Shutdowns Were a Disaster Posted: 29 May 2021 04:19 PM PDT (John Hinderaker) The Wall Street Journal notes that, as the coronavirus disappears in the rear-view mirror, two Americas are emerging: The unemployment rate in April nationwide was 6.1%, but this obscures giant variations in the states. With some exceptions, those run by Democrats such as California (8.3%) and New York (8.2%) continued to suffer significantly higher unemployment than those led by Republicans such as South Dakota (2.8%) and Montana (3.7%). It’s rare to see differences that are so stark based on party control in states. But the current partisan differences reflect different policy choices over the length and severity of pandemic lockdowns and now government benefits such as jobless insurance. Nine of the 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates are led by Republicans. The exception is Wisconsin whose Supreme Court last May invalidated Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’s lockdown. The unemployment rate in Wisconsin is 3.9%—the same as Indiana—compared to 7.1% in Illinois whose Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been slow to reopen.
This chart shows the highest and lowest state unemployment rates: 
Of course, blue-state governors who imposed long and stringent shutdowns would say that they did so for reasons of public health. Harsh shutdowns, they may argue, were necessary to slow the spread of the Wuhan virus. But there is no evidence of any such positive effect. This has been shown over and over in a variety of ways, but let’s add one more. I added up the coronavirus deaths per 100,000 of population, according to the CDC, for the ten states in the Journal’s chart with the highest unemployment rates, and averaged them. I found that the ten states with highest unemployment averaged 202.6 deaths per 100,000. I then did the same thing for the ten states (all but Wisconsin with Republican governors) with the lowest unemployment. Their average deaths per 100,000 was much lower, at 134.5. Liberal governors would perhaps argue that, for some reason, they faced worse virus epidemics than most states; that their long shutdowns were therefore necessary, and that if they hadn’t been so draconian there would have been even more deaths. They can say that, but there isn’t a shred of evidence that it is true. The basic data indicate that harsh shutdowns caused enormous damage to millions of lives and gained nothing in terms of public health. 
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Biden’s Obsession Breaks Out Posted: 29 May 2021 01:47 PM PDT (John Hinderaker) Over the last 18 hours or so, this video has been widely shared. If you haven’t already seen it, it opens another window onto Joe Biden’s mental state: Many have seen this as another instance of Biden’s weird obsession with little girls. Yes, but I think the truth is worse than that. Biden’s handlers have undoubtedly warned him many times not to act inappropriately toward little girls, but when he goes off-script, as here, he can’t help himself. As indicated, too, by the manner in which he speaks, I think Biden is well into his dotage. Like many elderly people suffering from dementia, he is prone to blurting out inappropriate thoughts that happen to cross his mind. Biden’s condition is obviously a matter of concern, on national security grounds as well as others. Yet our press will steadfastly avert its eyes and pretend that all is well, right up until the moment when Biden collapses in public or commits a blunder too serious to be ignored. 
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Kamala ‘Kamality’ Harris’ woke joke at the Naval Academy Posted: 29 May 2021 10:42 AM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) Kamala Harris delivered the commencement address yesterday at the U.S. Naval Academy. In an attempt at woke humor, Harris inserted feminism into her homage to green energy. She said: Just ask any Marine today, would she rather carry 20 pounds of batteries or a rolled up solar panel, and I am positive she will tell you a solar panel. And so would he.
At least Harris limited herself to two genders. This line was followed by the Harris laugh and tepid applause. According to this account (which includes video), there were also groans from the crowd. The Harris laugh doesn’t annoy me as much as it does some of her critics. However, laughing at one’s own lines, especially when they are this lame, is not a good look. Harris’ punch line came after she informed electrical engineering graduates that they “will soon help convert solar and wind energy into power, convert solar and wind energy into combat power.” On Twitter, critics observed that solar panels generally still require batteries to store energy collected from sunlight. Fox News has the story here. The comments are worth checking out. 
