Fat Head

Thanks For The Memories …

Tom Naughton December 30, 2020 165 Comments

When people who follow your blog start emailing to make sure you’re still alive, it’s time to explain the extended absence.

Fall is a busy time for most people, but especially for our family. Starting in mid-October, we have Chareva’s birthday, Halloween, Sara’s birthday, my birthday, Thanksgiving and then Christmas. I didn’t feel like carving out time to write new posts. I did, however, think long and hard about my future and the future of this blog, especially after I took my end-of-year vacation from the programming job and had plenty of downtime.

I’ll spoil the ending now: this will probably be my last post – if not for good, then for a good long while. That decision, of course, deserves a long explanation.

For more than a decade, I’ve been working the equivalent of two jobs: the programming job to pay the bills, plus the second job of producing a film, several speeches, a thousand blog posts, a book, a handful of videos, then another film, including all the music and all the animation … oh, and I’ve also coded and released three updates to a software system I sell to intellectual-property attorneys. I’ve always had a Big Project! in the works, usually with the next Big Project! already lined up.

A longtime reader checked in recently to ask if I’d croaked or anything like that, so I told her about my decision. Although she was disappointed, she put it perfectly: you simply can’t keep the accelerator floored forever.

Yup … and I’ve had the accelerator floored for a long, long time.

When Fat Head was released, our daughter Sara was a little pipsqueak in kindergarten. That’s her above in a mock magazine cover from an early post. Our daughter Alana was an even littler pipsqueak in preschool. Sara leaves for college in less than a year, then Alana two years after that. When we bought this property in 2011, I took what I thought would be a short-term programming job (the original contract was for six months) to help pay for renovations. In just over four years, I’ll be retiring from that job, complete with a 401k package and a hearty handshake (assuming we’re not still under “temporary” social-distancing mandates). I’m very aware of how quickly the time is passing.

After my dad’s mother died, he told me, “When both your parents are gone, you feel this little tap on your shoulder that says You’re next.” I responded with something like, “Oh come on, Dad, you probably have 30 more years ahead of you.”

Turns out Dad knew what he was talking about (as was usually the case). When my mom died in April, I didn’t feel that tap on the shoulder immediately, but eventually it was there:

Tap-tap-tap … you’re next.

I’m healthier than most 62-year-old guys, and my energy level is still good. I probably have at least 30 more years ahead of me. But I understand now what my dad was saying. You’re next doesn’t mean you’re on death’s doorstep. It means you hear the clock ticking. It means you actually feel that your time on earth is limited, as opposed to merely understanding it intellectually.

If that sounds depressing, it isn’t, at least not for me. I’d say it’s more clarifying.

Tap-tap-tap … Hey, Buddy, you don’t exactly have your whole life ahead of you anymore. Are you spending your remaining time doing things you no longer enjoy? Are there things you always wanted to do but haven’t done yet? If so, you’d better get to it.

If you’ve heard me answer the What prompted you to make Fat Head? question as a podcast guest, you know I didn’t plan to make a career of it. What eventually became Fat Head began as an idea for a series I wanted to pitch titled In Defense of Common Sense: a common-sense guy takes a humorous look at issues of the day. I figured if the pitch didn’t take, I’d move on to other projects. After all, I have a lot of interests.

Then Fat Head took on a life of its own. After learning just how friggin’ awful and damaging our government’s dietary advice has been, I decided Fat Head needed to be a full-length documentary, not a sample episode for a series. The arterycloggingsaturatedfat! and hearthealthywholegrains! nonsense was so pervasive in the media, I felt a need to keep hammering away on it, so I started the blog. I had that fire-in-the-belly passion to spread a message: Folks, you’ve been lied to! Meat, eggs and butter aren’t bad for you! Grains and vegetable oils aren’t health foods! Following the standard advice won’t make you healthy, but it will make Big Ag and Big Pharma rich.

