How the elites justify coronapanic

by philg

Tomorrow is the five-year anniversary of my blog post If coronashutdown is to protect the old, why do young people have to pay for it?

The average age of a Covid-19-tagged death here in Massachusetts is 82. Thus, presumably to the extent that any lives are saved from Covid-19 by our educational, social, and economic shutdown, they will be roughly 82-year-old lives.

A friend in Berkeley, California who was an early and enthusiastic adopter of Faucism (cloth masks, double masks, N95 double masks, experimental vaccinations, double and triple boosters, Paxlovid for the inevitable encounters with SARS-CoV-2, school closures, lockdowns, etc.) recently set me an April 16, 2025 paper, “Pandemic preparation without romance: insights from public choice”, by Alex Tabarrok, a tenured economic professor at George Mason University (i.e., a state government employee who can’t be fired). My friend loves this paper and believes that it covers purported “missteps” in the elite Covidcrat response to SARS-CoV-2.

I pointed out that the professor starts from the assumption that humans are in charge of viruses (therefore, preparedness could possible reduce deaths to zero) and then promulgates a narrative that keeps those who spent 2-3 years deep in coronapanic feeling fully justified:

In its size and scope the COVID disaster was unique. COVID killed more Americans than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War combined.

The professor even has data:

Of course, the body count method is fundamentally flawed when talking about a virus that kills people at a median age of 82 and that targets those with multiple comorbidities. If SARS-CoV-2 had actually killed a lot of American seniors who had 10+ years to live, we would have seen the following:

Since we didn’t see any of these things happening, we are forced to conclude that COVID-19 did not have as dramatic effort on American demographics as wars that killed healthy men at age 18 (remember, though, that “Women have always been the primary victims of war” — Hillary Clinton). Nor did Americans suffer as many lost life-years from COVID-19 as we did from the regular relentless toll of car accidents.

This preface is a far more interesting window into the psychology of American elites than anything in the rest of the paper. It confirms my often-expressed statement that almost nobody who advocated for school closures, lockdowns, forced masking, and forced vaccinations will ever come to see him/her/zir/themself as having been wrong (much less apologize!). These folks either deny that school closures and lockdowns ever occurred (a popular strategy for Californians, New Yorkers, and the righteous of Maskachusetts) or they say that all measures were based on the best available Science at the time and that what’s wonderful about Science is how it evolves from week to week. Mostly, though, these folks simply don’t look at data that contradicts their faith in themselves. A Maskachusetts lockdowner who said that COVID-19-tagged death rate is a measure of a state’s collective intelligence will never get curious about how “do almost nothing” Sweden ended up with a lower COVID-19-tagged death rate than “do absolutely everything” Maskachusetts (or how Maskachusetts ended up with roughly the same age-adjusted COVID-19-tagged death rate as “do almost nothing after a couple of months of panic” states derided as being full of stupid people).

Related:

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Should a DUI conviction result in a license limited to operating a self-driving car?

by philg

Loyal readers know me as a neo-Prohibitionist (see Reintroduce Prohibition for the U.S.? (2016) and Use testing and tracing infrastructure to enforce alcohol Prohibition? (2020) and Coronaplague, experts, and Prohibition (2020)).

Courts are reluctant to take away convicted drunk drivers’ driving privileges because in many parts of the U.S. it is very difficult to function without a self-driven car (less true now than in 2005 due to Uber/Lyft).

How about an intermediate restriction on a convicted DUI American: a license limited to operating a full-self driving car? In an ideal world, of course, the supervisor of Tesla FSD wouldn’t be drunk. But if an alcoholic is going to be out on the road, and we know that alcoholics will be out on the road, wouldn’t all of us be far safer if the drunk driver’s job were limited to supervising an AI? The car itself could be tweaked to recognize that the driver was too impaired by alcohol for even the supervision function and then shut itself down.

We shouldn’t condone either drunk driving or drunk supervision of driving, of course, but on the other hand the U.S. is jammed with behavior that nobody condones. So maybe it is best to be realistic about our fellow Americans’ capabilities. Some people cannot lay off the booze (I actually don’t blame them. I was offered alcohol at 6:45 am by JetBlue a few months ago and nearly every restaurant in Florida seems to make various kinds of alcohol available with breakfast). If we accept that, maybe we can mitigate with a license restriction.

Jalopnik:

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How many migrants will the Catholic Church settle on its 177 million acres?

by philg

The Catholic Church has selected a new pope, a man who fled the violence and dysfunction of his native Chicago to live in comparatively peaceful/safe Peru and, more recently, in the migrant-free environment of Vatican City:

New York Times:

Taking the name Pope Leo XIV, he shares Francis’ commitment to helping the poor and migrants.

The Catholic Church owns 177 million acres of land worldwide (source). The Church does make changes to its real estate portfolio periodically. For example, in 2024 it sold a church in the Northeast:

Father Larochelle said Muhammad Quandil and Sadaf Ali of North Attleboro purchased St. Augustine Church for $675,000 on Aug. 23. The sale included the church with an attached parish center, a separate rectory building and a parking lot.

