Category: Massachusetts

Merry Christmas from the Central Planners

by philg

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Loyal readers will know that I love central planning (seen “Citizens for a Planned Economy,” the political group that I formed after watching the 2012 Presidential debate in which candidates from both parties promised federal intervention) and bureaucratically-managed coronapanic. Today, we celebrate the Christmas gifts of the Maskachusetts Pharaohs to the people, in particular the distribution of COVID-19 tests to “more than 100 municipalities with a larger proportion of families facing financial hardship”. These are characterized as “free” so, presumably, the people themselves will not have to pay for them via taxation.

My favorite part of the mass.gov page is the list of the impoverished towns that will receive “free” tests. Weston, Massachusetts is on the list. Back in 2019, the town had a median household income of $207,702 per year (Census; using pre-Biden dollars). What will the good burghers of Weston do with the test kits? After the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and Massachusetts National Guard drive away,

Each city or town will determine how best to distribute tests within their community, with an emphasis on increasing access for individuals and families who are facing financial hardship.

“Hospitals Scramble as Antibody Treatments Fail Against Omicron” (NYT, 12/21):

In New York, hospital administrators at NewYork-Presbyterian, N.Y.U. Langone and Mount Sinai all said in recent days that they would stop giving patients the two most commonly used antibody treatments, made by Eli Lilly and Regeneron, according to memos obtained by The Times and officials at the health systems.

Federal health officials plan to assess at the end of this week whether to pause shipments of the Eli Lilly and Regeneron products to individual states, based on how dominant Omicron becomes in different regions of the country, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Already in high demand even before Omicron arose, the supply of sotrovimab is very limited for now. But the situation is likely to improve somewhat in the coming weeks. The Biden administration is in talks with GlaxoSmithKline about securing more doses to be delivered by early next year, the administration official said.

The central planners are getting you antibodies for Christmas, but it might be Christmas 2022…

Related:

  • Trouble in public health paradise… “Mass. Medical Society calls for statewide mask mandate for all indoor public settings” (Boston.com, 12/14): The president of the Massachusetts Medical Society is recommending that state officials require the use of masks in all indoor public settings, regardless of vaccination status, in the face of worrying COVID-19 trends in the commonwealth. The call to bring back an indoor mask mandate came a day after Gov. Charlie Baker said he has “no plans to bring back the statewide mask mandate,” despite the urging of health experts to do so. In recent weeks, Massachusetts has seen a sharp increase in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations to levels that have not been seen since the surge last winter, prompting state officials to order hospitals facing capacity constraints to cut elective procedures by 50 percent. Some municipalities, including Boston, have since brought back indoor mask mandates in response to the COVID-19 trends seen in their local communities. Starting Monday, Salem is also requiring all individuals entering a public or municipal building to wear a face covering, regardless of their vaccination status.
  • Merry Christmas to Israelis who celebrate this holiday… “For a growing number of Jews in Israel, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” (Times of Israel): You ask Yaeli Amir, a seven-year-old Jewish girl growing up in a rural town in Israel, what her favorite holiday is, and she won’t name any of the almost countless Jewish ones. Instead, she’ll say, without hesitation, “Christmas!” (Tisha B’Av is a tougher sell to 7-year-olds?)
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Vaccine papers checks in the Cradle of Liberty

by philg

From “MAYOR WALSH SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER ESTABLISHING GENDER NEUTRAL RESTROOMS IN CITY HALL” (boston.gov, 2016):

“Boston is well known as ‘The Cradle of Liberty,’ and for nearly 400 years Boston has led the way in providing equal human rights for all of its citizens. Over 5 years ago, on May 5, 2010, The Boston City Council passed a Unanimous Resolution In Support of An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes (S. 1687/H.1728). Because the Massachusetts Legislature has still not passed this important Human Rights Bill, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is today taking a very courageous and important action by making two restrooms in Boston City Hall Transgender Inclusive. …

Starting January 15, the vaccinated will be more equal than the unvaccinated in the cradle of liberty. From state-sponsored media (NPR/WGBH):

Boston mayor Michelle Wu announced Monday that the city will require proof of vaccination for indoor recreational activities and will tighten the vaccine mandate for city workers.

