

peace for american consequences. In our mind, magazine about the invention of Christmas Dickens, invention of Christmas, everything and how people who are not christian, don't understand the unemployed. Joy that you can take a Christmas as somebody who doesn't celebrate Christmas because, whatever fraught miss you have of that kind, doesn't. Everybody seems to you now with like it's wonderful, but there's family tension or be up. Kids are disappointed in their presence, or something happens that we now have to do. The white said in answer Why are all that? All that stuff that the that that is fraught this, where we have none.

To all we have is the music and the movies, and we get to walk around. Looking at the beautiful lights, you put on your houses and we can see chinese food on Christmas day and go to the movies, and so I have just deeply uncomplicated feelings about american Christmas that do not involve religion or family or anything that might be you know, neither deep were a complicated or emotionally fraught, so ah, no you're doing a lot of cooking right yeah. Well, so we just move to bigger house so at which the previous owners had like a holidays. Had holiday notoriety for lack of a better word like they did. They just did big holiday things, and we were informed when we move that we had been Who's the felt so yeah you're going to decorate the house. You got to put Christmas doodads all over the place. You got to get the big tree. You got to buy six hundred thousand dollars worth of presents

you know: you got a good dinner for all the family because we hosts we hose Christmas. because if we didn't hose Christmas, the kids will have three Christmas. It has all the parents need a bite it that apple and it's too ridiculous and it spoils the children rotten. So we have to have a here, which means I gotta cook everything and did said gigantic meal. So yeah there's a lot that goes into it, but that's all it sounds utterance, but it's all joyful, it's all very nice. Are you making a roast beef? This is, of course, my the dish that I always during, for because of the color grips told Christmas was that roast places the many nice slices, like a very even slices, had to buy an electric cutter, because I make a beef Wellington. Every are two of them in fact, because a lot of people eat it and you can't tat. The thing falls upon: Groundwater is puff. Pastry falls apart only with a regular knife, so had to buy an electric carving.

Knife tax have widened fall apart with an electric current electric carbonized are just miracles. There amazing the cut their everything like butter CS, two giant be Wellington, served vague, candied, salad, duchess potatoes, making us lukashka kind of tomato, fetid casserole thing for breakfast and a big girl for Country Board. For lunch. So then sound legal up, a lot of workers into it and him and having the downside, your lot tenure and and your sons will be eating cereal and hostile at night, I don't have any lack of new rules because and I get a hand and we're having him for Christmas it. So this is how Christmassy we get in this house. This is just a point out, elfish bacon. In Seattle, we ass, if not a colossal, with light. That's that's that that goes without saying Christine. You had Christmas plans. It seem to have been interrupted by

ELM across the air we had dead the family. We always share Christmas Day day, sort of late afternoon, big meal, we'll pitch and cook together, sexual really fun. It's become a tradition in the ten years. They have aid, they have a covert case in their household, so they have cancelled Christmas dinner, which is understandable but sad. So we rebooted, I'm gonna, make a big beef stew for those for some of us here and then we're going to teach with my neighbors and their kids We're all getting together in the evening for deserts and Carolyn in them also to teach all the teenagers how to play poker. So this is our

this is going to be our Christmas day and we ve got the chips. We got a whole we're gonna set it all up in. There can learn how to play poker contrast between the wholesomeness of Carolyn, generous, actually right, I'm making a ton of cookie there's like so much cookie baking going on today. What what? What? What poker names are? You gonna gonna teach even higher MIKE's it's how to play poker him. So I I'm I'm open to suggestions its whatever. You think there used to be a bunch of poker game that people would play and they ve all become hold them get ahold of hold them is the tournament gave MIKE holder is and hold them is in some ways the at the ideal poker game internationally whoop new large medium sized cards or seven cards. There's there's almost colleges and therefore uphold them. Stud but, like I don't work, will all remember had won't hold them is, is just a version of his aversion of style it just it's. It's it's just a slightly more interesting worsen. The stud.

definitely play high low and if you're going to play high low, the Lohan has to be. This is very important. Six, four thousand three hundred and twenty one, not five, not not a straight five to the ace. If it's a straight, it's always a straight fact. This is at you fights people shoot each other over there. So you got to establish that at the very beginning that the lowest and is in fact the worst possible hand, which is sixty four thousand three hundred and twenty one, the worst possible hand in poker. I could love playing poker, but it got worse at some point because once they realise that it really we weren't really playing with money. You know the the incentive not to serve follow the logic which is don't stand when you're bad hand in some places completely shot so that it then it just becomes a game of luck in out. There is no bluffing. There's no strategy, there's nothing. If you just stay Emma you now just to see who ends up with the best hand in oh yeah, we're trying to figure out what the but the chip second represent.

