Read it.

After spending recent seasons alienating parents across America with homosexual and BLM propaganda, PBS Kids’ Arthur, the longest running animated children’s series ever on television, is officially getting the ax.

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Guess we know which side she’s on.

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For several centuries, at least since John Stuart Mill, the Left has defined itself by its commitment to freedom of speech. This was practically the sine qua non for calling oneself a liberal. Yet some time around 2019-20, in the historical blink of an eye, free speech was simply . . . dismissed. It became obligatory on the Left to support systematic control of our public discourse by a handful of massive tech companies, in cooperation with the government.

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Some good advice.

Read it.

When we think of oppressive regimes, we immediately think of the Stalinist model portrayed in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the heavy-handed thought control associated with Hitler’s Reich or Mao’s China. But where the old propaganda was loud, crude and often lethal, the contemporary style of thought control takes the form of a gentle nudging towards orthodoxy – a gentle push that gradually closes off one’s critical faculties and leads one to comply with gently given directives. Governments around the world, including in the UK, notes the Guardian, have been embracing this approach with growing enthusiasm.

Nudging grew out of research into behavioural economics, and was popularised in Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s 2008 book, Nudge. It now has widespread public support and has influenced everything from health warnings for cigarettes to calorie counts for fast food. Yet nudging also has an authoritarian edge, employing techniques and technologies that the Gestapo or NKVD could only dream about to promote the ‘right behaviour’.

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The search for sustainable alternatives to common plastics has researchers investigating how their building blocks can be sourced from places other than petroleum, and for scientists behind a promising new study, this has led them straight to the sweet stuff. The team has produced a new form of plastic with “unprecedented” mechanical properties that are maintained throughout standard recycling processes, and managed to do so using sugar-derived materials as the starting point.

The breakthrough comes from scientists at the University of Birmingham in the UK and Duke University in the US, who in their pursuit of more sustainable plastics turned to sugar alcohols. These organic compounds carry a similar chemical structure to the sugars they’re derived from, which the scientists found can bring some unique benefits to the production of plastic.

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Sweden has deported an alleged recruiter for the Islamic State. The culture-enriching gentleman, who was allegedly active in jihad circles in Örebro, has a surfeit of Ahmeds in his name: Ahmed Abdulkarim Ahmed Ahmed. How Swedish can you get?

San Francisco tested a $1,000 guaranteed income pilot program. Here’s how it went for two artists.  (S.F. Gate) Not two plumbers. Not two mechanics. Two artistes.

‘We are weakening democracy’: fears over lack of lessons in how government works (The Guardian) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

University language guide says ‘grandfather,’ ‘housekeeping,’ ‘spirit animal’ are ‘problematic’ words

Pennsylvania school board member tells parents ‘I don’t work for you’

Manhattan Rite Aid pharmacy closing after rash of thefts, customers and workers say

The Constitution expects that the federal government will set standards for democracy in every state. (Salt Lake Tribune) No, it doesn’t. It says ‘republican form of government’, and doesn’t mention democracy at all.

Immigrant couple returns to Mexico to retire after 3 decades of working in Chicago: ‘It’s a dream of many undocumented people.’ (Chicago Tribune) I have no doubt.

Why shoplifting is soaring across the US — and will only get worse

California judge OKs earlier releases for repeat offenders Time to leave.

A single word sparks a crossfire between the Supreme Court, NPR and its star reporter Nina Totenberg (Washington  Post) Let me guess: ‘Liar’.

he Gorsuch-Sotomayor kerfuffle shows how the Supreme Court will close ranks amid controversy (CNN) It also shows that CNN reporters will lie like a rug.

Golden State tarnished: Ex-pats reveal ‘why we left California for good’

Social Justice Slams Into Europe, Part 2: In Scotland, They’ll Take the Woke Road

Wisconsin Judge Prevents Nurses from Going to New Employer

‘Smart’ Gun Mocked After Demonstration Fail

Non-Citizen Voting Push Is Part Of Agenda To Rid America Of Citizenship: Election Expert

America is now in fascism’s legal phase  (The Guardian)

China’s Censors Ban Hollywood Films As Beijing Builds Its Own “Movie Empire”

Anonymous Officials Claim There’s An Evil Russian Plot Again But The Evidence Is Secret Again

California School District Faces Legal Action Over LGBTQ+ Activist Teachers

“Take Only What You Need:” DC Asks People To Limit Supermarket Purchases As Empty Shelves Persist  Plenty of stuff on the shelves here in Texas.

