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Civil Disobedience: Heroic California Napa Art Gallery Owners Re-Opening, Defying County Closure Order

May 2, 2020 | Politics

"We’ve risked everything; we’ve worked too hard and fought too long to bring our business to life, to keep it alive, and to grow it over the past 24 years to sit passively and watch it die for the unwillingness of some in the community to permit others to live and work on their own terms, to accept and deal with any marginal risk at their own judgment and discretion." -- Quent and Linda Cordair, Quent Cordair Fine Art Gallery

 
An open letter to the public, and to officials of the city of Napa, the county of Napa, and the State of California:We’re re-opening our art gallery in downtown Napa not later than 11 a.m., Monday, May 4th. Appropriate and adequate social-distancing protocol will be in place and observed. City, county, and state officials are being notified, with encouragement to adjust any policies and plans accordingly.
As of next Monday, our gallery’s doors will have been closed, by county and state order, for six weeks and three days. Over that span, the county of Napa, population 137,744 at last count, has recorded two deaths attributable to the COVID-19 virus, both from over three weeks ago, with 60 confirmed cases in the county total, of which 26 have recovered, by the most recent county report.
As of last Monday, according to the Register, there were three COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the county, including the one in intensive care
We’ve been averaging fewer than two new cases reported daily since the first two were reported on 3/22. There were no new cases reported in the county this past Thursday.
Testing for the virus is now available. Our hospitals — Kaiser, the Queen, Adventist Health — are all fine. As of today, there is no extant emergency in Napa County, no evidence of an imminent crisis, no evidence of an impending situation that wouldn’t be well manageable with available resources. It’s past time to start re-opening the local economy, with care, sensible precautions, continued and increased testing, and attentive monitoring.
For those for whom art is essential, the experience of enjoying the paintings and sculpture in our 3,000-square-foot space — a limited number of guests at a time, observing our no-touching policy — will be as safe or safer than venturing to Home Depot, Target, Walmart, the supermarket, the mini-mart, the liquor store, the gas station, the dog park, or even the restaurant for picking up take-out.
We have 30 artists and their families relying on us for support. We have employees to employ. We have bills to pay. We’ve risked everything; we’ve worked too hard and fought too long to bring our business to life, to keep it alive, and to grow it over the past 24 years to sit passively and watch it die for the unwillingness of some in the community to permit others to live and work on their own terms, to accept and deal with any marginal risk at their own judgment and discretion.
We welcome other Napa business-owners willing to join us in re-opening next Monday, if and as they are able and deem proper -- but we’ll open alone if necessary.
Public officials: know that we’re prepared to risk fines, arrest, or jail. We’re pursuing resources for any necessary legal challenge, up to the Supreme Court if necessary. Our constitution and system of government was created and established to secure the right of each and every individual in these United States to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
There can be no life without work; there can be no work without liberty; and, with so many others, we’re increasingly unhappy being unable to work and live for lack of liberty. The present situation is untenable, unacceptable, unjustifiable. It’s unhealthy and unsustainable. Not dying is not living.
We’re going back to work. We hope to see you in the gallery soonest, hopefully to enjoy the art. If not, know that we’re prepared to defend our right to live, work, and interact freely, and that we will indeed defend our right to do so, if and as necessary.
Let’s not make it necessary. Please join us in working our way back to living well and fully — living mindfully, sensibly, healthfully, and productively — while respecting every individual’s right to work and to sustain their own life and well-being as they may.
We have an extraordinarily challenging road ahead. Let’s get Napa back to being Napa, with hope and optimism that it isn’t already too late to do so. Every day and every hour counts. We must get back to work, back to living, as well and as quickly as possible, while continuing to observe reasonable precautionary measures. It’s time.
Quent and Linda Cordair Quent Cordair Fine Art| NapaFirst posted online at the Napa Valley Register, 27 April 2020.
 
