Rollins's Review, December 30

On my favorite Substack columns this week

Dec 30, 2022

Here is how it goes down: The world is a nasty place, with lots of people enthusiastically blasting and enslaving each other, stealing stuff from lots of people who don’t have much and giving that stolen stuff to a few people who already have a lot. The people who have a lot keep doing this and no one stops them because they set the parameters for the …

5 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · H.P. De Veer

This is how it is. I could not improve on this essay on the fundamental cruelty and inhumanity of wokeness by H. P. De Veer if I tried.

Principled Bicycling

Never Trust Bureaucrats (or Journalists) Always Verify

The Anointed Ones insist there be bicycle lanes on Convoy Ave in San Diego, per the Master Plan. According to this Andrew Bowen of KPBS (the area’s local NPR arm) article, they're coming soon. Thanks for reading Principled Bicycling! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work…

5 months ago · Green Leap Forward

Principled Bicycling, by Green Leap Forward, is one of those blogs that isn’t about what you think it’s about, while at the same time being about exactly what you think it’s about. I’ve been waiting GLF to post something new so I could boost their blog, which is one of the best on Substack.

bitches gotta eat!

who's on judge mathis today? #253

plaintiff: michelle from anderson, indiana. i’ve been sick since the middle of october then in and out of the hospital this month and last month and here is the final diagnosis: my poor body is a toilet. in addition to shitting blood every single day and sweating through my clothes every night (sometimes i have to change my pajamas two different times…

5 months ago · samantha irby

bitches gotta eat! by samantha irby is willfully dumb and laugh-out-loud funny. Well worth reading.

Clandestine’s Newsletter

Russian MIL Begin Naming Names! Fauci and Collins of the NIH Created C19!

Biological Update from Russian Ministry of Defense, pertaining to the conclusion of the Ninth Review Conference of the BWC. To put it briefly, no ground was made. The West blocked all proposals put forth by Russia to amend the Biological Weapons Convention, in order to hold the US accountable for their actions in Ukraine…

5 months ago · 461 likes · 39 comments · Clandestine

I have no idea if Clandestine of Clandestine’s Newsletter is on the level or not, or if any of what’s being said in this post is true. It’s thought-provoking (and spicy as hell), though.

The Popehat Report

Can A Tarot Card Reading Be Defamatory?

I know I’m like a broken record about it: defamation requires a provably false statement of fact, as opposed to a statement that cannot be proven true or false, like an opinion, an insult, hyperbole or rhetoric not intended to be taken factually, and so forth…

5 months ago · 107 likes · 55 comments · Ken White

Ken White of The Popehat Report is a divisive figure. His legal analysis is funny and incisive, though, and as an acquired taste myself, I’ve decided I don’t give a shit if he’s divisive—I enjoy reading him.

Classical Ideals

The Artificial Woman

There is a poem by Pushkin called The Hapless Knight. It is about a knight who finds his nobility against the image of the immaculate woman, the perfect woman. She is worthy enough that the Knight will save the world just for her. This story is not new, nor does it belong just to the Russian Canon of literature. It can also be read in Dante’s…

5 months ago · 27 likes · 23 comments · Megha Lillywhite

Megha Lillywhite is the best writer on the subject of femininity, period. If she has something to say about womanhood, or what it is to be a woman, I’m on board.

Singal-Minded

In 2023, Let’s Rediscover Wrongness

Few articles could better sum up the media and intellectual landscape of 2022 than this one published late last month in The Guardian: “Ancient Apocalypse is the most dangerous show on Netflix.” The subheadline: “A show with a truly preposterous theory is one of the streaming giant’s biggest hits – and it seems to exist solely for conspiracy theorists. …

5 months ago · 137 likes · 57 comments · Jesse Singal

I try not to boost Substack’s whales too much in these weekly Review posts. Jesse Singal’s post on the distinction between wrongness and harmfulness was so good, and so timely, it seemed like it was worth breaking that rule. Jesse is one of my favorite The Last Reasonable Man journalists, and worth reading in any case. This post is characteristically excellent.