I knew I’d actually made a small dent after Fat Head was shown on a cable network in New Zealand and I started receiving email messages like: We watched your doco last night and were gobsmacked! (I had to go look up the definition of gobsmacked to make sure I hadn’t hurt anyone and no lawsuits were forthcoming.) Then I received similar email messages from viewers in Israel, France and South Africa.

Once Fat Head went to Netflix and found a large audience, I started receiving all those lovely emails from viewers, thanking me for making the film and telling me that after watching it, they were finally able to lose weight and become healthy after years of frustration. Next thing I knew, people were getting in touch and asking me to give speeches or appear on their podcast shows.

I hadn’t anticipated any of this. It felt a bit like hopping on a bus for what I thought would be a short ride across town, then realizing I’d inadvertently taken a long ride to a different country and being pleasantly surprised by the people and the surroundings. Call it an attitude of Go With The Flow, or Things Happen For A Reason or whatever, but I had a strong feeling of This is where I’m supposed to be now, planned or not.

Fast-forward to late 2020: that feeling has faded. It’s been fading for some time. Whatever purpose I served with this blog, I feel I’ve already served it. Over the years, several podcasters asked me the same question: What can we do to get the USDA and other government agencies to change their lousy advice? I always gave the same answer: That’s not my goal, because The Anointed never, ever admit they were wrong. My goal is to convince people to ignore them.

Mission accomplished. Thanks to a small army of bloggers, authors, podcasters, filmmakers and YouTubers, people are no longer gobsmacked to learn that arterycloggingsaturatedfat! and hearthealthywholegrains! are nonsense. As I noted in one of my speeches, a recent survey showed that nearly three-quarters of Americans no longer believe our government’s dietary recommendations are good for them. Big Pharma is complaining that people don’t take their prescribed statins. Full-fat dairy products are out-selling low-fat products again.

When I started the blog 12 years ago, relatively few people had heard of low-carb, ketogenic or paleo diets. Now our local Kroger sells low-carb dinners, grain-free pastas, and ketogenic ice cream. Riced cauliflower is in the freezer section, not far from the gluten-free breads and pizza crusts. Magazines on display near the checkout counters promise Delicious Ketogenic Meal Recipes! on their covers. Before coronahysteria closed the office, I’d sit in the employee cafeteria and hear my young co-workers discussing which meals they were eating on their ketogenic or paleo diets.

I don’t receive those Your film saved my life! emails anymore because pretty much everyone has heard of low-carb/keto/paleo diets and either made the switch or decided not to. I don’t have that fire-in-the-belly passion to keep fighting a battle that’s largely been won. It’s time to move on.

To what? Honestly, I don’t know, and that’s more than a little unusual for me. Like a lot of people (men in particular, in my opinion), I’ve tended to define myself by my accomplishments. That’s part of the reason I’ve always had the next Big Project! in mind. I was never satisfied to just put in my days at the programming job and then go watch TV until bedtime. I always needed a goal to pursue – preferably something difficult. I kept the accelerator floored … although if you’re a long-time reader, you know my engine has been sputtering lately.

Now my foot’s off the pedal. During this end-of-the-year break, I’ve done next to nothing. (I don’t consider getting through half of my “to watch” list on Netflix an accomplishment.) For one of the few times in my adult life, I don’t know what the next Big Project! will be. The surprise to me is that I’m totally okay with that, probably because I know it will be temporary. I’ve always been blessed with an abundance of creative energy, and sooner or later, it will want to go somewhere. I don’t know where it will want to go, but I believe it needs to go somewhere new.

As the saying goes, sometimes one door has to close before another opens. So after spending a lot of time thinking about it, I’ve decided this is the door I need to close. When that next door opens, I’ll know. I’ll feel it.

Perhaps I’ll be inspired to write another book someday. Perhaps I’ll record all the songs that have been floating around in my head for decades. Perhaps I’ll start a humorous/commentary YouTube channel. Perhaps I’ll return to my dormant TomNaughton.com blog to write about other subjects. Perhaps I’ll just work on my golf game and try to break 80 before I die.