Amy Peikoff has an interview with the Cordairs on her podacast:https://youtu.be/ERHjhRFBfMQ

Progressive Left Equals Alt-Right in Principle

May 1, 2020 | Culture

Nikos Sotirakopoulos, a lecturer in sociology at York St John University, has penned a poignant article, "The alt-right: identity politics on steroids", Spiked, (1 May 2020) that shows why "[t]oday's white nationalists draw inspiration not from the Nazis, but from the identitarian left."
According to the alt-right identitarian worldview, identity, in terms of one’s race, culture and heritage, defines who one is. This would mean that there is a white culture, a white history and, therefore, a white worldview; in short, a white mind. This is race tribalism at its purest. According to this view, individuals see themselves, others and the world around them through the prism of the group – in this case, the racial group. Using such a worldview, other groups are viewed with suspicion, or even hostility, and communication with them is difficult. After all, they have their own distinct worldviews and minds.Do these themes sound familiar, and have we heard them elsewhere?
In the above paragraph simply substitute "black", "indian", etc. and you will have the answer.The alt-right, like the cultural "progressives" of the left, hold one's race to be the primary determinant of one's identity. The difference is not one of principle, but merely in the details.Writes Professor Sotirakopoulos,
In academia, for example, racial thinking has also experienced a powerful revival in recent decades. But it has come back wearing a progressive face. Critical-race studies, and similar disciplines, tell us that colour-blindness is problematic, and that ‘whiteness’ is an inescapable predicament for white people. Indeed, critical-race theorists present whiteness as something close to a modern form of original sin.The alt-right has seized on this revamped concept of race, and appropriated it for its own ends. In its hands, whiteness becomes something that must be defended. As Jared Taylor, a sixtysomething ‘race realist’ intellectual, who is popular in the alt-right movement, puts it:

‘What do you call a black person who prefers to be around other black people, and likes black music and culture? A black person. What do you call a white person who listens to classical music, likes European culture, and prefers to be around white people? A Nazi. All non-whites are expected to have a strong racial identity; only whites must not.’ (2)

Whiteness, here, has first been turned into an identity, and then into a source of pride, equivalent to blackness in mainstream identity politics. This shows how the promotion of identity politics by the progressive left has fuelled, and paved the intellectual ground for, the adoption of identity politics on the right.
And like their progressive intellectual brothers, they also stand in opposition to the Enlightenment, individualistic views of capitalism:
Being philosophically opposed to individual agency and autonomy, most alt-rightists even have a disdain for capitalism, insofar as it manifests a form of individual freedom. As Spencer said in a video now removed from YouTube (as most of the material related to the alt-right tends to be), ‘a nation based on freedom is just another place to go shopping’. Despite some of its prominent members flirting with libertarianism in the early days of the alt-right, its politics are small n-and-s national socialist, and they apply in one state: the white ethno-state.
Though the alt-right in its present form has been discredited, the tribalistic, anti-individualism principles it espouses remain. Thankfully there is a solution.
Until the tribalism and anti-humanism, so prevalent in mainstream culture, are properly challenged, a more sophisticated version of the alt-right could still have a wide appeal. This is why we need to challenge identitarian ideology as a whole. We need to challenge the idea that people are mere members of groups, and start seeing people as individuals again. Too often, someone starts a sentence by saying ‘as a person of…’ x race, or of y gender, or of z sexual orientation, ‘I think…’. We need to reply that we don’t think with our skin colour or our gender, but with our minds – minds that are universally capable of reason and sympathy.
Nikos Sotirakopoulos' article "The alt-right: identity politics on steroids" is a must read.

Movies: The Sex of the Lead Character Is Not a Selling Point

May 1, 2020 | Culture

Reports John F. Trent on Erin Cummings to John Campea on The New Rumored Star Wars Series: “I Really, Really Loathe The Descriptor of Female Led” (April 24, 2020) Bounding Into Comics:

On The John Campea Show, his co-host and Spartacus actress Erin Cummings explained why she loathes the descriptor of female led while discussing the new rumored Star Wars series from Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland.[...]Cummings then points out the hypocrisy of how the series is being marketed,

“Can you read me that headline again, except take out female-centric and just put male-centric. But the point is these other shows that you talk about that are predominantly male-driven, nobody says, ‘Oh, we have this upcoming series, we aren’t going to tell you anything about it, but it’s going to be predominantly men, you wanna watch?’ That’s exactly what it’s saying.”

She continues,

“For me, yes, I want to see shows with more women, obviously. But you don’t have to say that’s the selling point. Tell me a little bit about the story. Make me fall in love with the story. Ultimately, if the show does fail, it looks like it failed because it was female-centric. Not because of a million other factors that it could have failed by.”

Exactly.

Give me a good story.Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged featured heroine Dagny Taggart which inspired everyone from Martina Navratilova and Billy Jean King to Charlize Theron. Taggart was inspirational not because of her sexual anatomy, but because she was a heroic, larger than life character with a mind.Hopefully, Disney won't produce another Elizabeth Banks’ money-losing feminista "Charlie's Angels" reboot that placed woke feminism over story-telling.

