Did the press really just melt down because a guy who converted his factory to mask-making read from the Bible? Talk about purity obsessions.
As Ben Shapiro said, “If you’re angry at the guy shifting over his factory to produce 50,000 facemasks a day for medical professionals, you’re doing being human wrong.”
A Worthy Question
Do these closure orders constitute eminent domain, being a destruction of private wealth for a public good, and thus merit compensation? I’d prefer the answer to be “yes,” though as a taxpayer I’d be on the hook for it. Limits on government power even in an emergency are needed. Otherwise government can always manufacture emergencies whenever it wants more power.
A statistical argument for chloroquine
A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Roy Spencer noted an inverse correlation between malaria and COVID-19 in hundreds of countries:
If I sort all 234 countries by incidence of malaria, and compute the average incidence of malaria and the average incidence of COVID-19, the results are simply amazing: those countries with malaria have virtually no COVID-19 cases, and those countries with many COVID-19 cases have little to no malaria.
Here are the averages for the three country groupings:
Top 40 Malaria countries:
212.24 malaria per thousand = 0.2 COVID-19 cases per million
Next 40 Malaria countries:
7.30 malaria per thousand = 10.1 COVID-19 cases per million
Remaining 154 (non-)Malaria countries:
0.00 malaria per thousand = 68.7 COVID-19 cases per millionOne possibility is the impact of widespread use of chloroquine as a long-term preventative for malaria. There are other possibilities, of course, including heat and humidity, but there also is an indication that patient populations being treated with chloroquine are not coming down with COVID-19. At least, I read that during the last week, but it's getting harder and harder to find a search engine that will generate any "chloroquine" results that aren't deeply skeptical and full of spiteful references to the Bad Man, fish-tank cleaner, and the suffering of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients, even while chloroquine manufacturers are dialing up cheap chloroquine production to 11 and donating doses by the tens of millions.
“We Cannot Direct The Wind, But We Can Adjust The Sails”
Dolly Parton reads bedtime stories. Do you know about Dolly Parton? She’s really something.
Outlaw Cinema For the People
For the next two months, REBELLER is going to be free to read. The legendary Joe Bob Briggs writes there often now.
Lockdown Time Now
North Carolina's just started one minute ago, and is scheduled to last until the end of next month.
Begging bureaucrats for beds
I'm pleased to see that Texas doesn't have a "certificate of need" program. Let's make the bureaucrats seek a public referendum to get a certificate of need for a CON program.
A lot of things need to change. November is coming.
A lot of things need to change. November is coming.
Red tape, red garbage
How many examples do we need of why everything the government touches becomes shoddy, overpriced, and in short supply?
Supply lines
One of the things that made me the most nervous a couple of weeks ago was the difficulty of ordering food online. We routinely order a number of things that our grocery store doesn't stock, so when the grocery stock aisles got iffy and I wanted to avoid crowds anyway, my first recourse was to Amazon. It was disquieting how many things suddenly were out, from beans to rice to canned anything to almost any kind of cleaning supplies. I checked again today, though, and found supplies almost in an ordinary condition.
I've been using the local grocery's curbside service. It's clunky; you get a delivery date that's a week out instead of same-day. Once you choose your items, there's a very limited ability to add anything else you may think of. Substitutions and outages are still common. Still, there's minimal personal contact, which is safer not only for us but for the workers. Considering the conditions they're operating under, they're doing a great job and trying hard to be both conscientious and flexible. Our lurking neighbors (hello, lurking neighbors!) are being even more careful than we are, minimizing risk to themselves and to the 99-year-old materfamilias onsite.
Most of the county is being at least fairly careful. There is a growing resentment of outsiders who arrive from who-knows-where having practiced who-knows-what hygiene. My own feeling is that it's more important how we all act in public than whether we've been here for a short or long time. It's all about the hands and the face, and overcoming that careless tendency to think it's no big deal to be in public with a fever or a cough.