It’s even possible that after a good long break, I’ll want to fire up this blog again, although I wouldn’t bet on it. The Fat Head Facebook group will remain up and running, but as you know if you’re a member, I spend very little time there. I’m still active on Twitter (@TomDNaughton), and will be until Twitter’s woke-company censorship becomes more than I can stand. But my days as a diet-and-health blogger are almost certainly over.

To those of you who’ve been companions on this journey – for all of it or part of it – you have my eternal gratitude. Without all the back-and-forth in comments, the blog wouldn’t have meant a thing. I’ve always been impressed by the intelligence and knowledge of our regular readers, and I’ve learned way more from all of you than you ever learned from me. You helped to make it one heck of an interesting ride.

I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous future … and thanks for the memories.

From The (Bed-Wetter) News …

Tom Naughton October 26, 2020 55 Comments

Interesting (bed-wetter) items from my inbox and elsewhere …

Even WHO is against lockdowns now

Mere months after helping to start a panic that led to the job-killing lockdowns, the World Health Organization is finally admitting the cure is worse than the disease, as reported in the New York Post:

The World Health Organization has warned leaders against relying on COVID-19 lockdowns to tackle outbreaks — after previously saying countries should be careful how quickly they reopen.

WHO envoy Dr. David Nabarro said such restrictive measures should only be treated as a last resort, the British magazine the Spectator reported in a video interview.

Last resort? Why are lockdowns a resort of any kind? The data shows they don’t work. (See below.) This is like saying bleeding the patient to release the bad humours should only be treated as a last resort.

Nabarro said tight restrictions cause significant harm, particularly on the global economy. “Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never, ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer,” he said.

Yup. And poverty kills. There are no words capable of expressing the contempt I feel towards people who are gainfully employed and happy to support lockdowns as long as their jobs are safe.

Other people’s lives and businesses will be destroyed? Yeah, I’m okay with that as long as a lockdown means there’s an itty-bitty, teeny-tiny reduction in the odds I’ll be exposed to a virus that has a 99.96% survival rate and is less deadly that ordinary flu for people younger than 70. We all have to pull together, ya know!

I’ve never seen a clearer example of the haves not giving a rat’s ass about the have-nots. When people argue with me about lockdowns on Twitter or elsewhere, I always ask the same question: What job or business did you lose because of the lockdowns, and why do you consider that a worthwhile sacrifice? I’ve yet to receive a reply.

It would be a different debate if lockdowns were saving thousands of lives. But of course …

Lockdowns don’t work

What have I been saying since April? The virus is going to spread, period. The most locksdown can accomplish is to slow the pace of the spread. So while this article in National Review calls the data “surprising,” I’m not surprised at all:

Governors in different states responded to the COVID-19 pandemic at different times and in different ways. Some states, such as California, ordered sweeping shutdowns. Others, such as Florida, took a more targeted approach. Still others, such as South Dakota, dispensed information but had no lockdowns at all.

As a result, we can now compare outcomes in different states, to test the question no one wants to ask: Did the lockdowns make a difference?

If lockdowns really altered the course of this pandemic, then coronavirus case counts should have clearly dropped whenever and wherever lockdowns took place. The effect should have been obvious, though with a time lag.

To judge from the evidence, the answer is clear: Mandated lockdowns had little effect on the spread of the coronavirus. As in almost every country, we consistently see a steep climb as the virus spreads, followed by a transition to a flatter curve. At some point, the curves always slope downward, though this wasn’t obvious for all states until the summer.

The lockdowns can’t be the cause of these transitions. In the first place, the transition happened even in places without lockdown orders (see Iowa and Arkansas). And where there were lockdowns, the transitions tended to occur well before the lockdowns could have had any serious effect.

What do The Anointed do when a Grand Plan fails? You already know: they decide to do the same thing again, only bigger …

U.K. government: we can @#$% you, but don’t @#$% each other

When I first saw this article from the U.K. Evening Standard, I though it had to be a parody. Nope, it’s real. Here’s how ridiculous coronahysteria has become:

Couples living apart in areas with Tier 2 restrictions are not allowed to have sleepovers unless they are in a “support bubble”, Downing Street confirmed today.

