Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Much Sorry with Delays
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Thursday, January 13. 2022

Thursday morning links

 The Tipping Point: The Subtle Psychology and Economics of Taxi Fares


 GREG GUTFELD FILLS THE COMEDY VACUUM


 Which mask? What test? COVID's latest surge spreads an epidemic of confusion


 AP instructs editors: Start downplaying case counts in our stories about COVID


 The media do an about-face on the CDC as they finally face COVID restrictions


 We’re All Going to Get Omicron


Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:57 | Comments (25) | Trackbacks (0)

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Re: Covid origin. It isn't surprising that the scientists lied. We know that they lie. They are lying about AGW global warming too. They are political and think we are stupid and should just believe their proclamations.

They are lying about the effectiveness of masks too. They lied about Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine. Some esitimate that hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved with these two medications but politics was more important.
#1 Anon on 2022-01-13 09:50 (Reply)
So the elite and MSM are trying to convince you that "mass formation psychosis" is not real and is a conspiracy theory and, wait for it, they are using mass formation psychosis to convince you that it is not real.
#2 JustMe on 2022-01-13 09:57 (Reply)
I've been hearing about this supposedly reasonable phenomenon for 45 years, thanks. It has usually been directed at religious people to "prove" that they are crazy. There is not good historical or psychological evidence for its reality. There are plenty of things that are kindasortamaybe like it that somehow evaporate when you try to define it and measure it. Sometimes people are unreasonable and it follows fashion, and if real hunger or cold is in there, they can get worse than "unreasonable" and become really irrational.

But it's just a thing people bring out to say "My opponents are actually crazy," and it is too easy to accuse without much evidence. Liberals have always been a little irrational. This has gotten worse since 2000. But there is no point in conservatives joining them.
#2.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-01-13 18:25 (Reply)
Why would the NEA be so opposed to the parents who do not want CRT taught in our schools? CRT is clearly propaganda, hate speech and is designed to divide people and make them hate each other. It's origins is in Marxism and it's goal is to so disrupt our society that we will be susceptible to adopting Marxism. So again; why would the NEA be defending CRT and fighting those who object to it???

I wish that the NEA was as excited and committed to teaching math as they are about teaching the CRT hate.

What we need is a camera with sound in every classroom and every parent with children in that school gets a password to allow them to monitor the classes. I think it is time for some sunlight in our schools.
#3 OneGuy on 2022-01-13 10:17 (Reply)
Everybody's out there broadcasting how funny and hip Greg Gutfeld is. Of course a couple of years ago, the experts were all telling us how funny Stephen Colbert was, too. So....OK, I agree, kind of: Gutfeld is just as funny as Colbert. And I watch them equally as much, just to be fair-minded about it.
#4 Aggie on 2022-01-13 10:20 (Reply)
Bad news. Recruitments for the military are down and there is a shortage of white, patriotic men willing to be called racist, extremists and white supremacist. It is so bad that the military is now offering up to $50,000 for a qualified enlistee willing to suffer punishment for his skin color and whatever some people did 160 years ago. I don't know if it would be worth it. That kind of psychological punishment would probably stay with you for life.
#5 JustMe on 2022-01-13 10:34 (Reply)
They called us all Baby Killers during Vietnam War Era and beyond. During my school tour at Stanford we were deliberately told to minimize the time spent on campus in uniform. BUT, the Air Force had our backs, so we just shrugged it off and carried on. Now, you can't rely on your senior political officers.
#5.1 Michael Anderson (Link) on 2022-01-13 10:41 (Reply)
The US military now has political officers spread throughout the units just as the old Soviet Union had political officers throughout their military units. Can't have troops going off the reservation concerning gender and race mandates made by the politicized overlords. They are finally catching up with Gramsci and Marcuse like their brethren in academia and the administrative state. Is the health care industry all that much behind?
#5.1.1 indyjonesouthere on 2022-01-13 11:50 (Reply)
The Navy just added two weeks to basic training. The focus will be on CRT and fighting fires. When I went through basic at Great Lakes, the very first training film we watched was the Forrestal fire. A lot of the training was dedicated to fighting fire onboard ship and understanding the various tools need for the job. A very long day was dedicated to hands on experience fighting compartment fires; walking through George - the smoke house. After exiting George you had to yell, Thank you George! Don’t touch your face, or go back through until you got it right. Learn or burn. Learn or burn. Today’s Navy can’t even put out a fire on a ship tied to the dock. Makes me weep.
#5.2 B. Hammer on 2022-01-13 11:48 (Reply)
China isn't afraid to do what needs to be done, even if that includes killing millions of their own citizens. Is there any wonder Western politicians envy and admire China's leadership?
#6 Jerryskids on 2022-01-13 10:59 (Reply)
China is ruthless in the way it treats it citizens when they think they're off camera (and they're quite good at controlling camera access), and they've very careful to have good camera coverage when it's a picture they want you to see - like the white-suited pandemic sanitary foggers, or the COVID curfew-violators they parade through the streets full of specators, for shaming - and finally, they are quite effective at ensuring that their data is mostly unavailable for scrutiny, and none of their disease hot spots are open for foreign inspection and fact-sharing. Yes. No secret why our own politicians silently admire the raw tyrannical strength shown by these tactics and occasionally let the mask slip with their enthusiasm.
#6.1 Aggie on 2022-01-13 11:12 (Reply)
Largely agree. We could also have shut down covid, definitely for a while and maybe for a long while, doing similar things. Clearly, it works, and if we were utilitarians we would do that. NB: Going forward, this is your classic example refuting utilitarianism. But even at the cost of the lives of very many Americans - and that does cause me to draw breath - it would have not been worth it and still isn't. I can tolerate shutting things down to a much greater extent than most MF readers can, but some things just verge into not only non-American, but non-Western, and non-Christian (no slur intended to Jews, who may be even better at "preservation of life" calculations). We just don't go there, and know that most of us even in extremity would say "I'd rather die than have us go there." We should sacrifice each other only at great need, but "Death is not the worst of evils" as John Stark said. That quote is the second part of our "Live Free or Die" motto, BTW.
#6.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-01-13 18:36 (Reply)
DHS launches climate change professionals program. It appears that they are trying to head off unapproved climate change (AGW) professionals. They evidently see the unapproved virus professionals that are creating havoc with the Fauci-CDC-NIH-FDA protocols. Nothing like setting the table to reward the approved class while punishing the unapproved. The elitists just can't help but "fix" the system to better work for them.
#7 indyjonesouthere on 2022-01-13 12:02 (Reply)
Tipping - "Tip menu suggestions can “actually increase the wages of workers without necessarily making life terrible for consumers or taking money away from them,” "

