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Swans of a Different Color By David Solway

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/swans_of_a_different_color_.html

The next catastrophe might not be a virus

The advent of COVID-19 and the subsequent nation-wide lockdown amounts to a wake-up call of historical proportions. It has alerted us to the possibility of “black swans” swimming into our lives, or in the words of Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his bestselling The Black Swan, our susceptibility to “the role of the exceptional event leading to the degradation of predictability.”

A “black swan” is characterized by three attributes: “it is a rarity,” “it causes an extreme impact,” and we come to understand it only “after the fact.” The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 was such a “black swan” — a malign event we did not expect and plan for. At the same time, most beneficial discoveries and technologies did not come from design, planning or predictable outcomes but were rare events with positive implications; for example, Sir Alexander Fleming’s accidental discovery of penicillin. But what most concerns us is the negative “black swan,” with its destructive radius owing much of its malignity to the “built-in defect of conventional wisdom.”

Of course, the trope of the “black swan” is not Taleb’s invention but enjoys a long pedigree, going back to the Latin poet Juvenal’s sixth Satire against marriage, where the perfect wife is considered a disaster since she would be impossible to live with. In other words, something “good” = something “bad.”

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Rally ’Round the Flag, But Not Around Cuomo Why New York’s governor seems to be benefitting from the flag effect more than President Trump isn’t too difficult to understand. By Elliot Fuchs

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/18/rally-round-the-flag-but-not-around-cuomo/

An apolitical friend reached out to me the other day with an honest question: Is Andrew Cuomo the best governor in the United States?

The answer to that question is a hard “no,” but my friend is not the only one thinking that way, especially among New Yorkers.

A new poll, under the headline “Cuomo Threatens Trump” shows Cuomo’s numbers skyrocketing during his handling of the coronavirus crisis and has him challenging Trump seriously in a head-to-head matchup. Polls show the president’s approval ratings moving upward during the crisis, too. Both of these politicians seem to be leveraging their nationally televised Corona briefings toward general approval of their handling of the situation.

The truth is both of these politicians seem to be benefiting from the “rally ’round the flag effect.” Seen most spectacularly during 9/11, the “rally ’round the flag effect” is a term coined by political scientists to describe how Americans tend to favor their leaders during times of national distress. During “the most spectacular of international crises,” government officials can expect “a public rally.” This is how we can understand President George Bush’s astounding approval rating of 90 percent during the intial outbreak of “the war on terrorism.” Or FDR’s 84 percent approval rating during the Great Depression, even though some economists have questioned if his actions actually prolonged our economic burdens, and didn’t help alleviate them.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

A Deadly if Dutiful Deference The American public has been dutiful to the point of self-harm in heeding the injunctions of the people who manage their lives and livelihoods. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/18/a-deadly-if-dutiful-deference/

On March 14, when the current coronavirus hysteria was beginning to get going in earnest, I said “one of the silver linings” of this panic would be that “the people who will be blamed when it is over—which it will be, and soon—are the people who stoked the insanity.”

That was a little over a month ago and guess what? “Soon” is “now.”

I am not thinking primarily about the burgeoning protests against the draconian and largely pointless “lockdowns” and interdictions ordered by power-hungry governors and other high-handed politicians. Those have been gratifying, and I suspect that the protests against really egregious actors, like Gretchen “Cruella de Vil” Whitmer, the wretched governor of Michigan, at least for now, will only gather momentum in the coming weeks.

But I am hoping that the deeper and longer-lasting response will be a quiet revolution in sentiment against the people who abetted this wealth-destroying panic: against the media, first of all, but also the obscure bureaucratic elite that stoked the fear and helped spread the hysteria.

Every day, it seems, brings new reasons to distrust the models and projections that turned the American public into a fearful, quivering jelly. A month ago we were told that unless we turned our world into a giant condom and took care not to touch anyone or anything, millions would die. In recent weeks, those numbers have been revised downwards again and again, even as the strategies for counting cases and fatalities due to the insidious new virus have spiraled upwards. There is a great eagerness in municipalities thirsty for government funding to overstate the number of people affected by the virus.

In New York, the smoldering omphalos of the disease in America, with just over 40 percent of the cases nationwide, a third of fatalities were not even tested. Rather, they are said to have succumbed to “COVID-19 or an equivalent.” An equivalent, Kemo Sabe, like those generic drugs made in China that are supposedly the equivalent of the brand name varieties.

