Quote of the Day
Mannheim Steamroller, "Deck the Halls"
Quote of the Day
A wise and frugal government,Bruce Springsteen, "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town"
Quote of the Day
The hero is
Band Aid, "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
Quote of the Day
Never do anything against conscience
Wham, "Last Christmas"
Quote of the Day
I predict future happiness for Americans
Hall & Oates, "Jingle Bell Rock"
Julie Andrews, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing"
As a writer, I was constantly rewriting and tweaking things on my academic papers and book chapters up to the point of approving page proofs I don't apply the same standards in a blog where I currently publish on a 500-post clip annually. It isn't unusual for me to edit a longer essay 4 or 5 times for typos and the like. The same thing with typos in tweets. Most times I just let those go, but maybe a dozen or so times I've deleted and republished corrected tweets.
In Saturday's discussion of holiday movies on cable, I intended to make a broader point about what I consider a classic Christmas movie and others that get recycled annually. A Christmas Story immediately comes to mind, although TBS and TNT have rarely been in my cable bundles over the past 20 years, so I haven't tracked it. A movie that focuses on a boy's quest for a BB gun and his father's affection for a lamp in the shape of some showgirl's shapely leg isn't my idea of a classic. I think it's subjective. Other people may see my preferred selections as "once and done". And to a certain extent I can understand: do we really need 101 versions of 'A Christmas Carol'? But to me, 'A Christmas Story' is like a joke overtold one too many times. There's also 'Chris6mas Vacation', the Chevy Chase flick over a reneged Christmas bonus, wacko relatives, and an overcooked turkey. There's Murray's parody 'Scrooged'. Then there are the movies like various flavors of the Santa myth whether we are talking Tim Allen's spinoffs, my parents are the Clauses, the biographies, etc. There are a few films that milk on the Santa myth slightly, like 'Miracle on 34th St.' and certain cable movies like 'A Boyfriend for Christmas', 'Matchmaker Santa', etc.
I did catch the classic Grinch cartoon and the Jim Carrey flick on NBC Christmas night. I thought TBS had some exclusive contract that kept the cartoon off network TV for years. I thought the timing (post Xmas Eve) was odd. I knew my Faith Hill favorite, "Where Are You, Christmas", came from the flick but I don't think I ever watched the flick, having only a certain tolerance for watching Carrey shtick. But I found the little girl who hitches a ride on Grinch's sleigh because she thought no one should be alone on Christmas was a really sweet touch.
This is utterly insane, and I'm pro-vaccine. Don't NYC police have higher priorities? I see no evidence this dude is symptomatic. https://t.co/0HNRcfEy44
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 20, 2021
Don't be stupid. I would have to check the purported Fauci quote, but even the mRNA vaccine makers never claimed 100% effectiveness, and that cited 90+% was not against mild infections. Never mind you are comparing a vaccine not designed for Delta or omicron.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 20, 2021
Breakthrough infections spread because of infected unvaccinated. Nearly all the serious COVID infections are from the unvaccinated. Some vaccinated people with other serious health issues, the elderly, etc., may be at risk, but not true in general.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 20, 2021
I'm somewhat amused that leftist trolls are hoping Murkowski will replace Manchin on BBB. That would be political suicide for her reelection bid.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 20, 2021
Another clueless progressive who calls unpaid-for morally corrupt social welfare spending an "investment"
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 21, 2021
A better America requires less government, not more.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 21, 2021
Watching progressives responding to the apparent rejection of the Build Back Better social super-spending agenda reminds me of a perplexed Obama who couldn't understand voters sticking with their guns and Bibles when he was offering them bigger bribes from the Treasury.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 21, 2021
Give Trump credit for getting vaccinated and boosted after his own exposure to COVID-19. You have Covidiots like Rand Paul and Tom Massie who insisted their own natural immunity is sufficient despite hard data showing improved results with vaccination.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 21, 2021
"Bill O'Reilly"
101M cases in NYC? That's impressive given its population of 8.4M, and WaPo reported 300K nationwide on Monday. #sarcasm https://t.co/HYV9LlMrAH
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 21, 2021
This is a misleading and false talking point. Vaccinated people are less likely to get infected and/or transmit the virus to others. There is evidence of lower viral load and more rapid recovery in breakthrough cases, some studies showing less active virus.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 21, 2021
I disagree with a recent appeal court decision lifting a stay on the Biden OSHA vaccine mandate.https://t.co/HXbBJGivgh
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 21, 2021
First, everyone knows Jesse Watters is an idiot.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 21, 2021
Second, Fauci sycophants don't know the meaning of a kill shot. No, it's not about killing someone. In context, Watters is talking about catching Fauci doing or saying something he can't spin to his advantage.
