Health and Medicine

Just Stop. The Left’s Propaganda Machine Keeps Pretending Dr. Fauci Is a Hero When He’s the Exact Opposite

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments


Stephen Colbert is really is beneath contempt. His late night show proudly promoted the guest appearance of Anthony Fauci last week, which is roughly the equivalent of cheering for the Sackler family. This is one of the subtle ways—not so subtle, really—that the media pimps for Democrats and the party’s agenda (“The Government knows best, proles!”) Colbert only has guests that align with the Axis; Nancy Pelosi was another recent guest, and the producers obviously have no interest in presenting anyone who isn’t fully part of the “team.” They also don’t have any interest in entertaining audience members who, having paid attention and having not been brainwashed, know the likes of Pelosi and Fauci for what they are.

Fauci, however, is a far more nauseating and unforgivable object of fawning idolatry than even Pelosi. He’s a certifiable, no-contest ethics villain: incompetent, irresponsible, dishonest, hypocritical, an abuser of power, position and influence, and the perfect poster boy for the fake “Trust the science!” mantra that the Left has weaponized for political gain.

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This Ethics Mess Has Everything! Marjorie Taylor Greene, Fauci, WAPO Bias, Dogs…

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Stories like this one remind me just how deep and complex the ethics void is becoming in our society and institutions. The hackneyed way of describing it would be “Why we can’t have nice things.” It is an ethics mess, rather than an ethics train wreck, just an icky, stinky, pile of unethical goo emanating from people and places that can’t be trusted.

Let’s pick our way through it. Get your gloves and Lysol, and put a clothespin on your nose…

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitor Files: This Is The Quality of Judge Biden Is Nominating and the Senate is Confirming

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

In the stunning exchange above on May 22, Sen. Ted Cruz confronted one of Biden’s nominees to the Federal bench who placed a serial rapist who is a biological male (that is, all standard equipment included) in a women’s prison. She claimed, incredibly, that she always makes her decisions based on the facts of a case and the law, while repeatedly refusing to answer Cruz’s specific questions by repeating an obviously pre-programmed evasive answer (like the three university presidents who kept saying that whether anti-Semitic speech was acceptable on campus depended on “the context”), “I considered the facts presented to me, and I reached a decision…,” etc.

Cruz contended that the judge made ideological loyalty a higher priority than the fact or law, citing the fact that she deemed a 6’2″ serial rapist with a penis a “safe” inmate in a prison full of women.

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An Expert Bemoans How Experts Have Destroyed the Public’s Trust in Them While She Misleads the Public In Her Criticism

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Zeynep Tufekci, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, seemed to be leveling harsh criticism at the health community. “Under questioning by a congressional subcommittee, top officials from the National Institutes of Health, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, acknowledged that some key parts of the public health guidance their agencies promoted during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic were not backed up by solid science,” she wrote. “What’s more, inconvenient information was kept from the public — suppressed, denied or disparaged as crackpot nonsense…Officials didn’t just spread these dubious ideas, they also demeaned anyone who dared to question them…Dr. David Morens, a senior N.I.H. figure, was deleting emails that discussed pandemic origins and using his personal account so as to avoid public oversight. “We’re all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns, and if we did we wouldn’t put them in emails and if we found them we’d delete them,” he wrote to the head of a nonprofit involved in research at the Wuhan lab.”

Her condemnation appeared uncompromising: “I wish I could say these were all just examples of the science evolving in real time, but they actually demonstrate obstinacy, arrogance and cowardice. Instead of circling the wagons, these officials should have been responsibly and transparently informing the public to the best of their knowledge and abilities. Their delays, falsehoods and misrepresentations had terrible real-time effects on the lives of Americans. Failure to acknowledge the basic facts of Covid transmission led the authorities to pointlessly close beaches and parks, leaving city dwellers to huddle in the much more dangerous confines of cramped and poorly ventilated apartments. The same failure also delayed the opening of schools and caused untold millions of dollars to be wasted.”

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Weird Tales of “The Great Stupid,” Beauty Pageant Division

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Sara Milliken, 23, was named “Miss Alabama” when she was selected by judges as the #1 beauty in the regional semi-finals of the National American Miss pageant. I find myself at a loss to explain or analyze this. Beauty pageants were always odd, and in 2024 they are anachronistic ghosts of long-dead cultural attitudes and tastes that never made much sense.

So end them, for heaven’s sake. If they have to stoop to stunts like calling a morbidly obese woman the most beautiful woman on the stage, what’s the point?