With we thought about doing it with cookies, but that that could become kind of Siena. Someone's gonna go into sugar jacket, married you out so yeah, but we're going to try to make we might end up by linking forgetting if your teaching, if your teaching them don't than them, then in the early going, it's actually very easy to say, no to know what you want to do is accumulate coins. You don't wanna, like you know, ends don't don't give the weight and go online. I say, column vaccine boosts declaring our fathers UK anybody going over the next couple, is so on Christmas day or in the evening Christmas day, I'll be with my sister brother in law, we're gonna, get chinese food and much movie. Dont know what movie it. I just watch this morning

enough something I meant watched last year, even bought it and then didn't weird way. You don't like it and want to at the time, but it was just an hp us by storm watching it. The personal history of David Copperfield, this movie by the guy the visa and the death of Stalin, Armando Yenoki, which is a Are you Brevier headed adaptation of David Copperfield and its great it's delightful beyond beyond belief and interesting, because it says its multi culturally casting David Copperfield played by the Indian British acted as Patel, and there are various other an end, and it is. It works perfectly well, because the whole thing is cast as a theatrical performance in which David were Dickens is actually kind of

reciting his novel, which is something the Dickens dead. Dickens would perform his works on stage and so, therefore, that everything is in imagining of his, and it makes perfect sense that he could put anybody in any part. You know what I mean it served, so it it it it where's very, very lightly, and am I, on its behalf, its coveted, its notable generally how well Dick INS lends itself to more modern media generally right where their unity is adopted at anything cinematic and end shows its while I'm in the astonishing thing by the Christmas Carol. If you read a Christmas Carol, is that it anticipated it is written in a style of cinema. should storytelling even though was written in eighteen, forty three like he actually saw. He writes as though, in the course of them of the course of the the journeys with the ghosts there is.

Furthermore, I serve zooms over the zooms over the landscape, around It was places out of focus, comes into focus its really special thanks, I was struck by the same thing went out when I read fiasco startling how much Cotter. In addition, it is also because you know he was you know this man of almost found tat. Yeah, I mean there are very many bad dickens adaptations. It's kind of amazing. How how wonderfully well- and there like ten versions of David Copperfield, there's an early one with Freddy Bartholomew in and doubly see fields is Mister Micawber in Basle Rathbone, as Mr Merge stone his tormenting stepfather, that is just glorious, and this is glorious, whereas there was a dead BBC version that was glorious, and there is of course Oliver there's Oliver twist, which is a fantastic movie,

I'll, get us and all over the musical witches dazzlingly good. If you ve, foreseen that that is a fantastic movie to watch with your family. The choreography stand that these numb couple, these numbers that consider yourself number and stuff. I just I popping Lee amazed even now, fifty years after it came out, it's amazing because he was he was a universe creator and yet a few, if you accept the universe, if you recreate universe, you're already in pretty good shape, and it was- and it's a it's a it's a right. I think it is in this sense. It's a little like what Jk Rowling did with it say it's. It is the universe of zero dollars and nineteen cents england- and it is london- mostly London, realistically, you Know- captured except it's- the world was in the world right. There's it sits, go you go through a doorway and you're in a slightly much more melodramatic, much more

much more elemental, wondering if more satisfying, as while reading Oliver guest my my seven year old, which is a bit of a struggle yeah yes he's always along is a long, winded writer. Incredibly, incredibly, gifted discreet disk, We, like you, would write a fly, landed on his soup and Dickens Rights, to a particularly boisterous insects- is minimal. Mehdi untimely termination, like as a sort of thing that, like just kind of its debts to struggle, I'm just hoping that my kid picks up some of the language, but a gadget bury buried. The descriptions are sardonic in a way that we will sort of lost. I mean he was maybe the greatest of all english pro stylists me. Nobody, I'm! You know he was a freakish intelligence is writer. You know he saw was came. He was so fully formed as a writer at the age of twenty one or two.

Me too and wrote a prose that no one has ever really match. That's not clear that he was all that particularly well educated. It he's got his quality like Shakespeare in that regard and that you can't quite figure out how he managed to obtain this utter command over this incredibly basque Language, in our vocabulary, without kind of any kind of formal education, and then you know his own vision- is on creative imagination is one thing, but this the gorgeousness of this process just sort of amazing, and if you, if you find the BBC's aid, our version, I mean it's actually that rural shapes our companies and our version of Nicholas Nickleby, which is basically a story. The theatrical troop was maybe maybe

greater stage production of our time, and it was tape for television and AIDS eight hours long, because so much of what you hear and see, as is stuff from the book serve narration, is, is Dickens own voice from the book, and you just can't believe how beautiful it is. That is, that is well worth we're tracking down Roger, some are travelling on production of that was Nickleby anyway. I didn't even know we were going here, but that, but about I do, recommend the personal history David Copperfield. By the way we could just serve ask there. You know twenty two versions of Christmas Carol. Does a lot of people are now saying that their favorite version, the Christmas Carol, was the mob. Chris Christmas Carol was Michael Kane Scrooge. Anybody have any Christmas Carol, favorites I'd just off the topic, though I just read it.

covered the Disney adaptation of Oliver twist she's just like Oliver. I think it's called. I hope you re Oliver company. Thank you. I saw that in the theatres when I was a little one than I buy forgotten it, and it is kind of came across my transom with Billy Joel with a blinkered wrote. This erodes the and answers. That's really can't aspect forgot, I was late and it's totally forgotten that it was considered a misfire and it yeah like it's. The only thing Billy Dolliver wrote for the for the movies and the animation isn't very good. It was like just before they re constituted Disney's animation with the little mermaid.