Father Larochelle said the buyers plan to use buildings for functions and events for the religious community at the mosque they belong to in North Smithfield, Rhode Island, about 10 minutes away. The mosque, a place of worship for Muslims, has no room to expand on site in Rhode Island because of wetlands, Father Larochelle said.

(No matter how many churches are turned into mosques we should remember that in no way are Christians in the U.S. being “replaced” by Muslims. That’s a discredited conspiracy theory.)

The question for today: of the 1,400+ parishes that the Catholic Church has shut down in the U.S. during this most recent immigration wave (not a “replacement”), how many were turned into migrant housing? California, New York, and Maskachusetts are packed with rich Catholics, for example. Where are the Catholic-funded apartments or houses for migrants in California, New York, and Maskachusetts? We can find articles about Church property becoming mosques. Who can find an article about Church property becoming a permanent home for enrichers?

Also, in September the new pope will be 70 years old. Wouldn’t it make more sense for a younger executive to assume this role? Pope John Paul II started the job at age 58.

Here’s what ChatGPT 4o thinks Vatican City would look like if some apartment towers for migrants were added:

This is the best that ChatGPT could do for a church-to-migrant-housing transformation:

Loosely related…

Speaking of Illinois, should we give the new pope credit for having escaped the violence, dysfunction, and high taxes of his native Chicago in favor of the relative safety, order, and efficiency of Peru? (He was there 2014-2023.)

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BLM and chin diapers in 2025

by philg

Our AI Overlords at Meta want me to become Facebook friends with our son’s former kindergarten teacher. She works at an all-white private school in an all-white suburb of Boston. Here’s what her profile looked like in April 2025 (I did some blurring in Photoshop):

Masks are still relevant, but wearing them underneath one’s chin works just fine. Black Lives Matter remains a high-priority social justice cause among those who’ve chosen to live and work in Black-free parts of a notably white state.

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Self-storage rent up 24 percent after six months

by philg

I’m not sure if it’s our inflation-free (TM) economy or that self-storage places underprice at move-in time and then raise the rent according to how difficult they think it will be for you to move your stuff, but the local self-storage place (Compass) just bumped our rent by 24 percent after six months (54 percent annual inflation rate), effective today.

Is this

  • a sign that inflation is alive and well?
  • an indication that South Florida continues to prosper?
  • a standard bait-and-switch tactic by self-storage places?

Rents for apartments and prices of houses are rising only gradually here right now, as far as I know, so I don’t think the “South Florida is booming” explanation is correct.

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ADHD boom coinciding with older/single parents

by philg

“Trends in Mental Disorders” by Arnold Kling (an economist whom a friend follows):

So why are we seeing an increase in people being labeled as depressed, or autistic, or ADHD?

Some of these labels have become high status. Nonbinary is high status among affluent teenagers. But I do not believe that the desire for status is the main driver.

I suspect that more children are being born with innate mutations, because their parents are older, reducing sperm and egg quality. These mutations result in unusual personality characteristics.

I suspect that children are spending less time with other children. Families are smaller. There are fewer neighborhoods with a lot of children. And there is a reluctance to let children go out on their own seeking children with whom to play. I suspect that having close adult supervision most of the time stunts children’s growth in social competence and confidence.

Children are skilled at manipulating their parents. When parents are easily manipulated, the child’s self-control is less likely to develop. When there are four children, no individual child has a good chance to manipulate parents. When there are one or two, manipulation is easier.

Children are skilled at manipulating their parents. When parents are easily manipulated, the child’s self-control is less likely to develop. When there are four children, no individual child has a good chance to manipulate parents. When there are one or two, manipulation is easier.

I wonder if it’s time for my standard line: “If you think teenage parenting is bad it’s only because you haven’t seen old people with kids.”

Any chance that the above trends will reverse? It doesn’t seem likely among native-born Americans who are college-educated. I talked to a senior at Brown the other day (considering how kids will do almost anything to get into an Queers for Palestine League school these days, she was surprisingly diffident about the overall experience there). She’s moderately religious/conservative and, therefore, might be expected to have more children than average for her cohort. She said that she didn’t want to have any children until she was at least 30 years old (“my 20s are for me”). Also, she didn’t want to have any kids until she’d been married for at least two years (“in case I want to divorce,” she noted, expressing zero commitment to marriage per se (i.e., she would stay married only if it seemed like the best option going forward)). So her life plan was to get married at some point between 26 and 28 and then have children at some point between 30 and 32. This is a recipe, I think, for having exactly the kind of family that Arnold Kling decries (older parents, 1-2 children, maybe just one parent if things don’t go perfectly).

