42 Comments
User's avatar
The Word Herder's avatar

In my canine opinion, all this relatively recent absurdity is being surreptitiously inserted into our social/cultural mainstream, as in, all the Five Eyes countries, because it's time to learn all the newest dance sensations!! Now we can learn Divide and Conquer, Confuse and Boggle, Twist and Pervert, and Set Us At Each Other. And if you wanna lose weight, stop eating grains and see how you do.

Expand full comment
Rudolph Rigger's avatar

Oh indeed - refined carbs, and sugar especially, are really not all that good for you. Another example of how following "the science" has worked wonders! The "experts" all promoted the so-called food pyramid for decades and it has led us all into the glorious utopia of Lardistan.

Expand full comment
The Word Herder's avatar

Indeed. And ironically enough, lard is actually good for you, IF it's not mixed with hydrogenated crap vegetable oil... Geez, it's almost as if they've been TRYING to make us sick, like they WANT us to be running to doctors-- for pharma prescriptions! Really weird!! (huh)

Expand full comment
Ray's avatar

having been an 18 stone fatty and now a 12 stone normie, its actually pretty easy to accomplish if you find the will power to lay off the teacakes, pizza and whatever else armadillos eat. it only took 4 months and i not only reversed the diabetes i also got rid of my asthma and psoriasis and allergies in the process.

from 6 medications to 0 and havnt seen a doctor in 6 years now

Expand full comment
The Word Herder's avatar

The solution might just be those last eight words...

Expand full comment
TeeJae's avatar

Now THAT is something to be celebrated. Congrats! I can only imagine how much better society would be if more people had your willpower and determination. BigMedicine and BigPharma wouldn't be happy, though.

Expand full comment
Guttermouth's avatar

My understanding is that armadillos (in the wild) primarily eat corn chips and road litter.

Despite their reputations, they are quite tasty, and also cute in a bumbling silly kind of way.

And apparently, due to a weird quirk of our shared genetic ancestry, get Alzheimer's in the same way humans do, making them invaluable for research.

Expand full comment
Ray's avatar

from what ive read about alzheimers its quite likely a diet related illness, we and armadillos shouldnt eat grains/carbs much

Expand full comment
Guttermouth's avatar

There's definitely some diet-related ACTIVATION, mainly coming from (I believe) inflammation, which is why you connect it to carbs.

But the precursors are definitely genetic proclivity to manufacture the brain sewage that causes the disease, and we probably can't (on a population level, anyway) eliminate all the dietary activators. People in general are not going to stop eating carbs completely.

Expand full comment
Ray's avatar

agreed, except for the genetics part, i find that part more complicated.

my family are all fattys, so it must be a genetic disposition right? no, its that they have all learned to eat the same way. there are some things that are obviously inherited like eye colour and Huntington's disease but its mostly epigenetics imo.

there may be other factors at play like vaccines/metal poisoning, i may be wrong and it might not be causal but i think theres pretty good correlation between rising rates of Alzheimer's and increased vaccination/medication

Expand full comment
Guttermouth's avatar

You're confusing the issue, here. I'm only referring to genetic links to Alzheimer's. I'm not talking about obesity or generalizing heredity at all.

There are absolutely "deterministic genes" for Alzheimer's. But there are also plenty of "risk genes" that are simply sensitivities to epigenetic activity.

Expand full comment
The Word Herder's avatar

What "genetic links for Alzheimer's"?

Maybe you're thinking of things like aluminum.

Expand full comment
Lon Guyland's avatar

“The ‘body-positivity’ movement serves as a microcosm, or perhaps a macrocosm, of the things that are going wrong. “

It’s not “body-positivity”, it’s body worship, a branch of the church of self-worship.

Expand full comment
Rudolph Rigger's avatar

It's all a weird mix of individualism and collectivism that I haven't quite worked out yet. On the one hand we have a celebration of the individual and their choices, but on the other a clear push towards authoritarianism and collectivism.

It's like "you can be a wonderful, fantastic individual - provided you stick within the bounds of the ideology we have laid out for you". Thus we have the example of people who disagree with the ideology being classed as not a "genuine" X, where X is some identity group.

It's like there's a kind of Overton window imposed on acceptable individuality - which I suppose there must always be to some extent (I would hope an individuality that expresses itself through murder, for example, would never be considered acceptable). Anyway - haven't properly formulated my thinking on this yet, so I'll stop there - but something's way off kilter with these modern coerced compassion ideologies.

Expand full comment
TeeJae's avatar

"I would hope an individuality that expresses itself through murder, for example, would never be considered acceptable." - Exactly! Will the Overton window eventually widen to such an extent that we'll be forced to celebrate serial killers because they identify as serial killers? Seems absurd now. But 10 years ago, so did all of today's nonsense.

Expand full comment
Monica's avatar

Nailed it…as usual! When I go through my Substack emails, I always save yours to read last. I love your humor and writing style!

Expand full comment
Rudolph Rigger's avatar

Thanks Monica - much appreciated. I try my best to be a little bit humorous - because if I didn't I'd probably be banging my head against a wall in anger and frustration at the idiocracy we are hurtling towards

Expand full comment
Grundvilk's avatar

"The older I become it feels like the fewer and fewer insights I have. I think I’m transitioning into Joe Biden as each day pushes me further and further down the Grand Canyon of Confusion."

Nah -- you've probably just, as they say in American baseball, covered all the bases for now. I've noticed recently that the same thing seems to be occurring right now in nearly all the online writers I regularly read. Time to pause, maybe, and let the [old] processing unit finish its ongoing, unseen work and eventually produce some new magical results.

