Idiocracy, indeed

Update:    And by the way, on a more serious note, why did this bit of thwarted Right wing terrorism get so little attention last week:

A man suspected of plotting to blow up a Missouri hospital and was killed in a shootout with FBI agents was apparently frustrated with local government action to stop the spread of coronavirus, the FBI said Wednesday.

Timothy Wilson, 36, died Tuesday in Belton, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City, after members of the FBI’s joint terrorism task force attempted to arrest him. The FBI says Wilson was the subject of a “months-long domestic terrorism investigation."

Meanwhile, in Australia, Sinclair Davidson is doing another bit of comic book inspired "take down the government" wankerism by re-heading Catallaxy as follows:

[Update:  see comments for apparent clarification.] 

I don't know why any politician gives him the time of day.

I had noticed this too...

What is it about Trump putting trust in long haired doctors?   It's very odd...

Update:  Slate has an article pointing out that this French doctor/researcher has a very, very dubious track record.   Also, is a climate change denier.    The "crank" element is high. 

Watching the goal posts shift

And this laughable Trump spin on how he's now being thanked for social isolation bringing families together!:

And over at Catallaxy, I continue to be amused at how keyboard warriors of the Right are bravely offering the sacrifice of anyone over 70 in the interests of keeping the economy ticking.   (Someone wittily tweeted last week that they wouldn't have guessed that it would be the conservative Right that would end up endorsing the social system of Logan's Run.)

And look at the pathetic goal post shifting that is going on.   CL posts with strong endorsement a Roger Kimball article (dated 28 March) which encapsulates the view that it's still an over-reaction, this economic shutdown.  Yet towards the end, he has to do some fessing up:

Over the past few weeks, I have been predicting a modest fatality rate from COVID-19. I began by predicting no more than a couple of hundred deaths and then upped my prediction to a 1,000-1,200. As of today, the number of deaths attributed to the virus is just over 2,000. So I was wrong about that. 

He then argues that maybe he wasn't really wrong - most of these deaths are old people who had other conditions.  [Groan]. 

But look at the basic goalpost shifting  -  his initial prediction was out by a factor of 10  - as of 28 March.    The number of deaths today? - close enough to 3,000.  [Update - over 3,000 now, according to the Worldometer count, which seems to update faster than WHO or other sites and is quoted by Kimball himself.]

At what point will these dimwits admit that their initial predictions were so embarrassingly wrong, people should ignore any and every thing they ever say about risk and science again?   At the "I was out by a factor of 100" stage? 1,000?   We will see.

Update:  Via The Onion, this story headline fits perfectly with a common view on the wingnut, Trump defending Right at Catallaxy and elsewhere:

Further downgrading warranted

I recently rubbished conservative Catholic Trump excuser Gray Connolly for his bad takes on many topics.

Today, I noticed that he recently went up to another level on the "pathetic" scale.  This is how it went:

Connolly went on to challenge Dale to put up the video, and he did.    There is no laughter to be heard, from journalists or otherwise.    

Connolly then, unbelievably, tweets this:

And then:

What an arrogant schmuck!

As someone says following:

And this:

Others point out that, even if you were to believe Trump was "joking" - that would be appalling in its own way.

Connolly is just a Trump excusing fool.  No doubt about it.

Go right ahead, libertarians

I've probably mentioned Topher Field only once before - the guy who has seemingly been funded (I would have to suspect by someone like Gina Rinehart via the IPA) to try to become a social media star running libertarian, anti-government, anti-regulation and "let's not worry about the environment" lines.   I see from his Youtube channel that he's been at it for more than 10 years, but it would seem hard to say "successfully" when the number of views he gets for a video now looks to be about a quarter (around 5,000) compared to what he used to get.  He has also bulked up - he looks (and sounds, now that I think of it) like a version of Benedict Cumberbatch who has let himself go even before he hit middle age.   

I find him very easy to ignore, but Sinclair Davidson still thinks he's worth listening to, apparently, and has posted his latest video in which Field fatuously offers to be infected with Covid-19, so as to help increase the herd immunity that will ultimately mean we can relax concerns about the virus.

Hey, given that libertarians are a serious menace to the future of the entire planet, who am I to object?  Is it too mean to say that I only wish more libertarians would give it a go? 

The broader point I want to make is that the libertarian line is to be upset that the government is taking economically harmful action when the data is not clear enough as to know with certainty how bad the problem really is.   This is very consistent with their malleable line on climate change - they first tried to convince everyone it was not happening at all, then moved towards conceding it might be happening but arguing you can afford to wait, until you know for sure how bad it is.  (Maybe it's even pretty good, some still try to argue.)

What they do not get, or wilfully ignore, is that the nature of some problems is that if you wait, there is no undoing the damage.   They are prepared to gamble on dire harm to the future of humanity because they value continuing economic growth so highly they try to convince everyone else to ignore well founded, scientifically based warnings that are dire for both the health of individuals and long term economic prospects of an entire planet.

In other words, they are foolish and try to spread their foolishness.   It's good they can't get their head on TV much lately.   Keep them in their internet enclaves, where they mainly just dumb each other down.

