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Thursday, April 8. 2021

How a Football Team Became Mascots for Vegetarianism. In 1907, a championship squad changed what it meant to eat meat-free.

Netflix buys Kanye West documentary for $30M: report. The Yeezus rapper has been filming his life for over 20 years

CDC: Chance Of Surface Transmission Of Virus Not What We Thought

PRINCETON ADMITS ONLY 129 WHITE AMERICAN MALES

Susan Rice Will Leave Netflix Board to Join Biden Administration

E-Mails Show DeSantis Team Asked CBS, 60 Minutes To Interview Moskowitz — And Were Told “The Deadline Has Passed”

Florida Democrats Defend DeSantis Against Attack From ‘60 Minutes’

Colorado voting laws are similar to Georgia's despite decision to move Major League Baseball All-Star Game

75% Say Voter ID Necessary, Majority Oppose Georgia Boycott

'Woke' MLB moving All-Star Game from 51% Black Atlanta to 76% White Denver, critics note. The game's relocation is expected to deliver a severe economic blow to Atlanta, where nearly 30% of businesses are Black-owned

Alleged Cuomo Groping Victim: ‘All I Remember Is Seeing His Hand, His Big Hand’

The Hunter Biden Story Is Mainly About Presidential And Media Corruption

Gillibrand: Paid leave, child care, and caregiving are all "infrastructure"

9 Crazy Examples of Unrelated Waste and Partisan Spending in Biden’s $2 Trillion ‘Infrastructure’ Proposal

Biden's Infrastructure Plan Isn't About Infrastructure. It's About Paying Off Political Allies.

The Meaning of American Leadership: Reflections from the 70th Secretary of State (Sec. Mike Pompeo and Roger Hertog) - video interview

Pompeo is an impressive man

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:37 | Comments (36) | Trackbacks (0)

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Chance Of Surface Transmission Of Virus Not What We Thought So all those people that businesses hired to clean floors, tables, and shopping carts weren't really needed after all? We didn't really need to spray down our packages with Lysol and use hand sanitizer 20 times per day? McDonald's really didn't need to hand you your order in a "contactless" tray? We've really been played, haven't we? Trust the experts...spit!

#1 snopercod on 2021-04-08 08:39 (Reply)

Amen, brother! For any reasonable person, all this super-santizing was kabuki from the get-go. On the flip side, the sudden rush to buy every conceivable type of cleaning supply and laundry detergent suggests to me that a whole lot of folks were not keeping very sanitary households. So one nice side effect of all this Covidiocy is that millions of manky households took a whack at cleaning up their sh*t.

#1.1 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2021-04-08 09:19 (Reply)

I wish we had your expert opinions and insights a year ago about how a new virus spreads. Who knew we had so many internet educated medical experts available to call on?

Wash your hands before replying.

#1.1.1 Sal D. on 2021-04-08 15:43 (Reply)

Thank you and well put. It was an entirely reasonable intervention at the time. I kid the poor woman at the entrance to the supermarket who is required to say "All the cart handles have been sanitised" as part of her job that we all hope she won't have to say this soon and she laughs: "I know! It turned out it didn't matter much!" "Yes," I reply "It turns out that shared air is the whole ball of wax. But some people still can't get even that!"

Here's a fun game for all the people who enjoy sneering at what all the experts had to say last spring. Go back one year to the various posts and comments that people right here at MF had to say. Yeah, shame you can't delete those now, huh? We actually did have 600,000 die in this "flu season."

If people were honest here, there are some loud voices that would be slinking away, embarrassed to comment further. But they won't. They have lied to themselves about what they said and what it meant, and they lie further about what the hard research realities have revealed now, preferring to get their science from cherry-picking Instapundit and the like.

I became a conservative in the late 80s because they followed the facts no matter how painful. This year has been humiliating. Now even the conservatives curate their facts.