Ron DeSantis’s election police squad would poison democracy (Washington Post) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

Would Trump Throw His Own Kids Under the Bus to Save Himself? We May Soon Find Out. (Daily Beast)

What CEOs are really saying when they lash out against ‘woke’ America (CNN) The mind-readers at CNN are on the case.

Tucker Carlson Whines He’s No Longer Attracted to the Brown M&M (Daily Beast) What a racist!

Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn to see honorary university degrees revoked (The Guardian) No retaliation is too petty.

Jim Jordan Described as Trump ‘Sycophant’ in Op-Ed in Ohio’s Largest Newspaper (Newsweek) And Newsweek, of course.

There is a new champion in the ‘what if the left did it’ competition (Washington Post) The continuing witch-hunt after Clarence Thomas’ wife.

MSNBC & New Yorker Smear Ginni Thomas as ‘Threat’ to SCOTUS

Why pay TV operators are dropping Trump-loving cable networks (L.A. Times) It’s all part of the witch-hunt.

Joe Manchin’s take on why he and other Democrats often seem to be speaking a different language: “The base they have is a different base than I have.” (Politico) That’s pretty obvious.

Seth Meyers on failed voting rights bill: ‘Republicans are waging war on democracy’ (The Guardian) Sounds like a Narrative.

Warming Trends: Winterless Olympics, a Disaster Novel Shows the Importance of Storytelling in Climate Conversations and a New Lab Studies Parks and Warming (Inside Climate News)

New pro-DeWine dark-money group launches ad barrage in Ohio (Cleveland.com)

SNL’s Ted Cruz Begs Trump to ‘Hit Me, Choke Me, Spit in My Face’ (Daily Beast) High-school never ends for some people.

Kathy Griffin Whining She’s Not Been Canceled, but ‘Erased’ — In Splashy NY Times Story

MSNBC’s Capehart Loves Howard Dean Scolding Dems For Failing to Fight ‘Neo-Fascist’ Republicans

Bidenflation Comes For DC’s Favorite Restaurants

Another US president, time for another big Intel factory promise by another CEO

Biden Says Russia Can Invade Ukraine So Long As They Avoid Hunter’s Gas Company  Babylon Bee.

Biden Admin Withholds Secret Iran Agreement From Congress

The Fed has a clear mandate to mitigate climate risks (The Hill) No, it doesn’t. It’s mandates are inflation and employment, and that’s all. You can look it up,

Day/Night temperature spread fails to confirm IPCC prediction

European silicon output shrinking, metal smelters closing as electricity prices quadruple, trade body warns

Eugene, Oregon: “We need some climate change”

Global Warming Driven By Pacific Warm Pool, La Nina & ITCZ: An Alternative Climate Change Theory

A Tale of Two Media Perspectives: New Pristine Reef Discovery a Marvel for Most, A Chance to Promote Unwarranted Climate Alarmism for CNN

CBS: Climate Change CAUSED the Tonga Volcanic Eruption Oh, I think not.

New Energy Regulations Will Make Every Room In Your House More Expensive

Detroit man accused of setting pregnant girlfriend on fire released on 10% bond

East Texas county official pleads guilty to misdemeanor election fraud

Aspiring Rapper Update: Lawsuit Accuses Seattle CHOP ‘Warlord’ of Pimping Hoes

Black Lives Matter’s Bloody Toll on Black People

The Racial Experience of a White Working Class American Boy

Dem Congressman Arrested After Defying Orders From Capitol Police

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But rubber tires help grip the ground and cushion bumps. How could a steel tire even come close to a smooth, safe ride? Built into the mechanical wheel is a pneumatic suspension system — an air suspension system powered by a pump or compressor that floods air into flexible bellows. That will allow the steel wheel to grip the road on tight turns and keep the passengers from bouncing out of their seats.

Read it.

I’m waiting for the first company to convert it into a motor home or camper.

I’d buy one.

Read it.

Although some of her wording was strange, the break itself isn’t the real story. It’s her doubling down in the face of two denials by the court, including one by the Chief Justice. She’s basically calling them liars. Worse was the Washington Democratic media’s echo chamber piling on, well documented by independent journalist Drew Holden on Twitter. Here’s how he started.

Read it.

“It’s a radically different way to accelerate projectiles and launch vehicles to hypersonic speeds using a ground-based system,” Jonathan Yaney, CEO of SpinLaunch, a California-based spaceflight technology company that has been involved in the development of the system, told CNBC. According to its website, the company aims to build “the world’s lowest-cost space launch system.”