"Dr. Fauci"
This is Soft Rock America. If you could read my mind, Lori, what a rant on your COVID-19 policies my thoughts would tell...https://t.co/LiMBIn7vZS
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 22, 2021
"Lori Lightfoot"
Clueless leftist political whores are economically illiterate. The oxymoron BBB plan is an unpaid-for orgy of morally hazardous social welfare government spending. The idea micromanaging the private sector with taxes, spending & regulation cures inflation is beyond delusional https://t.co/m3jO65l9rT
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 23, 2021
My latest post looks at reaction to news of an innovative Army COVID-19 vaccine in trials.https://t.co/oUkpRA5piT
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 23, 2021
It's predictable for government robbers of American taxpayers to wear masks. Fortunately we know what Kamala Harris looks like.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 24, 2021
I mentioned my niece's mother-in-law died from COVID-19 complications. Her father-in-law was diagnosed but not hospitalized at the time. We just got word he has also died. This is a serious disease, folks. If you haven't, get vaccinated and boosted.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 24, 2021
OMG, Stephen Miller is breeding?
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 24, 2021
"Stephen Miller"
I don't know who's worse: Trumpkins thinking they're clever by retelling the same joke hundreds of times or the partisan leftist language police. The Dude in Chief has a 43% job approval rate, Trump-like numbers less than a year in office.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 25, 2021
"Brandon"
Well, I bet Biden surprised the dad with his response. Sometimes the best tactic is turning the joke back on the teller.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 25, 2021
Note all the obsequious leftist trolls trying to yank the chains of right-wingers. Ms. Biden has a professional, not academic doctorate. The former First Lady speaks 5 different languages, probably more than any other First Lady, if not POTUShttps://t.co/HIWIdGv1L4
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 25, 2021
"Dr. Biden"
I was both Never Trump and Never Biden last year. Well, Biden was better than his socialist opponents, but he hasn't governed as a centrist poser. The midterms are less than a year away, and if history is a guide, Biden will be rebuked and likely lose his narrow hold on Congress.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 26, 2021
Some leftist troll moron is ridiculing Schmeck for citing his First Amendment rights. The real point is that American citizens have a right to criticize their government, and they don't have to do so politely. Yes, of course, Statist minions can target dissent.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 26, 2021
"Jared Schmeck"
I disagree. The POTUS was doing PR; everything he does is political. He's a career politician and criticism comes with the territory. He needs to put on his big boy pants and take it.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 26, 2021
Quote of the Day
McClanahan sent out an email implying he may publish a fresh episode or 2 over the coming week. In the meanwhile here is one of his oldie episodes:
Dolly Parton, "Hard Candy Christmas"
Quote of the Day
Choose a job you love,
The Waitresses, "Christmas Wrapping"
The latest stats from WaPo:
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| Courtesy of WaPo |
There are some interesting nuances in omicron symptoms. Of particular note is few have a signature symptom of the loss of smell or taste or fevers, more like a common cold (runny nose, sore throat) with tiredness or muscle aches.
On a positive note we are seeing oral antiviral meds from Merck and Pfizer authorized by the FDA.
I think most people are probably getting personally touched by the pandemic. Like I've recently tweeted. a nephew-in-law recently lost both parents to COVID-19. Please vaccinate and get boosters.
