"It may be true that the Biden administration concluded we are defenseless to cyber terrorism despite years of ransomware attacks and hundreds of billions of dollars in cyber security programs."

"If that is the case, the public should be informed. The failure of Congress and our government to defend against such terror attacks is a national security failure of breathtaking proportions. The Colonial Pipeline attack was the cyber equivalent of Pearl Harbor. In both cases, we were caught unprepared and unable to deal with a threat we knew was coming. Yet, President Roosevelt did not issue a 'no comment' on the critical facts after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. Back then, we believed FDR when he stated in his first inauguration that 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' What the Biden administration seems to fear most is public recognition that it is afraid — afraid of the vulnerability of our infrastructure, afraid that the public will learn what cyber terrorists already know."

Writes Jonathan Turley in "Why the White House won't define pipeline attack as terrorism" (The Hill).

One way to fight — fake fight — terrorism is to withhold the label "terrorism" from the things you can't (or won't) fight. But it might be that the administration is doing what it can to fight what it realizes is terrorism, and what it's saying to us is simply propaganda. There's nothing we can do to help, and our fear of these attacks only makes matters worse. In that light, "no comment" is the mildest possible propaganda. There's nothing even to be deluded by. 

Why does Turley bring up the ancient propaganda "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"?! Calling something that we can't fight "terrorism" would be an effort to increase fear. It's simply wrong to say the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and it always was. If quelling fear is the only problem, then "no comment" is an admirable response.

"I’m terrified... Terrified, and I do not scare easily."

I'm reading the top-rated comment at the NYT article, "Hundreds of Epidemiologists Expected Mask-Wearing in Public for at Least a Year/The C.D.C. said Thursday that vaccinated Americans no longer needed masks in most places. Other disease experts recently had a different message: that masks were necessary in public." 

The NYT seems to be stimulating fear in reaction to the CDC announcement. The survey the headline refers to was taken before the CDC took its new position, so these epidemiologists — 723 of them — were, I suspect, passing along the party line. Did they do their own studies? Even if they did, do they study the costs of the restrictions or simply, endlessly default toward caution?

Here's the full comment: 

This is a horrible, horrifying decision. There’s no way to prove who’s vaccinated and who isn’t. People are going to lie about their status. We were out shopping today and my husband saw a woman wearing a mask that said “This mask is as useless as my Governor.” Does she seem trustworthy? Does she maybe seem like someone who’d doff her mask at the first chance, whether she’d been vaccinated or not, because she’s an imbecile and has no regard for the lives of others?

What difference does it make? If you know you're vaccinated and you believe vaccines work, you're fine without your mask, and only the unvaccinated are at risk. Why are you obsessing about the mind of a stranger?

That's a social/political relationship, and it's got nothing to do with the science of disease. Ironically, you're scoffing at her lack of adherence to science while you yourself veer away from science. I know social life and politics are more fun, but if you get your jollies from imposing physical restraints on other people, you need to look into your own heart.

The comment continues:

I think that it’s moronic to lift the ban until enough of the population has been vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. I’m including the under-18s in that. I had Covid last August and it has ripped my life apart. I’m terrified of the prospect of getting it again. Terrified, and I do not scare easily. Fewer masks and fewer precautions means more chances for the virus to mutate. We don’t know if the vaccines will protect us from mutations. I do not know what having Covid again would do to me, but I’ll tell you up front that permanent damage to my sense of smell would be ample reason for me to give serious consideration as to whether I still want to live.

Oh, &*%$ hell. I haven't had Covid, but I've lived with a seemingly permanent loss of the sense of smell for years. I don't go around saying it makes life not worth living! What crazy hysteria! And from a person who claims not to be easily scared. I guess it's all relative. Maybe this person lives in a truly timorous community. In the land of the raving hysterics, the terrified man is equanimous.

I can’t let go of the fear of what could happen to my loved ones. I’m stunned that the CDC has acted so irresponsibly.

Why not just say you're stunned to hear the new announcement? What is the basis for judging it to be irresponsible? You seem to be substituting your emotion for science. I know, though. This commenter can say he's relying on the NYT survey of 723 epidemiologists. I wonder if there's a term for the pseudoscience of surveying large groups of experts. 

A NYC woman wonders where that cold wind in her apartment is coming from... the bathroom... the mirror...

 A TikTok mystery — Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

WARNING: Somewhere in the dialogue — I think it's in Part 2 — they talk about the movie "Parasite" and reveal something that is a significant spoiler.

"Should older people with slightly above-normal blood sugar readings — a frequent occurrence since the pancreas produces less insulin in later life — be taking action..."

"... as the American Diabetes Association has urged? Or does labeling people prediabetic merely 'medicalize' a normal part of aging, creating needless anxiety for those already coping with multiple health problems?... Defenders of the emphasis on treating prediabetes, which is said to afflict one-third of the United States population, point out that first-line treatment involves learning healthy behaviors that more Americans should adopt anyway: weight loss, smoking cessation, exercise and healthy eating. 'I’ve had a number of patients diagnosed with prediabetes, and it’s what motivates them to change... They know what they should be doing, but they need something to kick them into gear.' Geriatricians tend to disagree. 'It’s unprofessional to mislead people, to motivate them by fear of something that’s not actually true.... We’re all tired of having things to be afraid of.'"

From "How Meaningful Is Prediabetes for Older Adults?/A new study indicates that the condition might be less of a worry than once believed" (NYT).

We're told not to take "defund the police" and "abolish the police" literally.

In this WaPo op-ed — "Defund the police? Here’s what that really means." — by Christy E. Lopez, who is a a Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Georgetown Law School where she co-directs the Innovative Policing Program. She tells us not to be "afraid" because it's "not as scary (or even as radical) as it sounds."

We turn to the police in situations where years of experience and common sense tell us that their involvement is unnecessary, and can make things worse. We ask police to take accident reports, respond to people who have overdosed and arrest, rather than cite, people who might have intentionally or not passed a counterfeit $20 bill. We call police to roust homeless people from corners and doorsteps, resolve verbal squabbles between family members and strangers alike, and arrest children for behavior that once would have been handled as a school disciplinary issue.

Police themselves often complain about having to “do too much,” including handling social problems for which they are ill-equipped. Some have been vocal about the need to decriminalize social problems and take police out of the equation. It is clear that we must reimagine the role they play in public safety. 

Defunding and abolition probably mean something different from what you are thinking. For most proponents, “defunding the police” does not mean zeroing out budgets for public safety, and police abolition does not mean that police will disappear overnight — or perhaps ever. Defunding the police means shrinking the scope of police responsibilities and shifting most of what government does to keep us safe to entities that are better equipped to meet that need. It means investing more in mental-health care and housing, and expanding the use of community mediation and violence interruption programs....

Why not use words that people can understand and that convey the meaning you want to put in our head? If your idea is so reasonable, why not use words that are effective in making people who care about peace and harmony agree with you?

Police abolition means reducing, with the vision of eventually eliminating, our reliance on policing to secure our public safety....

Now, that's just confusing! You said "reducing" but then you said "eliminating."

The “abolition” language is important because it reminds us that policing has been the primary vehicle for using violence to perpetuate the unjustified white control over the bodies and lives of black people that has been with us since slavery.

But the slavery abolition movement was not about reducing our reliance on slavery! Why take such an important word and undermine what it means? If you successfully "remind us" of the evils of slavery, you are making us think you are saying the police are an evil, like slavery, that must be entirely eradicated.