The moves are intended to tamp down the city’s winter surge of COVID-19 cases and the threat of the emerging omicron variant.

Beginning Jan. 15, people aged 12 and up looking to patronize venues like gyms, restaurants and museums will have to present proof of at least one vaccination dose for access. The following month, everyone aged 12 and up will need to present proof of vaccination through an app, a CDC vaccination card, or photo of a vaccination card, or other official immunization record.

Children ages 5-11 will be phased into the new requirements on a slightly extended schedule and won’t have to provide proof of first vaccination doses until March 1. Then, beginning in May, children will need to show proof of full vaccination.

“This is a response that is rooted in science and public health and we need to take every available action to protect our city’s residents, businesses and institutions,” Wu said of the testing elimination.

Where did the scientist learn #Science? According to Wikipedia, while majoring in economics as an undergrad. Where did the public health expert learn medicine? At law school. What about the paranoid conspiracy theories of the Deplorables that a cabal of elites are controlling every aspect of American life? Mx. Wu attended Harvard University for both bachelor’s and law school.

What does the manufacturer of the drug that will be required for children to leave the house say about this medicine? The label: “this unapproved product… which is not an FDA-approved vaccine.”

With 95 percent of subjects, age 12 and up, having received at least one shot, is SARS-CoV-2 giving up on life in the Cradle of Liberty? NYT:

Related:

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Why is it still almost impossible to schedule a COVID-19 test? (at least in Maskachusetts)

by philg

A friend woke up this morning with a 102-degree fever. He asked our chat group what the procedure was for getting a COVID-19 test in suburban Boston. Keep in mind that this is one of the epicenters of COVID-19 Karenhood. To minimize deaths tagged to COVID-19, no price is too high to pay in dollars, deaths due to shutdown non-COVID health care, inconvenience, and long-term deaths due to lockdown-related obesity, lack of education, poor mental health, etc. Healthy college and K-12 students are tested weekly, for example. Vaccine papers are checked in numerous situations, e.g., to attend college or a concert (folks say that preventing COVID-19 is their #1 priority and then crowd into a 2,700-person concert hall, relying on proven-ineffective cloth masks for protection). Schools in Boston were closed for more than a year. Certainly a big slice of the $10 trillion that the Feds have spent on coronapanic has been spent in Maskachusetts.

Nobel-winner Barack Obama handed tens of $billions of hard-earned tax dollars and gave them to health care providers who installed computer systems.

If we intersect the above two paragraphs, shouldn’t the result be a computer system that can tell a Massachusetts resident where to get a Covid test today? If not from the government (healthcare.gov was a rough development project!) then from a righteous private company?

We’re now nearly 2 years into 14 days to flatten the curve. The health care industry is fully computerized. The Internet monopolies such as Google and Facebook devote considerable effort to Karen’s propaganda campaign. Searching for “covid vaccine” in The Google:

Searching for “vaccine” in Facebook:

Facebook corrects vaccine misinformation. A physician friend posted “Flu variants yearly warrant new vax; yet #CDC pushes Covid “booster” -retreads”. A pilot friend posted “Mengele is admitting that these vaccines are not working. He knows something is coming, and he tries to protect his ass.” over a video of Saint Fauci. A physicist posts European data: “I had more than a year ago posted a study by the Italian ISS, published in August 2019, on those recurring peaks of excessive mortality in the previous decade. It showed that the magnitude of excessive deaths, among the same statistical population (over 65) and in most cases even with geographical correlations (areas of northern Italy) were comparable with COVID mortality. In my view, whoever is intellectually honest will admit from these data that lockdowns, vaccine mandates, etcetera, were and are not justified by the numbers.” An attorney: “My wife is a nurse in a hospital here in the Boise area. Not only are they letting nurses go for not having the vax, and bringing in travelling nurses who are not vaxxed, but they are paying the travellers more than twice as much as their full-time nurses. It is freaking insanity”.

