Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - The O'Reilly Update, December 29, 2022

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

Joe Biden lands in the Caribbean, 4-in-10 Americans believe we are living in ‘End Times,’ Covid surges in China, New Zealand becomes the first country to ban cigarettes for the next generation. Plus, the O'Reilly Update Message of the Day, defeating the post-Christmas blues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, this is Mike Slater, host of the podcast Politics by Faith. Fill in for the great Bill O'Reilly. Thank you for being here. It's Thursday, December 29th, 2022. Only two days left in the year. You're listening to the O'Reilly Update. Here's what's happening today in America. Joe Biden lands in the Caribbean.

Four in ten Americans believe we are living in end times. COVID surges in China. and New Zealand becomes the first country to ban cigarettes for the next generation. Also coming up, the message of the day about the post-Christmas blues. Are you feeling any post-Christmas blues? Talk about how to get over that. Coming up next, but first, President Biden spending New Year's Eve in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the commander-in-chief arrived at St. Croix on Tuesday.

He's scheduled to return to Washington on January 2nd. That's one day before the Democrats seed control of the House of Representatives to the Republican Party following the November midterm elections. Of course, complicating the president's progressive agenda for the last two years of his first term, although knowing the squishiness of the Republicans, probably not complicating it that much. A survey

from Pew Research finds two in five Americans say we are living in the last days of humanity. That's 39% of adults believe the end is near when asked about the cause of the impending apocalypse. A majority cited the Bible, followed by a potential nuclear war with Russia, then

climate change. Nearly half the population thinks human beings will be extinct in the next 100 years. Cases of COVID are spiking in China. The Communist Party dropping their just draconian lockdown rules one month ago after violent protests broke out in Shanghai and Beijing. An officials say the disease is now impossible to track. According to the Chinese government, there are just 3,000 new infections each day. Health experts believe the actual figure is closer to 1 million new cases

every 24 hours. That's what zero lockdown got them. Just delaying the inevitable of everyone getting sick. New Zealand, the first country to ban the sale of tobacco products for the next generation. The new law will permanently prohibit

anyone born after January 1st, 2009, from buying cigarettes and cigars. Weird, I've never heard of a law like that that bans something from happening if you're old if you're of a certain age like obviously there's laws that say you can't do this until you're 18 or until you're 21 but I've never heard of a law that says if you're born past this date you can never participate in this thing ever the bill is accompanied by a slew of other measures to make smoking less affordable including dramatically reducing the

legal amount of nicotine and tobacco products and forcing them to be sold through specialty stores instead of gas stations coming up next we'll talk about the post Christmas blues and in something you might not know Christmas didn't just used to be one day. Well, how many days was it? We'll talk about that coming up. Power, politics, and the people behind the headlines. I'm Miranda Devine, New York Post columnist, and the host of the brand new podcast, Podforce One. Every week, I'll sit down for candid conversations with Washington's most powerful disruptors, lawmakers, newsmakers, and even the president of the United States. These are the leaders.

shaping the future of America and the world. Listen to Podforce One with me, Miranda Devine, every week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You don't want to miss an episode. Hey, I'm Mike Slater, host of the podcast Politics by Faith Filner for Bill O'Reilly. Now it's time for the O'Reilly update, Message of the Day. Do you have the post-Christmas blues? I do, a bit.

There's a lot of reasons that you might. feel them. I think the most common reason for them is just the excitement of Christmas coming, which is this long, you know, a month-long build-up. And then it comes and it's on. It's gone. It's just one day. It's not even, it's just the morning. And then it's Christmas afternoon. And by Christmas afternoon, you're 364 and a half days away from the next Christmas morning. So you're never further away from the joy of Christmas morning than on Christmas this afternoon. You're like, yeah, it's only a couple hours in the past, but it's 8,752 hours away

from the next one in the future. And I just want to, so you have that working against you. And perhaps also your day had some unmet expectations. Things did not go perfectly as planned because, of course, they never do. They can't. Of course they can. It's human nature, though, to focus on the things that don't meet expectations. than on the 20 things that did.

I don't know if you're like me, but if I'm making dinner and there's six items, I only focused on the side dish I overcooked. The other five things were perfect and delicious. No joy. I experienced no joy, only disappointment in the one thing that didn't go well. That's just how humans are.

It's called loss aversion. We feel the loss of pain way more than the pleasure of gain. Here's what I mean. Play along with me. Let's say I come up to you and I say, let's flip a coin. If it's heads, I'll give you $100. Sounds great, right? But if it's tails, you give me $100. Would you do it? Seriously, would you take that deal right now? Most people don't take it.