Wonder whether that would work for ICBMs…?

Read it.

And far from being a peculiarity of the Middle Ages, Ekirch began to suspect that the method had been the dominant way of sleeping for millennia – an ancient default that we inherited from our prehistoric ancestors. The first record Ekirch found was from the 8th Century BC, in the 12,109-line Greek epic The Odyssey, while the last hints of its existence dated to the early 20th Century, before it somehow slipped into oblivion.

How did it work? Why did people do it? And how could something that was once so completely normal, have been forgotten so completely?

Now that I’m retired I find myself doing this — I’ll go to sleep at 10:00, what I think of as my Normal Bed Time, and wake up around 1:00 or 2:00 and have a hard time getting back to sleep. At first I put it down to a habit formed from over twenty years of production support — if a data warehouse load is going to break, it will do so around 2:30 a.m. — but maybe there’s something else going on. Hm….

Read it.

It’s become clear over the past few months that one of the key strategies for hiding the deadly adverse effects of the COVID-19 “vaccines” is the use of the official definition of “unvaccinated”. A patient who is injected with the experimental mRNA treatment is considered “unvaccinated” until fifteen days have passed since his second jab. Some of the most severe reactions to the vax — including those resulting in death — occur within two weeks, so those serious adverse effects are conveniently being recorded as occurring among the “unvaccinated”. Those who experience adverse reactions to the vax often show symptoms that resemble those of Corona, so that deaths among the recently “vaccinated” are sometimes reported as “unvaccinated patients who died of Covid”.

Read it.

I am less disturbed about autonomous vehicles on rail roads than on highways.

Steve Sailer.

Handel’s Messiah is a rare work of high art that most people enjoy and a large number have actually performed in. Not surprisingly, Canadians are worked up over what Handel’s Messiah has to do with George Floyd in the same way that Canadians decided that the topic of “Rembrandt in Amsterdam” required repeated references to Turtle Island.

Read it.

A woke City Council member who has called the NYPD the Big Apple’s “biggest gang” is under fire for tweeting about a community garden instead of showing sympathy following Friday night’s ambush shooting in her Harlem district that left a rookie cop dead and another officer clinging for life.

Newly elected Kristin Richardson Jordan, a Democratic socialist, tweeted two hours after the shooting about her concerns over a neighborhood community garden being shut down.

Biden’s second-ranking climate diplomat stepping down (The Hill) ‘Climate diplomat’? There’s a Crustian job for you.

House panel broadens probe into climate disinformation by Big Oil (Washington Post) But not by Big Print, of course.

House committee schedules 2nd hearing on oil and gas industry’s role in climate disinformation (CNN) How about CNN’s role in climate disinformation?

More surprises await scientists at Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier” (Axios)

Donald Trump and Sean Hannity just had the most amazing exchange (CNN) Well, amazing to Chris Cillizza, anyway. I get the impression that he doesn’t get out much.

Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court? (The New Yorker) They realize that Clarence Thomas ignores them, so they’re going after his wife.

The Case Against the Oath Keepers (The New Yorker)

DOJ seeks to block subpoena for Trump deposition (CNN)

Wisconsin GOP lawmaker who questioned Biden win disciplined (AP)

Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines (Politico) All Trump! All the time!

Hillary Clinton Helpfully Suggests that Republicans Look at Trump’s E-mails (The New Yorker) I will helpfully suggest that we look at Clinton’s e-mails.

‘House of Trump is crumbling’: why ex-president’s legal net is tightening (The Guardian)

What the Joe Rogan podcast controversy says about the online misinformation ecosystem (NPR)

Videos show “Stop the Steal” rally organizer saying he would work with extremist groups (CNN) Like Antifa? Like BLM?

British white supremacist, initially sentenced to read Austen and Dickens, imprisoned for two years (Washington Post) Glad to know they’ve got nothing more important to write about.

Progressives are re-segregating American institutions under the guise of ‘racial equity’

Manhattan DA Bragg meets with local leaders, refuses to back away from controversial crime stance

The infiltration of woke DA’s into the justice system will not be easy to fix

Michiganders say children are ‘not the government’s’ after viral Dem Party Facebook post backlash

White House adviser claims GOP laws ‘would allow people to subvert’ 2022 election The way Democrats are planning to?

‘No SALT no deal’: Democrats vow to block Build Back Better bill without tax break (Reuters) Rich liberals deserve this tax break!

Gavin Newsom Demands Answers From Whoever’s In Charge Of California  Babylon Bee.