#1.1.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2021-04-08 17:04 (Reply)

I find myself mostly agreeing. The government's primary responsibility in a pandemic is to prepare the medical infrastructure to deal with the problem. NOT to take away the rights of the citizens. NOT to go off half cocked and destroy businesses and lives. IMHO any politicians who instituted or backed the shutdowns and other draconian policies should be impeached/fired and held personally responsible for the losses of the citizens. Never again!! No more lockdowns and no more destroying businesses and lives. When the government does more harm then the problem they are dealing with they need to be slapped down. Do not forget what they have done to us, vote them out and sue them for loss of wages, rents, etc.

#1.1.1.1.1 Anon on 2021-04-08 18:49 (Reply)

I ordinarily would try to be a little milder, but your statements are so over-the-top that I have to ask: So you are okay with 600,000 dead Americans? Politicians should be held responsible for economic side effects - which were almost entirely voluntary to begin with - but saving lives has no value?

You really mean this? That mortality concerns are of little import, but economic ones are criminal? Or are you one of those who believes there was never any danger and it was all just made up?

Again, I say, it has been a humiliating year to be a conservative.

#1.1.1.1.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2021-04-08 20:33 (Reply)

Yeah over the top. 600,000 Americans dead with stay at home orders, wear masks, social distancing and millions of bankrupt businesses. So WHAT THE F*#K do you think could have reduced that more??? Perhaps shoot anyone found on the streets or weld their doors shut??? How stupid can you be?

I have an idea. How about the government put maximum effort into strengthening our health care system and ZERO effort into putting people in jail for living their lives during the pandemic. Instead what they should have done is told people what they knew (or thought they knew) and let we free citizens decide to stay home or go to work; to visit our friends and family or not. The NEVER had the right to force us off the streets and beaches NEVER!!!

Sure there was and still is danger. Are you one of those people that believe we weren't oppressed enough and THAT is why there are 600,000 dead. I was one of those people a year ago warning that this was worse than most people think and I predicted 600,000 deaths. But nothing we did stopped those 600,000 deaths. Most people who got covid wore the masks, social distanced and did everything they were told to do and still got covid. What more do you think we should have done? Burned the rest of the constitution? Built FEMA camps? Shoot everyone who objected?????

Nothing worked because a virus does what a virus does and your mask and 6 feet means diddly squat to it.

#1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Anon on 2021-04-08 20:49 (Reply)

QUOTE:

Nothing worked because a virus does what a virus does and your mask and 6 feet means diddly squat to it.

Wrong. It is simply not true that "a virus does what a virus does" and nothing people do makes any difference.

The COVID-prompted behavior and policies that we all love to argue about may not have had the effect we wanted on COVID, this is true.

Influenza cases, on the other hand, all but disappeared in the last year.

That tells us two things:

Efforts to stop the transmission of viral outbreaks are not futile (i.e., viruses don't just "do what they do" without being affected by what humans do). Scientists have been telling people to wash their hands for over a century (and mostly being ignored – even by doctors). COVID got more us to wash our hands, sanitize surfaces, and limit personal contact – and virus transmission went down. (Other viruses besides COVID, admittedly, but the transmission is down.)
COVID-19 was not "a hoax" or "just a flu" or "no big deal." It is highly infectious. In fact, even in the face of control strategies that are demonstrating astonishing results against other entrenched and persistent pathogens, COVID proved to be more or less unstoppable.

I think that reasonable people can disagree about the best public policy response to COVID. I myself would have preferred fewer mandatory restrictions (and less politicization of all information about the virus – it might be that the worst thing to come out of this is widespread belief that we cant trust what we're being told). But if conservatives insist on building a false narrative about COVID, (even if it's only to combat the false narrative preferred by Progressives), we only harm our ability to prepare for and respond to the next true public health crisis.

We also overlook the fact that it is too early to know how this public health crisis will turn out. If a disease as spreadable as COVID is going to hang around forever (like seasonal flue dis after the influenza pandemic of 1918), that is going to change some things about our society regardless of the public policy responses.

#1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Thos. on 2021-04-09 13:44 (Reply)

My HOA- former apartments turned into condos- has a laundry room. Six months into Winnie-the-Flu, the City informed my HOA that the laundry room had to be wiped down after each use. Or else. Paid, not volunteer. As it wasn't cost effective to do that, the HOA shut the laundry room down.