If you can read that sentence without picturing people having sex inside a giant plastic bubble, you have more mental discipline that I do.

Boyfriends and girlfriends will be able to meet outdoors in Tier 2 but are expected to adhere to social distancing rules such as hands, face and space. They must also adhere to the rule of six.

If you can read that sentence without picturing six people having sex inside a giant plastic bubble, you have more mental discipline that I do.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told a briefing of Westminster journalists: “The rules on household mixing in Tier 2 set out that you should mix with your own household only unless you’ve formed a support bubble and that obviously does apply to some couples.”

Asked why there was no exemption for people in established relationships in Tier 2, he replied: “Because the purpose of the measures that were put in place is to break the chain in transmission between households and the scientific advice is there is greater transmission of the virus indoors.”

Well, there’s a simple solution, then: have sex outdoors. Or better yet, tell the government officials to go @#$% themselves.

Another bed-wetter politician is introduced to the Constitution

Since the beginning of the “pandemic,” Governor Whitmer of Michigan has been competing with other governors to see who could issue the most arbitrary and useless lockdown restrictions. (If you can explain why buying alcohol and lottery tickets doesn’t spread COVID while buying garden seeds does, I’m all ears.) She’s also been competing to see who could be the biggest hypocrite among the political bed-wetters: after she ordered citizens of Michigan not to visit their vacation homes, her husband traveled to their vacation home. He had to rake the leaves, ya see, so it was okay.

Anyway, the state’s Supreme Court recently introduced Whitmer to a document called The Constitution:

Michigan’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer lacks the authority to extend or declare states of emergency in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a 4-3 majority opinion, the state’s high court said she did not have that authority.

Three judges thought it was okay for Whitmer to decide which businesses can stay open and which ones will fail by government decree? Doesn’t the Constitution guarantee equal protection under the law? That decision should have been 7-0.

“We conclude that the Governor lacked the authority to declare a ‘state of emergency’ or a ‘state of disaster’ under the EMA after April 30, 2020, on the basis of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we conclude that the EPGA is in violation of the Constitution of our state because it purports to delegate to the executive branch the legislative powers of state government– including its plenary police powers– and to allow the exercise of such powers indefinitely,” wrote Justice Stephen J. Markman on behalf of the majority.

Whitmer responded to the decision calling it “deeply deeply disappointing, and I vehemently disagree with the court’s interpretation of the Michigan Constitution.”

Well, yes, The Anointed are always deeply disappointed when the little people refuse to bend the knee, give up their freedoms, and go along with the latest Grand Plan.

Stay in lockdown until the miracle vaccine comes along!

Uh, no. I’m not going to get a vaccine that will be rushed through the testing process. This article in the U.K. Times explains why:

Sixty people are to receive a multimillion-pound payout from the government after they suffered brain damage caused by a swine flu vaccine.

Most of the victims are children but they also include six health workers. Peter Todd, a lawyer representing many sufferers, said the government would face a bill of at least £60m — £1m for each victim.

“There has never been a case like this before,” he said. “The victims of this vaccine have an incurable and lifelong condition and will require extensive medication.”

Six million British people, mostly children, received the vaccine following the swine flu scare in 2009. It was later revealed that the vaccine can cause severe epilepsy-type symptoms, called narcolepsy and cataplexy, in up to one in 16,000 recipients.

Yes, those are low odds – one in 16,000. But given my age, good health habits, etc., I’m pretty sure the odds of me dying from COVID are even lower.

But the odds that idiotic government policies will drive me insane are increasing daily.

Corona Bed-Wetters Song

Tom Naughton October 15, 2020 40 Comments

Pardon the absence. I was gone for a few days to attend The Older Brother’s Oldest Son’s wedding, but mostly I’ve been busy working on this:

If you share my sentiments about the bed-wetters, please pass it around. The song is also available on iTunes and Apple Music.