So it's surfing like they could actually literally remake. You know him and and improve with illegal score. Bayberry else, however, have a Christmas Carol. I get the old one with a balanced percent Allister's him yeah, I'm the old one per superior thickest, many old ones, but that's that's. That's always the one at that feels iconic and be in my mind, yeah Georgia's Scott did one for television. I think it might maybe, for I think, that's probably the banning George Scots performance is just titanic in it, as he was capable of being titanic. But again, that's something you just you can't ruin. Chris

Carol it's like by the way and make a bad version of L, L, Murray's, Scrooge desires and of it. It is still art. I was about to say the the whole three ghosts of the past present. That has been re purposed. So many ways at this point. It so many times, You know he among the extraordinary things by things as he had this way of inventing these mechanisms that were just so essential that it came so essential to storytelling. You haven't been superseded. Really I just some of the stories are like story proof. You know that's very weird that gave no adaptation proves not up and the opposite, like you just can't go wrong. It's like do a Christmas Carol and you can't go wrong. Basically, that's

using you know it's a hundred eighty years old anyway, I write so having having gone through this spirit of beautiful reverie. Let's, let's get down to brass tacks, we were having an argument climb a little bit. Ah piece of news came at last night on twelve May, the twenty third better. it's unnerving but hard to interpret, which is that Sadie rabies is apparently going to allow in three the rainy and diplomats. Now, why would that be a nervous whom diplomats, whatever? Of course, the Saudis and the Europeans have been locked in a cold war that times gets a little hot, pretty much. For forty years I mean Iranian backed UNICEF Ray. The arrangements would like control of MECCA

The Shi Ite would like control the holy sites. Iran doesn't want to give up that. and when a whirling around started really getting serious about nuclear weapon, and the United States was obviously animism response to IRAN's nuclear ambitions that began in some inaugurated. this amazing a revolution in middle eastern foreign policy and enter national diplomacy in which the Saudis ended up making these Overture have a developing this relationship with with Israel, which it had been. You know committed whose due to whose destruction it had been committed and had spent millions upon millions of dollars toward its destruction over the course of, like fifty sixty year

and in part because they share this common enemy. The fear that you know the Saudis would use the range of use nuclear facilities. The range of use nous against is kill him in this whole question of whether we might see if this, if the Iranians we're gonna proliferate than the salaries were given, them then have to respond with it. With a new Then we're gonna have em and nuclear arise Middle EAST which, as you know, just great that would be just just fantastic right. I'm an odious amazing experience. No, you were the one who got you. You got freaked out about this, and then we serve headed at a disputation about about its larger meaning yeah. I think it's concerning in so far as it, along with something out signals, perhaps a willingness on the part of Riad to fall out of the western orbit, which was deleterious to american national interests point blank yeah. This is probably,

at the world's biggest steel, certain Thorn diplomatic relations between IRAN and Saudi Arabia, although not sure whether it old and anything that energizes there were harvests inside Saudi Arabia is something to be very concerned about, and Athol with the Shi Ite nation would most certainly do that, but also comes in concert with some revelations that Saudi Arabia had been developing missiles with the assistance of the Chinese, I'm not sure whether this material, financial or otherwise, but it is nevertheless The support in a way that should also be concerning to the west in part because we are knows that there is a powerful contingent in

orbit of this administration that wants to see said you re a completely cut off in when Joe Biden took office in January temporarily halted arms exports to Saudi Arabia reversed that course over the of the course of this year to the profound consternation of the foreign policy of left in this country, and then they think they can see the writing on the wall that there is a particular movement in this country. That does not like Saudi Arabia or support for Saudi Arabia and would like to cut them off in time I mean there three years left in this administration. Who knows where that's gonna go so guy think all this is is concerning it's not here on fire. Maybe I will buy reacted to it with some real terror last night, but upon reflections, not the end of the world. Nevertheless, it could signal some developments in the very near term that would be very damaging to western interests yeah. I think.