In rare cases, coronavirus vaccines may cause Long Covid–like symptoms  Mainly because they aren’t really vaccines but rather genetically engineered therapeutics.

Covid reinfection: how likely are you to catch virus multiple times? (The Guardian)

Potential long-term symptoms of omicron COVID-19 cases

Bill Maher pushes back on Fauci: ‘Don’t sit there in your white coat and tell me “just do what we say”‘ (The Hill)

Bill Maher torches Sotomayor for botching COVID facts: ‘That’s really ignorant for a Supreme Court justice’

Country shows what life is like after massive Omicron wave (CNN)

How a Milder COVID Variant Is Creating a Health-Care Crisis (The New Yorker) Just so long as you PANIC!

Omicron surge is undermining care for other health problems (Associated Press) No, the PANIC is undermining care for other health problems.

Pennsylvania Middle School Teacher Caught In Photo Taping Mask To Student’s Face

COVID Won’t Stop Global Elites From Hobnobbing In Davos As Economic Forum Set For May

Scientists Instrumental To COVID-19 ‘Natural Origins’ Narrative Received Over $50 Million In NIAID Funding In 2020-2021

Ivermectin Could Destroy Justification For Lockdowns And Vaccine Mandates

Jake Tapper Grills Jen Psaki Harder Than Fox News Did (Daily Beast) And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another.

NYPD officer killed, another in critical condition after Harlem shooting, police say

Denver public school teaching kindergartners BLM ‘guiding principles’ including ‘disruption of nuclear family’ Too many black people have no ‘nuclear family’ to disrupt. That’s the problem.

The Dallas Mavericks are consistently white in a black league. Why? (The Guardian) Perhaps to give Narrative Media like The Guardian something to bitch about.

Aspiring Rapper Update: ‘C Blue’ Accused of Shooting NYPD Officer (Accidentally)

Read it.

Jose Figueroa, who manages Polar Manufacturing, a small company that produces hinges, locks, and brackets in south Chicago, told Wired that he employed a robot on the production line that costs only $8 per hour versus a minimum wage of $15 per hour for humans. He said the robot has allowed workers to concentrate on other tasks while increasing output.

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The Ghost Gunner 3 is a 3 Axis CNC machine that can take a metal block and create a lower receiver in a relatively short period. You can then assemble that lower into a completed firearm without it being registered.

Since the only part needed to create these homemade firearms is a block of metal (pictured below), it would be entirely impossible for the ATF to regulate these without an act of congress.

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ByFusion uses a combination of steam and compression to shape all kinds of plastics, even nonrecyclables, into standard building blocks called ByBlocks. These can be used to build anything from fences and retaining walls to public terraces and bus stops, but the real stars are the patented machines used to make them. Called Blockers, these hefty machines are fed mounds of plastic that are squeezed into blocks—no sorting or cleaning needed. After years of R&D, the company has installed a full production unit in L.A., where it can process 450 tons of plastic per year, with 12 more Blockers in the pipeline across the country.

Pete Buttigieg pushes back against Joy Reid’s claim that infrastructure bill was a ‘White guy employment act’

NYC Mayor Adams wants more federal cash even after massive infrastructure bill

The Many Mug Shots of a Killer

Social Justice Slams Into Europe, Part 1: In France, Wokeism’s A Oui Bit Different

21% of African-Americans Are Now of Immigrant Stock

‘Squad’ Ally Calls Sinema, Manchin ‘White Nationalists’  They’ve only got one card, so they’re going to play it.

‘The treeline is out of control’: how the climate crisis is turning the Arctic green (The Guardian)

Florida’s Environmental Regulation Commission hasn’t met in 5 years (Orlando Sentinel)  Why aren’t they out there regulating?

‘We have a lot to lose’: 16 Minnesota cities declare climate emergency, urge legislative action (Star-Trubune) Mostly Federal money.

Cities across Minnesota declare climate emergencies (MPR) With COVID winding down, we need another reason for people to PANIC!

Gulf Stream is the weakest in 1,000 years; that could drive more Jersey Shore flooding (Asbury Park Press) And we were there 1000 years ago to measure it!

Svalbard glacier ice loss projected to roughly double by 2100 (New Scientist) Projected!

Historical glacier change on Svalbard predicts doubling of mass loss by 2100 (Nature) Predicted!