An octogenarian homeowner found a way around the City- use the City against itself. She called another office at the City to inform the City that her tenants, were moving out because there were no longer laundry facilities. [They were moving out, but lack of laundry facilities wasn't the reason.] Turns out there is also a City regulation that tenants need to be provided on-site laundry facilities- and a lot of our units have tenants. The City official in charge of the laundry facilities for tenants visited us, and informed the management company that if laundry facilities were not open within 24 hours, the HOA was facing a $2500 fine. Within several hours of the City visit, the laundry room got reopened. The Board informed us that it had decided to reopen the laundry room BEFORE the City visited us, but very few believe that.

One irony about the City shutting down our laundry room is that the odds of 2 people being in the laundry room at the same time are VERY small. If you to go to a commercial laundry, the place is full of people.

So now we find out that surface cleaning wasn't necessary.

As a further example of the idiocy of the City, a homeowner who leases her unit got a letter from the City that she needed to file a Recycling Plan, which would include "Service Receipts from your waste hauler." Why does some idiot City employee demand this of an individual homeowner, when our management company has filed those recycling plans for years and years?

#1.2 Gringo on 2021-04-08 12:52 (Reply)

Susan Rice leaving the Netflix board in move to the Biden administration. Is the next move to take the place of VP after Dementia Man is quietly removed from office?

#2 JC on 2021-04-08 08:50 (Reply)

You realize this is a story from December? Rice has been with the Biden Administration since Day One.

#2.1 Jerryskids on 2021-04-08 09:33 (Reply)

I thought that was the case but didn't look at the date and assumed I was wrong. Still think the outcome will be her as the next VP.

#2.1.1 JC on 2021-04-08 12:50 (Reply)

I'm calling bullshit.

1 in 3 People Who Survive COVID-19 Are Left With ‘Brain Disease’ or Psychiatric Disorders, Says New Study

https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/covid-survivors-brain-disease-psychiatric-disorders

#3 feeblemind on 2021-04-08 09:27 (Reply)

Sorry the facts are uncomfortable for you. Have you got any actual evidence for your POV, or just the usual "feelings" that the experts must be lying to you?

I worked in acute mental health emergencies to earn my daily bread for forty years. I don't think anyone else here can say that. I predicted almost a year ago that when "loss of taste and smell" was a signal that this was a very, very bad sign, as it screams "neurological" to clinicians.

#3.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2021-04-08 17:08 (Reply)

Just the usual feelings AVI, plus the usual anecdotal evidence that NO ONE that I know of in my area has any brain damage from COVID. With one third of 'em brain damaged one would think people would notice.

I strongly suspect the point of the "study" was a ploy to reel in more 'research money". Just me I being cynical I guess.

#3.1.1 feeblemind on 2021-04-09 14:06 (Reply)

This new infrastructure bill just like the covid bill before it is simply graft and corruption pure and simple. It is the Democrats looting the treasury and giving payola to their friends and donors while skimming some off for themselves and family.

#4 OneGuy on 2021-04-08 09:29 (Reply)

So the story about Princeton tells us what slice of the demographic pie belongs to white males, and then completely whiffs on providing a supporting context. They speculate that some were recruited as athletes, maybe.

Powerline is no better than the Legacy MSM. I think they are providing sloppy and incomplete reporting that only serves to pull on emotional strings, rather than to inform people.

Does Princeton want to go 'woke' on admissions? Why not go on the offensive? Demand to know how many of these white males were legacy admissions. Publish article after article calling them out for not disclosing their data. Challenge their admissions policies, that they are not 'woke' enough. Demand to see the cross-section of race in admissions and badger them about hiding information.

Then publish this comparing it with a demography of the US population. Do it over and over again, pointing out the nature of 'entitlement'. Emphasize the discrepancies. Talk about what racism really is and make the conclusion unavoidable. Hand them their class war.

No defense is necessary with 'woke', when a good offense has so much to offer.

