WELL, TOM NICHOLS: “Such are the entirely subjective ruminations of Tom Nichols.”
Archive for 2020
April 12, 2020
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OPEN THREAD: A man of your mind can do anything.
NEWS: NYU scientists: Largest U.S. study of COVID-19 finds obesity the single biggest factor in New York’s hospitalizations. “Among other things, the presence of obesity in the study points to a potentially important role of heightened inflammation in patients, a phenomenon that has been a topic of much speculation in numerous studies of the disease. Petrilli and colleagues at the Grossman School, and doctors at the NYU Langone Health center, studied the electronic patient records of 4,103 individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 in the New York City healthcare system between March 1st and April 2nd.”
ARE YOU RUNNING IN FEAR FROM THE ACTUAL THREAT, OR FROM GUILT AND PERSONAL DREAD? We Risk Killing Civilization in Our Panicked Fear of Individual Death.
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DISPATCHES FROM THE MANCHURIAN MEDIA:
As Seth Mandel tweets, “Conservatives are right and I should’ve thought of it first and I don’t know how to deal with that.”
Related: Dr. Fauci: Coronavirus Erupted in December While China Lied About Human-to-Human Spread.
WE SHOULD REMEMBER THE LIES. AND NOT BELIEVE THEM: Modeling COVID-19 and the Lies of Multiculturalism.
TICKETED FOR VIOLATING SOCIAL DISTANCING by attending a drive-in church service and remaining in your car? The worst part of being a city official in Greenville, Mississippi must be the part where they stick a straw in your ear and suck out half your brains.
REPOST: For those of you who couldn’t download my “Stand Your Ground” dissent on SSRN a few days ago, I am reposting. (For reasons that were never quite clear to me, SSRN took it down for a while.)
HOT, HOT, HOT!!: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has finally released its report on “Stand Your Ground” laws. My fellow commissioners were disappointed that the staff’s independent empirical research didn’t support their preconceived beliefs … so they buried it. Read my dissenting opinion here.
IT’S COME TO THIS: UK man climbs Mount Everest from the confines of his home.
NEWS FROM MY NECK OF THE WOODS: Coronavirus in Tennessee: Active Knox County cases remains at 28, total cases at 159.
The Knox County Health Department is reporting four new cases on Sunday, bringing the total case number to 159.
Active cases in the county remain at 28 as of April 12.
The total number of recovered cases now stands at 127. Recovered cases refer to those who have been released from isolation after seven days from their onset of symptoms, plus 72 hours of being symptom-free. Recovered does not mean necessarily the person had to be hospitalized.
19 of the 159 cases have resulted in hospitalization at any point during the illness. This figure does not reflect the number of patients currently hospitalized in the county.
In Knox County, 3,737 total COVID-19 tests have now been conducted.
I’m pretty happy with these numbers.
DON’T TRUST CHINA. CHINA IS ASSHOLE. Dr. Anthony Fauci: China misled the world; virus erupted in mid-December.
Dr. Anthony Fauci says that human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 diseases erupted in China in mid-December, yet the regime told the U.S. and the world the virus was only transmitted animal-to-human.
Dr. Fauci, an influential member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force, told the Fox News show “Watters’ World” that as the diseases spread to more people in mid-January in China’s Hubei Province and Wuhan city, the communist government said that human contagion was minimal.
Both assertions were “clearly not correct … that was misinformation right from the beginning,” he said.
COVID-19 was in fact a highly contagious disease already being seeded by Chinese travelers in mid-January to the U.S. and Europe, where it has killed thousands. . . .
Republicans have accused the Chinese Communist Party, the dictatorship ruling the country, of deliberately concealing the virus’ spread. Chinese authorities threatened eight doctors with prison for trying to warn the world on social media about what would become a global pandemic.
The White House says that while China was hiding disease facts it was also buying up lots of medical equipment around the world. When COVID-19 began its killing spree, China’s propaganda machine went into action, making the unfounded assertion that the U.S. Army planted the virus in Wuhan. . . .
The World Health Organization, criticized by Republicans as in bed with Chinese rulers, repeated China’s disinformation with a tweet that said there was no direct evidence of human-to-human spread, even though physicians in Wuhan had been issuing warnings.
On Jan. 23, WHO said COVID-19 was not a global health emergency. It eventually declared it a pandemic.
Related: Time to put China on lockdown for its dishonesty amid coronavirus crisis.
MAKES SENSE: Walmart CEO: Hair dye is next ‘panic buying’ item.
AIRBRUSH ALERT: Believe All Women? An Easter Morning NYT News Dump.
THE END OF LUXURY BELIEFS: San Francisco Was the First Major City To Ban Plastic Bags. Now It’s Banning Reusable Bags To Combat Coronavirus.
IT’S EASY TO TELL WHO’S ON THE PAYROLL, OR AT LEAST THE TEAM: “The Wall Street Journal recently featured a remarkable op-ed column by Henry Kissinger about Covid-19. What was conspicuously absent in the piece is any mention of China. Kissinger failed to mention China even once.”
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Banning Alcohol Sales During the COVID-19 Pandemic Is a Terrible Idea. Just deal with the infectious diseases, “public health” types, and leave the other stuff alone. You aren’t exactly brilliant even at dealing with those.
And Prohibition was sold on reducing domestic violence, and it didn’t work.
KENTUCKY STATE POLICE RECORD CHURCHGOERS’ LICENSE PLATES AT IN-PERSON EASTER SERVICE:
Dozens of families attended Easter service at the Bullitt County church despite an executive order from Gov. Andy Beshear that prohibits mass gatherings in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. Beshear said Friday that anyone who participates in mass gatherings of any type during Easter weekend will be required to self-quarantine for two weeks.
The troopers also placed notices under cars’ windshield wipers that say, “This vehicle’s presence at this location indicates that its occupants are present at a mass gathering prohibited by Orders of the Governor and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. As a result, this vehicle’s occupants, and anyone they come into contact with, are at risk of contracting COVID-19, a respiratory illness that can be severe and lead to death, particularly for older adults and those with underlying heart, lung, kidney and immunity issues.”
According to Beshear, the license plate information will be forwarded to local health departments, which will then present orders to self-quarantine for 14 days at the car owners’ homes. Failure to comply could result in further enforcement, the notices say.
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During his opening remarks Sunday, Roberts acknowledged people who drove from Dayton, Ohio, and two women who drove from South Brunswick, New Jersey, to Kentucky to attend Maryville’s Easter service. Roberts also said that someone scattered “at least one keg, one box” of nails throughout the church’s parking lot before the congregation arrived for service.
Earlier: DOJ: ‘Expect Action’ to Protect Churches From Tyrannical Local ‘Social Distancing’ Orders.