RINO ALERT: Bipartisan lawmakers announce climate adaptation bill (The Hill)

More than 450 scientists call on PR and ad firms to cut their ties with fossil fuel clients (Washington Post)

Changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet volume lag climate changes, such that today’s climate could still be affecting its size in thousands of years’ time

Wrong Again, Atlantic, High Lumber Prices Are Not Being Caused by ‘Climate Change’

Green Campaigner Exempts Herself From Her Own Climate Demand

S.F. omicron COVID surge has peaked, and infections are declining, Mayor Breed says (S.F. Chronicle)

A passenger refused to wear a mask on a London-bound flight. The pilot turned the plane around. (Washington Post) He probably had no choice.

Insufferable Anti-Masker Forces International Flight to Backtrack Mid-Journey (Daily Beast) Yup, just held a gun to the pilot’s head and FORCED them to turn around.

Study Says People With Mild COVID-19 Symptoms Could Suffer From Long-Term Neurological Damage (NBC) So you still need to PANIC!

Mail carrier sent home for wearing N95 instead of cloth mask: ‘I thought it was a joke’

Florida’s long Omicron recovery (Politico)

Booster longevity: Data reveals how long a third shot protects (NPR) It doesn’t.

California’s COVID gun store shutdowns ruled illegal (AP)

New Emails Expose Fauci’s Role In Shaping Highly Influential Paper That Established COVID “Natural Origin” Narrative

“Bizarro World”: Researcher Calls Out Censorship After Journal Pulls COVID-19 Vaccine Adverse Events Analysis

Biden Admin Decrees All “Essential” Workers Traveling To US Must Be Fully Vaccinated

Sewage Surveillance Reveals Omicron Arrived In US Even Earlier Than Believed (And Is Disappearing Fast)  I’ll bet you didn’t know that ‘sewage surveillance’ was a thing.

CDC Study Shows Power of Natural Immunity

Totalitarian Paranoia Run Amok: Pandemics, Lockdowns, & Martial Law

Czech Republic Abolishes Plan To Mandate COVID-19 Vaccines

Center for Covid control told workers to lie about results, ex-employees say

Texas Judge Blocks Biden’s Vaccine Mandate For Federal Employees Nationwide

Nearly 50 More Marines Booted For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccines

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The upcoming Winter Olympic games aren’t just the genocide Olympics. They are also the totalitarian Olympics.

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CNN anchor Brianna Keilar is hosting a temporary program pompously titled “Democracy in Peril.” On Jan. 18, Keilar huffed: “We can’t discuss the tsunami of disinformation, jeopardizing American democracy, without talking about the mothership, Fox.”

On the very same day, NPR Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg aired a story claiming that Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch was callously ignoring requests from Chief Justice John Roberts to wear a mask during oral arguments in deference to diabetes-suffering colleague Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

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President Joe Biden joined Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and numerous other Democrats this week in a partisan attempt to preemptively delegitimize the 2022 election.

Twice, the president was asked by reporters whether voters could trust the electoral system, and twice, the president contended that a fair election was unlikely unless the Senate was blown up and the Democrats’ election power grab was passed—a maneuver that poses a far more serious and lasting threat to the constitutional order than anything Donald Trump is cooking up right now.

“I think it would easily be illegitimate,” said Biden. “The increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is in proportion to not being able to get these reforms passed.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, sent out on the morning shows Thursday, offered basically the same position.

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“It seems that, in common with the tobacco industry, the wind industry was well aware that its products were inimical to health. The introduction of larger turbines is also problematic because the larger the turbines, the more noise they produce.” (- Alun Evans, Centre for Public Health, The Queen’s University of Belfast, below)

 

Zman’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

This week’s show is a continuation of last week’s show. The point of the effort is to describe the various aspects of the ruling regime. We don’t have a good name for this form of rule and one reason for it is it just sort of happened. Unlike various forms of socialism, there is no one guy at the center of it. It is the combination of historical and economic events over the last two centuries. The great contribution of Karl Marx was having a last name that made for a pithy label.

In last week’s show, I thought the segment on managerialism was the best, but it is also the most studied aspect of the system. We have 80 years of writing on the growth of the administrative state. This week I think the two segments that are most important are Custodialism and Quadripartism. This growing sense by our rulers that they need to take care of us is rising from and encouraging this blending together of the power centers of the American empire.

Read it.

A Saudi-led airstrike targeting a prison run by Yemen’s Houthi rebels killed and wounded over 100 detainees on Friday, rescuers said, part of a pounding aerial offensive that hours earlier saw another airstrike take the Arab world’s poorest country off the internet.

Somehow I don’t see Yemen as a significant presence on the Internet. “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a camel.”

