Mad, Bad & Sad

There’s always something to look forward to

Sorry to say, but “bad news sells” because good news doesn’t.

Obviously, news media have known this for decades, (“if it bleeds it leads”) which is why following the news is so depressing. But don’t blame the media. You’re to blame.

See, humans have a “negativity bias”. The kindest excuse we can provide for this is that it is an evolutionary survival mechanism designed to help us keep alert to dangers. I’m not so sure about that, because it seems to me that bad news inspires imitation, and I can’t believe that is a good survival mechanism.

Nevertheless, I’ve tried to sell good news over the years and — apart from the occasional patronising pat on the back — have received no reward for it. The closest I’ve got is to dress mad, bad or sad news up as satire. But recently I’ve come to realize that people can’t distinguish satire from reality, so that’s not a rewarding path to follow either.

I’m writing this on Halloween Day and have assembled a few snippets of news to present to you from last week to help assuage your negativity bias. And aid your survival.

Ah, Halloween, that night of fun when hyperactive children are encouraged to run around the neighbourhood banging on strangers’ front doors demanding more and more coloured sugar (and to pee through the letter box if they don’t receive it), while their parents dress up as pumpkins, or wear Donald Trump masks, and mouth inanities to each other around the barbeque.

I, of course, will not be wearing a Donald Trump mask tonight because I have just read that the American lefties who took to the streets to demand that “No Kings” be permitted in the USA were running carnival kiosks where children were invited to violently stab effigies of Donald Trump. Hyperactive children — too much sugar — knives — effigies of Donald Trump? More bad news on the way, I fear.

I mentioned mad, bad and sad news above and you’re probably wondering what is the distinction. Good point. You decide.

The British National Trust, which looks after the country’s heritage buildings and proud history, has recently installed tampon dispensers in the men’s lavatories. The wall-mounted dispenser is labelled, ‘Got a period situation going on? We got you.’ I’m a little confused as to which demographic this initiative is aimed. Is it women who feel like they’d prefer to be men (“Transmen”), and wish to use men’s toilets? Or is it men who feel like they’d prefer to be women (“Transwomen”) and believe it’s discriminatory not to be given the opportunity for a free tampon or two, and presumably are afraid they’ll be beaten-up if they go to the ladies’ lavatories to get them?

The streets of Britain were as full as ever this week with people in face masks and black shirts calling for an end to the ceasefire in Gaza. (Or perhaps they were calling for a resumption of the war in Gaza. It wasn’t clear.) Any way, what was clear was that a man wearing a Star of David necklace (just 2 cm in diameter) was offending the chanting crowd by his mere presence, so he was immediately handcuffed, arrested and detained for ten hours. Here in New Zealand, a female lawyer silently holding an Israeli flag as thousands of “Palestine Protesters” marched past her calling for the death of all Jews has similarly been charged and will appear in court two years after being arrested. Now, surely that’s good news? Our streets must be kept safe.

Brendan O’Neill in The Spectator on October 10, summed it up better than anyone:

‘Israel has become a Satan substitute for a godless activist class, the devil against which they measure their own decency. If this war ends, so might their false religion. They wear the holy garments of Israelophobia so that others will know the depth of their devotion to the cause: the keffiyeh around the necks, the Palestine flag draped like a pashmina over their shoulders. They repeat Israelophobia’s mantras, with little thought but great bombast. Witness how ‘From the river to the sea’ usurped ‘Trans women are women’ as the mating call of Woke’s true believers.‘

Now for some good news.

The illegal-migrant sex offender who was meant to be released from a British prison in order to be deported, but instead was released into the “community” (and shooed away five times by the prison staff when he tried to return) was eventually caught and flown out of the country. His reluctance to board the plane was eased upon presentation of a little 500 pound cash sweetener. The good news is that the sweetener saved the Brits 8,000 pounds in airfare cancellations, and many thousands of pounds in “human rights” lawyers’ fees had he decided to dig his heels in. The lesson here is that, if you want a free airfare to Africa with spending money, enter Britain illegally and try raping a 14-year old girl.

More good news.

Cleaning up Rio for COP30

The Brazilian Government has been working hard to ensure that Rio de Janeiro’s streets are clean and safe for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP30, next week. Taking bold and decisive action — which bureaucrats everywhere could do well to copy — they sent the police in to clear out the drug dealers from the favelas. The tactic was simple. Drive them into the nearby forest and shoot them all. To make sure the lesson was well-learned, they cut one man’s head off and put it on display together with the 132 corpses they laid out in the street. This good news will go some way to defraying the bad news that Bill Gates has chosen this week to announce that he doesn’t think climate change will destroy the world after all. So, that’s one less international talk fest he has to attend.

Finally, at the risk of being accused of Islamophobia, I thought I should mention the news from Sudan. It seems that the Arab Islamic militia, RSF, has entered the city of El Fasher and started killing non-Arab ethnic Africans. They are so dedicated to the task that the bodies and pools of blood can be seen from satellites in space.

Since the early 2000s this ethnic cleansing of indigenous black African groups by Arab militias has seen an estimated 300,000 people killed in Darfur, and recently led to 12,000,000 people being uprooted and a further 150,000 killed. It’s not known how many have died from famine. I guess this would only be news if there were Jewish communities living there and they dared to fight back.

Luckily the United Nations is aware of the situation.

Just another Mad, Bad, Sad week for news.

Enjoy your Halloween.

A.I. Fabler

October 31, 2025