It always amazes me when I run into a new PC issue I've never seen before . In this case I had launched iTunes to listen to my subscribed podcasts when iTunes popped up with a vague configuration problem. I Googled the issue and didn't come up with anything usable; had I somehow installed a rogue update to iTunes in the interim since I last listened to a podcast just days earlier? At some point later I launched Youtube which is a source for most video clips embedded in my daily blog posts. I suddenly realized I had a broader sound problem: none of the videos were playing with sound. At first I thought it was a common annoyance: somehow the sound was muted. However, when I launched the Windows sound window, the usual controls were disabled--long story short, I would soon discover there were no soundcard drivers installed--in my laptop with an integrated sound system. This was a first in decades of owning/using laptops.
I was fairly sure that the original drivers were available in the laptop recovery infrastructure, but it wasn't clear how to tell Windows where to find them; it expected an external driver disk. I didn't want to reset the PC just to get my sound back. Of course, I could always attach or configure USB or Bluetooth speakers.
At first, I thought the problem might be resolved by the old adage "when in doubt, reboot". That often works with the Thunderbird email client--say, where one of the default folders (say, the trash folder) disappears on rare occasions for God knows what reason, and it would regenerate on a restart. But in this case Windows restarted without sound drivers again. Long story short, I eventually tried adding sound drivers via Windows (didn't work) and deinstalled. This time Windows reinstalled the correct drivers on system reboot. I'm not sure this is a general workaround; after all, initially I didn't have a sound driver to deinstall.
I FINALLY saw a classic Christmas movie show up on my cable channels: "White Christmas", which is on AMC's rotation. At first, I grumbled: they had it scheduled on at 2 AM, and I had to work that morning. But I think it came on at 9 AM a couple of days later, and it's on late morning on Christmas Eve.
I did catch "Miracle on 34th St" on Amazon Prime I believe, but apparently there are multiple versions. The one I'm more familiar with has a couple of iconic scenes; one involves an adopted Dutch orphan who Kris Kringle speaks to in her native tongue. I didn't recall seeing that in yesterday's version. Then there's how Kringle gets sent to Bellevu. In the familiar version, Kris gets agitated at the store psychologist who gets this young male employee to doubt himself and smacks the psychologist on the head with his cane in confronting him. In this other version, this speaker starts ranting about the Santa Claus myth in front of an audience, and an irritated Santa backstage clobbers him from behind.
I still haven't seen a couple of Meredith Baxter fantasy movies in Hallmark's Countdown to Christmas this fall/winter: Angel in the Family and A Christmas Visitor. In the former, she plays a deceased wife and mother who returns over Christmas to help her surviving struggling family members; in the latter, she plays a mother still mourning the loss of her eldest, only son, who lost his life as a medic in the Gulf Region. The surviving parents have a young daughter with signs of a serious health issue. The Army vet Dad picks up a hitchhiking vets and invites him home to spend Christmas with his family. He asks the vet to play along that he had happened to meet the deceased son overseas. The dad gets suspicious when the vet plays his role a little too well. Just who is this stranger?
I do like the adoption movies that Hallmark has. In The Christmas Note an Army wife and son move home to a separated parent's home while the dad is overseas recovering from an IED explosion. A workaholic neighbor's mother, living elsewhere in town, dies, leaving a mysterious note, confessing the daughter has an older half-sibling given up for adoption at birth. In Holly and Ivy, a single jobless librarian had closed on it fixit-upper next door to a single mom with 2 young daughters. The mother is initially in remission from a horrible life-threatening disease--which returns with a vengeance. She has no family to leave her girls with--and Melody (the librarian) impulsively offers to become the girls' legal guardian. But the courts won't sign off unless she has a steady income and a home up to code. Finally, A Christmas Love Story, involves a former Broadway star who reinvents herself as a youth choir director who has been commissioned to write an original song. She ends up meeting a widower with an adopted son, who finds himself in her choir. As sparks begin to spark between the dad and choir director, she admits she gave up her only son to adoption.
There are other Hallmark movies worth watching. In The Christmas Secret, Christine is recently divorced, a struggling mother with a young son and daughter. She finds herself an unemployed waitress after she saves the life of a woman owner in an auto accident on the way to work, losing a family locket in the process. She soon finds a job with a local baker Betty but keeps running into the shopowners' grandson Jason temporarily filling in at the shop. It turns out the lost locket has special significance to Betty and Christine's father, who died before her birth.
