Fauci At Risk

Several sources, including this from Fox News, report new documents show Dr. Fauci lied about his involvement in the Wuhan lab, perhaps provided government funding, and directed at a distance what they studied. This was done through a cut-out organization - EcoHealth Alliance - to provide a fig-leaf of deniability, as long as nobody dug further. 

I will not be at all surprised if it eventually becomes clear the U.S. taxpayer funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology to do bat virus work deemed too dangerous to be done in the U.S., and did so at Dr. Fauci's behest. 

In that sense China's claim that we're to blame may be partially true, although we did not force WIV to accept the contract or grant - greed isn't an alibi. It also doesn't excuse their sloppy contagion control protocols. And it is clear the work didn't happen at Fort Detrick, MD, as China has claimed.

Poll: Nearly 2/3 Say Afghan Exit Bungled

Breitbart links to a Golden/TIPP poll which finds that 63% agreed at least somewhat that the way Biden pulled U.S. forces out of Afghanistan was wrong. Some 28% disagreed with that assertion at least somewhat, and 9% reported having no opinion. 

One interesting finding was that single and married women disagreed equally with the bungled diagnosis (31% in each case), but married women were much more likely than single women to agree it was bungled (62% vs. 53%). 

Without overworking stereotypes, it appears single women pay less attention to the national news. We see this in the cross tabs for Whites, where 96% of men have an opinion, one way or the other, while only 89% of women express an opinion. In a poll of 1300 respondents, over half of whom are White, I conclude the difference found is significant.

BTW, if you are wondering who the "Golden" is, his full name is James Golden. For many years he worked for Rush Limbaugh using the stage name "Bo Snerdley." Golden now has his own radio talk show and the TIPP polls exist to provide him talking points.

Dawn of a New Dune

Frank Herbert’s massive 1965 novel Dune has been made into yet another version which is scheduled to come to theaters later this fall. I have read the book more than once, and seen both earlier film versions repeatedly. I will see this one as well.

Reviewers generally pan the first theatrical film by David Lynch, starring Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides. I disagree while admitting that if you’d not read the book first, as I had, you might miss more than a few of the nuances.

The 2000 TV miniseries for the SciFi channel starred Alec Newman as Paul, and was good in its own way. As was the follow-on Children of Dune, released in 2003, with some of the same cast.

Now, sixty years or so after it was written, another filmic version has been produced. I wonder if Herbert’s imagined future hasn’t passed it's sell-by date? 

Dune was written in the psychedelic 1960s, all these years later the future imagined by Herbert looks less and less credible. Herbert saw humans getting more involved with mind-expanding drugs and shunning computers and IT. 

In spite of a few creative types in Silicon Valley sampling hallucinogens, the reliance on drugs vs. on machines seems to have gone the opposite way - the machines are winning hands down while drugs are the often-terminal anesthesia of society’s losers and burnouts. 

Hearing once again a Guild Navigator intone “The Spice Must Flow” and Paul recite “Fear is the Mind-Killer” will be nostalgic for me but I have to wonder if it will mean much to a modern audience. 

It is an epic tale but most ‘Duniacs’ are old as dirt, like me. Does anyone still read the books?

Once Bitten ≠ Twice Shy

This and a hundred other sources are reveling in Rolling Stone's embarrassment for running a story based on the report of a local TV station in Oklahoma. The report - local hospitals supposedly filled to overflowing with Ivermectin overdoses. It turned out to be entirely false, some local physician either trolling or conning a typically low-talent local TV news reporter.

Certainly, the local reporter should have checked the story with the local hospitals, so should whoever at Rolling Stone wrote the much-maligned piece. They didn't, which speaks volumes about the current state of journalism, and the depths to which it has fallen. 

The local news guy or gal was lazy, or didn't know better. Considering what they're paid, you can't expect much more.

