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Stacey Lennox: The New COVID-19 Scariant Distracts From Questions We Should Be Asking About Vaccines. “Mass vaccination for an illness that causes fatigue and a slight cough for a few days seems a bit over the top if the current assessment holds. Still, the coverage appears to breathlessly hope that the new variant is still dangerous to the elderly to justify their authoritarian biosecurity state.”

Matt Margolis: Joe Biden: The George Costanza of Presidents. “‘My whole life has been a complete waste of time,’ George Costanza once declared on Seinfeld. And that pretty much sums up Joe Biden’s political career as well.”

Yours Truly: Natural Immunity Works Better Than COVID Vaccines: New England Journal of Medicine. “If you missed the news, you’re not alone. The news broke during the busy Thanksgiving holiday, allowing outlets like CNN to publish on Thanksgiving Day when many people (including Yours Truly!) don’t bother reading the news.”

COLLUSION WITH FOREIGN POWERS: Disney’s Missing ‘Simpsons’ Episode in Hong Kong Raises Censorship Fears.

EVIL OFT DOTH EVIL MAR:  How Liberal Hypocrisy Prevents The Liberal Agenda.

SHUDDUP, THEY EXPLAINED:  How’s ‘Demographics Is Destiny’ Working for the Dems Now?

How dare you suggest that people who tan have agency, racist?

TO BE FAIR, WE’RE IN THE BEGINNING OF A PARADIGM SHIFT:  American cities are reverting to primitive, self-destructive behavior.

Mass production created the modern city.  Distributed work/production is emptying them of the productive. Part of this though is that the politicians have not a clue. They’re doing things like encouraging the homeless which empties the cities, in the serene confidence they’ll be able to sell prime real estate to their best friends….

But everything is changing, and they’re heading for the mother of all falls.

EXCEPT THAT NO ONE OUTSIDE DEEP BLUE ENCLAVES IS OBEYING ANYMORE:  When All Else Fails, Bring Out the Masks.

THEY’RE NOT VERY TECHY OR LORDLY:  Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey Resigns: ‘This was My Decision and I Own It’.

WHEN WILL THESE ORGANIZATIONS LEARN TO TELL THE LEFT TO SHUT UP?  Salvation Army Issues Sorry, Not Sorry Statement, Withdraws Racist Guide “For Appropriate Review”.

AS FORETOLD IN THE PROPHECIES:  South African Medical Association Asserts Omicron Causes ‘Mild Disease’.

OPEN THREAD: She never showed up. The comments speak movingly of memory and loss.

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH ROLLING STONE IS A VOICE OF SANITY: Chris Cuomo Caught Doing Something That Would Get Any Other Journalist Fired. Documents released Monday reveal the CNN host was using his media sources to get intel on his brother Andrew’s accusers, and then funneling information to the then-governor’s top aide.

SUNLIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT: Salvation Army withdraws guide that asks white supporters to apologize for their race.

SPACE: Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic select astronauts for future flights.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

● Shot: Artists must confront the climate crisis – we must write as if these are the last days.

—Headline, the Grauniad, November 12^th.

● Chaser: President ‘has four years to save Earth.’

—Headline, the Grauniad, January 17^th, 2009.

OLD AND BUSTED: New York magazine columnist Tom Wolfe stumbles over radical chic elite New York party, brings back all the salacious details for sane readers to mock.

The New Hotness? New York magazine stumbles over radical chic congresswoman; editors putting together a book of essays on AOC’s beauty, rare authenticity, and social media greatest hits.

CFOS RETHINKING COST SAVINGS OF JUST-IN-TIME SUPPLY CHAINS:

CFOs are reexamining just-in-time production after the pandemic left many businesses unable to meet customer demand because of supply shortages.

Until some form of equilibrium is once again reached, CFOs should rethink how just-in-time is used, says Debbie Fogel-Monnissen, CFO of the Institute for Supply Management. The pandemic made clear the total cost of the supply chain, which includes safety stock to increase resiliency, is more important than just short-term gains for maximum elimination of inventory.

Companies that don’t have a resilient supply chain, she says, even as the economy recovers, might miss growth opportunities or even suffer permanent damage to brand loyalty if consumers can’t get what they want, when they want it.

“The pandemic caused rapid changes in demand and supply — a shock to the global supply chain ecosystem that threw the prior equilibrium out of balance, Fogel-Monnissen says. “Just-in-time by its nature requires some predictability and the pandemic interrupted that cycle.”

Related: The Origins of Just-In-Time.

Just-in-Time (JIT) is only one element of lean manufacturing, which is a broader philosophy that seeks to eliminate all kinds of waste in a process.  Although JIT is often considered an enterprise-wide philosophy of continuous improvement, I’d like to focus on the mechanistic aspects of JIT – that is, the development and operations of a production system that employs continuous flow and preventive maintenance. In an effectively implemented JIT production system, there is little or no inventory – which includes Work-In-Process (WIP) – and production is tightly coupled to demand.

The origin of JIT can be traced back to Henry Ford’s production line, in which he was keenly aware of the burdens of inventory. However, Ford’s production system generated large volumes of identical products created in large batches – there was no room for variety, and the system was not coupled to demand levels.