Quote of the Day
We cannot learn from one anotherPaul McCartney, "Wonderful Christmastime"
Over the last couple of days, we have heard encouraging news that researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) have developed s multifaceted Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle (SpFN) COVID-19 vaccine which in theory may provide broader protection against a variety of respiratory viruses and their mutations; results from early animal testing are encouraging.
The reactions of Twitter leftists are predictable, although some libertarians have related talking points. The leftists generally have an anti-capitalist/anti-profit perspective. They seem to think the profit motive is morally unacceptable for goods and services. Of course, there are two parts to the equation: price and cost. The private sector understands the law of supply and demand. If you raise the price of a widget, you sell fewer widgets During the 1870's, Rockefeller dropped the price of kerosene from 26 to 8 cents a gallon while gaining 90% of market share, doing it at a profit. Part of the story was costs and efficiency. Part of the check on prices is competition, which Rockefeller faced domestically and internationally in global markets. Rockefeller also felt supply challenges as his Pennsylvania oilfields began to deplete and substitute supplies, sulfur-based, posed technological challenges.
Government creates problems, doesn't solve them. Price caps below a market clearing price lead to shortages (e.g., rent control) and above lead to surplus (a classic example being government cheese)..There are other restrictions, like minimum wages or prices, price gouging, and margin caps, and regulatory compliance costs. Government also constrains supplies (e.g., bans, quotas, tariffs, "buy American", immigration restrictions, occupational licenses, drilling and other permits, zoning restrictions), and innumerable mandates on industry and personnel.
Of course, this also applies to the pharmaceutical industry which must incur steep development costs and undergo multiple phases of animal and human subject testing to fulfill efficacy and safety criteria to earn FDA and/or CDC approval, before they can market a related drug, vaccine or device. Up to years and billions in costs can be sunk into an investment which ultimately fails. Unlike the government which can compel payment of involuntary taxes at the point of a gun, a business must ultimately cover its costs and investments through voluntary transactions.
Part of the leftist response has to with IP claims, particularly the assertion that the mRNA vaccine vendors Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are using IP rights to deprive the developing world of vaccines. (There's also a kerfuffle between Moderna and government scientists over IP rights) There's no doubt that vaccine revenue is significant at nearly 60% of Pfizer revenue over the past year. Pfizer (which splits vaccine revenue with its partner) sells its shots at just under $20/dose from the USG, comparable to a flu shot; it did not accept R&D funding. They claim normal vaccine revenues at $150/shot. Moderna did receive R&D funding and reportedly sells at a discounted government rate of roughly $15/dose in quantity. (International purchasers have purchased at lower prices.) There have been supply chain issues in expanding to hundreds of millions or billions of doses. Granted, demand far exceeds supply, particularly in the developing world. I don't believe the IP issue is the prevailing issue here; the developing world needs to scale up its own pharmaceutical base. Even when Russia broadly licensed its own vaccine technology, the firms in question had supply issues scaling up production. We don't know how long the pandemic will last and/or whether the disease will transition into an endemic/seasonal disease. Companies make different decisions on expansion if the circumstances are perceived as transitional in nature.
Another Twitter troll argued that the Army should put its vaccine technology in the public domain. Well, what about the taxpayer getting some payback on its investment? The Army could license its technology. I have issues with the government competing against the private sector. Few companies can compete against a government $28T in debt.
As mentioned below, IP is controversial among libertarians. I, like proto-libertarian Lysander Spooner, tend to be broadly supportive, although I would limit claims, e.g., during the lifetime or short period of time.
Other leftist media like Slate looks at other factors. (I was surprised Slate is still around.) Among other things, Slate pondered whether the fact that the Army produced a vaccine might appeal to right-wing libertarians or turn off anti-military leftists. First, most libertarians, unlike me, are vaccine skeptics. They are fixated on the mandate question, not who the producer is; I'm sure they might object to a soldier jabbing civilians. Not to mention most libertarians have an issue with the size and scope of the military. Finally, both leftists and libertarians have an issue with crony capitalism, with one leftist troll writing a populist tweet targeting Congressmen with stock investments in Pfizer or Moderna.