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Podcast: The 3WHH, School’s Out Episode Posted: 29 May 2021 08:36 AM PDT (Steven Hayward) This week Lucretia and I decided to take a break from our recent seminar format—in other words, no schoolwork this week—and just review some of the week’s news instead. Or perhaps we should say non-news, since most of the “news” items we review turn into examples of what’s wrong with journalism today. Call it “The Age of Al Hunt,” in homage to Evelyn Waugh’s device about “the Age of Hooper” in Brideshead Revisited, in which the increasing “sophistication” of journalists in the ordinary sense masks a near complete ignorance of history beyond the last election, a total lack of philosophical depth, an absence of literary imagination, and a scarcity of wit. Hunt is Exhibit One this week, with a lugubrious article on how “Democrats are worried” about President Biden, not because of the substance of what he’s doing, but because those evil Republicans are able to frustrate his big, bold agenda. Like I say, they call this “journalism.” From there were look over a couple of news items from the business world this week, again noting that they aren’t getting the full story at all. And then we end by observing how the rarified world of “diversity, inclusion, and equity” (or “DIE!” as Lucretia likes to render the acronym) reminds us of alien invasion movies. And we get in some important whisky news and cheeky reviews, just to keep current with our malts, even while we’re skipping metaphysics for once. You know what to do now: settle in here, or wander over to the one-room schoolhouse better known as Ricochet. https://mp3.ricochet.com/2021/05/Ep-257-52921-8.10-AM.mp3 
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
The Week in Pictures: Media Leak Edition Posted: 29 May 2021 03:27 AM PDT (Steven Hayward) Has the media ever had a worse week than having to admit, however indirectly, that Trump was right about the Wuhan Flu? Of course there will be no introspection about how the media’s TDS caused them to rush to judgment. The dodging and weaving would do Muhammad Ali proud. The media is used to receiving leaks; now they’re the ones leaking—leaking out the last shred of their credibility. 
Headlines of the week: 
Only government could lose money selling weed. 
The “hurtful language” was the word “male.”  
 
From 1971 
 
I thought this was America. . .  
And finally. . . in the interests of “diversity”: 
Shutdowns Were a Disaster Posted: 29 May 2021 04:19 PM PDT (John Hinderaker) The Wall Street Journal notes that, as the coronavirus disappears in the rear-view mirror, two Americas are emerging: The unemployment rate in April nationwide was 6.1%, but this obscures giant variations in the states. With some exceptions, those run by Democrats such as California (8.3%) and New York (8.2%) continued to suffer significantly higher unemployment than those led by Republicans such as South Dakota (2.8%) and Montana (3.7%). It’s rare to see differences that are so stark based on party control in states. But the current partisan differences reflect different policy choices over the length and severity of pandemic lockdowns and now government benefits such as jobless insurance. Nine of the 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates are led by Republicans. The exception is Wisconsin whose Supreme Court last May invalidated Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’s lockdown. The unemployment rate in Wisconsin is 3.9%—the same as Indiana—compared to 7.1% in Illinois whose Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been slow to reopen.
This chart shows the highest and lowest state unemployment rates:
Of course, blue-state governors who imposed long and stringent shutdowns would say that they did so for reasons of public health. Harsh shutdowns, they may argue, were necessary to slow the spread of the Wuhan virus. But there is no evidence of any such positive effect. This has been shown over and over in a variety of ways, but let’s add one more. I added up the coronavirus deaths per 100,000 of population, according to the CDC, for the ten states in the Journal’s chart with the highest unemployment rates, and averaged them. I found that the ten states with highest unemployment averaged 202.6 deaths per 100,000. I then did the same thing for the ten states (all but Wisconsin with Republican governors) with the lowest unemployment. Their average deaths per 100,000 was much lower, at 134.5. Liberal governors would perhaps argue that, for some reason, they faced worse virus epidemics than most states; that their long shutdowns were therefore necessary, and that if they hadn’t been so draconian there would have been even more deaths. They can say that, but there isn’t a shred of evidence that it is true. The basic data indicate that harsh shutdowns caused enormous damage to millions of lives and gained nothing in terms of public health.