Speaking of tone deaf...

Chris Uhlmann, who I never considered the sharpest mind in journalism, was widely mocked on Twitter last week for praising himself for...not praising himself and his network about its Covid-19 coverage.  (He was ineptly having a go at his former ABC colleagues who were happy to see they were doing very well in internet hits for their coverage.  I think 7.30 might be rating well too, but I'm not sure.  Why he should resent the ABC doing simple self promotion and taking pride in the credibility with which it is perceived when it is under constant threat of more defunding under the current government, I have no idea.)

And today he is at it again:

It seems he positively wants to help prompt the defunding of the ABC.   As someone says in a follow up tweet:

Intense narcissism means having no comprehension of the phrase "tone deaf"

Must...post..about...something...else...

Let's get trivial, in this time of great upheaval, caused not by rioting in the streets, but people being stuck in their bedrooms.  I never expected the almost-end-of-Western-hegemony* to be quite like this.  But back to the trivial:

*  I can't decide which of these is the better "toilet care" product:

or

I've tried both.  Just can't make up my mind....

*  Watched the well reviewed (actually, I think overly well reviewed) Chinese movie Shadow on Netflix last night.   It's one of the most arthouse-y Chinese myth-historical martial arts-ish movies I've ever seen (not that I have seen many).   On the upside, it does have lovely, eye catching directorial compositions shot in greyscale (except for skin and blood), an argument conducted by zither (honestly), and an arcane plot which seems very unclear at first but does become more comprehensible as it goes on.  A lot of money spent on costumes and (perhaps) the very silly weaponry which shows up unexpectedly in the climatic fight.   Overall, it kept my attention and I would say I enjoyed it for its Chinese peculiarities as well as its looks.

I suggested to my son (who was less impressed with the film than I was - but he watched to the end) that the fist and palm salute as executed in the film does look pretty cool, and I was hoping that he would acknowledge my requests to do some chore or other around the house in that manner, for the next few days at least.   He has not complied.    But it's good for our current situation, no?

*  Good to know [sarc] that Kimmy has got his priorities right:

SEOUL: North Korea fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Sunday (Mar 29), the fourthsuchlaunch this month

*  It's always hard to tell how much of Richard Ayoade's persona on TV is a kind of performance art, but I thought he was entertaining and somewhat charming in this recent chat show appearance.   (I've never heard of this Norwegian host before, but I see he has been around a long time):



By the way, the grey haired guy sitting in on that chat show is Boris Johnson's Dad - I haven't watched the clip of the interview with him yet, but it is on the Youtube channel as well.

*  I am exaggerating to amuse myself.  I hope.

About those Dr Birx comments

So, that Deborah Birx gave some surprisingly Trumpian sounding "I wish the media would stop scaring everyone without foundation" comments about Covid-19 (and hospitals being all A-OK with plenty of ventilators), which I thought sounded suss.

And here on Twitter is a carefully worded critique (in a thread starting here) of what she said, by one of the epidemiologists whose work she was apparently referencing, which indicates that scepticism of her reassurances is quite justified.

Will the conservative media, and Catallaxy fools, who immediately celebrated her as a realist hero tramping all over the liberal media, ever bother reading Lipsitch's comments?   I doubt it.

Update:   Yes, no one sensible thinks she has credibility any more.

More tweets worth noting

Yes, I had been intending to make the same point.  Steve Kates, for example, does not believe that Y2K was a serious software issue on which lots of time, effort and money was necessarily expended to ensure a crisis didn't happen.

Oh, and now that I look, I see that CL is already claiming this, because a UK expert is saying that the deaths in total could be on the low side because of the tough lockdown the country has been prepared to enforce.

CL, who craps on routinely about how shameful it is that too many old people end up in nursing homes (instead of at home, presumably being cared for by all the women he resents for having a job instead of being a housewife) has come out all in favour of the the Trumpian/conservative line "you know, these old people were going to die anyway, let's not worry too much about it":

Then there are my fellow Catholics, a number of whom seem to believe the right to life – which is the right not to be killed – means no-one can be “allowed” to die at any cost. This is both childish and theological nonsense. Society and the economy cannot be “shut down.” This isn’t a Ferris wheel. If that’s the putative solution, then there is no current “solution” – except patience, charity, cleanliness and protection of the vulnerable. That is the best we can do. 

The Trump supporting conservative (especially a Catholic one) is the most ridiculous, inconsistent, morally offensive and intellectually vacuous thing I have ever seen in my lifetime.

Next: 

Yes, been seen at Catallaxy, too.

I trust Steve Kates is pleased that Trump gives out press credentials to such outlets.  (He is Jewish, apparently.   And living proof that you can't stereotype all Jews as intellectually sharp.)

Yes, I think this is likely, too.

Finally!

So, the Queensland government finally does what I have been saying they should:

Queensland schools will be 'student-free' from next week amid coronavirus pandemic, Premier announces

...The Premier said the decision to make schools student-free from Monday would give teachers a chance to prepare learning materials and get training in online teaching.

