In my latest Epoch Times column I ridicule government pride and priorities in sending one of our few remaining naval assets to Antarctica to confirm the state’s views on climate instead of defending Canada.
“It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. To have such knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense.”
W.I. Miller Humiliation, in header quotation in Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments” in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1999 Vol. 7 # 6
In my latest Loonie Politics column I write a letter of expectations so our rookie Prime Minister will understand what he has to achieve if he wants to get rehired when his probationary term is up.
“Government = a punchline without a joke.”
Comment by @mikeymike3760 on the Climate Discussion Nexus video “The Hottest Day Never” Oct. 16, 2024 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erBkSGvbZNs&lc=Ugw7r8cN9esgXuI-8HB4AaABAg].
“That human beings have rights; that they are born equal; that they are owed sustenance, and shelter, and refuge from persecution: these were never self-evident truths. The Nazis, certainly, knew as much – which is why, in today’s demonology, they retain their starring role. Communist dictators may have been no less murderous than fascist ones; but they – because communism was the expression of a concern for the oppressed masses – rarely seem as diabolical to people today. The measure of how Christian we as a society remain is that mass murder precipitated by racism tends to be seen as vastly more abhorrent than mass murder precipitated by an ambition to usher in a classless paradise. Liberals may not believe in hell; but they still believe in evil.”
Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
In my latest Epoch Times column I say a massive issue confronting the Liberals that was not discussed during the election is the increasing incompetence of the state at basic tasks as well as grandiose ones.
“When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in November 2016 an immediate reaction in the media, among Democrats and discomforted Republicans, and many besides, was that he should not be ‘normalized’. That such an ignorant, intemperate, corrupt buffoon was President was an enormity that was to the country’s shame and must be resisted. When Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister in November 2015 there was no such reaction in Canada. That a callow young man who had led a meandering life, who had never shown any interest in government, who was evidently both conceited and silly, should be Prime Minister simply because he had been famous since shortly after his conception, was nice looking, and was the son of a man who had been a bad Prime Minister for fifteen years over 30 years before, should sweep the country in the 2015 election was shameful. No one seems to have noticed.”
John Pepall in Dorchester Review #29 (Vol. 14 #3 Autumn 2024)
“People tend to hold overly favourable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across four studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability…”
Start of summary of the seminal paper by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments” in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1999 Vol. 7 # 6