| Biden’s Obsession Breaks Out Posted: 29 May 2021 01:47 PM PDT (John Hinderaker) Over the last 18 hours or so, this video has been widely shared. If you haven’t already seen it, it opens another window onto Joe Biden’s mental state: Many have seen this as another instance of Biden’s weird obsession with little girls. Yes, but I think the truth is worse than that. Biden’s handlers have undoubtedly warned him many times not to act inappropriately toward little girls, but when he goes off-script, as here, he can’t help himself. As indicated, too, by the manner in which he speaks, I think Biden is well into his dotage. Like many elderly people suffering from dementia, he is prone to blurting out inappropriate thoughts that happen to cross his mind. Biden’s condition is obviously a matter of concern, on national security grounds as well as others. Yet our press will steadfastly avert its eyes and pretend that all is well, right up until the moment when Biden collapses in public or commits a blunder too serious to be ignored.
| Kamala ‘Kamality’ Harris’ woke joke at the Naval Academy Posted: 29 May 2021 10:42 AM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) Kamala Harris delivered the commencement address yesterday at the U.S. Naval Academy. In an attempt at woke humor, Harris inserted feminism into her homage to green energy. She said: Just ask any Marine today, would she rather carry 20 pounds of batteries or a rolled up solar panel, and I am positive she will tell you a solar panel. And so would he.
At least Harris limited herself to two genders. This line was followed by the Harris laugh and tepid applause. According to this account (which includes video), there were also groans from the crowd. The Harris laugh doesn’t annoy me as much as it does some of her critics. However, laughing at one’s own lines, especially when they are this lame, is not a good look. Harris’ punch line came after she informed electrical engineering graduates that they “will soon help convert solar and wind energy into power, convert solar and wind energy into combat power.” On Twitter, critics observed that solar panels generally still require batteries to store energy collected from sunlight. Fox News has the story here. The comments are worth checking out.
| Podcast: The 3WHH, School’s Out Episode Posted: 29 May 2021 08:36 AM PDT (Steven Hayward) This week Lucretia and I decided to take a break from our recent seminar format—in other words, no schoolwork this week—and just review some of the week’s news instead. Or perhaps we should say non-news, since most of the “news” items we review turn into examples of what’s wrong with journalism today. Call it “The Age of Al Hunt,” in homage to Evelyn Waugh’s device about “the Age of Hooper” in Brideshead Revisited, in which the increasing “sophistication” of journalists in the ordinary sense masks a near complete ignorance of history beyond the last election, a total lack of philosophical depth, an absence of literary imagination, and a scarcity of wit. Hunt is Exhibit One this week, with a lugubrious article on how “Democrats are worried” about President Biden, not because of the substance of what he’s doing, but because those evil Republicans are able to frustrate his big, bold agenda. Like I say, they call this “journalism.” From there were look over a couple of news items from the business world this week, again noting that they aren’t getting the full story at all. And then we end by observing how the rarified world of “diversity, inclusion, and equity” (or “DIE!” as Lucretia likes to render the acronym) reminds us of alien invasion movies. And we get in some important whisky news and cheeky reviews, just to keep current with our malts, even while we’re skipping metaphysics for once. You know what to do now: settle in here, or wander over to the one-room schoolhouse better known as Ricochet. https://mp3.ricochet.com/2021/05/Ep-257-52921-8.10-AM.mp3
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | The Week in Pictures: Media Leak Edition Posted: 29 May 2021 03:27 AM PDT (Steven Hayward) Has the media ever had a worse week than having to admit, however indirectly, that Trump was right about the Wuhan Flu? Of course there will be no introspection about how the media’s TDS caused them to rush to judgment. The dodging and weaving would do Muhammad Ali proud. The media is used to receiving leaks; now they’re the ones leaking—leaking out the last shred of their credibility.
Headlines of the week:
Only government could lose money selling weed.
The “hurtful language” was the word “male.”
From 1971
I thought this was America. . .
And finally. . . in the interests of “diversity”:
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