 And how about this for an unfortunate Coronavirus situation:

A Peruvian hostel full of international travellers, including at least one Australian, has been put under strict lockdown for up to three months after two guests tested positive for coronavirus.

The street surrounding the Pariwana Hostel in Cusco has been barricaded by local authorities, while the 146 guests and staff were informed that they could face up to 10 years in prison if they leave the property while the quarantine orders are in place.

Look at the accommodation they are stuck in:

Is Mark self isolating with a few bottles of red, or something?

How does Latham's tweet make any sense at all?:

I am amused, however, by one of the tweets following which notes that at least he's found his place in One Neuron.

How true

Today's thoughts on you-know-what (and sorry if my talking about schools is getting tedious)

*  I thought that Scott Morrison last night was sounding reasonably good in his press conference of new restrictions, with little smirking to be seen;  but it sort of fell apart yet again when it came to how he can't make "schools to remain open" sound logically consistent with things like "we are so worried about people being too close together in a food court, they can't sit down in one."   

I don't care how many times Homer tells me in comments that his wife works at some (very unique, I reckon) school in which no teachers are scared of catching it from a student, and they all have no problem keeping 1.5m away from every single student every single minute of the day:   my daughter tells me student numbers at her high school are down to less than half anyway, and the teachers that are turning up (some are not!) aren't really trying to teach those students who are there.    I got a letter today from the school saying "yeah, we know this is really hard, but we aren't set up for online teaching, and the Year 12 assessment times are set in concrete and just have to start going ahead next week anyway.   Good luck everybody!". 

My brain does not understand why this is so difficult to deal with:   an abrupt move to students learning at home is not going to be a success, so just close at least all high schools for a month now (adding two weeks to the Easter holiday) to let the schools work out how best to deal with "at home" schooling, and whether it is really needed after after a month at all.   (It probably won't be, is my guess.)  The date for assessments are pushed out, and students get two weeks less holiday later in the year.  

If Victoria can manage this, why can't other states?  There are presumably administrative reasons of which I am unaware, but this situation requires a new found flexibility, surely.

I do think that Morrison talking as if once you close a school down, for 2 weeks extra, you can never recover from it for the rest of the year (not to mention his suggestion that they might stay closed for 6 months), shows a remarkable lack of flexibility.

As for primary schools:  an extended holiday now may help, except that those essential services parents who cannot look after the kids suddenly should be able to leave them at schools that perform more of a child minding service.  Maybe it would be 1/5 of the normal students, with a similar reduction in staff needed to look after them.  

*  There is reason to think, based on a couple of things I have read today (like these comments by Peter Doherty) that the sudden strong action which we are having may succeed in never letting this problem get out of hand in the hospitals.   I feel talk of closing down anything for 6 months may be unnecessarily alarmist.

*  Conflict between doctors and experts as to future progress of the problem continues apace - it's interesting how difficult this problem is for experts as well as lay people.

Can someone just blow up Fox News and do the USA, and the world, a favour?

How appalling:

The Fox News whipsaw on coronavirus: In another swerve, hosts push Trump to abandon shutdown 

   

RMIT must be so proud

Steve Kates at Catallaxy, today:

It’s the flu and it’s on the way to containment. It looks like a relative handful will unfortunately die, but its not the Andromeda Strain either.

Just shows the quality of Associate Professors at that institution...

Various thoughts

*   Fran Kelly on Radio National Breakfast this morning was broadcasting from her living room, and I had no idea until she said so.  The audio quality was exactly the same. 

My thought:  if too many businesses find they can get things done just as well if key employees work from home, is the commercial real estate market going to come out as the long term loser as a result of coronavirus?   I mean, it already seemed clear that too much new floorspace has been built in the last decade or so for retail, with shopping centres gradually emptying.   Is the same going to become clear for office space now too?   I think all funds which invest in commercial real estate ought to be having a very serious re-consideration.

*  So, as I expected, the Teachers Union has had to step in to tell at least the Queensland government to just close the schools now (for a month long break).   My daughter tells me that there are a lot of students not coming to school.   She also tells me about some teachers who are spraying disinfectant with wild abandon around their classroom.

*  Is there an actual personality disorder for people who fall in love with fascist authoritarian figures but can't recognise what fascistic authoritarianism looks like?   If so, Steve Kates has it.  In a ridiculous paranoid post a couple of days ago, he got mightily offended by Dr Fauci correcting Dear Leader Trump, who obviously is the wisest man in any room:

Every time I see the face of Dr Fauci while telling us about Corona Virus I realise how much he must have had a bollocking from the President since from the start I was aware of what a complete lying incompetent he was....

The one thing you may be sure of is that he was “muzzled” in the sense that he was told in no uncertain terms that he is an untrustworthy dimwit and if he doesn’t work within the team, he will be out on his ear. The Deep State is your enemy. You can see it in the way the media will say not an unkind word about the Chinese origins of the CV. In fact, all they do is rant on themselves about the so-called racism of saying that a virus that originated in China originated in China. If you can’t say something negative about the President, don’t say it at all is the policy.