Is it a member central in agreement? I think it is cause for concern. Is the one thing about that? The Chinese helping the the salaries with the ballistic missiles is that when I read that my thinking was that will that that is a project aimed aggressively at IRAN, because IRAN has been building up end in twenty nineteen. Around TAT was widely believed. Around attack is responsible for massive attack on Saturday oilfields, I'm so you know, I think it's should have something to keep keep our eyes on, but again, not necessarily the end of the world, Saudi Arabia's.

Really quite invested in in our midst. Did this this new road with Israel and even even though its not formerly part of Abraham Accords, it is it is. It has been a big behind the scenes player in terms of the Emirates, ended and advising Indians, giving its consent for for the for the Emirates. cooperation with Israel. Yet you know, if you had told me when I was in college working with my thesis adviser Daniel Pipes on these out Eu S. Relationship in the late seventies early eighties, that forty years? Hence I would be saying that the behaviour of dump the Democrats in the United States toward toward Saudi Arabia. was crazy because it was two hostile. I would have thought that you were insane and in fact the entire effort to come to work

up and the U S: Sadie relationship over the disgusting murder of Jamal Shaggy and media in the Turkish, a consulate which has a heart. buying event and it does appear that Mohammed been summoned. The effective ruler of Saudi Arabia was directly involved in it and it's just an absolutely terrible horrible thing, but that America's GEO Political position in relation to the most important engine of of economic activity in the world and GEO political relationships that involve the future of M kind. Humanity, Israel, nuclear weapons and everything should be materially affected by the killing of one person, however, a unjust, egregious seems to me to be crazy, I can even give you a reason why

his I owe you know. We right now have a potential genocide going on inside China toward an entire people, and I dont here Anybody saying our entire relationship with China needs to be. You know I mean anybody's We need to cut off all of our relations with China over the weaker No, that is a much more defensible position than that. Our relation with you now Raby. It needs to be completely interrupted because of the killing of one person like IE, so that's the end. That is those very much a democratic party position, not a republican party position. I am not defending murder. Jamal cajole game? Just saying that you now this is the classic. You know if you gonna, be out in the world. You have to deal with bad actors or complicated actors or people who do not operate in the bay.

Save your morality and, to the extent possible, we should be promoting every idea that we promote about human rights, Liberty, free speech, and all of that, but at the same time, this is where we can't be the world's policeman. We're gonna go round and arrest. Mohammed been salmon for the murder of jam. Because shaggy and even even more important We cannot allow our relationship with Saudi Arabia in the middle of this incredible struggle, with IRAN to immature Billy compromise by this, and yet there are these people, There's no assess hooks or want to do that number one and also number to its very convenient, because they are still obsessed and consume with the idea that we can find something rapprochement with IRAN and the only way we can find a rapporteur I was IRAN is to distance ourselves from Saudi Arabia. The very fact of distancing us from Sadie, if we had during the Obama administration is what led Mohammed been summoned

the others to the idea that they needed to look a different way and are very radical fashion towards Israel, towards Non American. oh alliances because they were being sold out against. You know that that America was essentially getting complicit in the ultimate development of an iranian nuclear weapon, which is the one thing Saudi Arabia itself needs to make sure it doesn't happen to protect it gene and it's your sort of getting into the paradox of what human rights as an instrumental tool of foreign policy. is, is that aid can be quite valuable as an issue and of soft power, but the foreign policy that is dedicated purely to the promotion of human rights would destroy the country that is dedicated to it, you must engage in some hypocrisy in order to have an effective foreign power while wielding this particular cudgel, because otherwise you wouldn't

have a foreign policy at all costs. Every human give every nation in the world is in some way via a violator of this kind of pure understanding of human rights. So you have to pick and choose and embrace a certain amount of hypocrisy. If you wanna be ineffective, GEO, strategic actor on the world stage and in others the purest appear among us, don't quite understand the that level of statecraft. Well, I mean it. There are that many predicted to be honest, Eight like everybody's a hypocrite in this regard. That's why I brought up to China and the Wiggers or something, but you can find it an almost any circumstance that people who are going absolutely. But you know, who said you know sort of David Ignatius are you now because he knew Jamal fish ogier? Whatever you know saying out, we buster blah blah blah you now I dont remember hearing him said we shouldn't engage with Cuba, like I don't remember, hearing the guest Ella Vision that these

and people who want to see a new a new deal with IRAN. Yeah, where isolate right, where, where Gazer hung from crane where political prisoners are routinely killed, so yeah yeah We should mention by the way that the Bush administration just signed this bill yesterday, Fair quietly emanated. It's obviously made news, has banning the import of goods that are made by workers in these slave labour camps that that the Chinese have constructed that we have known about for some time. It was interesting to me that he didn't use that as an opportunity to town exactly what you were saying no like here. We care about human rights that we care about this. If we lose all done, you know, and there were some tangled- they heard this bill getting pangs Eddie what they want. They did not want the bill right by restrictions in this was Margaret he has. They did not want the bill to pass. They did not want to and again in terms of state craft understand why