The wedding was in Illinois, so the wedding party was limited to 50 people. How’s this for bed-wetter logic? The outdoor facility could have legally hosted two weddings with 50 people per tent, but they weren’t allowed to split a single wedding party with 100 people into two tents. So The Oldest Son and his fiancee had to tell dozens of people not to attend. Welcome to Bed-Wetter Land, otherwise known as America in 2020.

Bed-wetter issues aside, it was a lovely outdoor wedding and reception. It was nice to see people happily sharing a bar, a dining area and a dance floor without wearing masks. I tweeted about that, and of course the bed-wetters jumped in to tell me how irresponsible the event was.

Yeah, I guess the three doctors attending the wedding should have warned us about our suicidal behavior … but they were too busy enjoying themselves.

Bed-Wetter Politicians Get Introduced To The Constitution

Tom Naughton September 21, 2020 58 Comments

I’ve been saying since April that lockdowns are worthless and will end up doing more harm than good. I’ve also wondered (more to myself than on the blog) how all this authoritarian overreach can possibly be constitutional.

We have a constitutional right to assemble, but governors and mayors have ordered people not to assemble (unless they’re BLM protestors). We have a constitutional right to equal protection under the law, but governors and mayors have taken it upon themselves to order some stores to close while allowing others to remain open … not to mention (again) creating different rules just for BLM protestors. There’s no clause in the Constitution that says government officials can violate any of the rights enumerated here if a scary virus starts spreading.

I didn’t go looking for this video, but since I’ve run lots of searches on coronavirus lately, it showed up in my YouTube feed. Andrew Napolitano, the retired Superior Court judge being interviewed here, has been a staunch defender of civil liberties for years, regardless of which party tries to violate those liberties. He says exactly what I’ve been thinking about all this lockdown nonsense.

But … but … the virus! It’s scary! We need to violate liberties to stop the spread!

Look, if that’s what you’re about to say, stop and think about it: do you really want to go down that road? Because if we do, it means any time politicians want to violate our civil liberties, all they have to do is point to some threat – real, imagined, or exaggerated – and say it’s very, very dangerous, and we’re doing this to protect you. That’s how we ended up with the $#@%ing Patriot Act.

I’ve been waiting for someone to start suing the lockdown fascists for violating our constitutional rights. Well, good news: a judge in Pennsylvania ruled on one such lawsuit last week:

That’s one. I hope many, many similar lawsuits and rulings follow.

But … but … the virus! It’s scary! I don’t care about the Constitution; I want more lockdowns so I don’t catch it!

If that’s how you feel, there’s a simple solution that doesn’t require violating other people’s rights to assemble, to open or patronize a business, to travel, etc., etc.

It’s called LOCK YOURSELF DOWN AND LEAVE THE REST OF US ALONE.

Educating Bed-Wetters

Tom Naughton September 10, 2020 68 Comments

A few days ago, I tweeted that coronahysteria has been useful for helping my daughter narrow down her list of colleges: she’s eliminating the ones that are currently closed or remote-only because it means the school is run by bed-wetting weenies who don’t actually care about educating the students.

That one got a few hundred likes and a few dozen retweets. But of course, a couple of college perfessors had to chime in to say their schools are remote-only right now – to protect the students! – and I really needed to teach my daughter to respect the science and blah-blah-blah.

Oh, dear.

One of the perfessors replied:

Sorry to lose a student to it, as it appears they could use some critical thinking skills to overcome their parents ignorance.

That’s the exact quote. Fascinating … we have a college professor who doesn’t know the singular student isn’t a plural they, and doesn’t know how to use the plural possessive case for parents ignorance. Talk about ignorance. There’s a school we’ll avoid.

The other perfessor teaches nutrition (and we all how rigorously scientific that field is), and informed me that my daughter was missing out, because she and the other perfessors have spent hundreds of hours learning new, cutting-edge teaching strategies.

Ah, well, if it’s new and cutting-edge, it simply must be better. You all remember how New Math and Whole-Language English classes led to generations of Americans highly proficient in math and able to construct grammatically correct sentences.