 * In one rare case of outlets on either side of the political divide agreeing, I have seen both Right and Left-ish opinion pieces saying "Washington, don't you dare bail out the cruise line industry".   I think that's right.   I mean, it's not as if the sparkling new-ish mega ships are going to be immediately sent to be cut up into scrap on that beach (in India?) if the head company goes bankrupt, surely?    There would just be a re-arrangement of assets and, given its likely continued popularity once coronavirus has run its course, the industry will be fully back within a couple of years.  I would think.  Yet Dear Leader is keen to help them, apparently.

 

Late Movie review - Us

I'm having trouble tracking down my review of Jordan Peele's first big success - Get Out.   I'm pretty sure I said it was good, up to the point of the explanation of what was going on, which was lifted from C grade 1950's science fiction.   And I was a little perturbed about the relish with which the righteous black guy got to violently attack the evil white people.

I am sad to report that pretty much the exact same things can be said about Us.  He's a good director of well made, well acted films based on his own really bad ideas for films.   The explanation for what is happening in this one seemed to me even more ludicrous than that in Get Out.  I thought it may have been inspired by a nightmarish dream, perhaps after watching a Twilight Zone episode.

My son commented that it seemed obvious that it was intended to have a deeper meaning:  some sort of critique of American society, but it's hard seeing what it is.  I think it may be a case of an appearance of depth that is not really there.

I would like Peele to direct something he doesn't write, and which ultimately makes more sense.

To state the obvious - the Australian response to Covid 19 is pretty confusing

Everyone else is talking about it, so why not me?:

*  on schools (again):   it seems that the Commonwealth tried to get the States to agree on a consistent approach, but failed.  My daughter is in year 12, and I regularly also chat to a State school primary school teacher of Year 1.  From these sources, I have a fair idea that teachers are not happy and are fearful of catching it from their students.  Queensland teachers were expecting the Easter holidays to be extended and brought forward, allowing a month long break.   Now we are having a "going to school is not compulsory, but schools are open, and if you are in one State they would like you to go to school, but in another they would prefer you stay at home" mishmash, all (presumably) with students still having to sit exams and submit assessments whether or not their parent lets them go to school.  

Morrison talked as if closing down schools might mean they can't reopen for, say, 6 months, and so all kids would lose a full year of school.   But of course that's not a necessary outcome.   I would ahve thought that re-arranging holidays this year allows the schools to get better prepared for both:

a.  dealing with prevention in schools assuming they can continue after a month break (allowing classrooms to be re-arranged for distancing, building up a pile of soap, paper towels and hand sanitisers, detailing compulsory sanitation measures before classes, maybe even getting thermometers to allow student's temperatures to be taken) and

b.  preparing for the potential need to fully close them to but allow for on line education to continue, even if at a reduced intensity compared to normal schooling.

And, as with other countries, you could also make it clear that those parents whose jobs simply do not allow for day time care of younger students, the schools will always be available to provide that service.

This would have made a lot more sense, if you ask me, compared to the weird sort of mishmash we now have.

*  the financial response - I don't understand enough about it to have a strong opinion one way or another.   Significant parts of it don't make obvious sense to me.

*  closing down of cafes, pubs and cinemas, etc.   Perhaps this needs more emphasis on a successful outcome meaning they can re-open, perhaps with limitations, in a (say) a month's time.   I think part of the dismay about it is that the overall impression left is that the shutdown will likely be for months, not weeks.

A bunch of tweets I liked

Consistency was never Tony's strong point

Getting more dubious by the day

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy has joined Mr Morrison at the media conference and he has confirmed schools are staying open under these measures, for these reasons:

"I think it is really important to recognise that, as we've said before, we think the risk to children with this virus is very low. Only 2.4% of all the cases in China in Hubei Province were under 19, and there have been very, very few significant cases. Obviously we do have some concerns that children may have a role in transmission but most children who have seemed to have got the virus have got it from adults as you've seen in this case. We think keeping children at home when there is relatively no community spread is probably disproportionate given they probably won't stay at home anyway. They may be cared for by elderly parents. There may be circumstances where there are outbreaks in an area where we do need to close schools for a period of time. Our strategy for the next six months is to keep schools open and we think that risk is appropriate."

Sorry, but I am sceptical of this advice, given that:

a. other countries and states are obviously not closing their schools without having their own medical advice that it's a worthwhile thing to do;

b.  the advice from the same CMO  keeps getting tougher on the recommended social distancing, it seems a bit nonsensical to say that the age group most notorious for having little "personal space" are to stay in the place where they are going to rub up against maximum numbers of people;

c. "...they probably won't stay at home anyway..."  seems just a bit of guesswork, no?

d.  as I argued yesterday, why not differentiate between high schools and primary schools:  it doesn't have to be "all or nothing";

e.  this advice is being given on the same day a student caught Covid-19 from a teacher in Adelaide.   Are the State government immune from legal action by parents who kids catch it from teachers?   I have my doubts.   And, of course, transmission the other way is quite possible, too.

