Monthly Archives: February 2022

-- Jordan Peterson talks with Dr. Julie Ponesse about the connection between massive protests by truckers in Ottawa and the massive protests by members of the news media against Joe Rogan.

"Your observation that the truckers and the Joe Rogans are serving as redemptive agents is a reflection of the brilliance of the idea of individual sovereignty as the basis for political stability," Peterson thought.

"Who should you consult? Not just the people with the ideas. The people who drive the trucks. Well, why? They're navigating the roads. They're delivering the goods, in a real sense. So they know things."

"They are the people. They have families. Their life is real, it is not abstracted to the point where the abstractions themselves become a problem," he said.

And I thought: Just winging it, eh? You try just winging it in front of 11 million people for five years and see if you're still standing, buddy? Do you think just winging it is so easy?

Well, first of all, why aren't you doing it if it is so damn easy?

And second, isn't it something that with all your resources, you can only garner one-tenth of the audience of one man who has like zero production expertise in a studio. He just puts it out online, and all he does is have honest conversations.

Insofar as he is capable of that. Joe stumbles and he knows and admits that. Sometimes he gets too buttoned-down on a given point. But fundamentally he's just trying to do what we're doing here.

...

Keep at it, guys. Every time you attack him, it is a million more subscribers for Joe. If they kick him off Spotify, he would have a new platform in two days with twice as many listeners.

Joe has gotten to the point where, as long as he continues to be careful, and he is, I don't think he can be canceled. In fact, I think all the attempts to cancel him only redound to his credit and increase the rapidity with which he is destroying the entire legacy media.

...

The only real rationale for opposing free speech, apart from ignorance... is the conclusion that you've already figured it all out. Or you're trying to hide something. Those two things go hand in hand quite frequently.

It is very often that people who are trying to hide something justify themselves with a kind of totalitarian certainty about their beliefs. They double down on them to hide their own moral iniquities.

You have to believe that people like Rogan shouldn't be allowed to just have a discussion with whoever they want and wing it --and you think that people you think you already know. If your life is perfect and you're already living in the Kingdom of God, more power to you. Maybe you're right and you can shut down discourse because the heavenly heights have already been scaled, but I haven't met anyone like that yet.

Most people I know think with not too much thought that there are some things they still have to learn and there are some ways their lives could be improved. How are we going to approach that?

If you want to find out how you're wrong, you should talk to people who don't agree with you. Maybe 90% of what they say is not worth attending to, could be, probably the same goes for you, but 10% might be just what saves you in the next crisis.

This is one of the things I loved about being a clinician. I talked to lots of people who were different from me. Like seriously different from me. And if I wasn't learning something from them it was because I wasn't conducting the discourse properly. They taught me invaluable things.

...

You want to differentiate and assess your own beliefs. Why?

Your beliefs aren't a set of facts at your disposal. Your beliefs are tools that you use to navigate the world. And the more finely tuned those tools -- like, I have a shed at home with all sorts of power tools in it. One of the things I learned from renovating houses is that if the job is difficult, you don't have the right tool. And you can go down to Home Depot which has like 50,000 square feet of tools, which is phenomenal. And you can find a little gadget that someone spent half their lifetime devising and it makes that job easy. That's ideas. Ideas are tools. They're not facts.

DR. JULIE PONESSE: And you have to sharpen them. And take care of them. And keep them from getting rusty. And put them away with the right way. Your metaphor is beautiful.

So talking about both the trucker situation and the Joe Rogan situation. It seems in many respects like intellectuals, or elites, have gotten us into this mess. And it is the truckers and the Joe Rogans of the world who are getting us out of it, arguably. What does this say about education, academics, civil discourse, and democracy, moving forward?

JORDAN PETERSON: Well, it says that the highest and the lowest always have to be united. And what that means in some sense is that ---

Well, I learned that in part from watching Wagner's Die Meistersinger (The Master Singer), the opera. The libretto elaborates on that theme in an absolutely stellar manner. In his opera, it details out the actions of guilds of men. And each guild is made out of domain experts. One of the heroes is a cobbler, an expert shoemaker... and if you're a good enough cobbler, you get to sing. And if you're a good enough singer, you get to elect a Master Singer.