I replied:

I appreciate the college teachers who are chiming in to publicly claim their bed-wetter status. We can scratch their schools off the list.

Now, you’d think that would clue the nutrition perfessor that arguing it’s not safe for students to be in class would only further convince me to avoid her school. But no, she kept thinking she could persuade me. So I replied:

I appreciate you making the extra effort, but you’ve already established yourself as a bed-wetter whose school we’ll avoid. No need to keep proving the point.

That didn’t stop her. Instead, she adopted a condescending attitude I’ve found to be strangely common among nutrition perfessors. It goes something like this: I have a PhD in nutrition, and therefore I’m a real scientist, so I must educate this ignorant plebe.

That always goes over really well with me.

The perfessor kept trying to convince me that of course schools should be remote-only, because THE CASES, THE CASES, THE CASES! The CASES keep going up!

When I replied that college-age kids are at almost no risk whatsoever from COVID, the perfessor replied sure, that may be true, but if they go to classes, they’ll spread the disease! The medical system will be overwhelmed! The only safe course is keep them out of school!

I replied with a link to the latest casedemic video by Ivor Cummins. Here it is, in case you haven’t seen it:

The video is 37 minutes, but the perfessor replied in roughly two minutes, which of course means she didn’t watch it. Nonetheless, she felt qualified to dismiss it. She replied that the notion that cases are rising because of massive testing is yesterday’s smokescreen. Yes, she wrote that.

I replied:

She’s a teacher, but tries to dismiss facts and data anyone can look up with “that’s yesterday’s smokescreen.” And she wonders why I wouldn’t send my daughter to her school. Sorry, we prefer schools with teachers who are critical thinkers capable of making rational arguments.

After more back-and-forth — with her reneging on at least two promises to slow it down and make just ONE more effort to educate me on the very real threat we face because of THE CASES, THE CASES, THE CASES! — I’d finally had enough. I won’t italicize or number my thread of responses. Here it is:

———————————————————————–

Since you don’t have the brains to stop proudly claiming your status as a bed-wetter, I’ll slow this down and explain it for you ONE last time. College kids are at near zero-risk from COVID. So you duck that with “but it’s to protect other people!”

There’s no evidence of young, healthy, asymptomatic people spreading the disease to others. There’s some speculation by professional bed-wetters, but no actual evidence. If the families of college kids feel at risk, they can dealt with it.

So based on no threat to the college kids, and no known threat to the people in their lives, you and the other bed-wetters have decided to go with remote-only teaching, depriving students of the most enjoyable aspect of college: life on campus with other students.

Is that to benefit the students? No, it’s clear to anyone with a half a brain it’s to benefit yourselves. By gosh, you LIKE not having to show up in the classroom, so you keep peddling b.s. about how this is saving lives through some mechanism not supported by any evidence.

And you keep peddling b.s. about those CUTTING-EDGE! teaching strategies to convince yourselves you’re not depriving the students. Here’s a CUTTING-EDGE! strategy that’s proved its value over the centuries: get your lazy ass into the classroom and teach face-to-face.

Laughably, schools expect parents to pay full price for their kids to receive a remote “education” that could be replaced by any online teaching service already in existence. Keep it up; you’re proving yourselves unnecessary and it will come back to bite you.

Doubly laughably, you keep trying to convince us this is all about safety, doncha know. And yet schools have remained open in many other countries with no rise in hospitalizations or deaths. The “it’s to protect people!” b.s. won’t fly, no matter how many “cases” you cite.

And yet here you are, apparently thinking if you just link to this or that bit of nonsense, you’re going to convince me that by gosh, it really IS about protecting people! … even though college kids are at no risk. You wildly overestimate your powers of persuasion.

If you were actually intelligent, you would have realized days ago that every argument you make in favor of keeping your school closed is further evidence that you’re a bed-wetter who doesn’t care about the students, and thus someone to avoid like the plague — a real plague.

