2 If, say, a Japanese government had performed as badly as the Bush administration has, there would be no one left to turn out the lights.
“The Buck Doesn’t Stop,” by Richard Cohen, The Washington Post, Tuesday, April 6, 2004
I am convinced that at this stage of the pandemic, misleading and irresponsible headlines from otherwise reputable news outlets are a major source of damaging misinformation.
“A country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful.”
Primo Levi, born on this day in 1919, on human nature: https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/04/24/primo-levi-survival-in-auschwitz/
One other point I'd highlight re: the current Delta Panic is that it's driven media innumeracy rather than by what the Actual Experts™ think. Here e.g. is the White House pushing back vs. an extremely misleading and harmful @nytimes tweet that NYT is too stubborn to correct. https://twitter.com/benwakana46/status/1421182153224818694
VACCINATED PEOPLE DO NOT TRANSMIT THE VIRUS AT THE SAME RATE AS UNVACCINATED PEOPLE AND IF YOU FAIL TO INCLUDE THAT CONTEXT YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1420972977005412354
A responsible headline would read: 99.93% of fully vaccinated Americans have not tested positive. The COVID vaccine works. https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1421209879629422594
Breakthrough Covid cases: At least 125,000 fully vaccinated Americans have tested positive https://cnb.cx/2Wv0nJM
Good point by Kevin here. What people will hear is that "vaccinated people spread delta variant as effectively as unvaccinated" but that statement ignores low probability of infection if vaccinated https://twitter.com/KevinFPBennett/status/1421081517942624259
Careful about retweeting claims that vaccinated people spread Delta just as easily as unvaccinated people. Here's the slide that's based on. It's conditional on a breakthrough infection occurring, which is still rare.
shunn
Custer pie
“Yes, and had Custer known he was attacking so many Indians, he might have chosen to wash his hair that day instead.” Great line.
And good column. In Japan, the officials wouldn’t just have resigned if they’d bungled things as badly as the Bushies have. They would commit seppuku.
admin
Re: Custer pie
Yes: the streets of Tokyo would run with cabinet-level blood. As opposed to the streets of Washington, which run with cabinet-level horseshit.