Things are moving quickly now. After losing some 10,000 points in a few weeks, the market has regained more than 5,000 points just as abruptly. Who knows whether that rally will continue. It’s pretty clear, though, that many of the 20 million jobs that evaporated and tens of thousands of businesses large and small that have been crushed will not be coming back. How do we deal with that?

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Made in the USA: Winning Out over Enemies of Democracy by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15902/made-in-the-usa

Today, America must meet the challenge of the Coronavirus and Civilization-Abusers. We did it in years past, with patriotic Americans and a determined mobilized military against the Axis Nations — Japan, Germany, and for a time Italy — as well as against polio with the Salk and Sabin vaccines.

Whether it is in developing 5G or other technologies, America needs to mobilize and be the world’s leading export nation, the same way we became energy independent and a leading energy-exporting nation.

We have to grow our economy and not rely on enemies of democracies to import our essential goods, either medical or technological.

Kids are eager to soak up from television what people have done to make America great. Uplifting American “can-do” educational programming and documentaries could cheer them up and show them the way.

Eighty years ago, it was Hitler and Pearl Harbor, and more recently 9/11.

Today, America must meet the challenge of the Coronavirus and Civilization-Abusers. We did it in years past, with patriotic Americans and a determined mobilized military against the Axis Nations — Japan, Germany, and for a time Italy — as well as against polio with the Salk and Sabin vaccines.

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APRIL 19, 1943- PASSOVER: THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

Shortly after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, more than 400,000 Jews in Warsaw, the capital city, were confined to an area of the city that was little more than 1 square mile.

On April 19, 1943, on Passover, Himmler sent in SS forces and their collaborators with tanks and heavy artillery to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto.

Several hundred resistance fighters, armed with a small cache of weapons, managed to fight the Germans, who far outnumbered them in terms of manpower and weapons, for nearly a month.

However, during that time, the Germans systematically razed the ghetto buildings, block by block, destroying the bunkers were many residents had been hiding. In the process, the Germans killed or captured thousands of Jews.

By May 16, the ghetto was firmly under Nazi control, and on that day, in a symbolic act, the Germans blew up Warsaw’s Great Synagogue.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The European Union is Dead but Does Not Yet Know It by Giulio Meotti

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15894/european-union-dead

The truth is that there is no “Union”.

The coronavirus now has put the European Union and its comfort zone face-to-face with all its weaknesses, decadence and cowardice.

Another merciless battle Italy fought with the EU was for protective face-masks. France adopted a policy of requisitioning them; Germany banned their export. Those unilateral decisions undermined a much-touted EU principle: the free movement of goods in the single market.

As L’Express exposed, France seized four million masks belonging to a Swedish company and that had been intended, in part, for Italy and Spain.

When Italy and Greece were overwhelmed by migrants from the Middle East and Africa, the EU countries refused to take their “share” of migrants. Lacking a policy to stop the flow of mass immigration, Europe decided to leave the southern countries to their fate.

The new coronavirus appears to be tearing apart the fragile framework of the European Union.

“Europe” said the former Commission chief and a EU godfather, Jacques Delors, “is in “mortal danger”.

If citizens feel themselves abandoned at the heart of the pandemic, said Former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, the EU could “collapse”.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran May Need an ‘America Free’ Day by Amir Taheri

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15905/iran-america-free-day

With the exception of this year, since 1989 Tehran has hosted an annual “End of America” conference attended by anti-Americans from across the globe.

The “end of America” dream has not been, and may never be, realized, for at least two reasons…. America, perhaps above all, is an idea that, even if formulated as a myth, as most great ideas are, continues to appeal to a large segment of mankind across cultural, racial, and socio-economic borders.

Rather than bombarding Iranians with America-bashing discourse, Khamenei and his associates might be better off designating an “America free” day every month, a day in which the very word “America” is not spoken, written, or heard anywhere in Iran.

On that day, Iranians could devote their intellectual energies to pondering the question: Apart from further digging, is there something that we can do to creep out of the hole we have dug for ourselves?

The United States is on the verge of losing its position as the global superpower. Even worse, it may be heading for disintegration as a nation, with its most populous state California seeking secession while the African-American minority set up an independent black state, probably in Mississippi. One thing is certain: by 2025 the US will no longer be the world’s biggest economic power.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Democracy, Gangnam Style Escapees from North Korea offer a lesson in democracy.