Loosely related…

A screen shot in case this Israel-hating Asian-American is disappeared…

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REAL ID

by philg

The post that was scheduled for May 5, 2025 somehow didn’t get properly handled by WordPress. In order to deliver on my tagline of a posting every day, let me backfill it with a tale of going through a TSA checkpoint: They had a lot of signage about their new demand for REAL ID. I offered my driver’s license and explained “It’s real to me.” #MyTruth

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Maryland fails to reassess a Montgomery County house after it was bulldozed

by philg

Today we begin our celebration of Public Service Recognition Week, in which we “honor the people who serve our nation as federal, state, county, local and tribal government employees.”

In writing the post about my mom’s 25th high school reunion, I noticed that Zillow in 2025 displays our old family homestead, which was bulldozed in 2012…

Zillow still shows the crummy 1953 Cape Cod house in which we grew up (address above) and lists the mansion’s 1,603 square feet of space (we also used the basement, though, and a screen porch that was glassed in and maybe isn’t included). However, it was bulldozed within hours of being sold in 2012 and the Indian immigrants who purchased it built a McMansion in its place.

What I didn’t notice until more recently was that the Zillow page indicates that my parents’ old house wasn’t reassessed despite having been bulldozed and replaced by a vastly-more-valuable McMansion:

Montgomery County, Maryland is run by Democrats who would be the first to tell you how much smarter they are than Republicans. Ditto for the state government, which I think might be responsible for assessment. The house next door, 6409 Dahlonega, was bulldozed and its assessed value went up from $382,000 in 2006 to $1.7 million in 2007 (today at $2.2 million). My parents’ old house would have brought in more than double the current property tax over the past 13 years if it had been assessed at market rates.

(Incidentally, the people who built the magnificent edifice at 6409 Dahlonega are no longer paying property, income, or, when the time comes, estate taxes to Montgomery County/Maryland. They moved to Clearwater Beach, Florida towards the tail-end of coronapanic.)

These data shatter my preconceptions about government, which I thought was a well-oiled machine for collecting maximum taxes. Maybe there is some rule in Maryland or in Montgomery County that prevents a reassessment after a bulldozing, but I don’t know what it would be.

Anyway, let’s celebrate the property tax assessors of Maryland for their hard work, even if trees obscured their view of the old 1,600-square-foot cottage that was replaced by a hulking McMansion.

Very loosely related…

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What are your favorite NPR stories?

by philg

With the hated dictator threatening to defund NPR (NBC), let’s have a quick survey regarding favorite NPR articles for the working class taxpayer to fund.

Here’s one that I received recently from a friend in San Francisco (he’s a closeted Deplorable because diversity is our biggest strength and also anyone who didn’t vote Democrat has to be fired):

The peasants had to pay the following elites, apparently, to obtain this valuable lesson:

  • Alejandra Marquez Janse (writer)
  • Patrick Jarenwattananon (writer)
  • Asma Khalid (writer)
  • Catie Dull(!) (illustrator)
  • an uncredited editor
  • some web nerds ($150,000/year total compensation when considering salary, benefits, pension?)

Readers: Please add some links to favorite NPR stories!

Related:

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The Barbra Streisands of medicine: ob/gyns

by philg

Barbra Streisand is famous for promising to move to Canada, but then living quietly under two Trump dictatorships. See “‘I really will’: the stars who didn’t move to Canada when Trump won” (Guardian, 2018), for example:

Who are Streisand’s counterparts in the world of medicine? Ob/gyns. “Ob/Gyns Mostly Stayed Put After SCOTUS Overturned Roe, Study Finds” (MedPageToday, April 21, 2025):

There was no population-level ob/gyn exodus away from abortion-restrictive states post-Roe.

From the quarter right before the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision through the end of the study in September 2024, 95.8% of ob/gyns remained in states that protect access to abortion, 94.8% remained in states threatening bans, and 94.2% remained in states with abortion bans, reported Becky Staiger, PhD, of the University of California Berkeley, and colleagues.

“The only statistically significant difference suggested that the share of physicians who are ob/gyns decreased less in threatened states than in protected ones, opposite to the expected finding if ob/gyns were leaving states where abortion is threatened,” the authors wrote.

(I apologize for the hateful language in which “abortion care” is presented without the “care”.)

The full article says “Numerous media reports have described physicians leaving states where abortion is banned in response to these concerns, including cases of retirement or migration”.

Where should an ob/gyn passionate about delivering abortion care have moved? Maskachusetts law allows abortion care at 37 weeks of pregnancy or even more if a single physician believes that the abortion care will preserve “the patient’s … mental health”:

If a pregnancy has existed for 24 weeks or more, no abortion may be performed except by a physician, and only if in the best medical judgement of the physician it is: (i) necessary to preserve the life of the patient; (ii) necessary to preserve the patient’s physical or mental health; (iii) warranted because of a lethal fetal anomaly or diagnosis; or (iv) warranted because of a grave fetal diagnosis that indicates that the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside of the uterus without extraordinary medical interventions.

(Abortion care is “on demand” through 24 weeks.)

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