I'm pretty sure that you are taking away money from the consumers. That doublespeak really ruined a pretty good article.
#8 DrTorch (Link) on 2022-01-13 14:25 (Reply)
This is why shutdowns do not work https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/doomed-fail-top-immunologist-blasts-global-covid-response-driven-false-propaganda "...a respiratory virus cannot be defeated and that any such attempt is doomed to fail." "You refused to admit that the infection comes in waves that fade by themselves, despite years of observations and scientific knowledge. You insisted on attributing every decline of a wave solely to your actions, and so through false propaganda “you overcame the plague.” And again you defeated it, and again and again and again."

The only purpose for the masks, social distancing and shutdowns is to make it appear that the politicians are doing something.
#9 OneGuy on 2022-01-13 15:42 (Reply)
OneGuy: This is why shutdowns do not work

Social measures were effective at controlling the spread of COVID. Reducing the spread allowed time for vaccines and better treatments to be developed, saving lives.
#9.1 Zachriel on 2022-01-13 17:17 (Reply)
Social measures are not equal to shutdowns.

And that's assuming your point about the vaccines is correct, which is far from a given.

You ever try not being dishonest?
#9.1.1 DrTorch (Link) on 2022-01-13 17:26 (Reply)
DrTorch: Social measures are not equal to shutdowns.

Shutdowns are a subset of social measures. OneGuy also touched on masks and social distancing.

In the face of contagion, people will tend to socially distance, especially if there is strong leadership and social cohesion. Even then, however, the result is reactive. Due to exponential growth of disease, proactive policies are more effective. See, for instance, Pei et al., Differential Effects of Intervention Timing on COVID-19 Spread in the United States, Science Advances 2020.

DrTorch: And that's assuming your point about the vaccines is correct

Vaccines for COVID are generally available and have demonstrated efficacy.
#9.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2022-01-13 18:07 (Reply)
Shutdowns are a subset of social measures.

By your own words, they are not equal.

Which proves my point that you are lying. You frequently use false equivalences in you comments as you try to defend your dishonest claims. Your consistency makes it trivial to point out your dishonesty.
#9.1.1.1.1 DrTorch (Link) on 2022-01-14 13:45 (Reply)
DrTorch: By your own words, they are not equal.

No. As noted, shutdowns are a subset of social measures. We also replied to the question of shutdowns—which you ignored.
#9.1.1.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2022-01-14 13:56 (Reply)
To clarify:

Z: No {they are not equal} one is a proper subset of the other.
#9.1.1.1.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2022-01-14 13:59 (Reply)
I used to love Zero Hedge for their edginess and willingness to explore questions others ignored. But they have simply been dishonest in the large sense of "Only telling you the 20% of the story they want you to hear" too many times over the last three years. I don't trust WaPo, NYT, MSNBC, or CNN. I trust ZH even less at this point. They lie.
#9.2 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-01-13 18:41 (Reply)
We might all be destined to get Omicron, or maybe some further variant that is also less deadly than Delta, and it may be good for us in even the medium, not only long run. That in no way is evidence that we should all just get it as soon as possible and get it over with or abandon restrictions. We might decide that is a good tradeoff on balance, but that is not the same things. Here I see only assumptions that it of course must be the wisest choice. Assertion is not proof, and make the case with something other than "But we're sick of this" and "Fauci lied." That is just the same whining you hear in detention hall. Do better.

Pretend to consider both sides, just like you used to have to in high school. Just for the exercise of it.
#10 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-01-13 19:05 (Reply)
Do you ever get tired of being a pompous ass? Good lord, the number of posts where you failed to heed your own advice seem to be unaccountably high. And what exactly does this post do but jab your thumb in the eyes of anyone who disagrees with you. Sheesh, take an internet timeout.
#10.1 Earle on 2022-01-13 20:38 (Reply)
He can't help himself.
That's what a cockalorum does.
#10.1.1 Zachinoff on 2022-01-14 12:29 (Reply)

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