Rolling Stone, for all of its counterculture roots, has been around for 50+ years, is national media, and they do know better. Plus they screwed up by running the hoax UVA gang-rape story some 7 years ago, and you'd think they would be more careful.

Pretty clearly what happened was the story too neatly fit the narrative line RS was trying to sell. It agreed with what Dr. Fauci and the CDC were saying and appeared to point to the dangers of off-label approaches and ignorant views held by hicks in the sticks. 

Why bother to check something so obviously true? Except it wasn't true at all. Those supposedly full hospitals had seen no such cases, much less an overflow. 

Journalism schools should hammer home to their graduates that any story that totally confirms your biases needs to be checked and rechecked. Because you want to believe it, be extra certain you aren't being fooled or innocently misled. 

National Review's Kevin Williamson pens wisdom about this story:

A note to our progressive friends: This is your version of Q-Anon — falling for obvious, ridiculous lies because you want to believe the worst about people you hate.

A Partial Defense

I read the guys (plus gal Friday) at Power Line and mostly I agree or, in the case of columns on soccer or music, ignore them. Heck, everybody is entitled to his hobby horses, including Scott and Paul.

Today, Scott Johnson beats up on Peggy Noonan, opining:

I don’t understand why the Wall Street Journal continues to turn over valuable editorial page real estate to her on a weekly basis.

He demonstrates that she has been wrong on occasion, and has repeatedly changed her opinion 180° without acknowledging the flip-flop. All of this is true. And he doesn't even mention her dislike of one Donald J. Trump, which was visceral and over the top.

I'd remind Johnson of Emerson's famous quote:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Noonan writes what she is currently feeling, and that changes as the times, events and personalities change. And the reason the WSJ keeps giving her space, Scott, is that her writing about those feelings is better than that of almost anybody alive. 

It isn't that her opinions are always better or more insightful than yours or mine, although they sometimes are. Rather it is that she combines heart and brain in often beautiful prose that you or I wish we could write. 

The WSJ recognizes this rare talent and gives her a platform. If they didn't still believe they were lucky to have her op/ed input, she would be gone like an SR-71 on afterburner.

As noted below, I'll avoid her columns on Trump. She and I will have to disagree at least about his policy preferences, if not about his delivery style. I experienced Trump's policies as exactly what was needed, and the economy reacted accordingly. Whatever his gaucheries, the man spoke for a can-do America that once was and could (I hope) be again. 

What is “White”?

A recent CNN column by John Blake - a multi-racial individual - argues both ways about whiteness vs. blackness in people. It is clear he prefers what exists in his family which is White/Hispanic/Black but he senses (and honestly reports) the power of what he calls “whiteness” to adapt and win out.

He notes the increasing numbers of Hispanic peoples who list themselves as White. He fails to note that in many parts of our society Asians are counted (or treated) as “honorary” Whites, so that for example employing or enrolling them gets the firm or school no “minority” credit.

In other words, what constitutes White is flexible. Persons whose ancestors are clearly not of European ancestry are nevertheless treated as though they were that. 

Perhaps we need to consider that “White” is more a set of values, a set of cultural programming than actually a racial thing. If enough members of a group “act White,” that group ‘becomes’ White and is so considered. I suspect any honest observer would have to reach some similar conclusion.

If, for whatever reasons, a group chooses not to adopt the prevailing cultural and social values, its status remains that of “outsider” essentially forever. Consider the Roma people of Europe who have followed this path, and remained the “other” in perpetuity. Consider the different achievement levels of Black people whose ancestors have been in the U.S. since slavery vs. Black people whose ancestors recently came here from the Caribbean and have been successful.

Biden Explained

Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff posts some very interesting paragraphs from Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Journal column where she tries to understand how the withdrawal from Afghanistan got so fouled up. Who knows if she is correct, as an explanation it certainly makes sense. Here is what she thinks happened.

A longtime friend of his once told me Mr. Biden’s weakness is that he always thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. I asked if the rooms are usually small, and the friend didn’t bristle, he laughed.