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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Randy Moore have announced a new strategy to fix the nation’s wildfire crisis. Not surprisingly, the most important part of that strategy is to give them a lot more money.

Amazing how that works.

Is midnight upon us? Doomsday Clock panel to set risk of global catastrophe (The Guardian)

How to read the Doomsday Clock (BBC)

Rising costs of climate crisis must compel Congress to act (The Hill)

A68: ‘Megaberg’ dumped huge volume of fresh water (BBC) Too bad it’s not where people can use it.

The Texas electric grid failure was a warm-up

Time Magazine: We Only Have to TRIPLE the Global Renewable Energy Budget to Achieve Green Nirvana

Germany’s New Green Stimulus Plan Won’t Fix The Economy

Leonardo DiCaprio warns: ‘We literally have a nine year window’ to stop climate change – ‘There’s a ticking clock’

The years-long, international effort to save one tiny Mexican fish  Proportion? What’s that?

The New Yorker’s OUTRAGEOUS Climate Nemesis: Refrigerators

Attenborough fibbed about hundreds of dead walrus because he wanted what the WEF wants

Black Homicide Deaths Went Up 53% During George Floyd Era

Virginia Public School Students Made To Play ‘Identify Your Privilege’ Bingo  

M&Ms Makes Their Mascots More Inclusive, Less Sexy

Joy Behar Blames Biden’s ‘White Privilege’ for Trying to Work With GOP

M&Ms Introduces New Trans Character Who Identifies As A Skittle  Babylon Bee.

The eternally unfulfilled dream of Trump’s opponents: This time, they’ve got him (Washington Post)

Jordan Peterson: Why I Am No Longer A Tenured Professor At The University Of Toronto

Jimmy, He’s No Longer President: As Biden Crashes, Kimmel Rants at Trump

Midterm Messaging Alert: Major News Outlets Keep Hiring Journalists Obsessed With January 6

Steve lets go.

Scientists are defending their vaccines, pointing to other shots that have low efficacy rates. Flu shots, for example, often miss the mark. Supposedly, this means our covid vaccines are okay. Their defensive arguments are clearly wrong. The smallpox vaccine has a no-infect rate of 95%. The polio vaccine is 99% effective. Indisputably, there are such things as good vaccines. Covid vaccines have a no-infect rate not far from zero, which, by any reasonable scientific standard, is not high. The best you can reasonably hope for after being vaccinated and boosted is that when you get sick, you won’t have severe symptoms, and they can’t even guarantee that. They used to tell us severe cases were impossible for the once-vaccinated, and a couple of months down the road, they sang a totally different tune.

Right now, there are only two intelligent reasons to get vaccinated. 1. To shut people up so you can get on with your life, and 2. to provide a significant but not huge increase in your chances of avoiding severe symptoms such as death. With Omicron’s dramatically decreased severity, reason 2 is getting weaker by the second. Unless you’re a cast member on My 600-Pound Life, Omicron is not likely to do you in.

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The columnist Katharine Whitehorn was apparently fond of saying: “you can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of the others.” I remembered this as I listened to Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, describe his plans to “make sure that people get their vaccine” at a panel hosted this week by the World Economic Forum.

Bancel wants to make regular COVID-19 booster shots more attractive by bundling them with vaccines against other, more familiar ailments. “Our goal is to have a single annual booster, so that we don’t have compliance issues where people don’t want to get two to three shots a winter, but they get one dose where they get you know, a booster for corona, and a booster for flu and RSV [respiratory syncytial virus].” Skeptics, Bancel reasons, will be more willing to take a COVID shot if it comes conveniently packaged with other shots they might get anyway.

This strategy seems perfectly designed to have the opposite of its intended effect. When surveyed last September, 88% of those who remain unvaccinated against COVID said that that “there’s too much pressure on Americans to get a COVID-19 vaccine.” Almost as many (80%) suspect that “public health officials are not telling us everything they know about COVID-19 vaccines.” If those same public health officials, demonstrating their characteristic humility, now proceed to make second-class citizens out of anyone who resists their new omni-vax—what is likely to be the result?

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…economist Garett Jones recently opined that Trump’s scuttled hopes to release a COVID-19 vaccine a few weeks earlier “likely would have saved at least 100,000 American lives.”

…Pfizer did not reveal its trial’s favorable results until November 9—six days after the election. The company had originally planned to consider submitting an EUA request to the FDA with just 32 data points; instead it gathered 94, and it waited another 11 days to accrue the requested safety data, plus even more data showing how well the vaccine worked, before making its filing.

Politics kills.