Archive for 2020
December 5, 2020
KINSLEY GAFFE: Pelosi: I’m happy to cut a COVID-19 relief deal now that Trump lost the election. “This is an admission from Pelosi that she held up any relief to undermine Trump in the election. Under the circumstances, it’s disgusting, and this stench should stick to Pelosi just as the nuclear option and the Romney smear stenches stick to Harry Reid. Republicans should remind voters of this every day between now and the midterms, and it should be running as an ad in Georgia before the weekend is up. Shameful.”
AIRBRUSH ALERT: Wikipedia Page for New Biden COVID Czar Got a Good Scrubbing.
FIGHT THE POWER, STICK IT TO THE MAN: Artist Sues To Prevent Vermont Law School From Painting Over Underground Railroad Murals That Black Students Call Racist.
December 4, 2020
SORRY, I’M UNMOVED. FBI lawyer who lied to surveil Trump aide asks judge to spare him from prison. “Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith’s legal team is pleading with a judge not to send him to prison for lying to secure surveillance orders against President Trump’s 2016 campaign adviser Carter Page. . . . US District Judge James Boasberg is expected to hand down Clinesmith’s sentence on Thursday.”
JOHN HINDERAKER: Mask Jacobinism Runs Rampant.
OPEN THREAD: Welcome in the weekend. Hopefully without extended Disqus maintenance this time.
21ST CENTURY MOON RACE: China’s Chang’e 5 probe lifts off from moon carrying lunar samples.
DEVELOPING: Trump Pulls American Troops Out of Somalia.
SPACE: NASA will buy moon dirt from these 4 companies. “”We think it’s very important to establish the precedent that private-sector entities can extract, can take these resources, and NASA can purchase and utilize them to fuel not only NASA’s activities but a whole new dynamic era of public and private development in exploration on the moon and then, eventually, to Mars.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to make the healthiest coffee. French presses, percolators, and espresso machines need not apply.
I was happy to discover that K-cups contain filters.
VIA TONI AIRAKSINEN ON FACEBOOOK:
So, Uber yesterday implored the CDC to consider their drivers as “essential” and thus deserving of early COVID-19 vaccination, just as the CDC plans to provide vaccination to the elderly and healthcare workers first.
No doubt, Uber’s request is driven by profit motive.
Uniquely, Uber has a generous sick-leave policy. Drivers who test positive for COVID get up to 14 days of paid leave. And their compensation is based on an average of how much they’ve earned in the prior three months.
So, Uber nabbing early access for COVID vaccines for their drivers translates into fewer compensation claims, thus less costs for Uber. That’s assuming the vaccine works and won’t kill you, of course.
But let’s look at this a different way.
Due to our cultural impetus to honor first responders, we’ve placed workers on a flimsy public-health and moral hierarchy. Doctors are at the top (even if said doctor is working completely by telehealth), while our grocery store clerks, baristas, and delivery drivers are at the bottom.
Do they get the vaccine first too?
Our cultural zeitgeist — driven by media’s bias towards the educated upper-class — has forgotten about these workers. This is the forgotten front-line. Your bodega guy. Semi-truck drivers. Cooks. Waitresses. Sex workers. Moving crews. Warehouse stockers.
Will these people also be considered “essential?” This is no more of a public health concern than a moral issue of whose lives we consider valuable to society.
Or what about the “invisible workers” — home cleaners, hotel crew, nannies, and the sanitation workers who arrive to grab your trash and leave before dawn?
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
And I know what you’re going to say… “but the young don’t get sick, they don’t need the vaccine!” Well, that’s mostly true. But that retort completely overlooks the possibility that these younger workers might be more likely to silently spread the virus.
“But healthcare workers come into contact with the sick exponentially more often!” That’s also true.
It’ll be fascinating to see how vaccine distribution pans out.
Does a CNA who already has to wear 3x layers of PPE while working a three hour shift twice a week get the vaccine before a poultry-plant worker who is given only one mask a week in a windowless slaughterhouse?
For the record, I have mixed feeling about Uber drivers considered essential for this purpose. As a weekly user of Uber since I landed in NYC, drivers since March have always rolled down their windows to increase ventilation. They already have significant PPE.
Those such as cooks, sex workers or your bodega guy often don’t have adaquete PPE. It’s my hope that eventually society will realize that who is considered “essential” shouldn’t be contingent on their socioeconomic status, but their risk-factors for both contracting and spreading the virus.
Remember, at the start of the pandemic, free food and care packages were sent to nurses and doctors. But how many of us thought about our neighbors who grease the wheels (sometimes literally) of our society?
Well, plenty of us did, but not among the technocrats or the media.
NOW SHIPPING FROM AMAZON, Joe Pappalardo’s Inferno: The True Story of a B-17 Gunner’s Heroism and the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History.
YOU KNOW TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY HAS BEEN A SUCCESS BECAUSE IT GETS SO LITTLE MEDIA ATTENTION:
IF IT MOVES, REGULATE IT: Apparently “stablecoins” (cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but pegged to the dollar) threaten minorities? All anything like this will do is drive innovation offshore, as it’s hard to think of anything less bound by borders than cryptocurrency.
(BTW, if you like news about law/policy affecting crypto, feel free to let me know in the comments – lots of interesting stuff in that whole area these days.)
DON’T TRUST CHINA. CHINA IS ASSHOLE. Gordon Chang: China Engaged in ‘an Act of War’ by Enflaming Antifa Riots in the U.S.
WELL, TO BE FAIR, HE HAD A LOT OF HELP FROM THE PRESS: Trump Won His Other Campaign — to Destroy Media Credibility.
GTT: Tesla CEO Elon Musk has told friends and associates he plans to move to Texas.
That’s “Gone To Texas,” as people used to say it in the old days.
ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Yes, You Can Put Synthetic Oil in a Classic or Just Plain Old Car.