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democracy-gangnam-style-11587164416?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

While Kim Jong Un was busy testing missiles this week, another North Korean was making news in the South. Thae Yong-ho, one of the highest-ranking defectors from the totalitarian state, was elected to a seat in South Korea’s National Assembly. Mr. Thae is the new member from Seoul’s fashionable Gangnam district. If that name rings a bell, you may be one of the 3.5 billion people who have watched the music video “Gangnam Style” on YouTube.

Mr. Thae was the No. 2 diplomat at North Korea’s embassy in London when he defected in 2016, saying that he wanted his two sons to grow up in freedom. He has since traveled the world as a critic of the Kim regime and what he sees as the world’s tepid response to its provocations. Pyongyang returns the compliment by calling him “human scum.” He lives under 24-7 guard to protect against assassination by North Korean agents.

Mr. Thae is the first North Korean to be directly elected by South Korea voters as their representative. Another escapee, Ji Seong-ho, won a seat in the National Assembly this week as a proportional representative. Mr. Ji, a human-rights activist and amputee, is best known in the U.S. for raising his crutches in a triumphant gesture at the 2018 State of the Union address.

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Would You Care if a White Man Cured Covid-19? Hiring researchers by sex and race rather than scientific prowess is dangerous nonsense. By Heather Mac Donald

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/would-you-care-if-a-white-man-cured-covid-19-11587142808?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

“If we are in a war, as our leaders tell us, we should act like it. Diverting scientists’ attention, time and funding away from research and toward identity politics is a decadence that we can no longer afford. Reviving the economy will be as urgent a task as fighting the pandemic. Yet an early Democratic version of last month’s $2 trillion relief package required corporations to bulk up their diversity bureaucracies if they want aid. The only qualifications that should matter for both science and private enterprise are knowledge, insight and drive.”

Scientists at Oxford University and King’s College London are racing to develop an inexpensive ventilator that can be quickly built with off-the-shelf components. Should it matter that all the lead researchers on the project are men? If you believe university diversity bureaucrats and many academic deans, the initiative will be handicapped by the absence of women among the project heads. If there is a silver lining to the Covid-19 pandemic, it may be to expose as dangerous nonsense the practice of hiring researchers by sex and race rather than scientific accomplishments.

Mandatory diversity statements are now ubiquitous in hiring for science, technology, engineering and mathematics jobs. An Alzheimer’s researcher seeking a position in a neurology lab must document his contributions to “diversity, equity and inclusion.” At the University of California, Berkeley, the life sciences department rejected 76% of the applications it received last year because they lacked sufficiently effusive diversity, equity and inclusion statements. The hiring committee didn’t even look at the failed applicants’ research records.

Were the remaining contenders the best scientists in their field? Apparently it doesn’t matter. What matters is how good they are at discussing “distinctions and connections between diversity, equity, and inclusion” during their job talks, in the words of UC’s diversity guidance. The rejected applicants showed insufficient knowledge of the “dimensions of diversity that result from different identities, especially URMs”—underrepresented minorities. Perhaps some were so rash as to suggest that racial and sex quotas in STEM hiring are antithetical to the university’s research mission.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Medical Students in Europe and U.S. Graduate Early to Join Coronavirus Front-Lines ‘It’s best to have as many hands as possible, even if they’re relatively unskilled hands like mine’

Posted By on April 19th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/medical-students-in-europe-and-u-s-graduate-early-to-join-coronavirus-front-lines-11587233541

Young students just finishing medical schools across the U.S. and Europe are being rushed into hospitals overwhelmed by the new coronavirus to combat a global health catastrophe.

Many are forgoing final elective classes, logging onto Zoom or Webex to recite the Hippocratic oath and donning protective gear to begin their careers, often in areas far from the specialties they plan to pursue.

“We finished exams in March, and two days later we were asked if we would volunteer to work in hospitals. We didn’t even have our results then,” said Caroline Olabisi, 29, who trained in London. Some of her final exams were canceled because of safety concerns.

“They just sent us an email saying we’d been awarded the degree on the same day as we got our results.” She started work in a London hospital three weeks ago.

“Now, we just have to learn on the job,” Dr. Olabisi said. “This week, I’ve had to do two 12-hour nursing shifts and have been putting IV lines in under supervision from consultants. Things that I wouldn’t usually be doing.”

Julia Probert says she has ‘a waxing and waning course of nervousness’ as she reckons with the possibility of contracting Covid-19.

Julia Probert, 31, is heading to a residency in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in July. But until then, she is reporting for duty at Bellevue Hospital in New York, having signed up for early graduation from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.