#5 Aggie on 2021-04-08 09:53 (Reply)

>I think they are providing sloppy and incomplete reporting that only serves to pull on emotional strings, rather than to inform people.

In fairness, the confusing numbers are the fault of the Princeton University's "Office of Communications." Powerlineblog is a blog that (like most blogs, including this one) mostly* provides commentary on the news.

*they have expanded lately to do some reporting on MN specific stories, such MN's response to Covid and Rep. Omar's legal problems. But those are pretty rare.

#5.1 OldCurmudgeon on 2021-04-08 10:53 (Reply)

My dog has an ID. It's a chip.
I don't know why they didn't send him a mail-in ballot.

#6 oolioo on 2021-04-08 09:53 (Reply)

NY State is going to give illegal aliens up to $15,600 because of Covid. Citizens get nothing! Well... they get the bill.

Can someone explain why any politicians would come up with this hair brained idea?

#7 Saul on 2021-04-08 10:21 (Reply)

Well you know that the redistribution of wealth is a cornerstone idea of Marxism. It still baffles the mind. What does it tell you, that the government knows where all the illegals are, in order to give them the check?

#7.1 B. Hammer on 2021-04-08 10:31 (Reply)

C'mon, Saul... They're DEMOCRATS. It's "what they do"!

#7.2 Sam L. on 2021-04-08 10:42 (Reply)

One interesting footnote to the MLB All-Star game with Coca-Cola, Delta / United airlines weighing in on Georgia's voting laws: The corporations that are chiming in support to Biden's (lying) exhortations on the new legislation are being heavily pressured to say these things by large institutional shareholder groups. I am reading that the groups are apparently public pension funds - maybe the same ones that are getting bailouts from the infrastructure and covid-relief legislation?

#8 Aggie on 2021-04-08 10:22 (Reply)

We are being treated to a rare experience. Have you ever wondered what really happened in 1929, what the people were thinking? Well, history is repeating itself. Stocks and bonds are making new millionaires every day. Everything is a bubble, everything is booming. You simply cannot make a mistake in today's market. Gold, silver, bitcoin, everything is going up, even toilet paper. What could possibly go wrong? If I were you I would mortgage my home and borrow the max on your credit card and buy bitcoin. How can you lose? Our government agrees with me 110%, they have skyrocketed their borrowing and wasteful spending. Think about it these are the smartest people in the world and they are mortgaging your future to the hilt. Surely they know something you don't, right! Surely they are taking advantage of this chance of a lifetime opportunity to double, no, triple their money. What could possibly go wrong. Don't miss this opportunity to jump on this bubble bandwagon.

#9 IdahoBob on 2021-04-08 10:47 (Reply)

These links convince me, along with years of accruing proof, that our government is beyond saving, beyond repair. A clean sweep and a clean slate is the only way to stop this runaway train to ruination. We haven't had a constitutional republic for years. Very few people can handle the moral underpinnings that requires, and now we have the government most of us deserve.

#10 Humdeedee on 2021-04-08 10:51 (Reply)

In the Marines we call that FUBAR.
F***ed up beyond all repair.

#10.1 oolioo on 2021-04-08 11:06 (Reply)

One thing that is never mentioned in the George Floyd case. His car was a Mercedes SUV. Those things cost $70K or so. I feel like I'm in hog heaven with a 2 YO pickup truck and he is driving a Mercedes SUV. WTH is going on their? Did he work in a high paid construction job or as a dentists or something? No! He hasn't held a job in 20 years. Where in the hell did he get the money to buy/lease/acquire a Mercedes SUV??? Asking for a friend.

#11 Anon on 2021-04-08 10:52 (Reply)

The Democrats, as usual, have it exactly backward. We should require voter id to protect the right to vote. It is the duty of the state and federal governments to insure that only qualified citizens vote. We cannot constitutionally have id or background checks to buy guns because the constitution specifically requires the government to not infringe on that right.

