Unmasking Statist Illogic About Face Masks

Argument, Critique, Healthcare, Propaganda, Regulation, The State

Some clear thinking to counter incessant, statist propaganda against respirators is needed.

The State and its agents, in our highly centralized healthcare system, categorically doesn’t want the citizen to purchase “face masks,” the surgeon general’s term, not mine.

Hence the incessant, neurotic, total discrediting of N95 filtering facepiece respirators, which, by the CDC’s own account, can be protective.

Logic says the respirator is better than nothing and may indeed be protective. Here’s why:

While the virus is indeed minuscule, COVID-19 is delivered in a larger medium of bodily fluids or spray. In other words, some barrier to the medium in which the Corona Virus is delivered is better than none.

The CDC asks and answers the following question:

What makes N95 respirators different from facemasks (sometimes called a surgical mask)?

Understanding the difference between surgical masks and N95 respirators:
N95 respirators reduce the wearer’s exposure to airborne particles, from small particle aerosols to large droplets. N95 respirators are tight-fitting respirators that filter out at least 95% of particles in the air, including large and small particles. … These respirators filter out at least 95% of very small (0.3 micron) particles. N95 filtering facepiece respirators are capable of filtering out all types of particles, including bacteria and viruses.

In the service of honesty, state apparatchiks (CDC, included) might make an honest appeal to consumers on the grounds of dire shortages.

But on the grounds that no protection is better than some protection? You gotta be stupid to fail to dissect that bit of disinformation, repeated ad nauseam by the healthcare automatons.

* Image of a N95 Respirator courtesy CDC

Of interest:
“Surgical Masks vs. Respirators”

The Economist: “Diagnosis: opaque: Donald Trump wants hospitals to be more upfront about prices“

Chris Matthews Ousted For Not Being A Girly Guy

Affirmative Action, Conservatism, Etiquette, Feminism, Gender, Media, Sex

Chris Matthews has always been a tough-talking, gnarled interviewer. His style is manly and abrupt. You can’t have that in the Age of the Girly Boy—where men are expected to be clones of the females with whom they work. Or, else.

Guy talk, like calling a woman, actress Kerry Washington, “a total knockout,” and commenting to one Laura Bassett, “Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?”—those won’t do in the age of the wimp.

Matthews also used silly hyperbole to describe Mr. Sanders’s victory in the Nevada caucuses, and he dared to question, rather than just accept, E. Warren’s version of Mr. Bloomberg’s alleged sexual misconduct.

Ageism is also a factor.  A stupid society worships the stupid. Unfortunately, in our age, The Age of the Idiot, the younger the individual, generally the more ill-educated and illiterate he or she is.

Irony of ironies: Conservative-minded people (check) are more likely to defend Matthews on principle than progressives, creators of the culture that has just cancelled him.

New York Times:

… Mr. Matthews, 74, had faced mounting criticism in recent days over a spate of embarrassing on-air moments, including a comparison of Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign to the Nazi invasion of France and an interview with Senator Elizabeth Warren in which the anchor was criticized for a condescending and disbelieving tone.

On Saturday, the journalist Laura Bassett published an essay accusing Mr. Matthews of making multiple inappropriate comments about her appearance, reviving longstanding allegations about the anchor’s sexist behavior. By Monday, his position at the news network he helped build had become untenable.

Accompanied by his family, Mr. Matthews walked onto the “Hardball” set inside NBC’s Washington bureau shortly before 7 p.m. to deliver a brief farewell. His longtime crew members, who had been told of his plans roughly an hour earlier, looked on stunned.

“I’m retiring,” Mr. Matthews told viewers in a solemn and brief monologue as his broadcast began at 7. “This is the last ‘Hardball’ on MSNBC.”

His sudden signoff took many colleagues by surprise — “Wait. What?” the MSNBC anchor Katy Tur wrote on Twitter — but it followed days of discussions with Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC and one of the early executive producers of “Hardball.”

