BETTY WHITE and her sister.

OPEN THREAD: I don’t have a clever line, this video just really reminds me of Spinal Tap.

BAH. AT THIS POINT, ANGELS VISITING EARTH WOULD BE TREATED AS EXTRATERRESTRIALS RATHER THAN THE OTHER WAY AROUND. How would humans respond to the discovery of aliens? NASA enlisted dozens of religious scholars to find out.

MARC THIESSEN: The 10 worst things Biden did in 2021. “That’s a shameful list, but it only scratches the surface.”

KEVIN ROCHE: Get the Hell Out of Here 2021 and Oh, Shit, Here Comes 2022.

The administration of floundering bozos who currently run the country are desperate to get out of the epidemic. Nothing, literally nothing is going right for them and they can’t really highlight other issues (although what winning issues the whackos fantasize they have is beyond the ken of mortal man, or woman) until they can declare an end to and victory over the epidemic. You can read the tea leaves from Fauci, Walensky, et al, the political stooges of the White House. Backtracking as fast as they can from their former rigid orthodoxy about how the epidemic had to be handled. Suddenly PCR tests aren’t reliable indicators of infectiousness and maybe every hospitalization and death attributed to CV-19 actually wasn’t caused by it. Two Democrat governors have said very clearly that mask mandates are worthless and masks do nothing to stop the spread. I am shocked that they were not instantly struck down with lightening bolts for such heretical apostasy to the mask religion. The mass media, which is slavishly devoted to the interests of the progressive wing of the Dumocrat party, is even publishing articles about the need to move on.

Nothing is going to stop the butt-kicking coming in November, but it will be magnitudes worse if we aren’t out of the epidemic by then, so I predict that sometime in the spring, the Presidementia will declare victory and do everything possible to end all restrictions and return to “normal”, if we even remember what that was. He and his party have to get the CV-19 millstone off their necks. Too late for the generation of children whose mental health and life goal attainment we have so substantially damaged. And just like that, the epidemic will be over and will recede into the background, no matter what new variants arise.

The pivot began this week.

BUT THEN HE WOULDN’T BE JOE BIDEN: Biden would be a better president if he stopped saying things that aren’t true.

REVEALED PREFERENCES: Let’s Go Brandon store chain to expand in New England: ‘Business is very, very good.’

COCKTAIL NEWS YOU CAN USE: For New Year’s Eve, Make a Sidecar.

HOPES FOR HIGHER ED REFORM IN 2022:  The James G. Martin Center staff give us their best hopes for the New Year.

IT LOOKS LIKE THE HERONS THAT KEEP EATING THE GOLDFISH FROM MY FISHPOND: The Largest Known Flying Animal Was Even Weirder Than We Thought.

CHRISTOPHER FERGUSON:  My resignation from the American Psychological Association.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Dramatic Testimony from the Maxwell Case Will Shock You!

JEFFREY CARTER: They Are Morons. “Our current occupants of the White House are truly dumb. They aren’t intelligent in the least. There are people that you will meet in the average grocery store line that have more intellect, and are more thoughtful than those two. That occurred to me when watching this response to a question on inflation.”

They weren’t selected for their intellects, or their independence, or for their principles. Rather the reverse.

COFFEE: IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Best News of 2021: Coffee Is Incredibly Good for You. Maybe your New Year’s resolution should be an easy one: drink more coffee.

GOOD: Taiwan Is Getting 40 New Paladin Howitzers from the United States.. “The Paladins bring more mobile capability to Taiwan’s artillery, and brings to the table GPS-guided shells precise enough to pose a threat to targets like landing craft and armored vehicles.”

LONG READ FOR THE LAST DAY: Everything Is Clear From Up Here – The Good Citizen.

You will see from up here that there are no free markets, no stable currencies, no guarantee of food on the shelves where you shop tomorrow. You will come to realize that if the last two years can be planned, engineered, and carried out with no consequences and such utter disdain for humanity, there is nothing they won’t do to terrorize or kill innocent people for their ends. You will see there are no sciences uncorrupted, no academics who can’t be bought, no doctors who wouldn’t mechanically suffocate your grandmother after destroying her kidneys for a chance to increase their salary and keep their license. No corporate entity or government agency that wouldn’t lie, cheat, steal, gaslight to keep the truth from you, and you from the truth. You will see that liberty is not an assumption, it cannot be assumed anywhere on earth if not fought for constantly, while its gates can never be unguarded ever again. You will see that if you want any semblance of liberty again you will have to depend only on yourself, and trust none of those you once trusted who have not made it to the mountain top yet, who cannot yet see all that you see with perfect fearless clarity. In this profound realization, you will feel alone, but you must know that you are not.

Read the whole thing.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: AOC Responds to Miami Beach Photo Controversy: ‘Where’s DeSantis?’

DeSantis’s spokeswoman, Christina Pushaw, told Fox News the governor was accompanying his wife, Casey, to cancer treatment on Wednesday, when critics began accusing him of dodging his responsibilities. DeSantis announced in October that Casey had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Pushaw also tweeted out a picture of the governor’s public schedule in response to criticism from MSNBC host Joy Reid.

Marc Caputo of NBC tweets that “DeSantis plans to attend the Orange Bowl game tonight in Miami. He’s scheduled to have an on-field event.”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Teachers union press release raises today’s deep question: Is our educators schoolin’?