So the bottom line: any teacher not elderly or otherwise in real danger who argues for remote-only learning is a selfish, lazy slob who doesn’t mind depriving students of a true college experience, as long as it’s convenient for her. That’s a “teacher” parents will avoid.

———————————————————————–

End of the thread.

The word is slowly getting out: lockdowns didn’t do diddly … well, other than bankrupt countless businesses, vaporize countless jobs, and send the economy into a tailspin. Here are some quotes from an article in ZeroHedge:

The toll lockdowns have taken on human life and human rights has been incalculable. Increases in child abuse, suicide, and even heart attacks, all appear to be a feature of mandatory stay-at-home orders issued by politicians who now rule by decree without any legislative or democratic due process.

This was all done because some politicians and bureaucrats—who were in no danger of losing their large paychecks—decided it was a great idea to carry out a bizarre and risky experiment: forcing large swaths of the population to stay at home in the name of preventing the spread of disease.

… it’s now becoming apparent that lockdowns don’t work when actually tried. Earlier this month, for example, Donald Luskin noted in The Wall Street Journal:

Measuring from the start of the year to each state’s point of maximum lockdown—which range from April 5 to April 18—it turns out that lockdowns correlated with a greater spread of the virus. States with longer, stricter lockdowns also had larger Covid outbreaks. The five places with the harshest lockdowns—the District of Columbia, New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts—had the heaviest caseloads.

In an August 1 Study, also published by The Lancet, the authors concluded “Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people.”

A June study published in Advance by Stefan Homburg and Christof Kuhbandner found the data “strongly suggests” the UK lockdown was both superfluous (it did not prevent an otherwise explosive behavior of the spread of the coronavirus) and ineffective (it did not slow down the death growth rate visibly).

In fact, the overall trend of infection and death appears to be remarkably similar across many jurisdictions regardless of what non -pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are taken by policymakers.

Lockdowns are causing far more harm than good. They’re not saving lives. And yet many people whose jobs aren’t currently in danger want to stay in lockdown and keep schools closed for the simple reason that they’ve gotten used to working strictly from home and think it’s awesome. So they’ll look for any reason to say the threat is still HUUUUUGE, and by gosh, we just can’t go back to normal yet.

So let’s thank the teachers who publicly insist on keeping their classrooms closed. They’ve let us know they don’t give a rat’s ass about what’s best for the students, so we know to avoid them.

The Bed-Wetters Saved The World! (Just Ask Them)

Tom Naughton August 31, 2020 44 Comments

Turns out that despite my frequent criticisms of the bed-wetters, they actually saved the whole world from dying. I know this because they’ve told me so on Twitter.

I pointed out that we can stop panicking because the despite the rising casedemic, the deaths and hospitalizations in places like New York have plummeted to near-zero. Like this:

That’s because of the lockdowns and the mandatory masks! the bed-wetters informed me. The pandemic is under control in places where the authorities took HARD ACTIONS!

Ahhh, I see. So that means in places that imposed HARD ACTIONS, like lockdowns and mandatory masks, the pandemic is under control, while in places that didn’t impose HARD ACTIONS, the hospitalizations and deaths must still be rising.

Well, Sweden didn’t impose lockdowns or masks. Let’s compare their COVID deaths to Italy and the U.K., which took HARD ACTIONS.

Hmmm, looks like the deaths in Sweden peaked a little later and then plummeted a little later, but the curve is nearly identical … except with fewer deaths per million people at the peak. That would almost suggest lockdowns and masks have little if any effect on how the virus spreads.

There are seven U.S. states that never issued stay-at-home orders. They’re the ones highlighted in yellow below. I also circled South Dakota because the state didn’t close any businesses either. It’s the least bed-wetting of all states. Notice the low death rate (the scale is deaths per 100,000 people).

Oh, yeah, sure! That’s because those states don’t have big cities!

That’s what the bed-wetters told me. Apparently they didn’t do well in social studies classes. Look at the states in the bottom half of the chart. Big cities in those states include Seattle, Portland, St. Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Oklahoma City.

Population density! We meant population density! the bed-wetters replied. South Dakota only has, like, 12 people per square mile!