#12 IdahoBob on 2021-04-08 11:15 (Reply)

Biden Slams US As 'International Embarrassment' In Gun-Control Speech

QUOTE:

Among Biden’s executive actions are directives for the Department of Justice to “stop the proliferation of ‘ghost gun’” building kits within 30 days by subjecting those who purchase them to regular firearm procedures such as background checks and serial numbers on the guns. Biden also gave the Justice Department 60 days to reclassifying pistols with stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles and cited the recent shooting in Boulder, Colorado, as one example of how the braces could be abused to harm people. He also asked the department to publish an “annual report on firearms trafficking and annual updates necessary to give policymakers the information they need to help address firearms trafficking today.”

Other actions Biden suggested include publicizing model “red flag” legislation for states and Congress to evaluate implementing to “allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others.” Similarly, Biden recommended multiple federal agencies invest and engage in “evidence-based community violence interventions” around the nation funded by the president’s proposed “American Jobs Plan.”

During his announcement of the new gun regulations, Biden claimed he does not intend to infringe on anyone’s Second Amendment rights but warned that “no amendment to the Constitution is absolute.”

https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/08/biden-blasts-us-as-international-embarrassment-in-new-gun-control-executive-orders/

#13 feeblemind on 2021-04-08 14:58 (Reply)

So, a question for a lawyer; A EO generally tells one of the administration departments what their (new) policy is. I accept that they can enforce their policies with or without an EO. However is it "law". I am under the impression that only the congress or the legislature can "make" law. They can, obviously, write laws that auth0orize government offices to create policy intended to administer that law BUT can the president "make" law? NOT create policies to administer or enforce existing laws but rather to "make" new law. I can't find it in the constitution.

#13.1 Saul on 2021-04-08 15:26 (Reply)

Saul: can the president "make" law?

Executive orders have the effect of law, but must be based on existing statute and are subject to judicial review.

#13.1.1 Zachriel on 2021-04-10 07:51 (Reply)

You remember the Obama infrastructure plan - 9% for the icky Burley mem type of jobs. It was such a success that they couldn't spend it all on the selected projects (environmental and other roadblocks), so they had to "free form" it and send it to their pals in the various D constituencies. So -- happy ending after all. I see the same gimmick in the future here, along with a number of really really bad little items on page 2045 that they hope no one will notice. And after all, no Congressman has time in their busy lives to do dreck like reading the bill before the vote on it. And if it doesn't affect their donors, they don't care. After all it's another year and three quarters before we get to vote and we will undoubtedly forget about it by then.

#14 fiona on 2021-04-08 15:22 (Reply)

Various people have filled a lawsuit against former president Trump alleging that he caused/instigated the Jan 6th trespass on the capitol that escalated after the shooting of an innocent women by the capitol police into a riot. So why can't any property owner or bystander harmed during a BLM or Antifa insurrection/riot/terror attack/mostly peaceful protest file a law suit against the mayor, governor or police chief???

#15 Saul on 2021-04-08 15:45 (Reply)

QUOTE:

Colorado voting laws are similar to Georgia's despite decision to move Major League Baseball All-Star Game

Uh, no. Colorado's election in 2020 was 94% mail-in, with easily accessible drop boxes, and a 76% turnout rate. It's nothing like Georgia.
https://www.5280.com/2020/12/how-2020-has-affected-the-way-we-vote/

#16 Zachriel on 2021-04-08 16:30 (Reply)

Agreed. 30 year resident here. Colorado has been about 100% mail in ballot since about 2008 for regular residents.
Wide open for shenanigans, yes.

#16.1 FranknBean on 2021-04-08 17:53 (Reply)

When the state or judges make laws/rules that allow or encourage cheating in the election they should be obligated to take steps, even extraordinary steps to insure a fair election AND if the audits and investigation does show cheating that election result should be discarded and the election run again. Additionally there should be a major effort to identify and charge anyone who cheated or aided the cheating.

I would be in favor of paper ballots only and that law officers be assigned to move and control those ballots from the polling place to the counting place and until they have been properly stored after the counting awaiting the mandated audits.

#16.2 Anon on 2021-04-08 18:44 (Reply)

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Thursday, April 8. 2021

Thursday morning links