The point of the press release was to demand more protection for teachers against COVID-19 transmission as a condition of reopening schools in Virginia, the epicenter of the parents-rights movement. As the New York Post gleefully suggests, the letter raises the more basic question of whether parents ought to send their children to Arlington schools at all:

Despite the letter only consisting of five paragraphs, the Twitter teacher spotted roughly 20 blunders and highlighted them in green pen.

Addressed to Arlington Schools Superintendent Dr. Francisco Duran, the union letter highlights the recent spread of the coronavirus and argues for a delayed resumption of classes in January to address the issue.

The document also asserts that continuing with indoor lunch in the midst of the surge creates “super-spreader” events inside schools and that teachers are having to make the “ultimate sacrifice” as Omicron cases multiply.

The “ultimate sacrifice”? That’s not a grammar failure; it’s a rhetorical absurdity. Teachers have had all the opportunities to get vaccinated that everyone else has — and more, since they were prioritized while vaccines were still being rationed. Furthermore, Omicron has barely moved the needle on deaths, and it’s still not clear that we have any more than a handful of cases worldwide where Omicron caused a death. Or even one, as Matt Taibbi and Matt Orfalea point out (video NSFW), nor are teachers unions the only one indulging in rhetorical absurdities:

Related: CNN Brian Stelter Upset Gov. Ron DeSantis Says People Should “Assume” Corporate Media Lies.

NO ONE HAS BEEN MORE UNRESTRAINEDLY SELFISH THAN THE TEACHERS’ UNIONS: Randi Weingarten’s attempts to rewrite school-closings history won’t fly.

A NEW YEAR’S TOAST TO THE ELIXIR THAT MADE US WHAT WE ARE: How Alcohol Saved Civilization.  Why are humans the only species that deliberately, systematically, and regularly gets drunk? Edward Slingerland offers a witty, erudite and novel explanation to this old evolutionary puzzle: Because alcohol has always been an essential lubricant, trust-builder and stimulant enabling large-scale societies to flourish. I review (and highly recommend) his book: Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization.

FAREWELL TO 2021, 2020’S DULL HANGOVER:

Joe Biden, meanwhile, spent much of 2021 slipping on banana peels and trying to pass it off as rhythmic gymnastics. Spring brought gas lines and inflation and crime, the 1970s without the gnarly sideburns. Hot Vax Summer was canceled as the delta variant made itself comfortable. The troops finally left Afghanistan, yes, but not before the Taliban had occupied Kabul, driving home just how little progress we’d made in that country. Pressed for answers, Biden’s Democrats seemed unable to do anything except spend money, and even then their Build Back Better package ended up in the Senate’s legislative graveyard.

2021, then, really was like the 1970s, in that it felt like a collective hangover, like we were too ensnared in entropy and sclerosis to solve our own problems, or even grasp what the solutions should be. We couldn’t beat Covid with masks; we couldn’t whip inflation with government dollars (huh?); we couldn’t remake Afghanistan into a Madisonian democracy; we couldn’t even keep Kim and Kanye together for the love of God. Zoom in the lens and you saw more quarantines, more canceled plans, a collective sick-day sigh as we sprawled back on the couch and flipped on episode 724 of the 42nd season of Friends — again.

That isn’t to say 2021 was all bad, of course. We managed to annoy the French, which is always great fun. The judiciary held up well: our juries put away some bad guys and acquitted some not-so-bad ones, while the Supreme Court looks poised to strike down the most heinous legal precedent of the 20th century. And it’s worth emphasizing that the worst many of us had to endure this year was another socially distanced brunch. I don’t mean to downplay the very real grief of this pandemic, but the Black Death this is not, and we should be grateful for that.

Marking a bad year should always be a comparative exercise, and so it is that we turn to the historians, who say the worst year in human history was not 2020 but 536 AD. That was when the world literally went dark thanks to a mysterious fog that researchers now attribute to a volcanic eruption in Iceland. This caused temperatures to drop, which caused crops to die, which caused mass famines.

I blame the lack of federal emission standards on sixth century SUVs.

JON GABRIEL: Why New Year’s Eve might be the worst day we celebrate.

New Year’s Eve just isn’t a holiday for introverts. Gathering with loved ones around a turkey or a tree is great, but strangers spilling cheap beer on my jacket while screaming “isn’t this awesome?” doesn’t spark a celebratory mood.

Another reason I don’t care for New Year’s celebrations: They’re filled with drunk people who shout “Wooo!” I don’t like being in places where people shout “Wooo!” It’s like the partiers are trying to convince themselves (and everyone around them) that they they’re having fun, but even they don’t believe it.

This is the same reason I avoid Vegas. If you’re into gambling, drinking and … other activities, just do your thing. But if you shout “Wooo” at me, I’ll return the favor tomorrow as you nurse your hangover.

To be fair, I don’t object to people who are culturally Wooish and only observe the high holidays:

RIP, SUE ANN: Betty White, Dead at 99. “A source close to Betty tells TMZ … she didn’t have any sudden illness, nor was she battling any particular ailment. We’re told she’s believed to have died from natural causes. Beloved actress, comedian and American icon Betty White has died, just weeks before a milestone birthday … TMZ has learned. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ … Betty passed away at her home just before 9:30 AM Friday.”

FLASHBACK: Officials like Fauci have undermined trust in government institutions.

AMERICAN DIGEST: Long Read for the Last Day: Everything Is Clear From Up Here – The Good Citizen. “You can’t take a holy man away from the top of a mountain, but you sure can scare a scoundrel the hell out of a middle manager’s cubicle.”