Underneath all of these Facebook adds the following:

What if you try to use these titans of information technology to find a Covid test? Searching for “covid test” in Facebook yields instructions to wear a mask and an ad for CVS. Search for “covid test” in Google Maps yields nearby facilities that might do tests, but with no information about whether they have availability, require appointments, charge money, etc.

Since my friend isn’t feeling well, I tried to find him a test appointment. The various CVS stores are prominent in search results. When you follow the link from Google Maps it takes three clicks and typing in a ZIP code to get to a questionnaire:

I type fairly fast, but it took me roughly 2 minutes to get to a page of available locations:

The CVS site showed availability for today at various stores, inviting me to click on “Check for available times” but the result of the click was always “no available times”:

In Florida, it should be a lot simpler for Google and Facebook. They can highlight the government-run drive-through free testing centers that never seem to have a line and that don’t require any appointments. Yet this isn’t done. Instead, Google Maps shows urgent care clinics, pharmacies, etc. that may require appointments, payment, etc.

After $10 trillion has been spent, why should a person with a 102-degree fever have to spend more than 2 minutes on the Web to find a reasonably close and convenient COVID testing option?

Update: After a full day of web-searching and driving around, my friend scored a Binax rapid test kit (one-hour round-trip drive). Verdict: POSITIVE. Another success story for Moderna! (second shot six months ago) I think it is safe to assume that, without the vaccine, my friend would now be dead.

Related:

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Massachusetts is a 50-year-old Cessna with updated panel; Florida is a new Cirrus

by philg

One thing that I didn’t count on when we contemplated our move from Maskachusetts to the Florida Free State was the difference in “the built environment” (as architects put it).

If you’re a middle class or richer person in our corner of Florida you essentially never touch anything that is more than 25 years old. The Target that you walk into is new and is a Platonic ideal Form of a Target. The road that you drove on to get to said Target could be an example from a road system engineering textbook. You never turn left except from a dedicated left turn lane with a dedicated left turn signal. You never turn right except from a dedicated right turn lane. If you’re going straight, consequently, you never wait for someone turning left or right. When you return home to walk the dog, you’re on a perfect sidewalk. If a child is with you on the sidewalk riding a bike, there is always a brand new curb cut exactly where needed/wanted. If you are a little sloppy parking, the curb is never so high or jagged that it will tear up the car’s wheels. Gas, water, sewer, and power grid are all new and reliably functional.

Our corner of Massachusetts was super rich, fattened by a 60-year flow of taxpayer cash into health care, pharma, and higher education. Everything that was practical to improve had been improved. Nonetheless, the results were often poor quality. The capacity of the road network was perhaps 1/3rd of what has been achieved in Florida. One person choosing to make a left turn could cause a 1-mile backup. The (old) gas lines near our old house always leaked slightly, giving parts of the neighborhood a consistent ethyl mercaptan smell. Power failures lasting 3-50 hours were routine.

It occurred to me that Massachusetts is like an old Cessna airframe that has been lavishly maintained. The bones are old, but the avionics in the panel are new. In theory, it should be just as good as a new airplane.

Florida, on the other hand, is like a brand new Cirrus, engineered to the latest standards (seats that will crush on impact; parachute if things are truly going badly, ideal shape from a composite mold, thought-out ergonomics, etc.).

An experienced aircraft mechanic, when I would ask him for advice regarding the merits of a new part or a remanufactured/rebuilt one that should be just as good and/or why someone would spend 2-3X on a factory-new Bonanza compared to a perfect-condition older one. “New is new,” was often his response (in favor of the new part or aircraft!).

I’m not sure that the analogy holds up in all areas of Florida, e.g., Miami, but it seems like a useful shorthand for explaining MA vs. FL to general aviation pilots at least!

