As IF Times

link: https://www.npr.org/2026/07/27/nx-s1-5909531/rand-paul-anthony-fauci-coronavirus-diary-lab-leak-origin

At long last the inevitable visit to Anthony Fauci is being made by Karma. Any rational person watching the Senate hearings on his actions during the pandemic era should be enraged not only at the scope and scale of accusations against him but also at his decision to hide behind the right to not incriminate himself by answering any questions posed to him.  This alone is odd when you consider that he was give a pre-emptive stay out of jail pardon for any of his actions at the end of Biden’s last term…just in case.   Pleading the fifth over a hundred times on every question posed of him is the legal equivalent of giving a hundred middle fingers to the committee.

Of course, the damage has been done.  The harm to the economy, to people’s lives, the disruption of all common sense and logic, is permanent. People died alone, businesses collapsed and a permanent divide appeared between the emotional, cultish believers and the skeptically rational.

Finally, it appears as if his egotistically driven behavior will be scrutinized under a rational lens.  It was not bad judgement; it seems to have been premeditated criminal action. While deeply detestable and evil, his most despicable influence was the marshalling of a vast army of enablers that were more than willing to wield their bureaucratic powers over a cowed population.  It was the largest foisting of HOA Karens in the history of the world and literally one of the largest reigns of terror ever experienced.

It’s tragically comical now to look back on the measures mandated by the pandemic police during those bizarre 4 to 5 years.  The masking, the standing 6 feet apart, the arrows on the floor in grocery stores, the quarantines, the closing of public spaces but above all the zeal with which newly empowered clerks carried about their roles. But the most heinous of course, was the forced vaccination of victims unable to resist official edicts.  As it is now obvious; it was all fake.  The dancing nurses in hospitals should have been a clue.  Sadly, to this day, people will still not acknowledge their naivete.

The whole point of the Nuremburg trials was to forever forbid atrocities against humans and that individuals, not just states, would be held responsible for such crimes.  So much for precedent.

But while Fauci and his willing minions waged their reign of made up terror, this all could not have happened without an hysterical media drumming their fear upon a compliant and meek public.  Without a complicit media, the hysteria could never have reached their preposterous levels. Notionally ‘intelligent’ people were as susceptible, if not more so, than the rubes.  They would hold their academic credentials as a shield against any logical rebuttal. Apparently, groupthink was a standard requirement in higher education. The silver lining, if there is one, to the evil that Fauci had engendered, is that now, under the sober light of day, rational, intelligent people can see how they were duped and unduly swayed by crushing peer pressure. If only this were so.

In fact, I suspect that there’s no lesson to be learned from this tragic period in human history.  While we should all have received a gigantic wake up call on the dangers of a biased media, of believing in politicians and putting too much faith in the ‘authorities’, this will not change the trajectory of the general population’s proclivity for submissiveness.   It’s probable that people will regret the whole episode and those responsible may or may not ever be brought to responsibility. Time will pass and the next ‘disaster’ will come along and the same lemming like behavior will manifest again.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of humans are influenced by only a very small percentage of strong individuals.  According to popular lore, only 3.5% of the population will move the other 96.5%.  It they happen to be despots, that number is probably smaller and history will repeat again.

Is this depressing?  Of course it is.  It means that regardless of how educated and knowledgeable you are, you will be subject to the tidal wave of a popular movement once an idea catches fire.   This is the reason that socialists continue to beat their drum.  They need the 3.5% to get their tin pot dictator to run the show.

link Obesity? Big Feet? Blame Darwin – WSJ.com.

In my opinion, an interesting article on some theories of human evolution.  Most of the discussion is about physical transformations and adaptations, but little is said about mental development.  If you had to guess, based on some of the theories put forth in the article, much of our thought processes must be linked somehow to tribal instincts as well.

Consider the propensity for people to rally around “heroes” in any field, be it entertainment, sports or politics.  There seems to be a natural urge to follow behind some figurehead, many of whom if analyzed logically, would be irrational choices.  Maybe there is some primitive urge on the part of people to coalesce as a tribal unit that’s at play here.  It may go a long way to explain some of the absurdities of some of today’s modern “heroes”.  There is of course the more simpler explanation that we gravitate to and support people who most resemble ourselves or aspired image of selves.  

While this may be valid for sports figures, it’s hard to stretch this explanation to cover political figures, especially with the dismal records most have.  Really, John Edwards aspirants? In the case of Barack Obama, one could argue his “differentness” attracted support among visible minorities.  If such is the case, why wouldn’t  non minorities vote for exclusively for the white guy?  Clearly in politics, “sameness” may not be the uniting glue of support.  Economics and quid pro quo may be  more determining factors. 

Is delusion a part of human evolution?  Do people suspend their individual power of reasoning against all evidence to support a tribal leader? In earlier times, maybe, since information would be harder to obtain than in our modern times.  Presumably, anyone now can get access to the facts on any issue and come to a rational conclusion, yet there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  An obvious example is the state of pensions in the United States, or perhaps for that matter, in Canada.  When the numbers are crunched, there is no possible way that public pensions will be able to pay out monies owed to beneficiaries when the time comes.  Yet, people willfully support candidates that tell them otherwise.  On the one hand, theory of evolution says that organisms will adapt for survival, but in the example just mentioned, people are consciously ignoring a fatal conclusion.  Maybe somewhere in the gene pool, some lemming DNA got thrown into the mix.

Modern western society may celebrate the individual in advertising and culture, but really, it appears as if we can’t really escape our evolutionary pull.  Groupthink is still in the genes.