Muda69

Plexiglass Barriers Are Everywhere, but They're Probably Useless: https://reason.com/2021/05/27/plexiglass-barriers-are-everywhere-but-theyre-probably-useless/ For a virus that spreads via airborne transmission of aerosols—something scientists have known for many months, though it took the World Health Organization until the end of April to update its guidance—these plastic barriers between diners were always a confusing addition. Think of the particles that disperse through the air when someone smokes a cigarette. A plastic barrier wouldn't prevent you from smelling that cigarette and breathing some of that same air. It would be one thing if this form of hygiene theater was limited to restaurants. But school districts across the country have forced children to try to learn while encased in plexiglass desk dividers—that is, if they've allowed kids to return to full-time in-person schooling at all. Not only does this make it harder for children to connect with their friends and teachers, but forcing them to learn this way may lead them to speak up louder to be heard—an act that increases aerosol production and is more likely to spread COVID than speaking at a quieter volume. Given the incredibly low risk of death to children posed by COVID, and the mounting evidence that Plexiglass barriers do not make people safer, it's past time to remove them; a kindergarten classroom shouldn't be filled with thick, see-through partitions like a convenience store in a bad part of town. Some might counter that if they make people feel safer, that ought to be reason enough to keep plexiglass barriers in place. But this is misguided. Hygiene theater gives people a false understanding of how this virus actually works and which preventative measures to take. Pervasive COVID anxiety should not be used to justify silly rituals, especially when there's good evidence a ritual may hurt us in the end.

Senate Republicans Released a $928 Billion Infrastructure Plan. Biden Says It Still Doesn't Spend Enough.: https://reason.com/2021/05/28/senate-republicans-released-a-928-billion-infrastructure-plan-biden-says-it-still-doesnt-spend-enough/ Sickening. Slowly destroying this country. I fear for the future of our children and grandchildren.

USA Today Removes ‘Hurtful Language’ from Female Athlete’s Op-Ed on Sports Fairness: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/usa-today-removes-hurtful-language-from-female-athletes-op-ed-on-sports-fairness/

I have many jokes about the unemployed. Sadly, none of them work.

https://reason.com/2021/05/25/a-135-year-old-maritime-law-is-stopping-cruise-ships-from-returning-to-alaska/ Yet another waste of tax payer's money and lawmakers's time. 'Tis the modus operandi of American protectionism.

Nice sentiment, but under the all-powerful state some people, primarily politicians, are more "equal" than others.

It’s Not About ‘Politics’—The Brouhaha over Nikole Hannah-Jones https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2021/05/its-not-about-politics-the-brouhaha-over-nikole-hannah-jones/ Then in March 2020, a fact-checker who had been employed by The New York Times to vet the project came forward to say that Hannah-Jones and the Times knew about these errors before they went to print. Leslie M. Harris, a professor of history at Northwestern University, is no conservative ideologue. Her criticism of Hannah-Jones essay is based on fact. “Despite my advice, the Times published the incorrect statement about the American Revolution anyway, in Hannah-Jones’ introductory essay,” she wrote in Politico. Then Professor Danielle Allen, a former member of the Pulitzer Prize board and a political theorist and classicist at Harvard, sent a private criticism to Hannah-Jones and the Times. “If it instead said ‘some colonists’ or ‘one of the primary reasons motivating influential factions among the colonists’ it would be correct,” she wrote. “But as it stands the sentence is false.” In response to the outcry, the Times issued what it euphemistically called a “clarification” in March: But at the same time, the Times quietly edited the project, without telling readers they had done so. As Phil Magness documents here, the reference to 1619 as “our true founding,” which originally appeared in the project’s opening text, was later deleted. And Hannah-Jones stuck to the narrative, at least at first. According to Magness: Then, in September of last year, she reversed course. Again, Magness documents her public statements on the subject: Conor Friedersdorf, a staff writer at The Atlantic, also debunked her denials in a Twitter thread that documents the many times that Hannah-Jones repeated the “true founding” claims. (Some of the Tweets to which Friedersdorf refers are no longer available because Hannah-Jones deleted most of her tweets in fall 2020.) The New York Times’ own Bret Stephens invited readers to “judge for themselves whether these unacknowledged changes violate the standard obligations of transparency for New York Times journalism.” He also criticized the project for its “monocausal” explanation of complex issues as well as “categorical and totalizing assertions that are difficult to defend on close examination.” There was a similar controversy surrounding the Pulitzer Prize decision, which Cathy Young documented in the Bulwark in March: Historian Steven Hahn, co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, told The Washington Post in October 2020 that he “had reservations about how [Hannah-Jones] put together her argument, particularly the passage about the Revolutionary War.” But when he shared those concerns with his fellow board members, “the majority still voted to give her the prize.” Faculty members at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism made the same mistake. Celebrity has a powerful allure. But the record of Hannah-Jones’ journalistic failures is more than enough to disqualify her from being considered for immediate tenure. The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees was right to halt the process and ask serious questions before granting lifelong employment to someone who has not proven herself through her work. In doing so, the board was exercising its proper oversight function, not engaging in viewpoint discrimination.