Far-UVC light Kills Viruses and Bacteria in the Air without Damaging Human Cells

May 1, 2020 | Sci-Tech

From "Could a New Ultraviolet Technology Fight the Spread of Coronavirus?" by Carla Cantor (April 21, 2020) Columbia News:
Scientists have known for decades that germicidal UV light (wavelength around 254 nm) has the capacity to kill viruses and bacteria. Hospitals and laboratories often use germicidal UV light to sterilize unoccupied rooms, as well as other equipment. But conventional germicidal UV light cannot be used in the presence of people as it can causes health problems to the skin and eyes.In contrast, far-UVC light, which has a very short wavelength (in the range from about 205 to 230 nm), cannot reach or damage living human cells. But these wavelengths can still penetrate and kill very small viruses and bacteria floating in the air or on surfaces.Far-UVC lamps are now in production by several companies, although ramping up to large-scale production, as well as approval by the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency, will take several months. At between $500 and $1000 per lamp, the lamps are relatively inexpensive, and once they are mass produced the prices would likely fall, [Columbia researcher David] Brenner said.
In other news "YouTube removes video on possible coronavirus treatment based on UV rays":

YouTube removed a video Friday touting an ultraviolet-based medical platform as a possible treatment for COVID-19 coronavirus. The video in question was posted by Aytu BioScience, a publicly-traded special pharmaceutical company focused on "commercializing novel products," after the White House said there was evidence humidity and ultra-violet light could greatly affect the virus. It promoted a product called Healight, developed by Californian Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and exclusively licensed to Aytu BioScience, as per a press release published April 20.

The Google subsidiary took down the clip for "violating community guidelines" after being flagged by a New York Times reporter. Previously, YouTube said it was going to take down coronavirus content that did not follow the World Health Organization's guidelines on COVID-19.

The basic idea by Californian Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is to put a UV light that can kill viruses but no harm human tissue within the lungs. From their press release:

Led by Mark Pimentel, MD, the research team of the Medically Associated Science and Technology (MAST) Program at Cedars-Sinai has been developing the patent-pending Healight platform since 2016 and has produced a growing body of scientific evidence demonstrating pre-clinical safety and effectiveness of the technology as an antiviral and antibacterial treatment. The Healight technology employs proprietary methods of administering intermittent ultraviolet (UV) A light via a novel endotracheal medical device. Pre-clinical findings indicate the technology's significant impact on eradicating a wide range of viruses and bacteria, inclusive of coronavirus. The data have been the basis of discussions with the FDA for a near-term path to enable human use for the potential treatment of coronavirus in intubated patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). Beyond the initial pursuit of a coronavirus ICU indication, additional data suggest broader clinical applications for the technology across a range of viral and bacterial pathogens. This includes bacteria implicated in ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP)."Our team has shown that administering a specific spectrum of UV-A light can eradicate viruses in infected human cells (including coronavirus) and bacteria in the area while preserving healthy cells," stated Dr. Pimentel of Cedars-Sinai. Ali Rezaie, MD, one of the inventors of this technology states, "Our lab at Cedars-Sinai has extensively studied the effects of this unique technology on bacteria and viruses. Based on our findings we believe this therapeutic approach has the potential to significantly impact the high morbidity and mortality of coronavirus-infected patients and patients infected with other respiratory pathogens. We are looking forward to partnering with Aytu BioScience to move this technology forward for the benefit of patients all over the world."