I don't know - I think the Teachers Unions might have to take this on....

What it's like travelling to Beijing at the moment

A European guy has explained on twitter what it was like travelling back to Beijing at the moment.  You can read the whole thing threaded together here. 

It's pretty interesting.   Gray Connolly would probably complain it's too sympathetic to the Chinese, who are our enemy after all and started this whole mess, etc, etc.   But it's hard to imagine America under Trump running posters like this:

The Trump equivalent would be:  

"Don't let the Chinese virus spread"

"President Trump is on top of this"

"Don't trust the fake news media - it will be over soon"

Some anti-vaping speculation

I see that the Washington Post is reporting:

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis of U.S. cases from Feb. 12 to March 16 released Wednesday shows 38 percent of those sick enough to be hospitalized were younger than 55.

The report also notes that in parts of Europe, a lot of younger folk are requiring hospitalisation.

I wonder - will any researched in America be looking in future at a relationship between vaping and hospital admissions for Covid-19   I would not be surprised if vapers are over-represented in hospital admissions. 

So long, Tulsi

Vox has a good explanation of the controversial Presidential run of the rather strange Tulsi Gabbard.   Seems pretty fair to me in its criticisms.

The stupid conservativism of Gray Connolly

Jason Soon seems unduly enamoured of conservative Daily Telegraph columnist Gray Connolly, if the number of times he re-tweets him is any guide.

Being a conservative Catholic, Connolly has a soft spot for Donald Trump.   He is, for example, defending Trump's deliberate and childish continuation of calling Covid-19 the "Chinese virus".   Never mind that this virtually guarantees Trump wingnuts will continue abusing Asian Americans on the street for infecting their nation.

I was reminded on Twitter that George Bush after 9-11 went to a mosque within 6 days of the attack - but this was in the day when Republican presidents were not narcissistic emotional cripples whose appeal to the base was, from the very start, based in large part on drumming up fear of foreigners.

Basically, if you're a Catholic who isn't repulsed by this aspect of the Trump presidency, you're not following your Church's teaching and you are an embarrassment to your religion.

Next up:  Connolly doesn't like it that there are some doctors questioning the medical advice coming from the Australian government's CMO:

Being a conservative of military background (I think), he yearns for strong compliance with whatever the top says:

The problem is that, as I showed in yesterday's post about school closures, anyone can see (based on widely available credible material - not just what Twitter armchair "experts" are saying) that there is clear conflict between international experts on the details of a "best" policy response to this medical crisis.   And we also know that responses have consequences beyond the mere medical - obviously governments worry about the economic effects of (some) parents having to stay home to look after kids out of school.

Of course it is possible that the CMO could be giving questionable advice, and I think it is just a foolish version of conservatism to tell people that, in a field like this, there is only one expert who has to be given credence.   (And no - any smartarse reading this who thinks I should take the same line on climate change - there is no credible contrary opinion on the fact that it is real and requires urgent attention.   There is room for discussion as to the best policy response, though.)

Third of this tour of Stupid Takes of Connolly:   he tweeted this -

Again, any conservative who thinks they are smart yet cannot see the danger in the way Trump deals with all media criticism is just foolish and an embarrassment to what used to be intelligent conservatism.

A President who operates by teaching his base to disbelieve any and all news outlets that are critical of him because to do so is ipso facto proof that they are corrupt and out to get him - that is a "danger to the republic" - assuming, of course, that you want the republic to be one that is based on a democracy that has a concept of objective truth that is not dependent on what the Dear Leader tells them to believe (as endorsed by his de facto State media known as Fox News.)

For a conservative with a military background, Connolly seemingly has no interest whatsoever in the propaganda techniques and habits of authoritarian regimes.

That's all for now.

Oh look - another article on Singaporean Covid-19 success

At New Daily, they talk about the widespread body temperature scanning used in Singapore:

In the Asian city-state, anyone entering a public building, including offices or shopping centres, must first have their temperatures scanned at the doors.

Melbourne lawyer Henry Carlson, who is living in Singapore, said the devices looked like a remote control.

“They point it at your forehead, like a laser, then they click it and it shows your temperature,” Mr Carlson told The New Daily. 

If a person’s temperature is normal, they are given a sticker to wear that indicates they are healthy, he said.

If not, they must sit on an ‘isolation chair’ while they cool down.

If they fail again, they are refused entry and must go home.

And it’s not just happening in public buildings – waiters have been spotted with scan guns, too.

“I went for a burger and beers on Friday with some mates when one of the waiters came around with a temperature scanner,” Mr Carlson said.

“They scanned my forehead just as I was about to order.”

Gosh.   Can you imagine some Australia hot heads (a pun) accepting a waiter telling them they need to leave because their temperature is too high?  

And if people are isolated at home in Singapore, how do they check up on them?:

Smart technology is also being used to monitor people who have been ordered to stay home in self-isolation for 14 days.

At-risk or infected people who are meant to be staying at home receive a text message or phone call at various times during the day asking for a photo or GPS update of their location.

