REDISCOVERING THE LABORATORY: The Pandemic Has Produced a Radical Experiment in Federalism. Varying state responses will provide the thing we most right now: information.
Archive for 2020
May 1, 2020
DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE 531 “JOURNALISM” PROFS WHO ENDORSED CENSORSHIP? I did and I ain’t happy about it.
THAT’S OKAY, IF THOSE STANDARDS DON’T WORK OUT FOR HIM HE HAS OTHERS: Andrew Sullivan: By Biden’s Own Standards, He Is Guilty As Charged.
WHY NOT TAKE A BREAK FROM THE SERIOUS NEWS FOR A FEW MINUTES? Florida Man Friday: If I Had a Hammer…
This week’s edition has more questions than answers, most of them involving a taser.
FIREARM TRAINING: The Value of Slow and Steady.
THEY HIT WHAT THEY WERE AIMING FOR, THEN: 2020 Chevrolet Bolt EV Has Greater Range but Little Swagger.
I HOPE IT WORKS, BUT SO FAR I’D SAY THE EVIDENCE FOR IT ISN’T ANY BETTER THAN FOR HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE/AZITHROMYCIN/ZINC: Everything to know about remdesivir, the most promising COVID-19 treatment yet. On the upside, it’s patented and expensive.
AND ALWAYS WILL BE! 30 Years Later, This Big Boy Fusion Reactor Is Almost Ready to Turn On.
BOREDOM IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS: You can get a goat or a pig to sit in on your company’s virtual meeting.
KEVIN WILLIAMSON: Paranoid, Yes. But Are We Paranoid Enough? Waco Netflix Series Revives an Old Horror:
Waco proposes (as one ATF agent reported at the time) that the first shots were fired by ATF agents killing the Branch Davidians’ dogs — and suggests that the rest of the agents on the scene, who had not been expecting to hear those gunshots, opened fire in panic and kept firing until they ran down their ammunition. But the real issue is not who fired first; the real issue, as Waco emphasizes, is that the federal government under the Clinton administration staged a military operation instead of a law-enforcement operation, that it did so for purely political reasons, and that in doing so it created a situation that was far more combustible than the one it was, in theory, attempting to police.
The Clinton administration was succeeded by the George W. Bush administration, which constructed a theory of unlimited presidential power in a “war on terror” in which the battleground is literally everywhere. The Bush administration was succeeded by the Barack Obama administration, which claimed for itself the power to assassinate American citizens as part of that same unceasing war. Barack Obama was succeeded by Donald Trump, who declared himself to be in possession of authority that is “total.” The pissant mayor of New York City has threatened to permanently shut down churches and synagogues that violate the city’s coronavirus social-distancing mandates. Many Republicans agree with my National Review colleague and former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy that “there was no good-faith basis for an investigation of General Flynn,” that the case against him was part of a political operation masquerading as a law-enforcement operation. Many progressives take it as an article of faith that local police routinely murder young black men with no consequence, and Joe Biden recently suggested that the Trump administration intends to execute what amounts to a coup d’état by canceling the election.
There is a strain of unreasoning paranoia in American public life, and it is a serious problem — but it did not come from nowhere.
It came, at least in part, from Waco.
Read the whole thing.
Flashback: Jesse Walker of Reason on The United States of Paranoia.
MAYBE HE JUST FORGOT THE, YOU KNOW, THE THING: Joe Biden Lied About Where Tara Reade’s 1993 Sexual Harassment Claim Would Be.
SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “Corona is starting to feel like the Check Engine light. At first it freaks you out, but after a few weeks you’re like ‘Look, I gotta go to work.'”
MODIFIED LIMITED HANGOUT REACHES CONCLUSION: Despite Claiming To ‘#BelieveSurvivors,’ Women’s Groups Remain Silent On Tara Reade’s Allegations.
Related: Should we ignore some women?
Well yeah, if they’re accusing a powerful Democrat.
(Classical reference in headline.)
The new safer-at-home order is in effect through at least May 27, meaning that Coloradans are expected to stay close to home past Memorial Day, the unofficial start of the summer and a popular weekend for camping and hiking. The fear is that visitors will either contract or spread the virus in areas of the state not as well equipped to deal with mass infections.
“You made the sacrifice of staying at home for 32 days,” Polis said at a news conference on Monday. “I think you can make the sacrifice of going to your second or third favorite park for another month.”
I think Karen should mind his own business.
THE GYMS OPENED TODAY IN KNOXVILLE/KNOX COUNTY, so I went and did squats. Gym required masks, hand sanitizing, and limited numbers to 5 people per 1000 square feet, which is about 125. Unnecessary as there were maybe 20 people there with me. Working out in a mask is no picnic; it made everything a cardio workout. And after not doing squats for 7 weeks, well, I’m going to be very sore. I didn’t make it past 275, which is usually a warmup weight for me, and my legs were jelly. Just climbing the three steps from the garage into the house hurt.
HISTORY: Seven Artifacts Surrounding The 1960 U-2 Shootdown. “From his lofty perch, Powers’ had no idea of the blood-lust of the Soviet air defense forces arrayed below him. An SA-2 surface-to-air missile battery near Sverdlovsk finally locked onto Powers aircraft. The salvo inadvertently shot down a MiG-19 fighter pursuing Powers, but another missile blew off a chunk of Powers’ horizontal stabilizer, a fatal blow for a U-2C at that altitude. In a declassified CIA debriefing with Lockheed’s U-2 designer, Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson, upon Powers’ release from Soviet prison in 1962, the pilot explained exactly what happened the moment he lost control of his spy plane.”
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Joe Biden Denies Sexual Assault Accusation, Fails To Explain Why ‘Believe Victims’ Doesn’t Apply to Tara Reade.
NEITHER THE MODELS NOR THE MODELERS HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES WITH GLORY:
A BILL WHITTLE PODCAST: The Cold War: What We Saw | A Pizza Hut Parade – Episode 13.
ANOTHER QUESTION, HOW DID THAT $15 MINIMUM WAGE GET IN THE CARES ACT? Actually it didn’t but, as Issues & Insights explains, with that extra $600 a month in coronavirus relief unemployment cash, the CARES Act might as well have explicitly made it so.