A hangar at KSUA featuring a classic Cessna 170 taildragger (no newer than 1956) and a brand new C8 Corvette (both owned by the same dentist):

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Maskachusetts trip report

by philg

I returned to Maskachusetts at the end of last month. My first impression of the city was surprise at how much trash was allowed to accumulate in the corners of Logan Airport parking lots and how many marijuana shop billboards are now lining the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90).

It rained almost every day for a week, often heavily, with temps in the 50s. “Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.” does not seem to be applicable to fall foliage:

We flew up to Manchester, New Hampshire in a friend’s Cirrus. The FBO and a local camera shop (Hunt’s) devoted some signage to our current Vietnam War:

A college in the Boston suburbs tries to keep the infected barbarians outside the walls (“Campus Access Restricted”):

Wellesley College had similar signage. Speaking of Wellesley and signage, I visited a family at their $3.5 million house in Wellesley. Across the street:

Unrelated, a sign in their kitchen:

Speaking of $3.5 million houses, I visited a friend at his $3+ million place in Brookline. His kids lost more than a year of education, but the good news is that they no longer have to exhaust themselves to get to a marijuana store (“essential” according to the Covidcrats and, therefore, open throughout coronapanic). Right around the corner:

I visited the Museum of Fine Arts and determined that our apartment would look a lot better if IKEA would start making Ettore Sottsass‘s Carlton room divider (1981):

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The vaccinated white elite are forced to wear masks inside the museum by order of Boston’s mayor. They’re also required to wear masks while walking up the driveway, by the museum itself:

There are numerous reminders inside the museum regarding the mask requirement. Example:

How can the vaccinated white elite put together an exhibit on Blackness? Have local high school students do the curation (this exhibit opened in January 2020, shortly before the schools for those curators were shut down for 1.5 years). It is nice to see an art museum take a firm stand on the Debian vs. Ubuntu question:

Here’s some of the work by a teen curator:

(Of course, Black literally is a rainbow color in many variations of the Pride flag.) Speaking of the Pride flag….

Humans come in a rainbow of gender IDs, the museum would like to remind us, but only one gender is entitled to space on the top floor of the newest wing:

Since the MFA is in Massachusetts, of course there is a section curated by Elizabeth Warren:

What if you get tired or feel sick while you’re at the museum? Just step outside and there you will find all of the information that you need to have essential marijuana delivered into your hands:

The ad, direct mail copies of which had piled up in my Harvard Square mailbox, raises a deep question: As noted above, marijuana is officially “essential” according to the Maskachusetts governor and therefore marijuana stores had to remain open while schools were closed. In light of this status, when doesn’t life call for cannabis?

Not everyone agrees with being stoned 24/7 (airport souvenir shop):

After the museum, it was off to visit friends in Newton, a suburb dominated by rich white heterosexuals. Based on their signage, they’re most passionate about the BIPOC and the 2SLGBTQQIA+, but they apparently are happy to pay $1-2 million extra for a house in Newton (compared to house prices in neighborhoods that are diverse) so that they don’t have to live anywhere near those people.

Based on the sign, what is “the Faith”? Is it Christianity, to which the church nominally adheres? One might say “no” because there is no cross or other symbol of Jesus on the sign. But there is a rainbow flag. So perhaps “the Faith” at this church in Newton is faith in Rainbow Flagism.

On arriving at my friend’s house for a planned outdoor walk, his wife asked through the screen door “Are you vaccinated?” Her next question was “Did you get a booster yet?” Later she asked what has become today’s conventional test of faith: “Are you going to get your children [youngest: 6] vaccinated?” She then lamented that her 4-year-old was too young to qualify for the sacrament of vaccination against a disease that kills 82-year-olds.

I visited CVS and found that they were seeking to hire more workers while simultaneously promising those workers 8 hours of mask-wearing time:

If you take the job, you won’t be working with a lot of coins:

Because obesity is a minor problem in the U.S. compared to the horrors of COVID-19, the health-promoting pharmacy maintains its mask vigilance while simultaneously offering ginormous chocolate bars on a “buy 2, get 1 free” basis:

Even at 6 am on a Sunday, Logan Airport was mobbed and my JetBlue flight was full. Note in the pictures below that more than half of the gate agent’s computer screen is devoted to “Federal vaccine mandate” (deadline: January 4; why not January 6 to coincide with the one-year anniversary of The Insurrection?)