In post-war Japan, Taiichi Ohno (“Father of JIT”) adapted the system at Toyota to handle smaller batch sizes and more variety in the parts that could be used to construct assemblies. In 1952, work on their JIT system was initiated, with full deployment of the kanban pull system by 1962. This was the genesis of the Toyota Production System, an elegant (and sometimes elusive) socio-technical system for production and operations. This approach bridged the gaps between production and continuous improvement and became the basis for lean manufacturing as it is known today.

Exit quote from the second post, which was written in 2010: “JIT is very sensitive to the external environment in which it is implemented. For a review of Polito & Watson’s excellent 2006 article that describes the key barriers to smooth JIT, read Shocks to the System: Financial Meltdown and a Fragile Supply Chain.”

(H/T: Ed Morrissey.)

PANIC IS A LIFESTYLE BRAND:

“There’s no reason to panic,” NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told CNN on Sunday morning, “but it’s a great reason to get boosted.” President Joe Biden did his best to relieve the stress that overtook opinion-makers on Monday.  “We’re going to fight and beat this new variant today,” he said. But “not with shutdowns or lockdowns.” Biden stressed that “this variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic.”

But there was a panic. And if you have investments in the market or need crucial elective surgeries in the state of New York, it was a damaging one. Why was panic the default response of so much of the news-consuming world over the weekend? And why have sobriety and circumspection now returned to both media and markets? In part because panic has become a lifestyle choice among an influential few.

The revivification of COVID as an acute emergency led some particularly active communicators to retreat into the comfort of existential dread. Of this, one instructive Twitter thread produced by Boston University School of Public Health Associate Professor Dr. Ellie Murray was indicative. Yes, she wrote, we must continue to promote vaccines, disseminate rapid tests, and approve promising therapeutics. But we must also restore masking mandates, prepare for business closures, provide paid pandemic furloughs, legislate a constitutionally viable moratorium on evictions, force airlines to absorb the cost associated with socially distanced flights, take all winter social gatherings outside, and develop “clear triggers to switch to hybrid or remote” learning in schools.

That is a lot of confidence to assign to these mitigation measures when there is almost no confidence in the newly identified threat they are supposedly designed to mitigate against. There may yet come a time to panic over the emergence of this or future COVID mutations, but that time is not now. This sort of display is explicable only as a psychological orientation, not a considered response to a two-year-old public health crisis. Those who exhibit this peculiar orientation have outsized influence over the national discourse. As the weekend’s anxiety suggests, it isn’t helping.

Our leftist elites, whose worldview is shaped by “the moral equivalent of war,” are desperate to keep the lockdown gloom of 2020 going as long as possible. On the other hand, even (P)resident Biden knows that a new lockdown would be the effective end of bumbling administration: New variant cause for concern, not panic, Biden tells US.

PERHAPS, AT HIS AGE, HE’S NOT ALL THERE: “Fauci decided to cast himself as Mr. Science. Criticize him, and you’re anti-science. In fact, Fauci is a career bureaucrat, not a scientist in any strong sense. Indeed, a true scientist would never view himself as science’s representative and try to win arguments based on such a claim.”

Related (From Ed): Fauci the omnipotent. “Fauci does not consider himself to be accountable to us, or to Congress. He is accountable only to Science. He’s not going to be prosecuted. He’s not going to prison, no matter how many Twitter users crow about it. He will, however, be judged by science, real science, when this is all over. And the real science shows that eleven million people and counting have died so far.”

UPDATE: From the comments: “Munchausen Syndrome By Fauci. He’s on a power trip.”

WELL, FOR ONE THING SOME PEOPLE ARE ONLY HAPPY IF THEY ARE MISERABLE. Why Some People Find It Harder to Be Happy, According to Science.

DEMOCRATS: How Austin Became One of the Least Affordable Cities in America.

THEODORE DALRYMPLE: Talking Bilge About Global Poverty. “A man who thinks that reducing starvation in remote parts of the world will somehow prevent global insecurity has an understanding of history and human nature that staggers by its naivety.”

THE #RESISTANCE GROWS: It’s not just for gas pumps any more! A reader who probably prefers anonymity sends these pictures:

And Donald Sensing sends this, saying “I took this today in Ridgetop in Robertson County, just north of Nashville.” He adds: “Another pump had a ‘Become Ungovernable’ sticker on it, but my photos didn’t turn out.”

Related: Joe Biden “I Did That!” Sticker. #CommissionEarned.

OUR INCESTUOUS RULING CLASS: Who Is Maurene Comey? James Comey’s Daughter Is Lead Prosecutor in Ghislaine Maxwell Trial.

WELL, GOOD: Study: Drug used for alcoholism treatment may fight severe COVID-19.

I’LL TAKE TWO: For Sale: A Douglas A-4 Skyhawk Fighter Jet. “This 1960 Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is currently being offered for sale for $995,000 USD, making it one of the most affordable fully-functional fighter jets for sale anywhere in the world. The word ‘affordable’ is relative of course, but in the world of privately owned warbird jets, anything under a million dollars is a steal.”