The World Health Organization (WHO) is worried about words again. WHO wants to give monkey pox new name to avoid discriminationRitzau, TV2 News, Jun 15 According to researchers, it is discriminatory to continue to keep referring to monkeypox as “African.” The World Health Organization (WHO) is collaborating with experts to find a new name for…
Category: Science
The Lizardmen Who Drink Bleach
Every now and then I still encounter someone who thinks the Dread Tyrant Trump told people to drink or inject themselves with bleach. That’s a mere annoyance: if people still believe that ridiculousness at this point, I’m obviously not going to be able to talk or write them out of it. But from time to…
On The Famous Oligarchs
Let’s talk about those sinister oligarchs we keep hearing about. Let’s talk about the men—they’re all men—of vast wealth who control whole industries and exist in perfect symbiosis with their regime: a regime that grants the oligarchs regulatory favors so they can make more money, in return for which favors the oligarchs throw the full…
Skepticism Today, Skepticism Tomorrow, Skepticism Forever
Apparently the CDC is now suggesting, or preparing to suggest, that vaccinations be spaced further apart in order to reduce the risk of heart inflammation. You know, the heart inflammation that we’ve been told repeatedly wasn’t any big deal as a side-effect from the vaccinations that are so safe that anyone questioning them is spreading…
On Knowing What We Know We Don’t Know
Writing about temptation, C.S. Lewis observed that “you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down.” Lewis was debunking the stupid but popular notion that good people don’t know…
Another Day, Another Datum
Statens Serum Institut (SSI) works under the authority of the Danish Ministry of Health. Their primary function is, in their own words, “to ensure preparedness against infectious diseases and biological threats as well as control of congenital disorders.” Their importance and visibility have obviously been elevated in Denmark since the start of 2020. As I…
Misleadership
According to DR, Statens Serum Institut (SSI) has promised “more precise numbers” for corona admissions after the New Year. The added precision will come in the form of a distinction between inpatient admissions of patients due to corona and admissions of patients with corona. “More precise,” in this case, appears to mean “correct.” SSI is…
Hot Stuff
Note: There was no AmerikanskeTilstande post yesterday due to an unforeseen opportunity to dine with Herself, unaccompanied by our spawn, at an actual restaurant, for the first time since 2019. The opportunity was seized. Science and math are magnificent fields worthy of our deepest respect, as well as our gratitude for all they’ve given us,…
Meaning-Promoting Purposes
Yesterday’s post was all about the narrative—specifically, the leftist-controlled American narrative that drives so much establishment media coverage and big tech censorship. (Note that not long after I posted that, Facebook lifted its ban on posts speculating about a possible lab origin of the virus. Thoughtcrime abolished! As I foretold you: it will eventually be…
Narrative Infallibility
Conventional wisdom tells us that control of “the narrative” is everything these days. And I mean everything. To control the narrative, we’re told, is to control the direction of our culture. Here in Denmark, there in America, and everywhere else besides: to frame the terms of debate is to win. Perception is reality. Maybe, maybe…
Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends
“Imagine a mask strapped to a human face. Forever.” Berlingske reports today that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was asked at a party leader debate on Tuesday if she really couldn’t guarantee that all restrictions would be lifted once all Danes had been vaccinated: No one can. Because we don’t know what kind of world we’re…
She Blinded Me with Science, Part Deux
Exactly two months ago today, I wrote about Yale forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee (“She Blinded Me with Science“), a neurotic obsessive whose neurotic obsession was given a stamp of scientific approval by a fairly fawning article in Scientific American. She had diagnosed Donald Trump as psychotic, and everyone who voted for him as suffering…
She Blinded Me with Science
The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists, Tanya Lewis, Scientific American, 11 January Bandy X. Lee is a forensic psychiatrist on the faculty of Yale University. She is the president of the World Mental Health Coalition. (That’s important.) She has also written and edited books about the mental health of a man she’s…
Titular Privilege
The American chattering class has been entertaining itself for the past couple of weeks with Jill Biden’s insistence on being addressed as Doctor Jill Biden. The right has been mocking her for it, the left has been attacking that mockery as sexism. Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an…
Algorithms Amok
I could go to any number of Danish or American articles for this, but let’s take one NPR article as our crash test dummy because it’s the one that caught my eye: Stanford Apologizes After Vaccine Allocation Leaves Out Nearly All Medical Residents, Laurel Wamsley, NPR.org, 18 December It’s a simple story: the leadership of…
Just the Data, Ma’am
Most Danes are familiar with Statens Serum Institut. It maintains the COVID-19 Dashboard that many of us use to keep track of the pandemic in Denmark. The dashboard looks like this (as of 13:45 on Saturday, 28 November): It’s a lot of data. I’ve gotten to checking it once a day after its 14:00 update…