Expand full comment
Rudolph Rigger's avatar

There's a lot happening, and a lot to process. I am most definitely not liking the ever-increasing trend towards authoritarian "solutions" to the alleged problems we are facing.

I've just watched an interesting David Icke clip that's doing the rounds. Whatever we might think of some of Icke's previous positions he makes a very salient point that if you can 'engineer' food and energy scarcity then you effectively have total control.

It's becoming increasingly hard, if not impossible, to 'rationalise' the decisions being made by governments across the world in any way other than what one would usually call "conspiratorial".

Expand full comment
Grundvilk's avatar

How about "stupid" and/or "entirely clueless" instead of "conspiratorial"? Surely you've run into examples of people like this in everyday or professional life from time to time? Many people, in my experience, unreflectingly tend to think their way of looking at things is entirely right, just, and correct -- especially if that way of thinking is coupled with both anxiety and a sincere concern for themselves and/or others. More particularly speaking, Peterson and grad students have shown that our currently problematic "liberals" are indeed characteristically anxious, if not depressed, "drama queens" that always think the sky is falling, and are therefore constantly motivated to concoct and enact elaborate schemes to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening. Unfortunately, stupid is as stupid does (or entirely clueless is as entirely clueless does). What we may be seeing instead of a worldwide malevolent conspiracy is a perfect, worldwide storm of synchronistically dancing dunces. Wouldn't surprise me at all if this is the case -- not that it makes any difference in the end results.

If I recall correctly, this is the Peterson lecture wherein he discusses the findings of one or more of his graduate students with regard to the characteristic temperamental attitudes of the touchy-feely (savey-feely?) left and compares them to those held by those who the left tend to consider "reptilian predators": https://cosmolearning.org/video-lectures/17-biology-traits-agreeableness/.

Expand full comment
cm27874's avatar

Shhh... oh, there's the baby!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04ym539

Expand full comment
Diana's avatar

Well, obviously you should love every part of your body except your reproductive organs. Those belong in the incinerator with the rest of the medical waste. (As a side note, I do think there is a scientific explanation why fat women are more appealing-- or shall I say, less unappealing-- than fat men. But it relies on social constructs such as "estrogen" and "the endocrine system," so perhaps I need to deconstruct my own implicit biases before attempting to present it.)

Expand full comment
Rudolph Rigger's avatar

I find a lot of different body 'shapes' attractive, to be honest. Except those at the extremes.

Looking like you've just walked out of Belsen is not a good look, or a healthy one.

Looking like you've just eaten California is similarly not appealing either visually, or from a health perspective

Expand full comment
Rikard's avatar

I take it mr R Rigger is an armadillo of the british persuasion, however that is defined nowadays?

Perchance he is familiar with the magazine 2000AD and it's regular features, such as Judge Dredd? (Personally, to the complete lack of surpirse to anyone who's ever met me, my favourite from that mag was Nemesis the Warlock. "Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!")

Anywho, in the old Dredds, there was a phenomenon of super-fat people. Fat to the point of needing belly-wheels. Competing in eating. A whole arc was dreddicated to Fat Tony Tubbs, the first man to break the magic ton.

(Where was I going with this?)

Right, argument: any and all current trends have been prophesised in 2000AD.

The neo-puritan movement, embodied by Thomas de Torquemada from Nemesis. A comic where the enemy is "the deviant" and the deviant is anyone the Master says is so.

Electronic money and 'round the clock surveilance, too many dystopian Tharg's twisters to count.

The Cult of Death, i.e. today's environmentalists, in the comic embodied by Judge Death: all life has a carbon footprint. The crime is life: the sentence is death.

Computers running everything a-gogo: The Thirteenth Floor and other stories.

Robotisation anyone? Will it be Walter the Wobot or Call-me-Kenneth?

Bundling the plebs up in locked down walled off estates where everything is rationed and movement restricted and enforcers recruited from the worst violent criminals? The Ballad of Halo Jones.

Enhanced soldiers and monstrous semi-autonomous machines killing eachother in a war without any real reason besides there being a war? Rogue Trooper.

Private mercenaries replacing police? Strontium Dog.

I'm sure there are lots more.

As for fat and so on, I harken to the words of Al Bundy.

Expand full comment
Guttermouth's avatar

Don't forget Brandon, the 2023 incarnation of Judge Fish.

Expand full comment
Rikard's avatar

Oho - yes indeed! Though I'd put Clinton up for Judge Cal...

Expand full comment
Rudolph Rigger's avatar

2000AD - a classic

I bought it for several years right from issue 1. I still have many of them mouldering away somewhere - including the whole Dredd "Cursed Earth" sequence.

Expand full comment
John's avatar

Thank you for another dose of truth and laughter, almost over shadowed by the ultimate typo (?),

"Thunder Gods twat".

Expand full comment
Rudolph Rigger's avatar

thank you - much appreciated

It's not a typo. In Northern UK speak, to "twat" someone means to hit them - hard. At least it meant that in my yoof. Not at all sure whether this phrasing is used much today.

Expand full comment
Alluminator's avatar

Loved the dad joke and the Star Wars movement....

Expand full comment
Bandit's avatar

Thank-you for the ending "comment" above all. That's the first laugh I've had in at least 4 days. This week has sucked.

Expand full comment
Rudolph Rigger's avatar

Sucked? That's what that dad said about his wife's technique!

Expand full comment
Bandit's avatar

2 laughs in 2 days, all because of you. Thank-you!

Expand full comment
The Word Herder's avatar

Sorry to hear it, Bandit. Hope it's better now, and I relate... cheers.

Expand full comment
Bandit's avatar

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Expand full comment