{"id":32359,"date":"2022-12-14T12:19:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T19:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=32359"},"modified":"2022-12-14T14:24:55","modified_gmt":"2022-12-14T21:24:55","slug":"ignorance-is-bliss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=32359","title":{"rendered":"Ignorance Is Bliss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google News<\/a><\/strong> has a “fact check” section, a Snopes-like feature aimed at debunking disinformation circulating in less-reputable segments of American media (cough Fox News cough). This morning, three out of four fact check links address Covid vaccine lies in wide circulation:<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

Evidence, I guess, that the right’s balls-to-the-wall propaganda war against science, specifically Covid prevention and mitigation, is gaining ground. Not one of the stories fact-checked in those links is even remotely true: there never was a German autopsy report showing Covid vaccines as likely causes of sudden deaths; Covid vaccines are not responsible for excess deaths in the United States; anti-vaxxers won’t get someone else’s Covid vaccine from a blood transfusion. It’s made-up shit, all of it. Everything about the war against Covid masking and vaccination is based on lies.<\/p>\n

Lies that take up so much space in the news and on social media, repeated over and over. Even when the lies are repeated for the purpose of showing the truth, like the debunked examples on Google News today, what sticks in the mind are the lies themselves.<\/p>\n

Which is probably what’s going on in Florida, where a Republican governor is trying to legislate lies into existence to please the MAGA mouth-breathers he thinks will make him president in 2024:<\/p>\n

Florida Gov. DeSantis Requests Grand Jury probe of COVID-19 Vaccines<\/a><\/strong> (Sarasota Herald-Tribune)<\/p>\n

SARASOTA, Fla. \u2014 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday he plans to petition the state’s Supreme Court to convene a grand jury to investigate \u201cany and all wrongdoing\u201d related to COVID-19 vaccines.<\/p>\n

DeSantis made the announcement following a roundtable with Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and a panel of scientists and physicians who expressed skepticism about the vaccines, the companies that manufacture them, and CDC recommendations saying everyone who’s eligible should receive the shots.<\/p>\n

This is what we get when we give equal time to lies. Isaac Asimov said it best:<\/p>\n

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Speaking of mouth-breathing ignorance, I\u00a0ordered a protective case for Donna’s new iPhone from Amazon yesterday morning. It arrived at our door by dinnertime \u2014 oh brave new world, that has such wonders in it \u2014 but it came in a plain box with no instructions, and I couldn’t figure out how to open the case in order to put the phone inside.<\/p>\n

I hate being frustrated. I hate it when something isn’t right. I hate it when I try to do something for someone and fail.<\/p>\n

I woke up this morning determined to send the damned thing back and order something simpler. Sitting down at the desktop to do it, I discovered the instructions for opening the case embedded in the product description on Amazon. Following the step by step instructions, I popped the case open, inserted Donna’s phone, and popped it back together. Voil\u00e0. Done. Perfecto. Husband of the Year.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5302\"<\/a>Is this a new thing, though, scrimping on printed instructions? These two miniature phone books excepted, never consulted yet still in my dresser drawer for some reason, I no longer sweat losing printed manuals for cameras, digital watches, and clock radios, knowing they’re easily findable on the web. Someone will have uploaded a PDF of the factory manual, or made a YouTube video explaining how to set time zones and leap years. Still, tossing printed instructions should be my call, not the manufacturer’s, am I right?<\/p>\n

By the way, I ordered a case for my new iPhone as well, even though mine is a 14 Pro and won’t ship until sometime in January, and then only if labor unrest and Covid take a break at the Foxconn factory in China. At least I now know how to stick my phone in it if it ever comes!<\/p>\n

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Given Pima Air & Space Museum’s deliberate dismantling of a once-great volunteer docent program, of which I was a proud part, I’m no longer a huge fan, but continue to visit occasionally to see what’s new. I’m excited to see the latest arrival, NASA\u2019s recently-retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) aircraft, a highly-modified Boeing 747SP.<\/p>\n

It arrived at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson yesterday and will soon be towed across Valencia Road onto the museum grounds. I expect it’ll be in the restoration yard, unaccessible to the public but still in view, for some time before being put on display. PASM promises that when it does go on display the public will be allowed inside the aircraft, but given the museum’s track record with other such promises (notably that the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital DC-10 would be open to visitors), that’ll probably come down to it being open just one or two days a year \u2014 the problem being the executive director’s aversion to volunteers, who’ll be needed in numbers to monitor and assist visitors on the rare days they’re allowed inside.<\/p>\n

The photos, L to R: NASA SOFIA in flight (NASA: Jim Ross); interior looking aft toward the 8.2-foot diameter reflecting telescope (Boneyard Safari).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/center>Oh, the museum finally picked up a Lockheed F-117 stealth fighter, also currently in restoration. Stand by for a fresh PASM Photoblog!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google News has a “fact check” section, a Snopes-like feature aimed at debunking disinformation circulating in less-reputable segments of American media (cough Fox News cough).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1960,18,250,10,3,555,16,2,827],"tags":[4113,4112,4114,4115],"class_list":["post-32359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-minded","category-consumerism","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-flying","category-local-color","category-media","category-personal","category-social-media","tag-airmuseumupdate","tag-letmegooglethatforyou","tag-mouthbreathingteabaggers-2","tag-pushingthebiglie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32359"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32373,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32359\/revisions\/32373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}