I suspect Mr. Biden was thinking he was going to be the guy who finally cut through, who stopped the nonsense, admitted reality, who wasn’t like the others driven by fear of looking weak or incompetent. He was going to look with eyes made cool by experience and do what needed doing—cut this cord, end this thing, not another American dead.

History would see what he’d done. It would be his legacy. And for once he’d get his due—he’s not some ice-cream-eating mediocrity, not a mere palate-cleanser after the heavy meal of Trump, not a placeholder while America got its act together. He would finally be seen as what he is—a serious man. Un homme sérieux, as diplomats used to say.

And then, when it turned so bad so quick, his pride and anger shifted in, and the defiant, defensive, self-referential speeches. Do they not see my wisdom?

It is clear that this scenario explains Biden’s reactions, his defensiveness, and his harping on the wisdom of getting out when very few are questioning that choice. It seems he believes that if he hadn’t insisted that we just leave, the sooner the better with essentially no planning, it would never have happened. And of course it turned out to be an awful mess and it ended up in his lap. 

—————

Noonan was a voice of political wisdom for many years, and then Trump came along and she couldn’t abide him. Now that he is elsewhere and, for the time being out of the picture, she may be worth reading once more. 

I suspect longtime residents of New York City, which Noonan is, have a different picture of Donald Trump than we out here in flyover country. He was a consequential neighbor, a big fish in their pond, long before we paid him much heed.

They experienced Trump as a blue collar-acting guy with too much money and clout. People with his values and tastes aren’t supposed to be consequential players in NYC society, but he was exactly that. He cast doubt on their preferred view of their own refined tastes and elite status.

A Hybrid Force

Defense One has an interesting article about the Italian Carabinieri functioning extremely well in Afghanistan. They protected and extracted Italian nationals, including diplomats, plus Afghans who had been helpful to Italians there. 

The author credits their success to the force's clever mixture of training in both light infantry and police tactics. And as their name implies, they were a police force that routinely carried short rifles, aka carbines, in lieu of sidearms.

U.S. military police approximate this training, except they don't routinely deal with foreign civilians as do carabinieri. I suspect that difference is important. 

The other DrC's father was born in Italy and his uncle was a retired carabinieri. Family lore claims carabinieri were expected to be linguists, a skill set they share with our Green Berets. Being able to quickly pick up a few key phrases in another language could be crucial to operating in a place like Afghanistan.

Mistaken Identity

Maybe you've heard about 27 students from a Sacramento area school who are trapped in Afghanistan. I'd seen the story and assumed it was some kind of exotic field trip, complete with teacher supervision. It sounded bad, an ugly situation. Nope, my assumption was wrong.

“This is really a complicated situation,” said SJUSD Deputy Superintendent Melissa Bassanelli. With about 1,400 students of Afghan origin within the district, Bassanelli said it’s normal for these students to go visit their home country every summer. And this year was no exception, especially as the situation in Afghanistan started to become more tense.

The reality is they went to visit relatives in the old country and couldn't get out. It isn't like they are marooned there with no support, they're "connected." They have a family support network, speak the language and are ethnically, if not culturally, indistinguishable from locals. 

I can imagine the Taliban using the kids as hostages to coerce their parents in CA to do traitorous or terrorist stuff. It is claimed the Chinese have used these tactics on ethnic Chinese living in the U.S. who have relatives in China. It is a downside to living in a country like ours with foreign-born immigrants from all over the world, relatives left behind can be leverage.

TX Abortion Law Explained

Politico Magazine is the source for a really good article explaining in relatively unloaded terms what the Supreme Court refusal to enjoin the new Texas abortion restriction law does and doesn't mean. The author seems confident the Court will have to revisit this law once someone has sued an abortion facilitator under it. 