The local restaurants are trying to hold on by offering take-out and delivery. Controversy is brewing over whether it's best to support the ones offering discounts, or the ones imposing surcharges. Again, my own feeling is that it's more important to keep the restaurant enterprises together, so they can preserve jobs, than to supply the community with cheaper entertainment. If we just want cheap food, we're all able to cook at home. Food supplies became inconvenient for a while, but never to the point of hunger; mostly we just had to be flexible about substitutions. Because Mr. Tex and I cook most of our food at home anyway, we didn't feel the disruption nearly as much as many did.
I've been using the local grocery's curbside service. It's clunky; you get a delivery date that's a week out instead of same-day. Once you choose your items, there's a very limited ability to add anything else you may think of. Substitutions and outages are still common. Still, there's minimal personal contact, which is safer not only for us but for the workers. Considering the conditions they're operating under, they're doing a great job and trying hard to be both conscientious and flexible. Our lurking neighbors (hello, lurking neighbors!) are being even more careful than we are, minimizing risk to themselves and to the 99-year-old materfamilias onsite.
Most of the county is being at least fairly careful. There is a growing resentment of outsiders who arrive from who-knows-where having practiced who-knows-what hygiene. My own feeling is that it's more important how we all act in public than whether we've been here for a short or long time. It's all about the hands and the face, and overcoming that careless tendency to think it's no big deal to be in public with a fever or a cough.
The local restaurants are trying to hold on by offering take-out and delivery. Controversy is brewing over whether it's best to support the ones offering discounts, or the ones imposing surcharges. Again, my own feeling is that it's more important to keep the restaurant enterprises together, so they can preserve jobs, than to supply the community with cheaper entertainment. If we just want cheap food, we're all able to cook at home. Food supplies became inconvenient for a while, but never to the point of hunger; mostly we just had to be flexible about substitutions. Because Mr. Tex and I cook most of our food at home anyway, we didn't feel the disruption nearly as much as many did.
A Small Cost of Social Distancing
Yesterday I went for a motorcycle ride in the country. I came across a cow loose in the road, as occurs from time to time. I had a very strong impulse to stop, as I normally would, and help return the cow to her pasture. I generally feel a duty to do that sort of thing, and I wanted to do it. On any normal day I would have done it, but on this day I realized I had conflicting duties.
On this day, there was already a crowd of people standing around -- uselessly as far as I could tell -- and I could tell that it would be impossible to avoid interacting with them. They had clearly called for help, and were numerous enough that people would notice them and slow down (thus avoiding collision with the cow). Everything's easier to catch here than back in Georgia, where flatter land and wider rivers made it easy for livestock to get free and go a long ways. They probably managed the fairly easy task of herding one cow down into her pasture.
I rode on and left them to deal with it, with sad regret. It's likely enough we soon will have worse things to regret than the lost chance to help catch a loose cow, but I hated to go on without helping. I was one person there who really knew how to deal with the problem having dealt with that particular problem some several times before. I could have been a help, but this time I was no help at all.
On this day, there was already a crowd of people standing around -- uselessly as far as I could tell -- and I could tell that it would be impossible to avoid interacting with them. They had clearly called for help, and were numerous enough that people would notice them and slow down (thus avoiding collision with the cow). Everything's easier to catch here than back in Georgia, where flatter land and wider rivers made it easy for livestock to get free and go a long ways. They probably managed the fairly easy task of herding one cow down into her pasture.
I rode on and left them to deal with it, with sad regret. It's likely enough we soon will have worse things to regret than the lost chance to help catch a loose cow, but I hated to go on without helping. I was one person there who really knew how to deal with the problem having dealt with that particular problem some several times before. I could have been a help, but this time I was no help at all.
Crisis envy
If we can shut down the world to stop a virus, how come the public won't accept plans to cripple the global economy in service of climate alarmism?