'Not convinced' Covid-19 developed naturally, says Dr Fauci https://in.news.yahoo.com/not-convinced-covid-19-developed-052826869.html Changing their tune.

Biden's Jobs Plan: How Some Jobs Destroy Wealth https://mises.org/wire/bidens-jobs-plan-how-some-jobs-destroy-wealth

A New Study Confirms That Reopening Texas '100 Percent' Had No Discernible Impact on COVID-19 Cases or Deaths https://reason.com/2021/05/21/a-new-study-confirms-that-reopening-texas-100-percent-had-no-discernible-impact-on-covid-19-cases-or-deaths/

I doubt it.

"Next time" being 100 years from now.

Head of AOS commits to ‘changing exclusionary or harmful bird names’: https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/news/science/aos-commits-changing-exclusionary-harmful-bird-names/ <rolleyes>

Yes.

Of course we did Dante. But what does that have to do with the inability of any POTUS since to get the U.S. military effectively out of Afghanistan?

The Price of Conforming to Critical Race Theory: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/the-price-of-conforming-to-critical-race-theory

So nothing less than Lucas Oil Stadium will do?

The Deep State Thwarted Trump’s Afghanistan Withdrawal https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-deep-state-thwarted-trumps-afghanistan-withdrawal/ An ugly picture, to be sure, but those making these claims were the same people who had blocked troop withdrawals earlier in the Trump’s presidency. No one would have been talking about a hurried exit at the end of his term had the military not earlier resisted his clear wishes. By making a measured withdrawal impossible, and then using that failure to oppose any pull out, the hardline “remainers” sounded a bit like the defendant who murdered his parents and then asked the judge for mercy as an orphan. Any peace-minded president also will inevitably face what amounts to the Senate’s warmonger caucus. It concocted the worst arguments on behalf of endless war. Alas, Trump’s own failings made him uniquely susceptible to such claims. Wrote Swan and Basu: This is a terrible reason to illegally occupy another country and insert U.S. military personnel into a war zone involving multiple hostile forces. But regarding North Korea, Graham had earlier dismissed the risk of nuclear war since any conflict would be “over there.” Preserving peace was never his concern. Ultimately, the president is elected by the people to decide the toughest issues. That includes issues of war and peace. In failing to enforce his will he failed the American people. Wrote Swan and Basu: “As passionately as Trump apparently felt about pulling America out of the Middle East and Afghanistan, he avoided giving an order to force the military’s hand.” It his responsibility to do so, to force the Pentagon to act after he decided that U.S. troops should come home. In the end, he could blame no one but himself for not pulling American forces out of multiple conflicts abroad. Afghanistan is a tragedy. But it no longer should be America’s tragedy. Now Biden must fulfill Trump’s promise to end the conflict.

So you expect to be unemployed for the majority of 2021?

Scheumann stadium then?

Shhh, you'll just confuse Dante, who believes that people are stupid and need to shepherded by the US Government. For their own good of course.

How about in 2021?

That is in dispute: https://www.businessinsider.co.za/ap-contradicts-israel-says-no-indication-hamas-used-gaza-building-2021-5

U.S. labor shortage? Unlikely. Here’s why https://www.epi.org/blog/u-s-labor-shortage-unlikely-heres-why/ So are you staying home, suckling off of the government teat?

But what "better pay" and "benefits" really are should be dictated by the state, right Dante? Or at least a labor union?