Fantastic.   I wonder if Singapore has legislative cover for this, or do they just assume cultural compliance?   (I suspect the former.)  

And how much are these infra red body thermometers, which I think teachers here should be using on their kids?   It appears you can get a good one for about $100 (although ebay has some at the suss price of under $10!).

The political lesson of Singapore would seem to be this - you can have a safe, functioning society that deals quickly and efficiency with novel viral threats, but not if you're in one which puts libertarian principles on a pedestal above safety.   

Libertarians are a menace to society.

A (former?) Republican regrets...

This guy, apparently a Republican Party insider, has a book coming out which is a mea culpa for the  state of the party.  From a Washington Post column:

Long before Trump, the Republican Party adopted as a key article of faith that more government was bad. We worked overtime to squeeze it and shrink it, to drown it in the bathtub, as anti-tax activist Grover Norquist liked to say. But somewhere along the way, it became, “all government is bad.” Now we are in a crisis that can be solved only by massive government intervention. That’s awkward.

Next, somehow, the party of idealistic Teddy Roosevelt, pragmatic Bob Dole and heroic John McCain became anti-intellectual, by which I mean, almost reflexively opposed to knowledge and expertise. We began to distrust the experts and put faith in, well, quackery. It was 2013 when former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal said the Republican Party “must stop being the stupid party.” By 2016, the party had embraced as its nominee a reality-TV host who later suggested that perhaps the noise from windmills causes cancer.

The Republican Party has gone from admiring William F. Buckley Jr., an Ivy League intellectual, to viewing higher education as a left-wing conspiracy to indoctrinate the young. In retribution, we started defunding education. Never mind that Republican leaders are among the most highly educated on the planet; it’s just that they now feel compelled to embrace ignorance as a cost of doing business. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, as an example, denounces “coastal elites” while holding degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Law School and having served as a Supreme Court clerk.

The GOP’s relationship with science has resembled some kind of Frankenstein experiment: Let’s see what happens when we play with the chemistry set! Conservatives have spent years trying to cut funds for basic science and research, lamenting government seed money for nearly every budding technology and then hoping for the best. In the weeks ahead, it’s not some fiery, anti-Washington populist with an XM radio gig who is going to save folks’ lives; it is more likely to be someone who has been studying this stuff for decades, almost certainly at some point with federal help or outright patronage.

Finally, there is the populist GOP distrust and dislike of the other, the foreign. Yes, it is annoying that the Chinese didn’t come clean and explain everything to us from the start. But it appears that a Swiss company is helping to jump-start us in testing; and it is a German company that American officials reportedly tried to lure to the United States recently to help develop a vaccine for the virus. We talk about how we need to be independent even as we do all kinds of things that prove we aren’t.

This needs to be posted at Catallaxy

I just want to see the frenzy of spittle spraying outrage this would cause there (although it's not as if they need any provocation, really, the dimwits):

Accurate analysis

Let me be the expert

Clearly, there is conflict over whether school closures to slow down an epidemic are worth it.   At least one expert has said he strongly disagrees with our Chief Medical Officer Brendon Murphy's decision that it is too early to close them.

Apparently, the American CDC (which has dubious credibility under Trump) argues that it could be more dangerous to close schools than keep them open, because the rampaging students on the streets could help spread it throughout society.  This concern indicates a lack of knowledge of the behaviour of modern children.  As explained on Twitter:

Now, I have to admit, if you are talking young primary school children, and there is no way you can get a healthy, younger adult to babysit them, there would be a risk of the foolhardy grandparents who offer to do the job catching it from the (quite possibly) asymptomatic grandkids.   But, as I was saying to someone trying to work yesterday, when I were a lad, being left home alone for a few hours was not a very controversial thing once you were aged about 7 or 8.   In Western countries (not so much in Asia, where they positively like sending kids out on the street from an early age to teach them independence and common sense) we have become too scared of leaving them alone anywhere.    So a lot of primary school kids should be able to be left home alone.

But back to the evidence  - this interview in Science about how and when to close schools is really good, and makes a strong case for pre-emptive closures to slow it all down:

Q: How about proactive school closures, before there are any infections associated with a school? Are they helpful?

A: Proactive school closures—closing schools before there’s a case there—have been shown to be one of the most powerful nonpharmaceutical interventions that we can deploy. Proactive school closures work like reactive school closures not just because they get the children, the little vectors, removed from circulation. It’s not just about keeping the kids safe. It’s keeping the whole community safe. When you close the schools, you reduce the mixing of the adults—parents dropping off at the school, the teachers being present. When you close the schools, you effectively require the parents to stay home.

There was a wonderful paper published that analyzed data regarding the Spanish flu in 1918, examining proactive versus reactive school closures. When did [regional] authorities close the schools relative to when the epidemic was spiking? What they found was that proactive school closing saved substantial numbers of lives. St. Louis closed the schools about a day in advance of the epidemic spiking, for 143 days. Pittsburgh closed 7 days after the peak and only for 53 days. And the death rate for the epidemic in St. Louis was roughly one-third as high as in Pittsburgh. These things work.