She believes, and I agree, that the TX law banning abortions after 6 weeks will be found too restrictive to comply with Roe v Wade. However, it is possible the Court will decide banning abortions after 15 weeks, which a MS law does, might be reasonable. If that happens, look for other red states to adopt such restrictions.

Concerning the TX law's unique citizen enforcement mechanism, she writes of TX:

They have provided a blueprint for any other state that wants to infringe on constitutional rights. New York can pass a law allowing its citizens to sue anyone in the state who sells someone a firearm. California could create a damages award for $50,000 for anyone who sees someone praying on public land.

WY might legalize suing for damages anyone who does not own a firearm. I believe the Court will need to nip this creative "blueprint" in the bud, down that road lies chaos and vigilantism. 

Poll: 1 in 5 Biden Voters Sorry Before Kabul

Done before the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, a Zogby Poll  found 20% of Biden voters regret choosing to vote for him. 

According to the latest Zogby Poll® one-fifth of likely voters regret voting for President Biden. On the surface it doesn't seem like much, especially if you look at the three quarters of likely voters who did not regret their vote; 4% were not sure how they felt.

Why does this matter? If you take into consideration the size of the electorate, and how the last two Presidential elections (2016 and 2020) were decided by tens of thousands of votes in a handful of battleground states, this could really hurt President Biden's chances in 2024.

Biden's low approval numbers, the botched withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, and inflation eating away the purchasing power of Americans are the president's biggest problems now.

I'd add the mess on our southern border to their list. Imagine what the poll's findings would be if repeated today, maybe double that? 

What Works, Revisited

A week and a half ago I summarized data from the Foundation for Economic Education showing the states with low unemployment had Republican governors, the states with high unemployment had Democrats. I know ... you were not surprised.

Today PJ Media's Stephen Green summarizes its underlying premise, elegantly:

There’s the America that works and is mostly run by Republicans. Then there’s the America that doesn’t work and is mostly run by Democrats.

Fat-Shaming for Nought

Lying with statistics. CNBC reports the CDC claims "About 78% of people who have been hospitalized, needed a ventilator or died from Covid-19 have been overweight or obese." Then they add that 42% of Americans are obese. Add in the almost-obese whom they call "overweight" and you are close to 3/4 of the population. 

Analysis: The percentage of obese and overweight Covid hospital patients is roughly the same as the percentage of obese and overweight Americans. In other words, it is a non-story, as 'interesting' as the claim that nearly 100% of those admitted to a hospital have a pulse.

A Modest Proposal

Everybody seems concerned about which American citizens were left behind in Afghanistan, and the size of that group. Recognizing that there may be a few who have no one here interested in them, and who may therefore fall through the cracks, I make a modest proposal.

Why doesn’t some government agency ask the relatives/friends of Americans still believed in Afghanistan to make contact and report them missing? It would be a way of building a list of “maybes” which could then be “worked” to establish a list of those actually left behind. 

It would be important to get relatively complete information on the missing person and on the person filing the report to catch trolls making false reports. If the list is only 100 or so individuals, as is claimed, this is not even a particularly onerous task.

The State Department would seem a logical place to house this effort, except for the fact that they’ve dropped the ball on Afghanistan so often they have no credibility left. Perhaps some GOP representative or senator could make the announcement and have his office begin taking reports of possible left-behinds.

I believe I've figured out why someone in a position of authority isn't already building this list. It is because they don't want to deal with green card holders and those with SIV status. But they fear being shamed if they admit they care little about non-citizen claimants, so doing nothing is the safer choice.

Waning Immunity? Not Bad

Perhaps you've been hearing about the possible need for a third Covid shot, and that the vaccines may have waning immunity. The issues aren't simple ones.

The Atlantic has a longish, thorough article which describes how they work and what to think about their effectiveness. If you want a one-word evaluation, that word would be "upbeat."

The science is too complicated for me to attempt a summary here. If the issue interests you, the article will help. 