#MeSometimes: Tara Reade, Joe Biden and Justice Kavanaugh

Apr 29, 2020 | Philosophy, Politics, Sci-Tech

In this Analysis (download) of the Christine Blasey Ford Allegations, a 25-year prosecutor of sex-crimes shows that in a criminal court of law, Dr. Ford's accusations against Justice Kavanaugh would be found baseless.Or in her the Prosecutor's words,
"In the legal context, here is my bottom line: A “he said, she said” case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that. Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event, and those witnesses either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them. For the reasons discussed below, I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee. Nor do I believe that this evidence is sufficient to satisfy the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard."
Some of the reasons for this include:
"Dr. Ford has not offered a consistent account of when the alleged assault happened.""Dr. Ford has struggled to identify Judge Kavanaugh as the assailant by name.""When speaking with her husband, Dr. Ford changed her description of the incident to become less specific.""Dr. Ford has no memory of key details of the night in question—details that could help corroborate her account.""Dr. Ford’s account of the alleged assault has not been corroborated by anyone she identified as having attended—including her lifelong friend.""Dr. Ford has not offered a consistent account of the alleged assault.""Her account of who was at the party has been inconsistent."
Such is not the case with the account given by Tara Reade of her 1993 encounter with Biden.The response -- or rather the non-response and silence -- of the Democrats and their media allies, to Tara Reade's allegations against Joe Biden, is ominous.It demonstrates that to the Democrats and their media allies, the #MeToo movement to "Believe Women" was nothing more than a weapon to smear their political enemies, such as Republican Supreme Court nominee, Justice Brett Kavanaugh.It is a vivid demonstration of the moral hypocrisy of the Democratic Party and its supporters.

***

Well, not all of them.Rose McGowan, the actress from the popular series Charmed, also a victim of convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein, slammed her co-star Alyssa Milano -- a Biden supporter -- on Twitter, saying:

You are a fraud. This is about holding the media accountable. You go after Trump & Kavanaugh saying Believe Victims, you are a lie. You have always been a lie. The corrupt DNC is in on the smear job of Tara Reade, so are you. SHAME https://t.co/B7NHK4k09K — rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) April 6, 2020

Furthermore, according to McGowan, the Washington Post's "report" on the Reade allegations was nothing more than "victim shaming":
“This is not journalism, this is an agenda. This is a hit piece. You’ve sunk to a new low in slanted journalism and victim shaming @WashingtonPost ...“As a survivor, the way you launched into this woman’s assault is truly vile .... Your motto is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ well I guess it’s dead because you are dark. Evil lives and it loves the DNC.”
Whether you agree with McGowan or not, at least she is consistent.

***

Of course, Biden should be held with the presumption of innocence by any objective standard.Yet, where was this presumption in the Kavanaugh House Witch Hunt Hearings?But the presumption of innocence -- a legal application of the ethical principle of justice -- is not the professed standard of the Democratic Party and the Anti-Capitalist "Progressive" New Left.To the Democrats and their media allies, "justice" is only necessary when it can be used as a political weapon to advance their lust for power, and like the Communist call for freedom of speech, can be dispensed with when it no longer serves their unjust purpose: the destruction of the American Capitalist Republic.

***

Update: Cathy Young over at the Quilette on "Tara Reade’s Dubious Claims and Shifting Stories Show the Limits of #BelieveWomen" (March 14, 2020) examines Tara's Reade's allegations and does not find her top be a “credible complainant.” Writes Young:
Last week, this theater of the absurd got slightly more surreal when a prominent feminist wrote in the New York Times that she thinks Biden is a rapist, but will vote for him anyway. Linda Hirshman, a retired professor of women’s studies and philosophy, and a prolific author (most recently of Reckoning: The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment), explained to Times readers that she believes Reade, but also believes that “the cost of dismissing Tara Reade—and, worse, weakening the voices of future survivors” is justified on purely utilitarian grounds, since (as she sees it) Trump is the greater evil. Hirshman argued that the Democrats’ current strategy of defending Biden’s innocence is both cowardly (since it avoids the “hard work of moral analysis”) and harmful, since it means “casting a reasonably credible complainant as a liar.”[...]By casting the Democratic leadership as dishonest and cynical, Hirshman is kneecapping the party she says she supports.And she is doing it quite needlessly, because the totality of evidence suggests that Reade is in no way a “credible complainant.” Her credibility is further undermined by court documents that contradict her account of an entirely separate 1996 episode involving her ex-husband. In an ironic twist, these documents, part of Reade’s 1996–1997 California divorce files, were uncovered not through a dirt-digging expedition, but by researchers seeking evidence corroborating her allegations against Biden.
After much analysis of Reade's complaints, she ends that whatever the outcome the Democrats have played into Trump's hands:
Biden will probably ride out this scandal: As Hirshman candidly notes, there’s simply too much at stake in the election for Democrats to follow their #MeToo conscience. But if Reade’s claims really do sink Biden in November, the Democrats will merely be reaping what their moral panic has sowed. Hamstrung by slogans that depict half of the human population as inveterate truth-tellers incapable of dishonesty, the party has backed itself into a corner. Democrats must either stipulate that the church of #MeToo shall provide Biden with a one-off indulgence—or else urge Americans to vote for a presumed rapist. It’s hard to say which narrative would make Trump happier.

