Ripple

A water drop and ripples

Fauci didn’t do himself any favors punching back at Paul politically.

By Justin Katz | January 13, 2022 |

I haven’t seen the same thing some of my fellow conservatives have in video of the latest heated exchange between Republican Senator Rand Paul and top health bureaucrat Anthony Fauci.  Paul made some good points, but he didn’t leave Fauci quivering in guilt and fear, as some would have it.  Actually, it would have been…

A water drop and ripples

Broadly speaking, maybe we shouldn’t fear the Omicron.

By Justin Katz | January 12, 2022 |

Well, this is what a lot of us are hoping to see: The SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron is leading to the end of the worldwide pandemic, Denmark’s chief epidemiologist predicted, meaning “we will have our normal lives back in two months.” Tyra Grove Krause said on Danish TV 2 that a new study from Denmark’s State…

A water drop and ripples

Here’s a great response to demands for student debt cancelation.

By Justin Katz | January 12, 2022 |

Robert Wiblin gets to the economics of student debt cancelation in a dead-on way with this comment: Cancelling student debt is good but we could do more. The government should also tax non-college grads in order to fund a $5,000 annual gift for all college grads as a way to show appreciation for how smart…

A water drop and ripples

Remote learning leads to negative behavior, and teacher unions don’t care.

By Justin Katz | January 12, 2022 |

Well, this is no surprise: “Remote learning poses a challenge for children’s behavioral health and functioning,” study co-author Emily Hanno told UPI in an email. “This aligns with what we know about how stress and disruption affect children’s behavior,” said Hanno, a post-doctoral researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Mass. Stress…

A water drop and ripples

These are dangerous thoughts to express these days.

By Justin Katz | January 11, 2022 |

I got myself in a little bit of trouble a few weeks back for expressing ideas like this, from Larry Alexander: In general, blacks as a group are doing better than ever before materially. And for those who are not doing well, the cause is not the effects of slavery or Jim Crow. Nor is…

A water drop and ripples

Back to the with/for distinction in hospitalizations.

By Justin Katz | January 11, 2022 |

Rhode Island’s Department of Health claims that almost everybody listed as hospitalized with COVID is in the hospital at least partly because of COVID, but I keep seeing stories like this: The majority of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in New Jersey were actually admitted for reasons other than COVID-19, officials said on Jan. 10. Of the…

A water drop and ripples

We do have an alternative to shutting schools.

By Justin Katz | January 11, 2022 |

With the head of one of Rhode Island’s teachers unions saying “the responsible decision” is to shut schools and force students back into distance learning, his reasons are worth a look: … the overwhelming number of cases, the inability to do meaningful contact tracing, the arctic temperatures we are expecting so windows cannot be opened,…

A water drop and ripples

Is the NCAA an indicator of the breaking of the dam of reality on COVID?

By Justin Katz | January 10, 2022 |

This is encouraging and long overdue: As ESPN reports, the NCAA’s COVID-19 Medical Advisory Group updated its definition of “fully vaccinated” to account for various new vaccinations, boosters, and immunity factors. “Fully vaccinated individuals now include those within two months of receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, five months of receiving the Pfizer vaccine series…

A water drop and ripples

We can hope for (but not count on) the COVID shutdowns’ being the end of teachers unions.

By Justin Katz | January 10, 2022 |

Many of us sure do hope that Lindsey Burke is onto something, here: The only way out of this mess is to free families from the clutches of the teachers’ unions. Funding students directly would empower families to access educational alternatives. The good news is that the unions’ political games could further the movement to…

A water drop and ripples

New business starts can be a sign of an unhealthy economy.

By Justin Katz | January 10, 2022 |

I’ve long speculated that Rhode Islanders start businesses at a healthy clip because the economy isn’t producing work at the level of hours and/or pay that they want.  That is why the Ocean State sees a lot of businesses struggle when they start formalizing things.  All the business stuff is too complicated, especially when the folks…