I'm just spitballing here, but it's possible a lot of people genuinely believe in the danger of a contagious, sometimes fatal disease, and aren't just virtue-signaling about a trendy hypothetical threat. Even in the case of the virus, there are those inconvenient people who insist on continually checking our assumptions against facts on the ground, kvetching about shoddy models, and thinking about cost-benefit trade-offs.
Why? Because We Love You
Headline: "Why has the media ignored sexual assault allegations against Biden?"
I think conservatives are less hypocritical here, because their real objection seems to be the same one she's raising: why the double standard? Why is a guy like Kavanaugh subjected to a life-altering examination in the public eye even given that he faced accusers who fielded no actual evidence, but Bill Clinton and Joe Biden are ushered past security with a wink and a nod? Well, we know why: religious duty with metaphysical force.
She does at least get to the point of questioning the duty:
The conservative position as I understand it is that not all of these accusations are equally believable, and we ought to insist on some level of proof before deploying the very harsh sanctions we (at least sometimes, haphazardly) levy against the guilty. Harvey Weinstein is in Rikers right now, stripped of fame and wealth and freedom, and he'll likely die there. Jeffery Epstein would have died in prison even if he hadn't been killed. The punishments do really fall, sometimes, and they are sometimes life-ending punishments. Conservatives argue that such punishments should not be deployed without proof, and certainly (as in the case of Kavanaugh) not without corroborating evidence. I don't get the sense that they don't believe the punishments shouldn't be deployed at all.
The liberal position seems to be that accusations should presumptively or even always be believed, and career-ending consequences deployed, if the accused is the wrong kind of person. If they're the right kind of person, even hard evidence -- endless pictures, blue dresses -- should not be allowed to interfere with their exercise of freedom and power.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding or misstating the positions; perhaps liberals simply can't believe (in spite of the obvious evidence) that a nice guy like Joltin' Joe Biden or Bill Clinton could engage in anything bad. Rascally, perhaps, but bad? Obviously they're not bad people, so they can't be guilty; and the evidence of our eyes must therefore be deceptive. (AVI's favorite, Slate Star Codex, calls that top-down processing.)
It does appear, though, the double standard is real. The accusations against Kavanaugh were unlikely, and some of them were implausible on their face. All the same, screaming hordes of liberal women came to try to force Congress to destroy him -- not just to refuse to promote him, but to impeach him, investigate and try him, find a way to send him to prison for the harm he allegedly caused the nice-seeming lady with the memories she recovered in therapy decades after the event almost certianly never happened. The accusations against Clinton and Biden are supported by physical evidence, which you can verify for yourself. No similar outcry is occurring. In fact, you can't even get the press to admit the story exists.
It is hugely frustrating to see conservatives, who couldn’t give a damn about the multiple sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump, weaponize the accusations against Biden. However, it’s also frustrating to see so many liberals turning a blind eye. The accusations against the former vice-president are serious; why aren’t they being taken seriously?Obviously because it's the only moral decision, since derailing his candidacy at this stage would ensure a Trump re-election, and that latter is literally the worst possible outcome. For humanity and the world, not just the country. It goes beyond patriotism, it's a religious duty with metaphysical force.
I think conservatives are less hypocritical here, because their real objection seems to be the same one she's raising: why the double standard? Why is a guy like Kavanaugh subjected to a life-altering examination in the public eye even given that he faced accusers who fielded no actual evidence, but Bill Clinton and Joe Biden are ushered past security with a wink and a nod? Well, we know why: religious duty with metaphysical force.
One obvious reason is that Reade’s accusations are very hard to prove.Yes, but Kavanaugh was accused of running a high-school rape ring that somehow preyed on college-aged women who gladly attended these high-school parties, while being a blackout drunk who somehow excelled in law school and rose to the high bench, and the star witness against him had no corroboration that the event she described had ever happened. Several of his accusers recanted, and the lawyer flogging the story is now in prison for defrauding his client. Mere difficulty of proof can't be the reason. Speaking of which:
You know who has talked publicly about the importance of taking women seriously? Biden. During the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Biden stood up for Dr Christine Blasey Ford, noting: “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”It certainly would.