It is a lovely structured sequence of metaphors. And so one of the things Wagner did so well in that opera was to point out that true expertise means the differentiation of abstract knowledge all the way down to the point of behavioral implementation. This is one thing I really like about being trained as a behavioral psychologist. I'm very interested in psychoanalytic theory, but it is very abstract. Existential psychology is very abstract, the meaning of life stuff.

Like, yeah, but where does the rubber hit the road? Well, the truckers know that! They really know that because they are down there moving goods to people. They're doing the actual work in the most fine-grade manner. They might have a problem with higher-order articulation. And it is up to their leaders --

DR. JULIE PONESSE: I'm not so sure about that! I challenge every Canadian to get themselves there to have a conversation with all of these truckers. They'd be very surprised.

JORDAN PETERSON: I'm not so sure either. They don't have trouble with enunciating blunt truths.

But you were pointing to problems among the intellectuals. The intellectual chattering class is criticizing the truckers. There's a divorce between the intellectualized ethical framework and the practical reality that working-class people represent.

Your observation that the truckers and the Joe Rogans are serving as redemptive agents is a reflection of the brilliance of the idea of individual sovereignty as the basis for political stability.

It's like, well who should you consult? Not just the people with the ideas. The people who drive the trucks.

Well, why? They're navigating the roads. They're delivering the goods, in a real sense. So they know things.

DR. JULIE PONESSE: They're talking to the people.

JORDAN PETERSON: You bet. They are the people. They have families. Their life is real, it is not abstracted to the point where the abstractions themselves become a problem.

...

You saw the same thing with the Yellow Jackets in France. Corrupt energy policies started to make energy too expensive for ordinary people "because we have to save the planet." Well, how about not on our backs there, guys?

We're going to see a lot more of that, I suspect. Especially if the elite-types with their Utopian schemes keep walling themselves up from the people they hypothetically represent.

This is why the U.K. voted for Brexit -- the common people thought, "Nope, [the E.U.] is too abstract. Too much of a Tower of Babel. The leaders have gotten too far away from the people they represent."

And I think they made the right decision, so, more power to Rogan and the truckers.

See more here:

Jordan Peterson: More Power To Joe Rogan And The Truckers - RealClearPolitics

Justin Herbert did something no other QB was able to do during the first half of Sundays Pro Bowl: He failed to throw an interception.

The NFC and AFC teams combined to throw six interceptions in a high-scoring first half that saw all six QBs get significant playing time. Russell Wilson threw two interceptions in eight pass attempts for the NFC while Kyler Murray and Kirk Cousins each had a pick. On the AFC side, Patrick Mahomes and Mac Jones each threw an interception among their 12 combined attempts while Herbert was 5-of-6 passing for 77 yards and two touchdowns.

We also shouldn't forget Buffalo Bills WR Stefon Diggs. He completed a pass for 15 yards and didn't get intercepted. Here's to you, Stefon.

Murray got the turnover party started on the first drive of the game with a pick-six to Indianapolis Colts linebacker Darius Leonard. The NFC got a pick-six later in the half from Antoine Winfield as he intercepted Mahomes on fourth down and then returned the ball to the end zone.

Both pick-sixes were, uh, easy returns in a half that ended with the AFC up 28-21. Thats because Sundays game had the physicality of a flag football game in the exhibition showcase. Many tackles were blown dead before players came close to touching the ground; simply grabbing an opponent was good enough for a tackle. At one point, the Browns Nick Chubb was called down simply because his undershirt was grabbed by a defender as he tried to run up field.

While the product on the field didnt resemble anything like the NFL fans are used to seeing, it was also understandable. No one needs to get injured in the Pro Bowl. But that lack of contact clearly didnt prevent any turnovers. Just ask those five quarterbacks.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - FEBRUARY 06: Teammates Antoine Winfield Jr. #31, Mike Evans #13 and Vita Vea #50 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers react in the first half of the game against the AFC during the 2022 NFL Pro Bowl at Allegiant Stadium on February 06, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Continued here:

AFC and NFC quarterbacks combine for six interceptions in first half of Pro Bowl - Yahoo Singapore News

Every year around this time, the parent company of Five-Hour Energy probably notices a blip in their stock price because of WFAA weatherman Pete Delkus.