The simple suggestion as to when to close?:

Q: How should jurisdictions decide when to pursue a proactive closing?

A: How many cases are there in the region? And what is the epidemiologically relevant region? If you’re in a mid-sized town you might say, as soon as there’s a community-acquired case in my town, whether it’s in my school or not, I’m closing my school.

 There is also this good point:

Q: Are there social distancing efforts short of closing schools, especially if there are no cases associated with a particular school? For example, canceling big events that bring together lots of families?

A: Yes, I’m so glad you mentioned that. We don’t have to have an all-or-nothing policy. We can have intermediate steps. For example, why not allow families who want to keep their kids home keep them home? Why not cancel all activities, like sporting events and musical performances that have large groups present?

So, my "how hard it is to be an expert? I've studied this for the last hour" approach is to recommend intermediate steps, as I already proposed a day or two ago, as follows:

a.   Close down the secondary schools in nearly all of Australia now.   No one going to a secondary school has to be babysat at home, so it won't stop any whose parents are nurses or health care workers from doing their job.    Those parents who can work from home should, and supervise that their teenage kids are actually doing something about being glued to their phone in their room all day.  

b.   For now, leave primary schools open, but institute mandatory temperature taking, amending legislation to do so if  necessary.  (I was told by a primary school teacher that they are not allowed to take a child's temperature!)     This is how Singapore kept their schools open.   And it is why it is a bit
spurious of any expert to be using Singapore as an example of a successful virus containment country which did not close all schools if we cannot do the same things in the school here.   Kids with a temperature are sent home to be kept there in quarantine.   Employers will have to cope with the reduction in employees who have no choice but to stay at home with their under 8 year olds.

See, I've got it all worked out.

Update:  from someone else at Twitter:

The appalling shamelessness of Fox News

Their role:  defend Trump, on whatever his take is on the day, with no regard for consistency with what he said the day before.   Exactly the same as what State media must do in authoritarian regimes, but Trump gets the treatment for free.  Thanks, Rupert. 

Things people panic buy

As many people have said, from last weekend, the panic buying expanded from mere toilet paper, pasta, pasta sauce, rice and disinfectants into meat and produce.   Hence, my local Coles is (as of today) still short of most meats and sold out of all chicken (and eggs).   (As others have said, surely fridge and freezer capacity is at its limits now?  People can't keep buying meat to last a month, can they?)

But I was curious as to the things that were still in plentiful supply:  dairy products being a key one.  It seems nothing will persuade people to buy much more yoghurt, butter and cheese, and the range of ready made dips were in plentiful supply too.  These are high calorie, filling foods, mostly with a good "shelf" life in the fridge too - but people don't seem to want to buy it. 

The vegan section still has quite a lot - no one is touching the fake chicken and Quorn is still available. 

The fruit and vegies got re-supplied overnight, although there was not much broccoli - it's probably gone.  

In other oddities - bleach sold out early in this panic period.  What are people doing with it? 

And now for a joke:

An explanation of sorts

I watched about half an hour of the ABC documentary Revelation, about priests convicted of paedophile offences, but didn't really feel like persisting in hearing the sordid stories.

But it was at least interesting for the (obviously controversial) explanation given by self confessed sex abuser of (from memory) 30 odd boys of age range 7 to 17?, Vincent Ryan,  as to why he did it:

“As far as I was concerned, I was in a relationship. I was getting the love and the human touch and belonging.”

To his credit, Ryan fully admits that this is something appalling for him to have believed at the time, and he understands people getting upset at hearing it.   (I don't think there is much risk that it works as a mitigating factor as far as the courts are concerned - he did serve 14 years in prison.)   But I don't see why we should disbelieve him - it is consistent with what I am sure some researchers of clerical child abuse have said about the inherent loneliness of the enforced celibate life being a recurring factor.  

It supports the view, which I think just has a lot of common sense about it, that relaxing celibacy rules for the priesthood would be a healthy thing to do for their emotional lives, and as a consequence, is likely to reduce inappropriate (and, obviously, in some cases, outright criminal) breaches of the rules which many of them cannot live up to.

Update:  here we go, a researcher into the Irish clerical abuse situation gave some evidence to the Royal Commission supports which what I said - 

To be sure, the men knew they could call children at will from classrooms or other venues and that the child would have no option but to come. However, at the level of the sexual and the emotional, their narratives paradoxically indicate that they saw children and young people as potential “friends” and “equals.” In a manner that might be difficult for many adults to comprehend, the clerical perpetrators did not countenance adequately the power imbalances that were involved in their “relationships” and “friendships” with children and young people. Their principal preoccupation was one of personal and individualised inner conflict and distress, mainly related to celibacy, sexuality and inner emotional turmoil and frustration. Many of the men did not feel powerful, despite the power positions they occupied in the communities in which they worked and in the minds of the Irish laity.

