there's an extremely twitter form of "debate" where someone says "if the facts of this situation were totally different, then what you're doing would be a bad thing!"

I truly do not understand why they think they have a point

— badidea (@0xabad1dea) April 29, 2021

It is pretty funny. I’ve recently seen people say things on here like, “If the vaccines didn’t work, and if Covid were way, way more contagious, and if what is happening in India were to happen here, and if random people just ran up and licked your face all the time when you’re outside, then that means you’re bad and evil for not wearing a mask outdoors! GOTCHA!”

What are these people thinking? Just how do you think so incredibly poorly and then act like you’re a debate champion?

You could say that some of the things that Odysseus did to make it home were a bit un-Ithacal.

I wish this weren’t the case:

“Will you have enemies? Let them tremble in the night, for I will lay hands of fire upon them.”

–The character Liszendir Srith-Karen in M.A. Foster’s The Warriors of Dawn (1975)

This is a really good mostly-unseen movie.

Shailene Woodley is excellent in the film and the writing is just so tight. I truly admire how the screenwriters were able to fit so much into so little runtime, and how the director capitalized on that compactness.

Ninety-five minutes, and worth every one of them.

Vaccines refusers are cowards trying to convince themselves they’re brave.

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) May 5, 2021

That’s right.

Man, I’ve had a loaded fucking machine gun pointed at my face. I’m not afraid of a very safe vaccine. It’s funny, these idiot bros posing in their big trucks and wraparound sunglasses, refusing vaccines out of fear, and they just seem like big babies to me. Because, essentially, they are. Weak pansies filled with nothing but cowardice and hatred.

When you need a bunch of guns and a jacked-up truck to feel like a man, you’re not a man. You’re just a toddler with toys. You only become a gunslinger when you don’t need your guns.

Absolutely amazing. https://t.co/9L9vvw9Omb

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) May 5, 2021

Pretty fucking awesome.

Anyone against this sort of thing is my enemy forever. We have more, should want to be more, than just inert lumps sitting on the surface of this sphere, hoping for the best.

Origin of Covid — Following the Clues.

This guy knows what he’s talking about.

Something that has bothered me throughout this pandemic is how often so many scientists have just blatantly lied right out in public. That has almost certainly greatly increased vaccine hesitancy and mistrust of public health measures. Hell, it’s definitely made me mistrust all of that far more.

I’ve been forced to read dozens of scientific papers (and review textbooks) I’d rather not have spent time on to make sure I knew what was really happening. Most people simply are not equipped to do this. And I fucking hate, as anyone who knows me realizes, when anyone wastes my time.

There’s about a 99% chance that SARV-CoV-2 is a lab escape is what I now believe.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

Pharma was jeopardizing the entire economy and our national security so they could sell booster shots in rich countries. It was insane. A vaccine resistant variant means a global economic shutdown again, and the rest of corporate America wouldn't have liked that.

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) May 5, 2021

Pharma’s resources should’ve been seized under the DPA and we should’ve started cranking out vaccines by the billions.

As much as I make fun of the variant doom-mongers, there is real danger there. A variant truly could emerge that is much more infectious and much more deadly that evades most immunity, and the reason for that occurring would be because we didn’t stand up to Big Pharma and take control of public health.