That's when he stocks up on the stuff in preparation for his annual marathon of weather broadcasts for the (hopefully) single snow storm Dallas-Fort Worth gets in the winter.

"I just stay awake the whole time," Delkus says from Channel 8's newly built newsroom. "Ten or 15 years ago, in the room we'd have some sofas and stuff, and I'd lay down at 3 in the morning for 30 minutes. When I walked into the weather center, I was groggy and oh gosh, there's gonna be a tornado warning and it took me a minute to snap out of that fog."

Delkus says the bulk of the work of his marathon snow storm coverage starts long before the snow starts falling. Sometimes, people get unfair. They take to Facebook and Twitter to vent their frustration with the storm and Delkus just happens to be in their line of fire.

An old photo of a Zoli's sign expressing their rage at the weatherman seems to be making the rounds this year and even caught Delkus's attention on Facebook. There are many misconceptions about Delkus' job, aside from the fact that he only reports and does not actually control the weather.

"In the TV business, people think you only work when you're on TV," he says. "Like athletes, people only see when you play the game. The reality is all the hard work happens before the game begins."

For Delkus, the payoff is when he gets to interrupt regular programming and step in front of the weather map.

"Being on TV is the fun part," Delkus says. "You're getting paid to talk." Of course, things are considerably different with this year's storm. Last year, the air temperature in Dallas dropped to as low as 1 degree Fahrenheit and the cold lasted for five days, according to weather data from NASA.

Things can get a little heavy when the weather outlook gets more dangerous. Last year's winter weather storm led to an alarming number of power outages across the state as the electric grid failed under the record-breaking temperatures.

"That's when we have a responsibility," Delkus says. "Like that public servant, we're here to help people be safe, protect their families and stuff. That's a responsibility that none of us take too lightly but we certainly embrace and understand the heaviness of it if you will."

Even without a healthy amount of sleep, Delkus says he relishes the opportunity to inform his shivering viewers who make him a local trending topic on Twitter every year.

"That's good job security," Delkus says with a laugh. "That's what you hope for. You never set out to do that but it is a fun part of the job when you know you have people that trust you and rely on you for information. That's important to me but it's also nice to put a smile on someone's face."

The rest is here:

Pete Delkus Is North Texas' Bearer of Bad Weather News - Dallas Observer

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Following a tip, Khil's family, volunteers and law enforcement searched Cross Mountain Park in Fredericksburg earlier this week. However, the child wasn't located.

Our other most-read stories include Gov. Greg Abbott backpedaling on his claim the "lights will stay on" ahead of this week's freezing winter weather. His verbal acrobatics came just before30,000 San Antonians lost power in outages across the city Thursday. Also moving the meters was a review of Tool's blowout show at the AT&T Center this week.

Read on for these and more of the week's top 10 stories.

10. The reasons for Texas' population boom are more complex than politicians would have you believe

9. Texas elected officials and activists kick off weed decriminalization drive in San Marcos

8. 'Don't Houston My San Antonio': the majority of outsiders buying houses here are from Texas

7. San Antonio scores lackluster rating in annual ranking of world airports

6. In damning report, Texas Guard members call Gov. Greg Abbott's border deployment a disaster

5. Doctors' group asks feds to block San Antonio from giving COVID-relief funds to Texas Biomed

4. During Tool's show at San Antonio's AT&T Center, its songs took on new meaning

3. After guaranteeing the 'lights will stay on,' Texas Gov. Greg Abbott backpedals at press conference

2. Bad Takes: The 7 dumbest things Jordan Peterson said on Joe Rogan's podcast

1. Search for missing San Antonio girl Lina Khil shifted to Hill Country town of Fredericksburg

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The rest is here:

Lina Khil, Greg Abbott: The top 10 headlines in San Antonio this week - San Antonio Current