I had a patient nearly succeed in killing herself recently, despite my best efforts to intervene. She is a type of patient that scares every doctor: She doesn’t like medicines or ‘chemicals’ that she doesn’t understand, but she takes 20 pills a day of various supplements and herbal remedies that she doesn’t understand.  She complains of an endless list of bizarre symptoms (her left eye cramps when she urinates or whatever), when the only diagnoses on her chart are fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and anxiety.  She lists 14 drug allergies, but the symptoms experienced with those drug allergies don’t make any sense.  And worst of all, she says, “I know my body.”  I get chills just thinking about it.

That patient is dangerous, because one of these days, she’ll actually get sick, and I’ll miss a recognizable disease in all the random background noise of her being in touch with her body.  And then I’ll have to explain to the husband how his wife died of a bladder infection while under my care.

On her first visit with me last year, Karen opened the conversation:  “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

It’s time for red states to call the NCAA’s bluff.

The NCAA is a private non-profit organization funded in large part by public institutions, ostensibly for the purpose of promoting intercollegiate athletics. It has morphed into a political organization that has in recent years bullied states by threatening to withhold events due to transgender bathroom legislation, the confederate flag, holding class on Martin Luther King Day to make up for a missed class day, and now because of Georgia’s voting integrity law. It long ago should have been reined in but the threats have been effective because the target was always isolated.

So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. ¹¹ He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. ¹² And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. ¹³ He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. ¹⁴ He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. ¹⁵ He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. ¹⁶ He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men^[a] and your donkeys, and put them to his work. ¹⁷ He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. ¹⁸ And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

This has unintentionally turned into a sort of “Notes to Mr. Boudreaux” series, but for good reason.  He has regularly touched on what I have found to be the most discouraging (and even shocking) phenomenon of the past year.  I have written about why that surprise, for anyone well acquainted with the history of totalitarianism, is largely unfounded.  But while otherwise right-thinking individuals have always had that one event or set of circumstances that cause them to demand protection from a king, it is still somewhat jarring when it happens with your own friends, while you plead in vain with them to open their eyes and turn around.

China is a nation with 1.3 billion people, an economy projected to become bigger than the United States’ in just a few years, and a rapidly growing military.  Hong Kong has already fallen under its authority. Meanwhile, Taiwan looms in the distance—with a population of almost 24 million, it’s a technology hub and the world’s leading manufacturer of microchips and other items essential to high tech. What are China’s ambitions toward Taiwan? And if they are ominous, what should the US response to Chinese aggression be? To answer these questions, we’re joined by two experts: former national security advisor (and current Hoover Institution senior fellow) H. R. McMaster and former US deputy national security advisor (and current Hoover distinguished visiting fellow) Matthew Pottinger. They also discuss the Biden administration’s recent diplomatic encounters with China, and which countries might be allies in a conflict with China—and which ones would not be.

This is a sequel/update of my earlier post Fire Wallensky.

Our deeply pathetic CDC Director Rochelle (“Impending Doom”) Wallensky responded to the news of an increase in cases in Michigan by saying Michigan must “close everything.”  First off, now that we know with some certainty that SARS-COVID-19 has very definite seasonal preferences in very distinct regional patterns, an uptick at the same time of year in the same places was not a surprise or grounds for panic. Second, we know with some certainty that lockdowns and closure orders have enormous empirically verifiable costs and extensive harms but little or no impact on the spread of the virus.  Third, the COVID-19 fatality rate per case is dropping rapidly as COVID fatalities remain low.  Overall,  CDC counts of US excess death continue to drop rapidly.  (Dr. Wallensky can find that info in graphic form on this CDC web page.) Fourth, given the highly predictable curve of a COVID-19 outbreak, Michigan is likely already on the downslope for case numbers, once again averting “impending doom.”

Holy Toledo.  This woman serves in The United States House of Representatives.  She’s not somebody’s drunk aunt, or a wild eyed drug-addled conspiracy-screaming homeless person, or even a Sociology professor.

She’s a congressperson.  Holy Toledo.  I don’t even know how to respond to this.  The police engage in government funded murder.  Because America is inherently racist.  So no more police, and no more jails.  Right.  Ok.  That should go well.  Brilliant idea.

The Democrat Party has serious problems.

I find it difficult to imagine that Martin Luther was the first Catholic priest who became displeased with how the Church was being managed at the time.  I’m sure the Catholic Church had dealt with cranks before; the holier than thou types who think the leadership of the church is losing focus on God while it pursues money or whatever.  Most Protestant churches have at least a couple of these people in them even today.  “Why are we buying new paint for our church when children are starving in Africa?!?”  You know the type.  So Martin Luther was probably not the first to question the Catholic Church.  Many had before, and many still do.  But Martin Luther had an enormous impact – more than those who came before him.  Why?

Many historians argue that it was the printing press that really changed The Catholic Church, and thus changed history, more than Martin Luther did.  I don’t claim to be an expert in this topic, but this is not a new concept.  Martin Luther came along just at the right time, and the new technology of the day changed him from just another crank to an influential figure of enormous historical significance.  It wasn’t one man who changed Christianity – it was a new technology – the printing press.  Which brings me to identity politics and modern leftism.

Hope Trautwein struck out all 21 batters Sunday in a 3-0 University of North Texas win at Arkansas-Pine Bluff yesterday. She struck out 21 batters two other times in her career, but this appears to be the first 21 strike-out perfect game in NCAA Women’s Softball history. Hope played high school softball in Pflugerville, an Austin suburb to its northeast.

I thought this was a welcome bit of fresh air amidst the MLB’s campaign to alienate most of its audience. (I would have cross-posted this in the National Pastime Group, but our group focuses on baseball, and we baseball nuts can be a bit conservative about the game’s boundaries.)