State Lockdowns Were Never Justified

Apr 24, 2020 | Politics

https://youtu.be/f9HLoWBYN84Human Flourishing advocate Alex Epstein interviews philosopher Onkar Ghate, Senior Fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, on why lockdowns are not a proper response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Topics they cover include:
  • We need objective, clearly defined laws specifying and limiting the power of government in regard to infectious diseases.
  • Why Sweden has more American infectious disease laws than America does.
  • How clearly defined laws lead to better preparedness by government, industry, and individuals.
  • Why more profit-making in the health care system is key to scaling capacity.
  • How governments have failed to do their proper job of identifying and isolating infectious individuals.
  • How far greater transparency from government would empower a free people to make rational decisions.
  • The right way to handle potential hospital capacity shortages.
  • How the idea of “free” health care promotes irresponsible behavior.
  • Why state-wide lockdowns were not the right policy with the evidence we had.
  • Why lockdowns were a panic-based, not reason-based policy that should be removed as quickly as possible.
  • How governments should make policy and communicate to citizens going forward.
  • Why now is the time to write to government officials—and what you should write.
 
COVID-19 Roundup: (April 2020)

COVID-19 Roundup: (April 2020)

Apr 22, 2020 | Business, Politics, Sci-Tech

Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19. Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding. Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem. Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections. Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.

After providing evidence for the above facts he goes on to conclude:

The appropriate policy, based on fundamental biology and the evidence already in hand, is to institute a more focused strategy like some outlined in the first place: Strictly protect the known vulnerable, self-isolate the mildly sick and open most workplaces and small businesses with some prudent large-group precautions. This would allow the essential socializing to generate immunity among those with minimal risk of serious consequence, while saving lives, preventing overcrowding of hospitals and limiting the enormous harms compounded by continued total isolation.
A pandemic does not alter the role of a government. For example, it can limit the freedom of those individuals who carry the virus for limited periods to protect others, whose right to life would be violated. This could involve testing, tracing contacts, and tracking. When governments are involved in operating health care systems, as they are in most mixed economies, they would isolate nursing home residents and other vulnerable people, increase hospital capacity, and set guidelines for physical distancing—as opposed to violating everybody’s right to liberty by locking down economies.
We need to learn to appreciate progress—both what we’ve already done, and why we can’t stop now. We need to tell the amazing story of progress: how comfort, safety, health, and luxury have become commonplace, and what a dramatic achievement that has been.
More recently, in the wake of the Covid-19 virus outbreak, we’ve seen unwarranted, unprecedented violations of all three realms of freedom in America – mandates to close businesses, edicts that people stay in their homes (“shelter in place,” akin to a nationwide house arrest of innocents presumed guilty), decrees against assembling (compelling “social distancing”), orders restricting access to gun shops, even the classification of some street protests (against the illiberal controls) as prohibited because a “non-essential” activity.  We’ve yet to see challenges from the ACLU or court orders staying the rights violations. Why?
The lockdowns, whatever one thinks of them, were never sold to us as a way to eradicate the disease. They were sold as a way to “flatten the curve” so that the medical system didn’t become overwhelmed, leading to *unnecessary* deaths. [...] We must open the economy as fast as we can. And we must do so while managing the disease as best we can. That includes selective isolation for the most vulnerable. (I have family members in this category…and, if it matters, they support re-opening the economy. They recognize that it would be immoral to demand that we sacrifice the whole country to reduce their odds of getting the disease.)
  • Alex Epstein’s video “A pro-freedom approach to fighting COVID-19": (Power Hour, April 15, 2020):
If you’re seeking to avoid COVID-19, the hand sanitizer gel you carry in a pocket or purse did not exist until the 1960s. If you start to show symptoms, the pulse oximeter that tests your blood oxygenation was not developed until the 1970s. If your case worsens, the mechanical ventilator that keeps you alive was invented in the 1950s—in fact, no form of artificial respiration was widely available until the “iron lung” used to treat polio patients in the 1930s. Even the modern emergency medical system did not exist until recently: if during the 1918 flu pandemic you became seriously ill, there was no 911 hotline to call, and any ambulance that showed up would likely have been a modified van or hearse, with no equipment or trained staff.
If you are a scientist at an academic institution currently working on a COVID-19 related project and in need of funding, we invite you to apply for a Fast Grant. Fast Grants are $10k to $500k and decisions are made in under 48 hours. If you wish to apply to grants for scientific or biomedical COVID-19 projects, please apply through FastGrants.org.