Because instantly, the pain of the thought of losing $100 is more painful than the joyful thought of gaining $100. Does that make sense? The pain of potentially losing money is stronger than the happiness of potentially making money. Weird, right? Most people would need the deal to be something like, tails, you give me a hundred, and heads, if you win, I give you $250. That's how sweet the deal would need to be

in order for most people to take the bet. That's where the happiness of gaining $250 beats the pain of potentially losing $100. Interesting, huh? So it's relevant here because if you're feeling a bit sad after Christmas, you're focusing on the negative things that happened this last week, more than the good things. And the only way to overcome that is to first acknowledge it and then refocus on those good things. It's just the practice of gratitude, which can be really hard because

you're probably right now saying, Slater, you have no idea what you're talking about. Easy for you to say, but how can I have joy when? And then you insert some terrible life experience. Totally. I know. But that would also make your ability to be grateful in spite of that terrible circumstance all the more triumphant and all the more impressive and dare I say all the more joyful but we always want better we always do we want more different better Leonardo da Vinci wrote a bunch of little short fables and one of them was about a stone laying in this beautiful pleasant field but looking down on a stony road and the stone didn't want to be with the grass anymore he wanted to be down with his own kind says what am I doing up here so he rolled down and landed in the stony road reading from

Leonardo da Vinci and then it began to suffer continual distress under wagon wheels the hoofs of iron-shot horses and the feet of travelers some of them turned it others trampled covered in mud and animal dung in vain it looked back at the place that left behind a place of solitary and tranquil peace being grateful wherever you are and no matter what time of year it is what a skill can you pull it off hey it's sean spicer from the sean spicer show podcast reminding you to tune into my show every day to get your daily dose inside the world of politics. President Trump and his team are shaking up Washington like never before, and we're here to cover it from all size, especially on the topics the mainstream media won't.

So if you're a political junkie on a late lunch or getting ready for the drive home, new episodes of the Sean Spicer Show podcast drop at 2 p.m. East Coast every day. Make sure you tune in. You can find us at Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Mike Slater, host of the podcast, Politics by Faith, Filner for Bill O'Reilly. Now it's time for something you might not know in the message of the day we just had. We were talking about the post-Christmas blues and talked about ways to potentially overcome them being grateful all the rest. You know, centuries ago, they had a different solution to getting over the post-Christmas blues. They had Christmas longer.

They just had more Christmas. How long was Christmas? what do you think it was more than a day i'll tell you that take a guess how many days was christmas now here's what's crazy about this guess you're going to make you know the answer you know the answer it's more than one day but you know it deep down you know how long was christmas this is about from the year's 500 to 1900 it's a long time christmas was more than one day how many days of course 12 hence the song did you ever think about that

how could I never have realized how could I never have asked myself why is this even a song what are the 12 days of Christmas why is there a song called the 12 days of Christmas well of course it's because Christmas used to be 12 days you know we treat Christmas Day like it's the climax

of the Christmas season some people maybe even you take your Christmas decorations down the next day You don't even give it a week. But no, Christmas Day is just the beginning of the 12 days of Christmas. This is day one. December 25th was always, well, from the year 500 to 1900, the beginning of Christmas. That was the kickoff for 12 days of festivities and merriment, only to be replaced today with 12 days of being stuck at the airport.

The final day of Christmas was called the 12th night, and especially, cake was made with a bean and a pea somewhere in the middle. And whoever had the piece with the pea and the bean were the king and the queen of the night's festivities on the 12th night. Queen Elizabeth I in 1601 commissioned Shakespeare to write a play for that year's 12th night festivities. What do you think the name of the play was? 12th night. So I say we bring it back. Why relegate the best holiday to one day? Make it 12. And if you're feeling the post-Christmas blues,

you just got to get back to celebrating. The 12th night is January 5th. So after today, you still got seven days left. More after this. Hey, I'm Caitlin Becker, the host of the New York Postcast, and I've got exactly what you need to start your weekdays. Every morning, I'll bring you the stories that matter, plus the news people actually talk about,

the juicy details in the world's politics, business, pop culture, and everything in between. It's what you want from the New York Post wrapped up in one snappy show. Ask your smart speaker to play the NY Postcast podcast. Listen and subscribe on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening to the O'Reilly Update.

Thank you, Bill, for letting me fill in my podcast, Politics by Faith. We have new episodes every day. We'll see you there and we'll see you here tomorrow. Thank you.