Cheap Certificate

The Government has today (Tuesday 4 May) delivered on its pledge to reduce the fee of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

In response to the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act, Minister for Women and Equalities, Liz Truss, committed to modernising the process of applying for a GRC, reducing the £140 fee and moving the process online, making it fairer and simpler.

From today, applicants will be only required to pay £5, ensuring the process is more affordable and remedying one of the key issues that was identified by transgender people in the GRA consultation and the National LGBT Survey.

To my political nose there is a whiff of care in the community about this. Give us a fiver, you get what you want, now go away and don't bother us. Not a bad move really. For now, but it's always for now. 

Bad Reaction

A while back Son had Covid-19. Two positive tests and a few days of flu-like symptoms.  Not a pleasant experience with some reduced lung function for a while but bearable without medical attention. He's a fit chap in his early forties so we expected him to shake it off fairly easily which fortunately he did.

A few days ago he also had the AZ vaccine in case he might need some kind of certification at some point. Covid-19 wasn't so bad after all. Yet the vaccine side-effects bowled him over. He says it was ten times worse than the disease itself. Saw him this morning and he's recovering now, but it was a very unpleasant experience. 

Make of it what you will.

What a day

Cold, wet and windy all day here in Derbyshire. The central heating is on, gas fire has been on for most of the day and we are sitting here waiting for some global warming. Maybe cows aren't farting enough at the moment.

Here in central England, we've just been through the coldest April since 1986 according to Met Office data. Only weather we're told, but had it been the warmest since 1986 we'd see it in BBC headlines.

As an aside, I wonder how the coronavirus debacle is shaping up locally - might be worth checking. We've been in all day so we should be safe from the rampaging pandemic. 

Little Red Wokehood

Little Red Wokehood meets Reality
source

As we know, Grimm’s fairy tales were at least partly intended to instil obedience into children. Those dark forests full of lurking dangers such as wolves, witches and the equally frightful prospect of becoming lost among huge gloomy trees.

As we also know, governments spin scary fairy tales for much the same reason except this time both adults and children are supposed to be scared into general obedience. We have seen the most blatant example of this during the coronavirus debacle.

Wolves are real and so is the virus, and like the wolf, the virus nobbles granny first. But of course the Grimm-like threat is exaggerated. Yet it seems more than likely that this fairy story will continue on into the future in one form or another. 

Book 2 is probably already written about the evil wizard Influenza. The only spell able to save us is a magic potion stored in a hypodermic syringe.

Woke stories have much the same aim. Fairy tales about climate change, far right wolves roaming the forests where decent folk don't go. Tales of an enchanted green land where unfortunately the wrong word can put you under an evil spell and only a kiss from a polyamorous gender fluid princess sets you free. It’s all about obedience. 

Litmus Joe

Even from this side of the Atlantic, Joe Biden’s inadequacy has been obvious for some time, certainly from well before the presidential election. Apart from anything else, it adds credence to claims that he did not receive that unprecedented number of votes in 2020.

If we set aside all the arguments about voting irregularities and merely ask whether or not people would vote for such a man in such huge numbers.

If we treat the question as an opinion where some will see that Biden’s lack of credibility is an embarrassing problem with democratic implications, some will not see it and that is as far as we can go.

If we assume that a significant number of Democrats did not want an obviously inadequate president.

We end up with a litmus test.

Biden never was a convincing candidate. His unpopular running mate did nothing to improve the situation. It hasn’t taken long, but as time goes on, Biden looks less and less like a president who could ever have won the election fairly.

Impressions matter and this one seems to be creeping around the Biden presidency like a stinking vapour of rotting democratic values, the mephitic mess that is US politics.

In later years

He would always be one of those egotists who can see no one right but themselves; who, in later years, will slip behind the times and make themselves fools because they do not know that time, weather, habit, philosophy and religion have all changed while they were blustering.

Hugh Walpole - The Bright Pavilions (1940)

A disturbing quote if we think of our civilisation as one of those egotists. It is surely plausible that our western civilisation could turn out to have been a temporary anomaly. One which rose from nowhere and is destined to fade back into a feudal future where most of our technical, scientific, cultural and legal achievements are slowly forgotten.

Perhaps not so odd if sustainable turns out to mean primitive. That would be primitive for the peasants of course - not everyone.

Consider the dominance of woke politics, climate change, gender politics, race politics, the coronavirus debacle, immigration, mainstream media. Now add Joe Biden to the mix.

Who first invented stupidity?

A heated academic debate is building up over the invention of stupidity. When was it first invented and where should the credit go? Unusually in the case of important inventions, no country claims to be the first to have invented stupidity.

I put this vital question to Dr Baz Broxtowe of Fradley University. Dr Baz is engaged in research into the historical origins of stupidity. His team at Fradley has built an AI system to probe this vexed issue, a system they call COVID, or the Cultural Origins of Voluntary Idiot Development.

“We always assume that stupidity has been around forever,” Dr Baz explained, to me over a quick coffee at Fradley, “but modern stupidity appears to be fundamentally different in that it is both voluntary and sustainable.”

“Voluntary and sustainable?” I asked. Obvious question I thought, but as Dr Baz explains so well, stupidity can be sustainable.

“Yes, voluntary in that intelligent people often choose to be stupid in certain areas where it is advantageous.”

“How can it be advantageous to be stupid?” Another obvious question although I soon realised that I already knew the answer to this one.

“Professionally advantageous usually,” Dr Baz replied. "Acquiring a prominent position by promoting a dumb but widely accepted consensus for example." He pointed to a notice on the wall about gender diversity training.

“Okay I sort of see that, but what about sustainable?”

“Stupidity can be sustainable in the sense that certain socially important modes of stupidity persist for prolonged periods without any real risk of fading away. We must regard this key type of stupidity as socially useful stupidity. We should view it as a valued tool in the armoury of the ambitious. Otherwise it would not be sustainable. Simple really, but so often mistaken for unsustainable stupidity.”

“A valued tool?” Another obvious question I thought, but Dr Baz has some interesting theories to back up his assertion and I was beginning to grasp his drift.

“Yes, stupidity as a valued tool. Sustainable stupidity tells us that society can and indeed must accommodate this kind of stupidity because of its inherent value. Even more striking is that sustainable stupidity cannot be stupid except in some kind of outdated and elitist sense.”

“Okay I think I get that too,” I replied. “But how does one begin to research the origins of stupidity?”

“It isn’t easy, but we have developed our COVID system to track and classify instances of stupidity throughout recorded history. There are some obvious modern clues though.”

“Such as?”

“Joe Biden for one,” spluttered Dr Baz, almost choking on his coffee. “I mean… I mean Joe Biden as US Prez…” He burst out laughing and it was some time before he was able to resume normal service.

“But that was very recent,” I pointed out. “It hardly constitutes an analysis of historical trends.”

“Yes, yes I suppose you are right,” Dr Baz admitted, wiping his eyes with a tissue. “But another one is the idea that climate parameters can be predicted for thirty years into the future.”

At this point Dr Baz was laughing so uncontrollably that he fell off his chair. As someone who pays for green electricity and recycles a substantial number of yogurt pots I couldn’t help feeling somewhat offended. I gathered up my notes and left. Dr Baz was still laughing.