Does this presumption not apply when the guy being accused is a Democrat running for president? It would seem that way.
She does at least get to the point of questioning the duty:
[It is] hugely unlikely that Reade’s accusations will do any damage whatsoever to Biden’s ambitions. Allegations of sexual assault certainly haven’t posed any hindrance to Trump. The allegations against Kavanaugh didn’t stop him from becoming a supreme court justice. The allegations against Louis CK didn’t kill his career in comedy. And the multiple women who have accused Biden of touching them inappropriately in the past haven’t exactly derailed his career.In point of fact, there are endless photos of Biden touching women inappropriately. She's right, this hasn't done him any damage apparently.
The conservative position as I understand it is that not all of these accusations are equally believable, and we ought to insist on some level of proof before deploying the very harsh sanctions we (at least sometimes, haphazardly) levy against the guilty. Harvey Weinstein is in Rikers right now, stripped of fame and wealth and freedom, and he'll likely die there. Jeffery Epstein would have died in prison even if he hadn't been killed. The punishments do really fall, sometimes, and they are sometimes life-ending punishments. Conservatives argue that such punishments should not be deployed without proof, and certainly (as in the case of Kavanaugh) not without corroborating evidence. I don't get the sense that they don't believe the punishments shouldn't be deployed at all.
The liberal position seems to be that accusations should presumptively or even always be believed, and career-ending consequences deployed, if the accused is the wrong kind of person. If they're the right kind of person, even hard evidence -- endless pictures, blue dresses -- should not be allowed to interfere with their exercise of freedom and power.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding or misstating the positions; perhaps liberals simply can't believe (in spite of the obvious evidence) that a nice guy like Joltin' Joe Biden or Bill Clinton could engage in anything bad. Rascally, perhaps, but bad? Obviously they're not bad people, so they can't be guilty; and the evidence of our eyes must therefore be deceptive. (AVI's favorite, Slate Star Codex, calls that top-down processing.)
It does appear, though, the double standard is real. The accusations against Kavanaugh were unlikely, and some of them were implausible on their face. All the same, screaming hordes of liberal women came to try to force Congress to destroy him -- not just to refuse to promote him, but to impeach him, investigate and try him, find a way to send him to prison for the harm he allegedly caused the nice-seeming lady with the memories she recovered in therapy decades after the event almost certianly never happened. The accusations against Clinton and Biden are supported by physical evidence, which you can verify for yourself. No similar outcry is occurring. In fact, you can't even get the press to admit the story exists.
What's the hurry?
I've been hoping every day for some word on how the 70,000 doses of chloroquine and azithromycin were working out in New York, because I'd read that they were delivered on Tuesday, March 24, and Gov. Cuomo said he was eager to get trials started. I was even getting worried that the lack of good news might mean the drugs weren't having any effect after all.
Turns out they haven't started using them yet. They're still working out how the trials will be structured, and hope to get started next week.
The Inheritors
Here's a piece by two generations of the inheritors of Bob Wills' tradition.
Merle needs no introduction. Dwight probably doesn't either, but just in case, he's the guy singing when the Terminator walks into the biker/cowboy bar (called 'the Corral') in Terminator 2. The song is "Guitars, Cadillacs," which is probably his biggest hit.
The bike he steals is a Harley Davidson Fatboy. That was the first bike I ever knew I wanted, and it was surely this movie that made it so.
Merle needs no introduction. Dwight probably doesn't either, but just in case, he's the guy singing when the Terminator walks into the biker/cowboy bar (called 'the Corral') in Terminator 2. The song is "Guitars, Cadillacs," which is probably his biggest hit.
The bike he steals is a Harley Davidson Fatboy. That was the first bike I ever knew I wanted, and it was surely this movie that made it so.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)