The flight was jammed. As on the flight up, almost everyone was simultaneously demasked after every cart-based beverage service. When people struck up conversations, I would see them pulling their masks away from their faces to be heard. A woman who was at least 40 lbs. overweight had purchased all three seats in the row next to mine so that she wouldn’t have to sit right next to someone infected with SARS-CoV-2. As usual, I wondered why someone who was that fearful of COVID-19 was (1) on the plane in the first place (travel is almost always optional and, certainly, Florida and Maskachusetts are connected by highway), (2) unable to lose weight during the 19 months or so that we’ve known about COVID-19’s tendency to kill the obese. Staying home and shedding pounds are the only proven methods for avoiding infection/death by COVID-19. Why don’t people who say that they’re afraid of COVID-19 take these steps?

The Nest of Billionaires (in Palm Beach, median condo/house price $1.5 million and up 23 percent over the last year (but that’s not “inflation”)), about to get a super sweet tax break from the Democrats when the SALT deduction comes roaring back and they can write off their staggering property tax bills (this house next to Mar-a-Lago is hit for $226,667 per year):

Confirming the assertions of Bostonians that Florida has been taken over by the Devil:

(This particular devil actually said, “I’m a rampie,” but the Devil is famous for deceiving.)

I asked the flight attendants in both directions if it bothered them to wear a mask all day at work. “I hate it,” one said. “And since I live in Florida I’m not used to it because I never have to wear it at home.” Had flight attendants quit because they were tired of 20 months of masks during 14 days to flatten the curve? “Not that many,” she replied, “but the vaccine requirement will cause more people to leave.” She was in her 20s and did not want to receive the sacrament of vaccination, citing her low risk of severe COVID-19 balanced against concerns regarding the unknown unknowns of the new medicine/religion (an entirely reasonable perspective, given her age, according to my medical school professor friends, though they’re mostly old and want the vaccine for themselves).

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Bad news for children, but good news for schools in Maskachusetts

by philg

I received a letter from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Jeffrey Riley, the Commissioner, shared some bad news for the children whom the state putatively serves. Their test scores fell. He didn’t say by how much, but Boston Magazine reported on this last month:

According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 33 percent of students in third through eighth grade met or exceeded grade-level expectations on their math scores, compared to 49 percent in 2019 (the 2020 spring MCAS exam was canceled due to the pandemic). In English language arts, 46 percent of students scored Meeting Expectations or higher, compared to 53 percent in 2016.

Apparently it is possible to learn English by watching TV and playing Xbox, but those are not the best ways to learn mathematics.

Where’s the good news in this, other than school system bureaucrats and teachers having been paid in full for every day that the schools were closed (a full year in Boston!)? “Fortunately, both our state and federal government have recognized the need for additional resources to meet the challenges before us,” says Mr. Riley. “Massachusetts school districts are receiving state and federal pandemic relief money for an extended period of time, and the money can be spent by districts on a wide range of priorities to meet students’ academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.” (note that the virus itself is to blame for the schools having been shut; it was not a human or political decision to keep “essential” marijuana and liquor stores open and allow adults to party on Tinder during the 12-month Boston school shutdown that protected 10-year-olds from a virus that killed 82-year-olds in Maskachusetts)

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New England versus Florida (“wear a mask at your discretion”)

by philg

The police in New England will drive out to hassle kids playing soccer outdoors and arrest the unmasked for disorderly conduct (example).

What about their counterparts in the Florida Free State? I went to the Jupiter (Florida) Police Department (brand new palatial building; let’s be grateful to the folks who pay property tax on $10 million houses!) to get fingerprints that I could send to the FBI for a background check that is required for the Portuguese golden visa/passport program (seemingly a better investment every day given the proposals we’re hearing from our rulers in D.C.!). Visitors are told to “Wear a mask at your discretion”. I went into a small room with a guy about my age (i.e., prime target for Delta variant!). He was not wearing a mask.

