Month: February 2023

Best Title of the Month – Approximately Zero

photog Current Events , , , , ,

That’s the title of this article in City Journal.  It’s about a report that came out on a study done by the Cochrane Collaboration which is described thus:

“The gold standard for medical evidence is the randomized clinical trial, and the gold standard for analyzing this evidence is Cochrane (formerly the Cochrane Collaboration), the world’s largest and most respected organization for evaluating health interventions. Funded by the National Institutes of Health and other nations’ health agencies, it’s an international network of reviewers, based in London, that has partnerships with the WHO and Wikipedia. Medical journals have hailed it for being “the best single resource for methodologic research” and for being “recognized worldwide as the highest standard in evidence-based healthcare.””

And here comes the result:

“We now have the most authoritative estimate of the value provided by wearing masks during the pandemic: approximately zero. The most rigorous and extensive review of the scientific literature concludes that neither surgical masks nor N95 masks have been shown to make a difference in reducing the spread of Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses.”

But now the bad news:

“This verdict ought to be the death knell for mask mandates, but that would require the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the rest of the public-health establishment to forsake “the science”—and unfortunately, these leaders and their acolytes in the media seem as determined as ever to ignore actual science. Before the pandemic, clinical trials repeatedly showed little or no benefit from wearing masks in preventing the spread of respiratory illnesses like flu and colds. That was why, in their pre-2020 plans for dealing with a viral pandemic, the World Health Organization, the CDC, and other national public-health agencies did not recommend masking the public. But once Covid-19 arrived, magical thinking prevailed. Officials ignored the previous findings and plans, instead touting crude and easily debunked studies purporting to show that masks worked.”

So there you go.  None of this is news.  But now we see that “science” is just a magical incantation the Left uses to get their followers to raise their banner and start marching.  Maybe it’ll be good for starting fights with crazy relatives at holidays.

As a Life-Long Science Fiction Geek This is So Damn Cool

photog Current Events, Science, Science Fiction / Fantasy , , ,

It looks like the modern special effects representation of the landing from Destination: Moon or some other Heinlein story.  Forget about battery cars Elon.  Do more of this.

 

 

 

A Local Focal Friday

photog Current Events , , , , ,

I was listening to the Z-Man’s Friday podcast while exercising this morning.  Camera Girl informs me that he sounds exactly like our family doctor.  Since I only go for a check-up once a decade, I cannot verify that this is true but she is a very observant and intelligent (if annoying) woman.

Today his topic was about how the dysgenic aspects of our culture were leading to a low IQ population, sort of the Idiocracy theorem.  There was a good bit of discussion about how as society devolves local power centers like local politicians (or call them warlords) and institutions that have control over specific functions or technologies (e.g., Silicon Valley) would begin usurping the place of the federal government as it imploded due to rank incompetence.

It was a very interesting discussion and it pointed to a mechanism for transitioning from the current stalemated political situation to a future where local politics and power structures could evolve to benefit a local concentration of competent and cooperative people.  Of course, it still depends on the crumbling of our society as the moving force to allow this untethering and we’re certainly not there yet.  Even though the beginnings of collapse can be seen in the increase in the frequency of airplane crashes, train derailments (not to mention naval vessels colliding) and the breakdown in law and order in the cities, still, we’re probably decades away from the official fall of the empire.

As I’ve many times stated we won’t have hit bottom until the incidences of cannibalism become too prevalent to make the newspapers (or whatever they call the news purveyors at that point in time).  So, this scenario that the Z-Man is postulating is still in the somewhat distant future.  But it most definitely makes me think that the idea of a Red State pushing for more autonomy is the correct model for the Right to embrace.  And I think that the idea of a Council of Red States is more and more the most effective way for people on the right to affect change.

I was reading an article by Salena Zito about what Ron DeSantis is up to down in Florida.  She talks about the fact that both Biden and Trump are bashing DeSantis because he’s the likely contender that both of them would face.  But then she spends most of the article going over the things he’s doing in Florida.  And even though it’s apparent that she’s supportive of his run for president, what strikes me is that the things he’s doing for his state would be impossible for a president to do without both a veto-proof senate and the house  under his control.

So once again, it makes me think that local control of people’s lives becomes more useful than battling for control of the dysfunctional federal government.  If DeSantis is actually able to enact Florida Digital Bill of Rights

he will be so far ahead of the rest of the country that the rest of us who toil under the yoke of internet tyranny will curse the fate that left us outside his benevolent rule.  Let’s face it, Florida is marching forward, throwing off the culture war shackles of the Left while the rest of us are being dragged backward in our Antifa and BLM controlled hellholes.

I think DeSantis should consider carefully whether he will have more power and more influence as the leader of a group of Red State governors rather than as an embattled Republican president.  And that’s not taking anything away from him as a presidential candidate.  If somehow he ends up as the candidate, I’ll vote for him certainly.  But how he gets there without antagonizing the millions of Trump-only voters is not clear to me.  Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis should be sitting down and talking about this election.  Even if they hate each other, even if both of them want to win above all else, they should look at all the options and decide what they can do to maximize the good outcomes from their campaigns.  In fact, what they should do is agree that whichever wins the other will throw full support to him.  And also offer the vice-presidential spot to his opponent first.  That would be putting country in front of ego.  Although I don’t think DeSantis should leave Florida to be a vice president.  He is so much more effective now; it would be a waste.  And I doubt Trump would accept the largely ceremonial duties of a Veep.  He craves a larger role.

So, these are the things I’ve been thinking about today.  I try to stitch together the various bits of information and find commonalities and synergies.  And maybe it’s all just part of my echo chamber.  But today I heard things that give me a little hope for the future.  And for a Friday that’s pretty good.

Guest Contributor – ArthurinCali – 17FEB2023 – Civil War Battlefield Musings

photog Americana, Current Events, Guest Contributors , , , ,

We took a family vacation in the early 90s and drove from East Texas all the way to Nashville. At the time, it felt like we stopped at every Civil War battlefield (twice) along the way. Seeing the meadows and rolling hills with cannons and other historical relics was a powerful sight. Imagining the sounds and smells of gunfire, the bravery and fear of the battles is a humbling moment. I recall a story about a Union guard talking to a Confederate soldier from a Tennessee unit who had been captured and noticing the young man’s ill-fitted clothes and general state of shoddy equipment. He (paraphrasing) asked, “Why are you fighting? You don’t appear to have a major stake in this war.” The young man replied, “Because you’re here.” A few years ago I took an interest in researching my family ancestry and found cousins from Tennessee who served in the CSA. They were mountain folk who didn’t have slaves, a plantation, or much of anything else to their name, but I can imagine them giving the Union soldier the same reasoning for taking up arms.

While the current age we live in likes to take American history and ‘Disneyfy’ it into simplistic caricatures of a good/evil binary, the complexities and nuance remains, especially for the War of Northern Aggression. The current charge that history is not being fully taught is correct, but for different reasons than the detractors point out. All they want is history taught in a manner to ensure those who have been deemed the personification of evil stay that way. This isn’t relegated to only American history, but Western Civilization overall. This is how society has arrived to the asinine conclusions that only Europeans conquered and enslaved other peoples throughout world history. It doesn’t acknowledge the reality that human nature hasn’t aged – that all of humanity contains the ability for committing depravities against their fellow man, while also being able to show empathy and compassion at other times.