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Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
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1 Dec, 4 tweets, 1 min read
How is it possible that we can simultaneously be the country that invented the mRNA vaccine and this one?
I'm serious about this question. The vaccine is an astonishing scientific and technical achievement. Not exactly the first astonishing scientific and technical achievement in American history. It's a product of capitalism and (I'd bet anything) recent immigration.
That's the formula for these achievements. But is there something in the culture that makes America so good at making new things that *also* makes us so idiotic and cruel that we'd let 1 out of 800 North Dakotans die for our selfishness and conspiracy theories?
Is this really what "rugged individualism" and "liberty" mean? Good side: Moderna, Pfizer, and capitalism saved the world. Bad side: We lost North Dakota?

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More from @ClaireBerlinski

Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
2 Dec
#WashingMachineUpdate, for those of you who've been unable to sleep wondering how I'd make it through the pandemic with a washing machine that's complètement foutue. God bless Darty. The repairman is here exactly as scheduled; he is replacing the pump and the tuyau interne.
No extra charge. The culprit was a "baleine de soutien-gorge," and "un bouchon" in the tuyau (deep in its innards) filled with six years' worth of cat fur, nicotine gum, and spare change. I couldn't have fixed it myself, no matter how many manuals I had. I didn't have the parts.
I am very grateful to everyone who offered advice, and so particularly grateful to @OnGBandC and @hlshaken for reasons they know well. Voilà the result of your generosity: Image
Read 6 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
1 Dec
I just don't think this is true. At all. @CasMudde would if he could shoot every last right-wing populist into the interior of the sun, but his scholarly work on the phenomenon has been useful and rigorous.
And what of scholars of Hitler? Is all the outstanding scholarship on the Nazi regime that's been done postwar tarnished by the researchers' revulsion? Of course not.
We study what we're interested in. Hatred and love alike can inspire our interest; in fact, generally do. So long as you're rigorous, you can hate and study the same thing. Why would you, you ask?
Read 5 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
1 Dec
Is the phrase "Your white privilege is showing" now a synonym for "You are incorrect?" Or could my interlocutor possibly be unaware that non-white Americans are at much higher risk of *dying* from Covid19? thelancet.com/journals/eclin…
Having a dysfunctional family is terrible for a child. Behind "a year of more behind on learning" is a very bad outcome. But both are better than having one or both parents (or grandparents who provide steady care) dead. That means *no* family.
There's one policy option that is not on the menu right now. It's "Why don't we just not have a pandemic." We have one. It will be over very soon: We have a vaccine; when we get it in everyone's arms, this ends. But until then,
Read 5 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
29 Nov
Some preliminary thoughts and questions about policing. All thoughts welcome, but especially thoughts from professional police officers, criminologists, sociologists, and people who've studied policing around the world:
I take as given that we need the police and will need them so long as the human species remains recognizably human. For any population x, some percentage will be dangerous predators, and without the police, we'll all be the prey.
We need the police. In principle, everyone should feel grateful to the men and women who do the difficult and dangerous work of finding and apprehending predators and bringing them before a court of law.
Read 36 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
25 Nov
Could not more agree with you, @robert_zubrin.
Except in one matter: I don't know the details, so I'm open to being persuaded otherwise if the evidence suggests it, but I doubt the insistence that the trials involve more minority subjects was owed to "political correctness."
In the US, the disease *very* disproportionately kills people of African, indigenous, and Latin American heritage--and disproportionately spares those of Asian heritage. We have some very good, educated guesses about why:
Read 15 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
23 Nov
So on the form we all have to fill out when we leave our houses, explaining why we urgently need to go out--there are only a limited number of permissible reasons--this guy writes, "To smash someone's fucking face." lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/sur…
The cops nicked him. "He was told that the motive was not valid," said the police division commander, who noted that otherwise, he'd filled in the form correctly. The suspect was put in the drunk tank, from which he emerged with a fine of 135 euros for his improper motive--
--and another 150 euros for "public and manifest drunkenness."

He left with a properly filled out certificate, as a mode. "It was pointed out to him that 'going out to fuck someone up' is not a planned activity," said the commander.
Read 5 tweets

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