Quote of the Day
The test of courage comes when we are in the minority.
Willie Nelson, "Pretty Paper"
Quote of the Day
There is in every true woman's heart
Courtesy of Tom Stiglich via Townhall
I've made it very clear in numerous posts that I'm pro-vaccine, that I think, short of any physical tolerance issues (e.g., allergies) in getting a shot, I think it's a moral imperative, not just for one's own health, but for others you meet and could potentially spread the virus to, including those who cannot be vaccinated and others with complicated health issues. I have personally taken all 3 Pfizer doses, including the booster. At least 3 nephews and niece have caught COVID, and the spouses and/or children of the two married ones also caught it. The niece's parents-in-law also recently caught COVID (not from them, who got it months back), and her mother-in-law just died from complications. This is serious, and I encourage any readers who have not been inoculated or boosted against COVID-19 to do so; don't gamble on the fatal advice of scientifically-challenged antivaxxer COVIDIOTs.
There are a number of issues I have with Biden's vaccine mandate. First, with over 70% of adults vaccinated, I suspect most workers are already vaccinated, and arguing most workers ate in "grave danger" is ludicrous; yes, new variants like omicron are more contagious and current vaccines are less effective against minor infections but seem to hold up against serious illness and death; with boosters, results are more effective. The OSHA requirement only applies to large employers, and I've seen no evidence that unvaccinated workers at large employers are driving the pandemic. Second, employers are in a better position to evaluate workplace safety and are vested in their employees' health. Third, states, not the federal government, have the traditional responsibility for public health security. Fourth, I don't believe OSHA constitutionally has the authority to make this unprecedented regulation. (For a more nuanced take on the court's decision, see here).
Last Friday a 3-member panel (versus en banc review) from the Sixth Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to lift an injunction staying enforcement of the OSHA mandate. The decision, of course, will be appealed to SCOTUS. While it's hard to predict how SCOTUS will rule, I suspect this will end the same way Biden's unconstitutional eviction moratorium.
Quote of the Day
Books, the children of the brain.
Crosby & Bowie, "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy"
What connection does Meadows have with the trespassing protesters? Did he sign off on passes to Pelosi's office? #sarcasm
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 14, 2021
"House panel investigating Capitol insurrection recommends contempt charges for Mark Meadows"
The fact is Ryan beat Biden in the CNN poll. That's a fact. I don't give a damn what Luntz thought.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 14, 2021
Don't you just LOVE leftist hypocrisy? Where the hell have they been during the mainstream media scandals of Dan Rather, Brian Williams, Chris Cuomo, or the smear of Covington Catholic High graduate Nick Sandmann, among others?
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 15, 2021
"Fox "News""
"Senator Karen" (Cherokee Lizzie) is an American political parasite who makes a six-figure income off the teat of the American taxpayer. Musk's companies and employees pay plenty of taxes, but equity stakes are not income until sold and his companies have lost money for years. https://t.co/kaDstduypS
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 15, 2021
Can you guess who I chose this year for my mock award of Democrats behaving badly? There were a lot of contenders including Biden who flip-flopped on vaccine mandates, Cherokee Lizzie, Comrade Bernie, AOC who was so "brave" on Jan. 6, etc.https://t.co/Ys2GbUIOxC
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 15, 2021
This is pretty stupid, even for a progressive. Hillary Clinton was a government official with access to classified data--who used an insecure private server against US government policy. Beyond apples and oranges.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 15, 2021
"Democracy", You use that word. It does not mean what you think it means.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 15, 2021
We have basic voting rights. Constitutionally, the federal government has only a limited role in elections; the states hold the key responsibility for elections. You cannot legally commandeer the states for your corrupt preferences.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 15, 2021
Much is being made of a PROPORTIONATE number of vaccinated in omicron infections based on limited initial data. Note this doesn't imply the same for relative hospitalizations or deaths or for those taking boosters. Keep in mind the original vaccines were for an early variant.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 15, 2021
"Free market economy?". I'm a libertarian, I know a free market economy, and this is no free market economy. We ban or regulate products and services. We restrict immigration and occupations, what you can do with your own property. We impose tariffs on foreign goods.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 16, 2021
Pelosi https://t.co/DvLaLWtqlm