Mr. Griffin, who is close with Mr. Matthews, traveled to Washington over the weekend to discuss his future in person, according to three people who requested anonymity to describe sensitive conversations.

On the air on Monday, Mr. Matthews made clear that the timing of his exit was not entirely his choosing. “Obviously, it isn’t for a lack of interest in politics,” he said, going on to apologize for his past insensitive comments.

“Compliments on a woman’s appearance that some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were OK are never OK,” he said. “Not then, and certainly not today.” …

… Commenting on the Nevada caucuses, Mr. Matthews compared Mr. Sanders’s victory to Germany’s takeover of France in World War II, drawing the ire of many liberals. He later apologized on-air, saying, “In the days and weeks and months ahead, I will strive to do a better job myself of elevating the political discussion.”

A day later, he was under fire again, this time for repeatedly questioning Ms. Warren about her assertion that Michael R. Bloomberg had mistreated his female employees. Ms. Warren was referring to a widely reported anecdote, and Mr. Matthews’s disbelief was criticized as sexist and dismissive.

On Friday, yet another faux pas: Mr. Matthews confused the identities of two African-American politicians, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Jaime R. Harrison, a Democrat running for Senate in that state. “Big mistake; mistaken identity, sir, sorry,” Mr. Matthews said after he was corrected on-air. …

* Chris Matthews, Via Slate

NEW: America Has A Con Woman In Congress—But Where’s The Law?

Crime, Democrats, Europe, IMMIGRATION, Politics, Relatives

THIS WEEK’S COLUMN, “America Has A Con Woman In Congress—But Where’s The Law?”, first appeared on Townhall.com and is currently featured on American Greatness, where you can read it.

An excerpt:

The FBI, which Americans are meant to trust with matters of life and death, is unable—or unwilling—to confirm whether U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) perpetrated fraud by marrying her brother, Ahmed Elmi, to enable him to obtain a coveted green card, thus granting him permanent-resident status in the United States, and a path to citizenship. But the bureau is said to be “investigating.”

Conversely, the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, had little difficulty gathering a critical mass of facts, enough to conclude that, in 2009, Omar did indeed secretly wed said sibling. The newspaper, and anyone else suggesting the same, has yet to be sued by Omar. Could the story be true?

As it happens, a Somali community leader has also outed Ilhan Omar as an outlaw. Abdihaikm Osman Nur contends that the Somali-born freshman congresswoman “had indeed married her brother.” So reported Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Despite “a lack of paperwork in war-torn Somalia,” which complicates an investigation and a definitive determination, the British tabloid dug up the requisite information that the FBI has yet to release. The young man whom Omar is alleged to have married certainly bears a remarkable resemblance to the congresswoman. They’re both … pretty (although Elmi looks happier and a lot more festive).

It was in August of 2016 that Mr. Nur, aforementioned, seconded the story first published by Scott Johnson, of the Power Line blog: Omar had married her sibling, ostensibly to allow him to stay in the U.S.  As the Daily Mail had relayed, Mr. Nur took issue with Omar’s alleged marriage-cum-immigration fraud. It would appear that the British tabloid was more vested in the truth, as this patriotic Somali told it, than was the FBI.

To date, these are the facts on the fraud alleged to have been committed by a member of the U.S congress. Yet nobody is likely to do more than mutter at the striking absence of scruples in Ilhan Omar. For not only does she appear to flout the law, but she also offends sensibilities: Omar had first married Ahmed Hirsi, father of her children, in 2002. Bigamy and incest (even if the relationship is unconsummated) are cultural taboos.

Contrast Omar’s treatment in the United States with the manner in which the Dutch government treated a lesser form of immigration fraud committed by another Somali, Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali. …

… READ THE REST. THIS WEEK’S COLUMN, “America Has A Con Woman In Congress—But Where’s The Law?”, is currently featured on American Greatness.