Taleeb Starkes: Top 5 Issues Facing Black Americans

Apr 19, 2020 | Culture

What are the five biggest problems facing black Americans? Where do things like racism and police brutality rank? What about the absence of black fathers? Taleeb Starkes, author of Amazon #1 bestseller "Black Lies Matter," lists the five.

Powerful Minds Homeschooling Books Now Available Online For Free

Apr 19, 2020 | Culture

With schools closed mostly everywhere, Glenn Woiceshyn has decided to make many of his Powerful Minds homeschool books available for free.

Writes Glenn, "While homeschooling my kids and some of their friends at the grade 6 level, I wrote a few books for homeschoolers that include text and exercises. Regarding the latter there is a teacher’s version with answers and a student’s version with the answers left out. This makes it easy for a parent to teach the material without being an expert.

"The 14 books, which can be used for grades 6-8 (ages ~ 11-13), are as follows:

  • H001-H003: History – The Pre-Civilization Period (text, student version exercises, teacher version exercises) 
  • H004-H006: History – The Pre-Civilization Period (study units text, student version exercises, teacher version exercises)
  • L001-L004: Novel Studies – Dar and the Spear Thrower (two parts with student version exercises and teacher version exercises)
  • L005-L006: Novel Studies – Boy of the Painted Cave (student version exercises and teacher version exercises)
  • M001-M002: Arithmetic (student version text and exercise, teacher version text and exercise)

"For the novel studies you need to purchase the novels, such as from Amazon. Feel free to print or pass around my books, which are only in PDF form."

Link: Powerful Minds homeschool books available for free.

Mac Donald: Coronavirus Disparities are a Culture, Not a Race, Problem

Apr 16, 2020 | Politics

Writes Heather Mac Donald on "Coronavirus Racial Disparities Miss the Bigger Picture" at Intellectual Takeout:
Coronavirus disparities are a class and culture, not a race, problem. Poor people everywhere have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. If the incidence of infection among black New Yorkers and Chicagoans were compared not to that of Manhattanites and the denizens of the Magnificent Mile but to residents of southeastern Ohio and of areas around abandoned steel plants in West Virginia, those alleged race disparities would shrink markedly.There may be “structural” elements to obesity and hypertension, but those conditions are largely the result of behavioral choices that individuals can control. Playing the race card during a pandemic is not just politically corrosive, it is medically unsound.

A Pro-Privacy COVID-19 Contact Tracing App

Apr 16, 2020 | Politics

According to the creators, the Decentralised Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP-3T) project is "an open protocol for COVID-19 proximity tracing using Bluetooth Low Energy functionality on mobile devices that ensures personal data and computation stays entirely on an individual's phone."Artist Nicky Case (with help from Prof Carmelo Troncoso & Prof Marcel Salathé) created a comic to explain how the protocol works:You can see the long version here.Updates:

Alexis de Tocqueville on The Abuse of Power Under Democracy

Apr 16, 2020 | Politics

"If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their character by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons, I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow-creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them."

-- Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

Yaron Brook Interviews The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley, on How Innovation Works

Apr 13, 2020 | Politics

https://youtu.be/xa4AfXvR1XoYaron Brook has a wonderful interview with Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, on the subject of Ridley's forthcoming book, How Innovation Works.You'll hear amazing gems like this:
LED lighting would be another example of something that's come in within the last 10 years -- unpredicted, unheralded -- the result of an innovation by a Japanese professor 20-30 years ago. But now we can get white or tunable light out of LEDs; uses far less electricity than the preceding technologies .... is yet another step in the incredible decline of the cost of lighting. That's my favorite example of rational optimism. You basically have to work for a third of a second these days on the average wage to earn an hour of light. Well back in 1800 you had to work for six hours to earn that much light from a candle on the average wage. That's the sort of improvement we've seen in technologies over the last couple of centuries.

Inventing to Nowhere: Is American Invention at Risk?