Can you guess the "winner(s)" of my annual mock award for Republicans behaving badly?https://t.co/jjBmzeI6oM
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 16, 2021
There was a time Dems paid lip service to human rights abuses. Now leftist trolls are more interested in settling political scores, and Biden wonders why his approval numbers aren't better than Trump's.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 17, 2021
"Rick Scott"
Who did I select as Man of the Year? (I refuse to be politically correct.) It's a twist on a selection by others.https://t.co/AevclLbNu3
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 17, 2021
Where do you start? He voted against the Bush tax cuts and for restrictions on campaign spending. He didn't vote to end ObamaCare. He ran an incompetent campaign against Obama and wasn't a principled conservative.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 18, 2021
Rubbish. Just because you conspiracy theorists couldn't convince the American people over your crackpot Russiagate rubbish doesn't make them "pro-Russian". Most conservatives were born and raised anti-Soviet and are wary of 70% approval of Stalin.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 18, 2021
Apparently dead fish are very affordable in Japan. #sarcasm
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 18, 2021
"Rahm Emanuel"
It's not often I disagree with the "winner" of a SOHO libertarian debate, but I'll make an exception for antivaxxer Angela McArdle.https://t.co/17ghPU4cLq
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 19, 2021
I don't think Palin will reunite with John McCain in the afterlife.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 19, 2021
"Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin says at a Turning Point USA conference on Sunday, 'it will be over my dead body that I have to get' vaccinated for COVID-19"
My niece's parents-in-law both caught COVID-19, and her MIL died from complications. For God's sake, people, get vaccinated for your kids and grandkids!
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 19, 2021
Joe Manchin is a hero to the American taxpayer.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) December 19, 2021
"Senator Joe Manchin says he won’t support Build Back Better plan"
Quote of the Day
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reapSome readers may note some of the videos in recent posts have not been freshly published; for example, the McClanahan video is from 2019; the others were published over the past month. I have never been afraid of going back for a topic I want to cover and the content is relevant. Stossel himself has been republishing some classic episodes. Weekends and holiday periods tend to provide fewer new episodes, at least for my feeds. McClanahan in particular had tipped off his followers he would be tapering off by mid-month (and he has also been remodeling his (home?) studio), but it came sooner than expected. I generally do not republish the same video, so all the clips I use are fresh to the blog. It's also possible, depending on my travel schedule, a few posts over the weeks ahead may be prescheduled, although I'm not doing so through Christmas.
As I write, I'm about 14 posts away from tying last year's record of blog posts. I won't publish for the sake of publishing. It's possible, if not probable, I'll tie or improve on last year's productivity depending on my one-off posts. My readership numbers, while not as good as the first week's, are an improvement over the abysmal second week. My Twitter numbers, however, may be at or near an all-time low. Part of it is unappealing trends and the tweets I am writing aren't attracting readers.
John Lennon, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"
I seriously doubt most readers are all that vested in a SOHO debate on whether some COVID vaccine mandates are justifiable (the debate, which I clipped in Saturday's post, is available here) Megan McArdle "won" the debate. If you are not familiar with Oxford-style debate rules, (besides the organization of opening and closing statements, rebuttals, any cross-examinations, and audience questions to debaters), the winner is decided in the biggest differential in beginning and ending votes of a side by in this context audience members, Now, granted, I was somewhat vested in this debate because I knew and liked Ilya Somin and I happen to agree with the position he took--which is highly unpopular, especially among libertarians.
I do think that Somin had the heavier lift, especially in a venue (NYC) where the outgoing mayor has imposed his own unpopular private sector employer mandate. Oddly, that topic didn't surface during the debate, although Somin did repeat what he had recently written, that he thought the Biden mandates on federal employees and the military were defendable, that there were constitutional issues with hie OSHA vaccine policy mandate on large employers. And I think he is precisely correct on that score.
Nevertheless, on my debate scorecard on quite objective grounds, putting aside my personal feelings and opinions, Somin won the debate going away, and it wasn't even close. I don't have a problem with being outnumbered by people who disagree with me. I'm already outnumbered as a libertarian, and within the libertarian community I'm outnumbered on issues like abortion (I'm pro-life).