I can understand that this limits a certain amount of freedom of movement. If you're, particularly for dealing with the sword tearing or two thousand governments to go and say, look, we want to add that. But you know we have this weird, some, where these guys over here do things and in our day to day they hamstring, and then the Chinese are like. Well, you know, how can we trust you that your Congress isn't gonna, go and do terrible things? It is always why every secretary of state. People and administrations. Don't want Congress interfering with the making of foreign policy to the extent possible because they want to be able to sit at the table and have the freest negotiating powers that they can possibly have, which is one of the reasons that we mean Congress to get involved a little bit, because then they a client Titus and they and they start negotiating with themselves to make

The other players in a stable they'll never accept this. So we should go to this provision. Naturally they that opposition to this particular welcome from domestic corporate interests, with hope said very plainly that it was so broadly written that it would capture goods that maybe work maybe slave labour and how are we supposed to know they do not always the problem. You made a sign of their livelihood right exactly anyway. It's an interesting. It's an interesting. To watch. But it just one of the conditions here is that term is that we have, on the one hand, a very arch, you know self righteous presentation. of facts against Saudi Arabia, by people who, as as absurd, seem to be entirely comfortable turning blind eye were born or whatever were saying there things more important than acts. India,

with IRAN's you now nightmarish human rights record because there's something they want from IRAN and so to be honest, like there's something that people support. Israel want from Saudi Arabia, you know why they they want. They would like to see this relationship blossom and bear fruit and create an entirely new set of circumstances. For you now, a degree of liberalization in the Middle EAST, which is happening at a very rapid clip. I mean it's not democracy and its not, but it's something and it makes places that are not hospitable toward a toward Americans. Hospitable toward Americans, not hospitable toward Jews, hospitable toward jews- and this is this- is in some ways a huge advance. He held the lead, the most significant departure from the status quo.

on earth. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall I mean, and and and and the idea that we would somehow like Poohpooh, that or think it's not as important as other things is kind of bizarre and just seems again. A kind of churlish way of you know it's like a fifth. If and all happened, because of Obama that supports the great joke right? It all happened because of tilted toward IRAN towards IRAN and the Saudis went. Oh, we may not really have a stable alliance here that isn't gonna turn on our interests. We better find some other way of going through this and, while the Israeli seem incredibly efficient at preventing Europeans from going nuclear way more efficient than any were ludicrous negotiations and bribery than Obama wants. So look it's the twenty fourth of December, as I speak,

To you, so I've been telling you for a month to get David Byrne, since there is no free lunch, twittered fifty economic truce as a stocking stuff for Christmas present and we're coming up hard on the deadline for that. So I'm probably going to assume that you're not hearing this in time to get to a Barnes, a noble and by the hard copy, but you can always gifted on Amazon. You can always gifted and barns ennobled that come as a Christmas present. As a stocking suffer a virtual stocking suffer a brilliant exploration. The economic ideas that that that could serve govern human or observer are informed by human action and the connections between those human flourishing and political liberty. That is what David does in this book. Two hundred and fifty six twenty fifty ideas explored with great quotations and pithy summaries like a daily devotional. It's great get it for you.

friends get it for your family, get it virtually get it before midnight tonight or you know to our morning, if someone's coming over later in the morning and the need to do something, you know fast because you haven't done it, that's right. There plant aspect being David Bonds and Ba genocide of the bonds rob. They antidote to the intellectual, spaghetti of the financial services and management industry pretty amazing peace and vanity fair. Yesterday, unbelievably detailed boy did Biden Steppin it big time. I mean abiden as summoned upon himself something he awakened the beast he did by? responding to your mutual centre at the end of that speech on Tuesday, was it by saying What do you mean we were slow to respond and testing uncovered?

the home covet testing. We weren't. How dare you you know, he didn't say, look fat, but he couldn't said, look fat, you know how dare you and them, and now just like one is coming out of the woodwork to say how what are you saying we screaming for eighteen months about home testing and it's your administration. The bureaucrats who work for who are preventing this from happened and this vanity fair peace. Just like He does, as he has this very trompe entreat where he just just make stuff up in the moment, because she wishes that way. Case. Like it just says, things like you just made up a quote from a mansion the other day, very damning quote that if your mansion had actually said it wouldn't really bad Insane and close to it, they just be just decided. He was gonna, its way out of five was whether the dog faced pony soldier. No, it wasn't meant what what did he wait? What what? What? What

Facebook at the end of it. I'm paraphrasing cuz, I don't remember the exact quote with the gist of it was that Joe Manchin had told the assembled members of the democratic caucus that he had misled them. Is that I'm sorry? I misled you or something along those lines about the nature of his mission to the bill back better, but when he never said that he has been saying the exact same thing in the exact same way for seven straight months to anybody willing to listen while the interesting thing about this that, if our peace is at, it stops the cycle that a lot of us have been noticing and talking about since Biden took office, which is when he, as you say, John, he just make something up. Her said something that isn't true or or stretches the truth, or makes a claim

got us administration, that's that's factually incorrect and then Jen, Saki or other members of his prestige try to cover a sort of a clean up bright. They correct when he said they sediment this. She did this for days after they had this meeting according to the very fair peace she did clean up. She was mocking when the press ass about test. She said: what are we gonna send these two every american Gimme a break. I mean this is this: is the yes queen, she's, always getting tweeted that by the left, but that's that's what's broken down now, cause Americans are looking at this site. Will wait a minute. You told us new marked this, but we need this. Now he's been burned. I mean Raven burned. Rather, see the all the members of the press that used to cover for him every time he made this stuff up, they ve been burned. And then again and he's lost them. They were burned on Afghanistan when he, when he came out everything's great and then everything was disastrous, spurned and they were burned on bill back better when they were talking it all up and and did it it. It never happened

creation, inflation in isolation. It goes on rights. There are not I'm gonna put themselves on line any more for this garbage. It's really interesting twist I mean peace and that, if her so detail that at it, I think it's pretty clear that it must have been in the works. Are some firm in its three or four thousand words long? It wasn't its unless very, very densely reported, so it might have been something that they had in the hopper for in IRAN, that they re purposed. You know immediately to get it out, because it is a history dating back to March of twenty twenty and the fact that the the health authorities, I think it the CDC, but it may be. The FDA said you know what are you with its were like this great moment in them in the odd couple where the couple begins with a poker game. Speaking of Christine's Poker game that the play of the art,

and Murray. The cop is dealing very, very, very slowly. You know and an end speed. A very impatient player is like Mary. What do I do? I give you a massage seem to be a little day. Yogi is everything? Ok, I'm a little worried if he's late and memories as well. Are you want speed or accuracy and basically that what does it seems like? We can't have you. What we need is accurate tat, very accurate tests and vat. Accurate tests must be grown in the lab and added that the duds PETE. You know it takes twenty four to forty eight hours and if you have a home test, it'll be fast, but it may not be accurate enough to provide the appropriate kind of data, and it was like Are you aware that there is a pandemic going on? And that, maybe you know false results- are problematic,

It is understandable that you can to save the gold standard go by and antigen test or something like that, but it's better than nothing. It's and they were like. No, no, no. We know how to do things. We we have our way of doing things and we're going to do it like that of the interesting thing. Is that that out two never shifted as though it is as though a kind of them were cement set in and out to the euro. and they were encased in cement and this crisis, Maybe they were unable to break out of the cement that set of orthodoxies that they believed to say. We need to shift gears right and, if we add gathering bring an example of that to the to the audience, because I got this there s an example

What you're talking about this dispute attachment to defunct priors? I got this alert late last night from New Jersey Department of Hell, quote this holiday. We want everyone to protect themselves against covert nineteen. Remember to wear a mask stay six feet apart and get your booster stay home if you're sick get tested before an event or gathering, especially if you have been exposed, vaccination. Here's a kind of an afterthought, its barely were a reference, no get upholstery. What our, but also where a mask and socially distant distance. For Foreseeable future in perpetuity is an antenna, Joe Biden, cans it's not march, or twenty twenty only wants, but his long, the authorities are acting like it is.

And you know their shifting the rules about this right and, first of all, there is the six feet: the three feet shift. You remember this people very hell. I was in school c, I a nigh to prevent that forever. I bring that up, I'm saying so so at some point. The only reason why they did that they didn't do that for any medical reason, John. They wanted, because classrooms couldn't couldn't filtered capacity. When I am be distance, I had a long silence had to change and we decided that there are that last night. Actually, I'm aware of that, that's why I wanted to bring this up, which is that we have these circumstances under which a shift occurs and it doesnt it's not it's supported by rigorous research, except to the extent that it would show that this that the social distancing was itself nonsense. Maybe it maybe it only works at twelve feet. Then you're like, why can't be twelve feet, so it has to be six, but if it's six and twelve

it might as well be three or to how do you come to three? You just divided and half what what if it were sixty percent yes, so it's two feet This is all, and then they did this thing. Last night right, we ve been hearing for last couple of days in part because of the over well increasingly overwhelming evidence at all. My crime is a far less severe variant and is far less likely to get to make people very sick, particularly if there Vaccinated or double vaccinated or boasted, or whatever you can still get a breakthrough case, but it's a cold that they are going to. Reduce the amount of quarantine, isolation. Time right original is fourteen days now it's ten there's some fought fouche. You already said that they were revisiting this. They would that they might move to five right negative test five days. You're fine, then they announce health care. What what? What is the? What

is the Christian you have it. It's healthcare workers, health care workers at basically, anyone who is in, I think, also like nursing homes. Anyone who helps others in a health care setting. They want to shift that because there they don't have enough people to staff services. if they have as long as we have invariably you see the CDC quote that isolation time can be cut further if there are staffing shortages, where exactly so Science. All this up. Can you get an ideal? The science, which is known as the size of rights, as long as you have a negative test, your fine right, okay, but that makes no sense because first of all, these are nursing home workers right who is at the highest risk of dying from a from a even a like. Covered right people who are nursing old people who are nursing homes, as we know, except ninety five percent of them- are fully backs.

according to what we really. I hope that's true. You never know if these steps are accurate or not, but it's like later they gotta be taken care of, so the that the isolation time can be broken down from that tend to find out. Why cannot just be the minute? You have a negative test, your done! What is the daytime because it's like what we don't know how long you're shutting virus about sharing virus, but you don't know that five days means are stopping showing virus either there just making it up as they go along and were almost two years into this thing, and there taking these rules up as they go along because yes, they're right help, people to be taken care of nursing homes and what's or if their being ten garabin nursing homes and there's a lot of virus around that, those people should probably wear masks while they're taking care of the patients and nursing homes, but they can be left to you out to sit in their own feces. If there are enough people to work, but if that's true

Who, in a nursing home, it should be true everywhere in the country, like that's the worst paradoxically, in school aid at it's. Ok, yes, but not just even pushing everywhere everywhere on earth, where we have a lot of flight cancellations today and tomorrow, because flight crews, pilots in and flight attendants aren't enough for them, because many of them are adhering to these twenty twenty era, early covered quarantine rules, because those haven't changed. Those have to change for the vaccinated there's just no, for we cannot get back to normal if they don't judge. I believe that saying so. Here's the thing saying that if you test pause as for covered right now, which means you are eighty to ninety percent likely to have all Micron, so it is likely to be mild. Nonetheless, if you test positive, you should stay home and not try to infect other people and if

If you absolutely have to go out, you should wear a mask and socially distance, but not if your exposed to somebody with Amr Not if you don't habits like that's. That's where this that's, where everything gets confused here: ok like, if you have it, try to keep away from people. If you don't have it, don't try to keep away from me because that doesn't make any sense and then once more, if you get it so you get it are you double vaccinated and boasted you're gonna be fine. These numbers out of South Africa and other places are really staggering. Like there's a number out of Louisiana, there are like twice the number of covert cases and a tenth the number of hospitalizations as there were in January of twenty twenty one, when there was, which was like a was that the third way or the second, I can and remember, but the point is like the case lumber

like skyrocketing and what's more, it's gotta be way higher than even the case we're seeing because people are testing at home positive and that those aren't like getting registered right if you buy a home test and new test positive, that's going into some state. Why count soap probably many more people have it, then we know and the hospitalization numbers are a tenth of what they were eleven months ago, which is the evidence that this is much more benign. I mean and much more is. It's like when they say you know you're somewhere I mean it is like you really not at risk. Unless your own vaccinated and Jerry Pulse would say, if you're back, It's like going out in the snow, you know in twenty degrees and if you get frostbite it's on you like. Don't blame me we're continuing with this. Oh, my god,

hospitals are gonna, be overrun and then, when people actually asked people who run hospital systems are like we're not being overrun. So you know, none of this is making any logical sense and The regime may collapse, like no eight, were worried that that's all I'm saying like once found. She says we revisited the timeframe. And the isolation can go down from ten days to five days. The rule is gonna, be you test part you you get caught you test positive. We have covered. Test negative in your done was called like that's get like no other way to handle it, and that, of course, then brings up the testing thing because you gotta make tests available to people so that they can.

Test beggar that you also have to get away from the ace into Matic tests. I M really bad at the part that is worrying me out school reopening signed on getting where John you wanna hear this from half or audience wants to hear it, but the disincentives to getting a test now are away the benefits. If, if you have to quarantine and self isolate and this work and miss school for a cold you're, not gonna, do it you're not gonna? Do it well? Ok, so I, if that's the case, then it's classic. Don't ask don't tell you now: whatever happens happens, it'll spreader, it won't spread if you are in a slightly different, relate into this, and you want to test, because you don't want us whatever at the very least, particularly if your rule follower, you shouldn't be push for being rule follower? So you follow the rules you fight

you have you, you know you have symptoms, you have sit down together, a sum, but that's why it's gonna collapse, but now it you're his I've been here is: is the incentive to be hypocritical quietly hypocritical will soon become an incentive to be vocally, hypocritical and then to be ostentatious. Clam buoyant with your disrespect and disregard for these regimes, and that's that's collapse. Opie, especially because if you test used and bureau positive, you're, then being punished for being a rule because the only person, the only people that you're a quarantining for are the ones care so little. They didn't even get vaccinated, but because there are breaks the cases which apparently are also very mild. I'm just saying like, let's assume that all the Good NEWS about Mccrone is really confirmed over the next week. Ok, that day,

that that it really does appear that as long as you got some vaccine and new you're gonna live through this. Just fine France on their met. My friend called a dyke of it s, kind of like luck of it, so the opposite of lack of it. So you're gonna be fine. What's more, you know if your double boosted, if your boasted a double vexed and boosted, and then you get this- you might be like super among them in that could be like the ultimate super immunity may have gotten it. You ve gotten accelerated and you got this variant, and so your like man, my I am like I couldn't go anywhere, do anything I can lick. People with carbon I'll, be fine right at an hour. Is going with this, the that I'm saying if, if, if the data, all if it's all good in a week, then then the question is: can we actually have a real? Is the conversation which we say look

he's going to get it so get it or don't get it. It's like the 60s. If you had a kid and you had a kid with Mumps, you have three other kids, you put your kids, the other kids in the room with the kid with mom, so they got mumps before they worth for and they got it, and they therefore had the immunity to it and they were done with it right that was before there was the Emma MAR. That's what people did that's how people dealt with infectious disease, they knew that months is incredibly dangerous. If you get it when you're an adult, but it is actually not dangerous, if you get it as a kid, basically Maybe that we want everybody to get all micron you can understand. Why would be hard, even even if you hate voucher, you can also be hard for public health officials to say it would be a good thing for you, a contract, this virus. All things being

effectively that will that is probably hamburgers, but given that they can't say that, like you say, and everybody is getting, it seems like it's difficult to not get it unless you really are isolating yourself from the rest of civilization. It just stepping outside you contract. This thing, no matter what your backs, since that is based on what the, what we're seeing in the news in the anecdotal reports of the people who worked so vaccinated, they like lie and get a fourth boost, and then they still contract. This thing, you're gonna get it no matter. What so, in a couple of weeks time, we're gonna be like in a world in which most of this people most people have gotten us or know. Somebody has gotten and arrive had a scare, if not a positive test, and the public health apparatus will still be locked into Mark TWAIN, twenty mentality whose listening to any more while they are pit people are unfortunate

still listening to it, and this is why I think the shift has to be pretty dramatic. If, if, as you say, John, the data show that this is a very mild strain for the vaccinated and that's what the german polish things still stands out as an exception to the rule on the left and in particular about the messaging, because parents are still freaky, the fear is still being fed because they cannot appeal to an authority figure who will say, you're overreacting, write. His bite Hasn't said it found. She hasn't said all the people they ve been listening to enlighten candles to for the last two years has instead it yet draft crusher, rather a very astute, anecdotal observation, the other day that I thought the Heath you found great meaning in it, and I think it really was profound than in Washington DC he had never seen more masks outside then today, but he never seen fewer masks inside then. He had today so if your terrified of covert gonna going inside anywhere near masking outside, but

most people go inside dont care anymore. They ve been there unmasked and their good and thereby thereat they're happy with theirs noticing the words or those people, the people or walking side with mass several mccrone. That is the other possibility their walking round, they have on the crime there trying not to spread it and they're not going inside, but their outside, and so they're they're taking a minor proportion. That's the logic of that which is don't go in died because you might spread it, but as long as your outside, then you put on a master and we don't need. I don't like it. You can safely back that a few of those people who don't give a hoot about this and are going inside our unmasked emitted. in a city that has the worst mccrone spike in the country probably haven't. I don't care, I understand that, but we're not

If you want to say, there's gonna be a lot of you, no anti. You know like anti no mechanism and refusal to follow the rules. That's fine! The question then we're still talking about what to do with the people who do follow the rules and there are a lot of them and the rules are our are on our unfollow up. The will will following the question is- and there are already saying there infallible, because their creating a crisis of nursing homes and healthcare situations and they will create a crisis in school. A week and half for when, when everybody goes back to school and so something's gonna give like. I say you can't they that it's ok to test negative and then go back not able to endure isolation solely on the basis of a negative test, because you work in a nursing home,

but not because you work at a Walmart like that, doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense, your much more your date endangering people much worse at a nursing home. Then you are in Walmart anyway. With that, let me just say that, as you are wrapping your presence and was sailing and singing carols, and that's the other thing. I love singing carols and an Carolyn than all of that, even a recital alright holiday, please think about commentary in your end of year giving there's another week, We really rely on our donors to help us close our deficit. I've said this before We are a very lean organization, nonprofit, viable and see. Three. All donations are tax that double their aid of us. In total working at commentary, we produce the magazine, we produce the website and we print we. We we send this podcast out to you for free every day, five days a week

We need your help. Please gotta, W W w dot commentary downward, slash donate to help would be immensely. Grateful swedes have a wonderful Christmas enjoy the blessings of the day for aid Christina. No, I'm John words keep the camel.