In response to Sara’s victory and the entirely predictable tsunami of ridicule it has attracted on social media, various apologists have raved about Sarah’s “inner beauty.” Okay, then call them “inner beauty pageants,” have all the contestants wear burlap sacks instead of gowns, ban make-up and styled hair—heck, maybe tell contestants they can’t bathe for a moth—and stop pretending that by any American cultural norm or standard a grossly obese young woman heading for a heart attack before she’s 40 is “beautiful.” And exactly what message does this silly result send to young women? Traditional beauty pageants were condemned for promoting eating disorders. What does this kind of pageant promote?

The political-correctness mandates suffocating the news media into ludicrousness was on special display with this story. The Daily Mail’s intellectually dishonest reporting was typical: Sarah was a “plus-size”winner. (Sarah is eye-poppingly fat, making Lizzo seem trim.) Social media commenters who criticized her weight were “trolls.” (They were legitimately questioning the result of the “beauty” contest.)

Scoring in the pageant, as explained on its website, is based on “personality, confidence and communication.” “Braces, glasses, skin problems, varying heights, weights and appearances, are all a part of creating the special and unique individual that you are and that we want to celebrate,’ the website states. It might as well have included “major birth defects” and lizard people.

Got it. This is a personality contest, and the organizers and sponsors are falsely packaging it in the guise of a beauty pageant in an audacious bait and switch. That’s unethical, and all involved deserve every bit of criticism they get.

The Late “Supersize Me” Documentarian Was a Big Fraud

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Documentaries can be informative, entertaining and influential, but the more I watch them and the more accessible they become through the streaming platforms, the more it is apparent that they are too often pure propaganda instruments and inherently untrustworthy. Almost no documentaries are made from a neutral or objective points of view. In today’s indoctrination-oriented educational system, they are increasingly weaponized to advance political agendas. Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” despite having many of its “truths” debunked and declared bad science, is still turning up in classrooms as if it weren’t the slick manipulative advocacy production it is. There is the despicable Michael Moore, of course, all of whose documentaries cheat with deceptive editing and politically slanted deceit. Even Ken Burns, whom I once admired, proved with his “The US and the Holocaust” that he could not be trusted. I’m a fool: he is affiliated with PBS. Of course he’s pushing a progressive agenda.

Documentaries should be watched with the presumption that they are dishonest, made from biased perspectives, and untrustworthy. Then it is the burden of the documentary to prove otherwise.

Morgan Spurlock died this week of cancer at the relatively young age of 53. He had one great idea for a gimmick documentary, pulled it off with humor and wit, and made himself famous and rich in the process. The idea became his Oscar-nominated 2004 film “Super Size Me,” documenting his physical deterioration as he ate nothing but McDonald’s fast food for 30 days. The movie followed Spurlock and his girlfriend throughout his Golden Arches orgy, with intermittent interviews with health experts and visits to his alarmed physician as he packed on 25 unhealthy pounds and found his liver function deteriorating. Naturally, many schools across the country couldn’t resist showing the film to gullible students. But the documentary, which earned more than $22 million at the box office, was entirely a scam. (Spurlock certainly left some clues: his production company was called “The Con.”) It was pretty obvious from the beginning, or should have been, that this was hardly a valid scientific experiment, but the same woke, anti-corporate dictators that cheered when Michael Bloomberg taxed jumbo sugary drinks in New York City were thrilled to pretend it was.

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Wine For Winos In San Francisco

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

San Francisco spends $5 million a year on a so-called “managed alcohol program,” giving homeless alcoholics beer,wine and shots of vodka to “manage” their addiction. This deranged program has been running for four years without getting much media attention. I suppose so many other things are being mishandled in this rotting city that this one slipped under the radar. The theory underlying program is designed to minimize the amount of alcohol homeless people drink to control their addiction. It would be starnge indeed if this were a legitimate approach, since medical professionals make it very clear that drinking any alcoholic beverage (or mouthwash) makes recovery from alcoholism impossible, and “maintenance drinking” is ultimately a failed and often fatal strategy. Alcoholism is a progressive disease as well, so the longer a drunk is drinking, the more damage alcohol does to his or her body.

In the most woke-ravaged city in North America, nurses typically serve the homeless drunks the the equivalent of of one or two drinks three to four times a day, either a shot of vodka or other liquor, a glass of wine, or 12 nearly a pint of beer. The taxpayers of San Francisco must truly be brainwashed to tolerate seeing their hard-earned dollars going to pay for drinks for winos, killing them slowly at the city’s expense.

The only responsible way to get alcohol addicted street people out of the metaphorical gutter and on the way to recovery and a productive, happy life is to put them in a rehabilitation program, monitor their recovery, and take satisfaction from the relative few who will go on to live addiction-free lives. Giving them just enough alcohol to keep them dependent as their liver fail isn’t merely futile and misguided, it’s cruel.