I had been somewhat familiar with Angela McArdle, a paralegal and LP activist/chair and multiple time nominee for Congress from southern California. I was trying to remember where I had recently seen her when it struck me she had been on Tom Woods' insufferably boring 2000th episode. (Woods had responded to a recent critical email where I criticized his Ron Paul worship and anti-vaxxer rubbish by canceling my email subscription and saying that he doesn't argue with "midwits". My understanding is that 'midwit' is a pejorative referring to someone of mediocre intelligence with an inflated ego. I do realize, of course, that Woods has a partnership with Ron Paul having delivered history courses for Paul's homeschooling curricula. Woods is always self-promoting; sooner or later he'll remind you he has 2 Ivy League degrees, from Harvard and a PhD from Columbia. I don't see a biography listing his career in academia, but I once stumbled across an older article listing him at the time on the faculty of a New York community college. History is probably a tough area to break into professionally; there's a reason I didn't pursue a PhD in my first loves, philosophy and mathematics. I know Brion McClanahan teaches at a community college. Ironically I think Woods initially was also a math major. I don't feel the need to promote my own record. One Dartmouth recruiter was impressed by my selection to doctoral consortia at DSI and ICIS, and a University of Washington faculty member from their technical communication program invited me to apply for a then unlisted faculty position, based strictly on my interdisciplinary publications. It seems every day I get notices of citations of journal articles and book chapters I wrote over 2 decades ago, never mind international professors asking for reprints. In my IT career as a developer and DBA I've turned around projects and solved problems other professionals couldn't; I recall one fellow programmer coming to me and asked me to read his own code because he forgot what he had done patching it 2 weeks earlier. I remember one student got freaked out when I answered his unspoken question, like I was the Amazing Kreskin. So Tom Woods with his Ivy League condescending snobbery can make his petty insults because he's not man enough to deal with criticism.)
I have to say McArdle gave one of the worst debate performances I've ever seen or heard (Trump was also fairly bad); I haven't seen every SOHO debate but probably the last dozen or so. For the most part I think I sided with the eventual winner. She immediately starts out with this purported vaccine horror story. Her whole presentation includes anti-vaxxer rubbish. At one point she's explicitly bringing up this "experimental vaccine" reference. In fact, both mRNA vaccines went through trials before emergency use approval last year, and Pfizer won full FDA approval by August. And there was yet another time where she attempted to contrast her purported health industry bona fides against a respected law school professor. (I'm mildly amused that a paralegal has the audacity to compare herself to Somin.) Somin is a bit too nice a guy to rip McArdle apart (I, for one, do not suffer fools gladly). He does point out neither of them is a credentialed epidemiologist and calls out McArdle for using unvetted data from an open database on purported vaccine side effects. And he repeatedly and correctly pointed out that by far serious hospitalizations and deaths are disproportionately from the unvaccinated.
McArdle is laughably hypocritical in accusing the government and health industry of fear-mongering while she is out there spinning antivaxxer crackpot conspiracy theories. She was out there ranting ideological talking points. And I think I would have taken a somewhat different approach than Somin, stressing the non-aggression principle from downstream propagation, antivaxxer freeloading off herd immunity, etc. Somin does bring up the precedent of Washington's smallpox inoculation mandate during the Revolutionary War (Washington himself caught the disease as a young adult, bearing lifelong scars on his nose) This was before Jenner's milestone and modern delivery systems, and the process often involved inserting a puss-soaked thread into an incision to the patient. Mass inoculation led to the effective elimination of the disease. At one point in the debate, McArdle tries to argue smallpox had mutated to an ineffective, harmless form; I don't know if she invented this rubbish on the fly or had read it from some antivaxxer source.
I don't have a transcript of the debate or I would refute each of McArdle's lies in detail. One I particularly recall was her alleged link of a vaccine shot to miscarriages. Now there are numerous studies refuting this allegation, but let me simply cite this closing statement from a New England Journal of Medicine piece:
Our study found no evidence of an increased risk for early pregnancy loss after Covid-19 vaccination and adds to the findings from other reports supporting Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy.