Some libertarians oppose vaccine mandates by claiming that unvaccinated people only impose costs on themselves. However, as I noted in an earlier post, we’re all paying for the vaccine hesitancy stirred up on the right. From JAMA (footnotes omitted): Findings suggest that insurers heavily subsidized the costs of ivermectin prescriptions for COVID-19, even though economic […]

The United States is currently recording over 700,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day and the number is rising rapidly.  Fortunately, vaccines are quite effective at preventing severe disease, and Pfizer’s anti-viral drug, Paxlovid is remarkably effective at preventing death and severe illness from Covid-19.  However, only 265,000 courses of Paxlovid are expected by the […]

The Central Asian Alphabet Issue  It remains too soon to comment in detail on the current upheaval in Kazakhstan as it is simply impossible to figure out what is happening, with multiple conflicting accounts and claims coming from many sources. Rather I want to comment on a deeper question that has been brought up in […]

When a fellow CNN correspondent asked their own Dana Bash what were the underlying causes of the nation’s partisan gridlock, Bash replied, “Three things: Redistricting. Redistricting. And, redistricting.” Congress, let’s get it right. First off, Congressional Districts are under the purvey of federal, not state, law because the constitution says: Section. 4. The Times, Places […]

Politics as a Hobby* In a radio lecture he gave two and a half months before he died in 1969, Theodor Adorno explored the paradox that people do not know what to do with their free time and thus no longer even like it because “[t]hat state of freedom has been refused them and disparaged for so […]

I am temporarily banned by Twitter for “Violating our rules against hateful conduct.” because of the attached tweet. I don’t know if “all men must die” was interpreted as a threat rather than a simple statement of fact by the algorithm or if calling deontological reasoning confused or fanatical was considered hate speach. Maybe I should […]

It was this year; a question arose on the distribution of Covid tests to the states and why shouldn’t some states receive more tests than others. The question referenced Florida as one of those states. The question was put to Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary. I admire Jen for the job she does as […]

Classicalism and Revolution, Econospeak, Barkley Rosser  For those of you of a branch of Orthodox Christianity still using the Julian calendar, such as the Russian branch, Merry Christmas! I am tempted to comment on the situation in Kazakhstan, but I think we do not know what is going on there yet, so not now. Instead […]

I have pointed out many times that libertarian critics of lockdowns and vaccine mandates often promote vaccine hesitancy by downplaying the effectiveness of vaccines and exaggerating their risks and the benefits of natural immunity. I had assumed that this anti-vax angle was a later addition to the libertarian playbook, a response to vaccine mandates and […]

Prof. Joel Eissenberg, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Geneticist The Nobel Laureate economist Paul Samuelson famously acknowledged in a Meet the Press interview: “Well when events change, I change my mind. What do you do?” This observation applies to the advice from medical authorities such as the CDC and WHO during the COVID pandemic. Some members […]