Apr 11, 2020 | Politics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tktH-gHcDA 
Invention is as old as human existence, and no country has promoted and thrived on invention more than the United States thanks to its patent system. But is American invention at risk? Framed around the story of two first-time inventors, Inventing to Nowhere explores the stakes in policy fights over the American innovation economy, with interviews of legendary inventor Dean Kamen, historians, members of Congress and other key players in the effort to keep the country innovating. For more than 200 years, the U.S. patent system has helped protect and grow ideas. This reverence for intellectual property rights has been a driving force in making the United States an economic superpower. But as the patent-law debate becomes more influenced by special interests, the future of inventors and entrepreneurs is in jeopardy.SavetheInventor.com

Bill Gates on How To Respond To The COVID-19 Pandemic

Apr 10, 2020 | Politics

"....Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates offers insights into the COVID-19 pandemic, discussing why testing and self-isolation are essential, which medical advancements show promise and what it will take for the world to endure this crisis." Takeaways:
  • Targeted Testing, as done in South Korea and Taiwan.
    • Gate's did agree with Taiwan being shut-out of WHO, especially . (For the record, this is due to the China Communist dictatorship's control over the UN. Taiwan was warning the WHO about what the NY Times was calling the 'Wuhan Virus' from December and was ignored.)
    • South Korea did not have to implement a nation-wide shut down because they did such an excellent job at early testing to isolate those with COVID-19.
    • Testing should be prioritized for health care workers in constant contact with patients and for those non-health-care workers who are symptomatic given the lack of supply of convenient COVID-19 kits to test everyone.
    • The COVID-19 testing problem will be resolved when reliable, in-home, self-test kits that deliver same-day results, are available.
  • Isolation & Shut-Down
    • If you cannot do a proper job on testing early, then you need to shut down movement to "flatten the curve"
    • Once the majority of COVID-19 carriers are isolated, the economy can reopen once you have done proper testing.
  • Mass vaccination in the long-run is the solution according to Gates. He has spent a hundred million dollars in advancing vaccination, particularly in third-world countries.

Delay in COVID Testing: "Too many chefs in the kitchen" or "All eggs in one basket"?

The interviewer, head of TED Chris Anderson, attempts to blame free-markets when he asks is the delay in the U.S. getting COVID-19 tests out in time due to "too many chefs in the kitchen." (In a  market there are many biotech companies competing to produce the best test)The actual cause of the delay in COVID-19 testing was that there was only one "universal" government chef in the kitchen -- the CDC -- which only approved one "universal" test created by the state and forbade all the "recipes" (tests) from other chefs (private companies) -- and the CDC's test did not work. CDC-FDA "universal" socialist medicine was the cause of the delay in this case.A better metaphor would be "putting all your testing eggs in one government-controlled basket."Thankfully, private U.S. medical companies came to the rescue.

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Related: The next outbreak? We’re not ready | Bill Gates (2015 Talk) 

Stored Away 2013 Bat Sample Found To Contained Covid-19

Apr 10, 2020 | Sci-Tech

Writes Matt Ridley on the Bats Behind The Pandemic (WSJ, April 9, 2020):
RaTG13 is the name, rank and serial number of an individual horseshoe bat of the species Rhinolophus affinis, or rather of a sample of its feces collected in 2013 in a cave in Yunnan, China. The sample was collected by hazmat-clad scientists from the Institute of Virology in Wuhan that year. Stored away and forgotten until January this year, the sample from the horseshoe bat contains the virus that causes Covid-19.[...]In a paper published in February last year, Patrick Woo and colleagues at Hong Kong University surveyed the coronaviruses found in bats and came to a prescient conclusion: “Bat–animal and bat–human interactions, such as the presence of live bats in wildlife wet markets and restaurants in Southern China, are important for interspecies transmission of [coronaviruses] and may lead to devastating global outbreaks.”
  

No Post-Mortem Tests: Germany’s Low COVID-19 Death Numbers

Apr 9, 2020 | Politics

Better medical equipment, early testing, and younger patients are some of the explanations for Germany's low COVID-19 death rates.EuroNews mentions another possible factor: No post-mortem tests.Quoting from David Courbe, "Dissecting Germany's low coronavirus death rate" Agence France-Presse (AFP):
Another explanation cited by Italian experts, could be that Germany, unlike other countries, tends not to test those who have already died."We don't consider post-mortem tests to be a decisive factor. We work on the principle that patients are tested before they die," the [disease control agency Robert Koch Institute (RKI)] told AFP.That means that if a person dies in quarantine at home and does not go to hospital, there is a high chance they will not be included in the statistics, as Giovanni Maga of Italy's National Research Council pointed out in an interview with Euronews.

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