Ethics Observations on RFK Jr.’s ….Brain Worm??

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

As various pundits on Prof. Reynold’s Instapundit are wont to say of such news, “Who had “Presidential candidates with brain worms” on their 2024 bingo card?“

The New York Times tells us today that in 2010, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “was experiencing memory loss and mental fogginess so severe that a friend grew concerned he might have a brain tumor.” After consulting several neurologists, RFK had the mystery solved. His cognitive problems were “caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Kennedy says.

Oh.

All righty then! What can we take from this development?

1. Kudos to RFK Jr. for candor and honesty. The other candidates haven’t been so forthcoming. President Biden won’t undergo cognitive testing, or if he will, he won’t reveal what the results were.

2. Yet the Times informs us that despite this startling revelation, Kennedy’s campaign refuses to release his complete medical records. There are worse things in there than the fact that a worm ate part of his brain? Oh-oh…

3. I still salute RFK’s courage. If this doesn’t launch a thousand jokes and memes, I’ll be disappointed. (I won’t offer any, because I don’t want to be accused of “worm-shaming.”)

4. Given Kennedy’s frequently extreme and even bizarre opinions, the reflex response from many will be, “That explains a lot.” Not from me though! Uh-uh.

5. When asked if any of Kennedy’s health issues could compromise his fitness for the presidency, RFK’s spokesperson, Stefanie Spear, replied, “That is a hilarious suggestion, given the competition.”

If she had not taken advantage of a straight line like that, I would have been disappointed. To her credit, Spear deposited that metaphorical hanging curve in the upper deck.

Fevered Musings on Abortion, Love Canal, and the Broken Ethics Alarms of American Women

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

(This may end up as more of a rueful observation than a post.)

Last night I watched PBS’s “American Experience’ because it was late, my satellite package has amazingly few channels that aren’t commercial junk (No TCM for example, and I miss it) and no baseball games were on. It was a new episode about the Love Canal protests during the Carter Administration, something I hadn’t thought about for a long time.

It was the first toxic waste dump scandal—PBS was celebrating “Earth Day”—- and a landmark in the environmental movement: one can get some sense of the kind of things going on from “Ellen Brockovich,” about a another community poisoned by chemical manufacturers. That account focuses on the legal battles, but Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal centers on the local activists, mostly housewives and mothers, who organized, protested and kept the pressure on local, New York State and national government officials to fix the deadly problem, something the bureaucrats seemed either unwilling or unable to do.

One feature of the tale I had forgotten: the furious women briefly held two EPA officials hostage, and released them promising a response that would make that crime “look like Sesame Street” if President Carter didn’t meet their demands for action in 24 hours. And Carter capitulated to the threat! It doesn’t matter that the women were right about the various governments’ foot-dragging and irresponsible handling of the crisis: a competent President should never reward threats from people breaking the law. Jimmy just didn’t understand the Presidency at all, the first of four such Presidents to wound the U.S. from 1976 to 2024.

That wasn’t my main epiphany, however. It was this: In the late 1970’s, before the feminist movement took hold, so-called ordinary women, mostly mothers, became intense and dedicated activists fighting for the lives, health and futures, of their babies and children, as well as their unborn children because the Love Canal pollution was causing miscarriages and spontaneous abortions. The women were heroic, and the public and news media were drawn to them because they projected moral and ethical standing by fighting to save lives.

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The Explanation For Everything That Afflicts Americans of Color Is Systemic Racism, Part I: Insomnia

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

…someone just has to figure out how and why. Or just assume how and why. Oh, hell, just hand over the reparations already!

Researchers believe that black Americans are likely to have more trouble sleeping than the white Americans who oppress them. In fact, the darker your skin color is, the less sleep you get, says Dr. Dayna A. Johnson, a sleep epidemiologist at Emory University. “The theory is that racial minorities experience a stress that is unique and chronic and additive to the general stressors that all people experience,” said Johnson, a sleep disparity pioneer. “We all experience stress, but there are added stressors for certain groups. For certain populations, racism fits into that category.”

A Johnson-headed study published in the journal “Sleep” claims to find that experiencing racism and can cause people to have problems falling asleep. (What did the researchers do, hire people to racially discriminate against their subjects before bedtime?) The study also concluded that people who anticipate racism may experience interference with their sleep-wake cycle because the dread causes their body to be in a heightened state of anxiety, with higher blood pressure and accelerating heart rate. By this, I glean that being told by the media, politicians and race-hucksters that American society is all racist all the time causes black Americans to lose sleep. Got it. And being white, this is my fault.

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