Archive for 2020
August 6, 2020
August 5, 2020
IT WOULD TAKE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH: Layoffs Coming at NBC News.
VIDEO: Watch: Closest footage yet of Beirut blasts from apartment balcony opposite port. I hope these people survived.
I BLAME SYSTEMIC RACISM IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Why won’t Democrats listen to blacks about defunding cops? “Talk about out-of-touch pols. According to a new Gallup survey, nearly nine out of 10 respondents — and more than eight of 10 African Americans — oppose having police spend less time in their areas. Yet Democratic politicians have been racing to ‘defund the police’ all the same.”
WORST WHITE SUPREMACIST PRESIDENT EVER: President Donald Trump has hosted the swearing-in of the first Black chief of staff of the Air Force.
THE DOCTRINE IS RAMPANT JUDICIAL ACTIVISM, NOT ONLY AS APPLIED TO POLICE BUT AS APPLIED TO ALL GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS: Federal judge urges Supreme Court to overturn qualified immunity.
Here’s the opinion.
Related: Orange County Register: Qualified immunity makes a mockery of justice. Abolish it.
To the extent that government employees enjoy any special immunities — and I think the Titles of Nobility clauses say they shouldn’t — that immunity should be created by legislatures, not made up out of whole cloth by federal judges.
IN KNOXVILLE, THE SHUTDOWN RESISTANCE CHALKS UP A WIN: Bars can reopen with 10 p.m. curfew, Knox County Board of Health votes.
Local bars will now be able to stay open until 10 p.m., the Knox County Board of Health voted on Wednesday night. The regulation would go into effect immediately and end Aug. 20.
The vote was nearly unanimous; only Dr. Dianna Drake voted in opposition.
On Tuesday, Board of Health member Dr. Pat O’Brien introduced a motion to end the bar closure order and impose a curfew on bars instead. Dr. O’Brien is the former owner of a Casual Pint franchise. The co-founder of Casual Pint, Nathan Robinette, said that he would defy government orders to close his bar.
“We have been thankfully not finding clusters of cases related to bars and restaurants in our community,” said Dr. Pat O’Brien to the board in support of his amendment. “We need to give a little bit on this one thing until something points us in the direction that this was not the right decision.”
Plus: “While Nashville had a major hot spot in the Broadway nightlife area, Knox County has not seen similar clusters.” That’s right, the science — contact-tracing, etc. — doesn’t support bars as a major source of infection, yet they voted to close them anyway. This was met with defiance, and now they’ve changed the rule. The curfew, I suspect, is mostly just a face-saver.
And let me add, where’s the science? We’ve been doing testing and tracing in Knox County for going on 5 months. If they don’t know where people are getting it and where they’re not — and they’re still making health regulations based on guess-and-try rather than the data they should have in hand — then they should expect more resistance in the future.
UPDATE: Turns out the Nashville bars weren’t actually a hot spot either.
OPEN THREAD: If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.
ANOTHER COVID CASUALTY: Chattanooga’s Songbirds Guitar Museum to close its doors for good Aug. 15.
SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY: Portland Rioters Using Coordinated Tactics to Launch Laser Attacks on Federal Officers. “Democrats on the panel offered few specific condemnations of the Portland rioters.”
I’m not joking.
NO, BUT IT MIGHT TEACH THEM A THING OR TWO: I’m a Nurse in New York. Teachers Should Do Their Jobs, Just Like I Did. Schools are essential to the functioning of our society, and that makes teachers essential workers.
So I can understand that teachers are nervous about returning to school. But they should take a cue from their fellow essential workers and do their job. Even people who think there’s a fundamental difference between a nurse and a teacher in a pandemic must realize that there isn’t one between a grocery-store worker and a teacher, in terms of obligation. People who work at grocery stores in no way signed up to expose themselves to disease, but we expected them to go to work, and they did. If they had not, society would have collapsed. What do teachers think will happen if working parents cannot send their children to school? Life as we know it simply will not go on.
When some of my husband’s students told him that they had continued working as cashiers throughout the spring and summer, he said, “Wow, that’s so courageous of you.” He feels that he doesn’t really have anything to show for himself, and he looks forward to the time when he will. Now, contemplating the possibility of teachers striking, he says, “Bowing out wouldn’t be a good example to set for our students.”
Or maybe teachers aren’t essential. But is that the message they want to send? The currrent combination of entitlement, politicization, and greed isn’t a good look, especially for an industry that’s facing technological disruption.
UPDATE: In show of ‘resistance,’ teachers unions demand police-free schools, moratorium on voucher programs. They also want a suspension of charter schools and a new tax on billionaires. Fuck this. Fire them all and give the money to parents. You think that won’t be more popular than giving it to teachers and educrats?
WHEN YOUR ASTRONAUTS ARE NAMED BOB & DOUG, THIS IS PRETTY MUCH A GIVEN: ‘Space dad’ jokes: NASA astronauts made prank calls after historic SpaceX splashdown.
JIM TREACHER: Cancel Culture Comes for That Dancing Kid from the Sia Music Videos. “Speaking as a person who is Old Now — not as old as Biden, but still younger than Trump — I’m sure glad we didn’t have Internet-enabled camera phones when I was a kid. You shouldn’t hold a nine-year-old kid accountable for being dumb and irresponsible, but it’s a lot easier now that everybody’s putting themselves on the public record 24/7. Sooner or later, that funny video you made to crack up your friends is going to come back to haunt you.”
TRUMP LAUNCHES CANCEL CULTURE AD: “I’m Afraid To Say This Out Loud.” “The other ad, alluding to Mr. Trump’s banking on a ‘silent majority’ to propel him to victory, features a Trump supporter silently displaying cue cards to register her displeasure with Mr. Biden. ‘I’m afraid to say this out loud,’ one card reads. ‘I won’t risk my children’s future with Biden.’”
Sound advice, albeit displayed silently.
I’M GLAD TO SEE THAT CAPT. TUTTLE WENT INTO ACADEMIA AFTER THE WAR: A Queer Indigenous Professor Who Died of COVID-19 Didn’t Actually Exist.
Classical reference in headline:
THE FEAR OF THE FEVER: how we are now living the authentic Victorian experience.
A century of germ theory and virology has meant we don’t know how to cope with the unknowability of a fever. We now have a visceral, embodied feeling of the fear of fevers, just as our great-grandparents did. The blank space where the pathology of Covid should be is filled with our own fatalistic assumptions and paranoid fears. Just because we have replaced sprinkles of white vinegar and roaring fires for hand sanitiser and Dettol wipes does not mean we are any less Victorian than our ancestors.
In our feverish terror of this unmappable pandemic we are all unleashing our inner Dickensians. I wish the Dickens Museum the very best of luck for its socially distanced reopening, but I imagine footfall will be down. No one needs to visit Doughty Street for the authentic Victorian experience when we already have one.
Well worth a read.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Smith & Wesson’s 629: A Top-Selling Revolver. But expect an earth-shattering kaboom.
GEORGE ORWELL, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Does 2+2=4? Woke academics say not necessarily.
BIGGEST EMBARRASSMENT IN THE SENATE: Sen. Hirono Walks Out of Hearing After Refusing to Denounce or Criticize Antifa.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Let’s Be Careful With the ‘Kids Are Safer in School’ Rhetoric. That’s What Left Wants You to Say.