The bed-wetters seem to think people in low-population states like South Dakota spread themselves evenly across the land. They don’t. I used to do comedy tours in those western states. You can drive for hundreds of miles and barely spot a house. Then you get to a city with actual people (and a comedy club). I know that’s how it is in those states, but I nonetheless checked the data on a U.S. census site. Here are percentages of the population in several rural/western states who live in what the census bureau labels as urban zones: 90% in Utah, 80% in Oregon, 73% in Nebraska, 70% in Wisconsin, 66% in Oklahoma, 64% in Iowa.

So yes, even in those low-density states, most people live in or near cities. And please refer back to the chart and tell me which BIG CITIES in Mississippi and Rhode Island explain their high death rates.

But you’ve got to look at Florida! Second wave! Second wave! Second wave! They never should have opened up the state in June, because look at the deaths! They should have stuck with HARD ACTION!

Yes, there was a summertime rise in COVID deaths in Florida. But thanks to the videos posted by Ivor Cummins, I’m aware of how the COVID curves are following the curves for seasonal flu outbreaks. So with that in mind, I looked up curves for flu and other respiratory infections for previous years in Florida. Here’s a chart showing the curves for several respiratory infections:

June begins around week 23 most years. So what do we see in this chart? Yup, we see summertime spikes (or a SECOND WAVE! if you prefer) for respiratory infections in Florida. That’s the usual pattern.

Here’s a chart showing visits to a medical provider for flu-like illness in Florida in 2009.

See that big second spike beginning in the summer? Once again, this is normal.

The seasonal flu curves for northern regions and southern regions aren’t the same. Southern regions show a spike in the summer months. That’s why summertime COVID deaths rose in Florida, and it’s why they’re rising in places like Peru and Brazil.

And by the way, Peru took HARD ACTION that was harder than almost any other country … which makes this headline interesting:

The country with the world’s strictest lockdown is now the worst for excess deaths.

Here’s a chart comparing deaths in Peru (world’s strictest lockdown) to deaths in Brazil, which didn’t take the HARD ACTIONS the bed-wetters insist saved the world:

Oh, yeah? Well, if Florida had a summertime rise because it’s in the south, how do you explain the fact that Italy didn’t get a big summertime rise too? Huh? Italy is south, ya know! Huh?

Gee, I’m sorry you didn’t do well in geography classes. Italy is in the south of Europe, yes, but it’s not south as far as the world is concerned. Look at a globe. Italy is at the same latitude as the New England states in America. Rome, for example, is at the same latitude as Providence, Rhode Island. Florida, meanwhile, is at the same latitude as the Western Sahara in Africa. The summertime rise in southern areas isn’t about failure to impose lockdowns. It’s about latitude.

Lockdowns didn’t stop the spread of the virus. Masks won’t stop the spread of the virus (which is why scientists in the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway recommended against mandating them). So why can’t the bed-wetters just admit they were wrong?

Because when one of their Grand Plans fails to fix a problem – or even causes more harm than good – The Anointed never, ever, ever admit the Grand Plan was a bad idea.

As you know, I borrowed the term The Anointed from Thomas Sowell and his book The Vision of the Anointed. In speeches and blog posts, I’ve summarized Dr. Sowell’s description of how The Anointed interpret the failure of a Grand Plan. They always decide that:

The plan was good, but people didn’t follow it correctly because they’re stupid
The plan was good, but it was undermined by people because they’re evil
The plan didn’t go far enough … so we need to do the same thing ONLY BIGGER.

Actually, Dr. Sowell added another interpretation I haven’t mentioned previously:

Sure, the Grand Plan didn’t fix the problem … but without the Grand Plan, the problem would have been EVEN WORSE!

That’s what the bed-wetters are telling themselves now. One bed-wetter on Twitter recently insisted that without the lockdowns, the coronavirus would have killed 500,000 Americans. All hail the HARD ACTIONS taken by The Anointed for saving us.

And prepare yourself … they may still decide we need to do the same thing again, only bigger.