Schools Don't Spread COVID, Texas' Village Idiot, America's Traitor, Quit Your Job [The Five for 11/25/20]

Hey,

Welcome to the pre-Thanksgiving edition of The Five. I hope this finds you and your loved ones well, in whatever way it’s possible to celebrate during this crazy year.

[ONE]

Politico has a good piece of reporting on how closing schools has no clear advantage, and plenty of disadvantages.

A new report from UNICEF said child-to-child transmission of the coronavirus in schools was “uncommon and not the primary cause” of infections among children who caught the virus while attending school, based on a July assessment of 31 countries. Children were more likely to get infected outside of school settings.

However, several areas of the U.S. will almost certainly keep schools closed for the spring 2021 semester, some while keeping bars open, which Dr. Fauci recently spoke out against.

New York City schools closed back down, despite the clear UNICEF evidence that it’s safe to keep them open (with some obvious exceptions for vulnerable students with special conditions). Again, Politico reports.

Mayor Bill de Blasio exacted a hard won victory in bringing some 300,000 kids back to school in September — one of the more successful endeavors by the administration since the onset of the pandemic. But amid reluctance from the teachers union, the city agreed to close schools if it reached a 3 percent infection rate on a 7-day average, which Mayor Bill de Blasio said it just reached Wednesday.

I’m getting pretty bored with the all the “believe the science” rage tweeting from people who don’t want schools open, when the overwhelming evidence points to the benefits of in-person learning at this time far outweigh the mild risks.

Mayor de Blasio seems to agree, but he’s hamstrung by the teacher’s union, who want what they want, evidence be damned.

At some point, we’re going to circle back to how public sector unions can hold local governments hostage like this, but that’s another topic for another day.

[TWO]

I’ve got to say that Biden’s cabinet is a bit better than I had feared. I’m sad to see Old Joe returning to the status quo of Washington, which will likely mean more money in politics and more foreign entanglements. Most of Wall Street backed Biden, not Trump.

Hate Trump as much as you want, but he kept us out of war and stabilized the Middle East like no other POTUS in history. War is profitable for a lot of folks in D.C. and beyond, and Democrats have become more hawkish on foreign policy than Republicans in this decade.

While the foreign policy concerns me (as does bringing back the “bad parts of normal”), one of my biggest concerns is Biden choosing former Beto O’Rourke campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon in his administration.

Robert Francis O’Rourke, a liberal Texan of Irish descent, took the name Beto to appeal to Hispanic voters. He’s the Village Idiot of Texas, a candidate who launched his Presidential website with plenty of merch, but not one word of policy. (Even the Brits mocked us for that one). The Beto Bro famously said “hell yes, we’re coming for your AR-15’s” and now the woman behind his bird brained idea for the police to take legal personal property by force from your home will be in the White House concerns me.

On a positive note, The Squad hates some of Biden’s cabinet picks, which is good evidence he’s at least somewhat on the path of sanity.

NOTE: I certainly lean right, but on the political compass test it’s a rather centrist right. I’m going to give Biden a fair shake, assuming Trump doesn’t throw three consecutive Haily Mary passes in the courts by December 14th when states certify their votes.

That being said, there are just a few people in politics who receive my outright rage, and the Beto Bro is one of them. John Kerry, the traiterous Commie bastard is another. For the record, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are still trying to tell the story of how Kerry sold out this nation, even as Kerry has faded from the national political scene.

More than 250 of Kerry’s fellow Navy veterans came out against the former Senator during his 2004 Presidential run, including retired Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman and Medal of Honor winner Bud O’Neal.

Kerry’s slanderous lies about Vietnam vets certainly contributed to an untold number of Vietnam veteran suicides, as well as those Vets who were drafted and served honorably being spit upon, harrassed and discriminated against for employment.

So, I bring civility for 99.9% of all of my fellow Americans. Kerry and Beto Bro are the other .1%, and I wish Biden would steeer clear of anyone who has worked for either.

Which leads me into…

[THREE]

Jordan Peterson, a Psychology Professor at the University of Toronto and the world’s most famous public intellectual, has a new book coming out in 2021.

This week, Penguin Random House Canada, Peterson’s publisher, faced an employee backlash. Vice reports:

“We announced yesterday that we will publish Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order this coming March. Immediately following the announcement, we held a forum and provided a space for our employees to express their views and offer feedback. Our employees have started an anonymous feedback channel, which we fully support. We are open to hearing our employees’ feedback and answering all of their questions. We remain committed to publishing a range of voices and viewpoints,” the statement said. 

Something similar happened at Spotify, when employees were literally crying at work because they didn’t like a couple of guests who were on the Joe Rogan podcast, which will soon be distributed exclusively via the music streaming giant.

Companies that encourage their employees to whip themselves into an even greater rage via anonymous chat, etc. will eventually reap the effects of that, good and hard. It’s the age old problem of eating the alligator hoping it eats you last. Well, the alligator will be hungry again soon, Penguin Random House. Good luck with that.

Two takeaways here:

A. I really hate the suppresion of free speech (including trying to ban books), and I’ll gladly stand alongside those I generally disagree with on issues that matter. Here’s an example. Jacobin Magazine, a socialist rag, defended free speech this year.

Great. We may disagree on most issues, but free speech is vital, and I’ll gladly lock arms with socialists to declare that.

One of the biggest problems with the Millennial “participation trophy” generation (of which I am a part) is they think they can shed literal tears and get their way. Even if that way is supressing the free speech of others.

B. If you believe your company is doing something unethical, cowboy the #%$! up and resign. Rather than shedding tears, update your resume and just go somewhere else. Protest with you feet as you walk away from the job.

I got a recruitment call from Bayer this year, which I turned down in large part because I believe the company knew the risks for their controversial Roundup herbicide, and pushed it out anyway.

If you stay at a company you don’t believe in, you are, as the Millennials love to say, complicit. And no amount of public weeping will change that.

Grow a backbone and leave if you believe something is wrong. Or, shut up and stop bothering people.

[FOUR]

The COVID vaccines which will likely be available to the public soon features some pretty unpleasant side effects, including being ill. MSNBC reports:

Both companies acknowledged that their vaccines could induce side effects that are similar to symptoms associated with mild Covid-19, such as muscle pain, chills and headache.

One North Carolina woman in the Moderna study who is in her 50s said she didn’t experience a fever but suffered a bad migraine that left her drained for a day and unable to focus. She said she woke up the next day feeling better after taking Excedrin but added that Moderna may need to tell people to take a day off after a second dose.

“If this proves to work, people are going to have to toughen up,” she said. “The first dose is no big deal. And then the second dose will definitely put you down for the day for sure. ... You will need to take a day off after the second dose.”

[FIVE]

Finally, a 2020 March story from Rolling Stone is making the rounds again on social media about how easy it is to hack voting machines.

The clip goes on to highlight the work of one of the film’s central characters, the Finnish hacker and cybersecurity expert, Harri Hursti. It also teases an interview with an anonymous hacker from India known as CyberZeist, who said he hacked Alaska’s vote-counting computer systems on the day of the 2016 election. “I had full access,” he says. “I could have changed any vote.”

I haven’t commented on the 2020 election results at all, because I tend not to jump on somnething util the dust has settled and the facts are clear. But I will say that it baffles me that many who were “concerned” with election security earlier this year no longer care, once the election went the way they wanted it to.

If we don’t have faith in our elections, we no longer have a country. I hate going towards fear mongering, extremist lanuage. But in this case, the statement is accurate.

For more on this, check out the documentary Kill Chain on HBO.

Happy Thanksgiving. We’ll talk more next week.

-sth