Related:

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The new religion on display in Cambridge, Maskachusetts

by philg

Our new religion, in which God is replaced (“In Fauci We Trust”):

Source: A Deplorable immigrant friend (Joe Biden couldn’t bundle him onto one of the Haitian deportation flights, but would surely love to!). Location: Cambridge, Maskachusetts (a $5 million house as measured in Bidie Bucks?).

Related:

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The concerns of a Massachusetts public school superintendent

by philg

Email last month from the superintendent of schools in a nearly-all-white suburb of Boston:

The Superintendent’s Bulletin can be accessed by clicking on the link below:

Superintendent’s Bulletin – September 23, 2021

In This Week’s Bulletin:

Letter from the Superintendent

Diversity & Dialogue Series 2: Hispanic Heritage Month

Adolescent Mental Health Free Clinic

Webinar: Anxiety in a Time of COVID

Sustainable Food Parent Survey

October Flu Shot Clinics

Free School Lunch Through June 30, 2022

Employee Benefits Open Enrollment

District Calendar of Upcoming Events

————————————–

Quiz for readers: What topic is missing?

Second question… if typical children are not at risk from COVID-19 (other causes of death being much more common), how did they become anxious about it?

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The last person that I saw in Massachusetts

by philg

It’s October, the month when rich people show up to their South Florida houses (folks without kids in school don’t rush back to catch the 90-degrees-and-humid high temps of August and September; see Weather Spark for an analysis of the climate and the opinion that mid-October through early May is when a rich/flexible person should be in Palm Beach). Starting in mid-September, we noticed that it was pleasant to be out walking Mindy the Crippler in the mornings and evenings.

I’ll take this moment to reflect on the last person whom I saw in Massachusetts. It was a hot August day. He was alone on the South T hangar ramp at KBED. There is no FBO there, just individual hangars to which aircraft owners must drive in private cars. As such, there was nobody within 300′ of him other than myself (taxiing past inside a Cirrus SR20 being ferried to its new Florida home).

He was wearing an N95 mask.

(No photo, sadly, since capturing the scene would have required a telephoto lens and I was solo in the airplane. Taxiing is an operation that demands concentration and avoiding distraction. There are a lot more taxi accidents than in-flight accidents, though obviously the consequences are less severe when something bad happens on the ground.)

What’s the current COVID-19 situation in a state that is fully vaccinated and fully masked? It’s an “emergency” according to this email from yesterday:

An Act extending COVID-19 Massachusetts emergency paid sick leave, H.4127, was signed into law on September 29, 2021. This legislation modifies the Massachusetts COVID-19 Emergency Paid Sick Leave program in two ways:

Extends the program until April 1, 2022 or the exhaustion of $75 million in program funds as determined by the Commonwealth, whichever is earlier; and

Effective October 1, 2021, permits employees to use Massachusetts COVID-19 Emergency Paid Sick Leave to care for a family member who needs to obtain or recover from a COVID-19 immunization.

During this period, employers must continue to offer Massachusetts employees leave time for qualifying reasons related to COVID-19. Further information on the updated law is available at https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-temporary-emergency-paid-sick-leave-program.

Employers may continue to apply for reimbursement by logging into the Department of Revenue’s MassTaxConnect website. Further information, including detailed instructions, is available here: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-temporary-emergency-paid-sick-leave-program#how-to-apply-for-reimbursement-.

As the federal Emergency Paid Sick Leave program comes to an end, the extension of this state leave program will assure continued support for businesses of all sizes, including smaller businesses that to date have relied primarily on federal financial support for employees’ COVID-related leave time.

(Note in the above that the COVID-19 vaccine isn’t in any way harmful, but you might need to take some taxpayer-funded days or weeks off work to help a family member “recover from a COVID-19 immunization.”)

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