When the booster shots become available later this month, as an old crock I plan to get one. It is my ambition to get even older, which requires surviving.

A Fact Check

Gateway Pundit beats up on the CDC for listing as "unvaccinated" those who die within 14 days of their first Covid-19 vaccine shot. In this case the CDC is correct and GP is wrong.

No vaccine takes effect immediately, it takes some days or even weeks to build immunities in the body. It is the reason why the DrsC get their annual flu shot a month before the real flu season begins. 

Not only that, no one dies immediately after contracting the corona virus. If they die within 14 days of getting their first shot, they've had the disease for several days at least and most probably contracted it before the shot.

So the CDC is correct and GP appears to have been looking for nits to pick.

Snowflake Repellant

About the previous post, some wonderful snark.

Graphic courtesy of Stephen Green, posting at Instapundit.

New TX Abortion Law - Idle Thoughts

Read what follows with the understanding that I am not an attorney, just an interested observer.

A great deal of sneaky cleverness went into the design of Texas’ new law limiting abortions to the first six weeks of pregnancy. The law is enforceable only by private citizens filing law suits against those who perform or assist another to have an abortion post 6 weeks, no criminal prosecution appears possible. This is unique in my experience.

As the Supreme Court noted in its statement refusing to provide injunctive relief, “federal courts enjoy the power to enjoin individuals tasked with enforcing laws, not the laws themselves" where the presumption is that those individuals are specific government officials. Such government employee action is specifically prohibited by the TX law.

My understanding is that unlike most suits, private persons who sue to enforce this law and do not win their suits, cannot be forced to pay the successful defendant’s legal expenses. This feature encourages nuisance suits.

Texas has passed a law that empowers what amounts to a posse to do the enforcing, minus the deputizing and sheriff oversight. I envision bounty hunters staking out clinics and medical offices, looking to make an indecent living suing, or threatening to sue, doctors, feminists and liberal churches. 

I also see much opportunity for abuse of this law, suits aimed at persons against whom one holds some grudge, who may have no abortion involvement whatsoever. Even if the plaintiff loses, the defendant is out legal fees. My understanding is that in civil suits the burden of proof is lower than that in criminal trials, and this seems to have characteristics of both.

The approach also feels like Revolutionary War era letters of marque which authorized legal piracy by private ships so long as it was directed at an enemy country's ships. Privateers weren't always discriminating in their captures, and I'm uncertain TX litigants will be.

Smoke and Mirrors

Power Line is hot today, their John Hinderaker quotes a Reuters story taken from transcripts of a July 23 conversation between President Biden and Afghanistan's then-President Ghani. Biden speaks:

The perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren’t going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there’s a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture. (emphasis added)

Biden continues, lying blatantly:

We will continue to provide close air support, if we know what the plan is and what we are doing. And all the way through the end of August, and who knows what after that.

Ghani responds: 

What is crucial is, close air support, and if I could make a request, ... that if it could be at all front-loaded, we will greatly appreciate it. 

The evacuation of Bagram Air Force Base on July 5 effectively marked the end of close air support in Afghanistan. Both parties were lying on that fateful call. Being politicians, it was all in a day's work.

Poll: Biden Should Resign or Be Impeached

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff reports the findings of a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted over the last two days of August. It looked at opinions concerning President Biden's performance and fitness for office. He writes:

A Rasmussen survey, conducted on August 30-31 among 1,000 “likely voters,” finds that 52 percent believe Joe Biden should resign because of his Afghanistan policy. 39 percent disagree.

Furthermore, if Biden does not resign (and he won’t, of course), 60 percent of those surveyed said he should be impeached.

But there is one thing working in Biden’s favor. A majority of those surveyed do not consider Vice President Harris qualified to replace him. The split was 38-58 against the VP.

I'm not sure what to make of the fact more favored impeachment than resignation. Maybe some number want the punishment of impeachment visited upon the tired old man, who sorta deserves it.