It does not appear to be the case that the abuse perpetrated by these men was about gaining power over the victims in order to feel powerful. Rather, their abusive behaviour was more likely to have its genesis in other factors: their interpretation of “friendship”; their blindness to their power position in Irish society, especially in the sexual, emotional and moral sphere; their preoccupation with Church rules and regulations; their fear of Church leaders and those in authority; their lack of empathy to childhood sexual vulnerability; and their own sexual and emotional immaturity and loneliness.  

A little bit about personal cleanliness in history

This short interview of an author of a book on personal hygiene tells us some stuff we have heard before:

The book is a history of personal hygiene in the West from the 17th century to the recent past. It’s about how people have thought about their bodies and treated their bodies. 

In the 17th century, people didn’t have baths regularly. They thought that to be clean, it was enough to change their underwear and wash their underwear frequently. 

The first person I mention in the book is Louis XIV of France, who had two baths in his adult lifetime. They were both for medicinal reasons. He had headaches and his doctors recommended baths. It didn’t work to cure the headaches, so he lived another half century and never bathed again.

but this little detail about the underwear issue was new to me:

That takes the argument back to the 17th century: People appeared to be clean by wearing clean underwear that showed over their outer clothes through collars and cuffs. If you look at Dutch art, one of those marvelous Franz Hals portraits or really any other Dutch artist in the 17th century, you’ll see these people who are very somberly dressed. But they all have something white coming out over the tops of their outer garments: a collar, a cuff. There are often slashes in the outer garments that reveal white clothes next to the skin. 

What these people were doing were displaying their cleanliness. They were differentiating themselves from the poor, who in some cases didn’t wear a second layer of clothing and in other cases couldn’t afford to wash their underclothes. It was a social statement of a different time, one of social differentiation rather than social inclusion. But right now, we clean ourselves to make a statement of social inclusion. We’re making ourselves agreeable to each other.

For those feeling corona-ed out...

...here's a photo from yesterday of our doggo:

Still clueless

I find it hard to believe, but Catallaxy is still running posts from Currency Lad relaying American conservative scepticism that Covid-19 is a really serious issue. 

Ironically, CL, who likes to remind us that he is a smoker (it was a thing 1950's men did, so of course he does), is by virtue of that a person more likely to be at risk of serious consequences if he catches it.

Clearly, until they know a few prominent Right wing figures who get really ill from it, they just won't believe it's a problem.   Italy doesn't convince them.   Of course, other Europeans shutting down to slow its spread just makes them think it's another European socialist plot.

They are - it is impossible to repeat this often enough to match the reality - really stupid.

Update:   This is what the Right is really getting hyped about - that Covid-19 means the West is suddenly going to say "hey, we're going to pull out of getting stuff made in China, because - Communists did this".   Again, the dumb arse of CL:

Australia is a country with fresh air to spare and if we want ourselves and future generations to go on breathing it, we have to learn from this crisis. We have to stop wasting billions on the ‘climate change’ hoax and comparably idiotic extravagances of the phony moral kind and man up. By which I mean, tool up. China has been indulged as a clumsy but incrementally improving boofhead for too long. It is, in fact, a state founded on communist terrorism, built on mass murder and dedicated to global chaos. We have re-build industries and economies that quarantine us from the party (not the people). Not absolutely. Autarky works for a ‘flu-stricken person in self-isolation but not for a country. But we have to do better than this. If we’re on a war footing, let’s fight to win.

Yet, the Communists seem to have shut down their viral problem pretty effectively.  It's the Freedom loving Trumpkins who had trouble coming to grips with it.

Australia's Covid-19 response isn't impressing me all that much...

We may be doing better than the US in our response, and to be honest, I haven't put my attention on the matter of the UK response in any detail, but I can't say that I am overly impressed with the Australian response.   In particular:

a.   a key feature of the response in the countries that are considered to have been successful in containment (Singapore, South Korea, and even China) seems to have been the widespread use of temperature testing.   From what I can gather, the average person going about their day in Singapore would have been tested on entering buildings at least a couple of times a day.  In Australia, lots of people are saying that airports, or at least Brisbane International, have not been testing anyone in any fashion.  It's all down to an honour system.

What does Australia have against widespread temperature testing?

b.  I have also had the impression that there are not really enough testing kits.

c.  I don't really understand why at least high schools cannot close down, as students of that age should be able to stay at home safely and without supervision.  Also, even if "live" classes are a challenge to organise, cannot teachers record video to email out (or make available on a school website) to guide students as to what they need to be studying in their absence?

d.  The PM's "not so serious/it is serious" response has been a bit Trump-lite, but just slightly ahead of the Trump response.

e.   The government response to panic buying has been poor.   It might not be something the government can stop, I guess, but they aren't really trying hard to get the message across that if neighbours and relatives just help each other with trips to the shop for those facing isolation, there is no way urban residents are going to starve to death in their own homes.  

Donald Trump is the counter-example

An article at the BBC:  Why we get nicer as we get older.

(Actually, that's the link heading at the BBC News website, but the article itself is headed "How your personality changes as you age".)

Remember this woman?

Remember my post last week about this complete and utter Trump flunky outraged at "the left" saying that Trump needed to stop holding rallies because of coronavirus?   Here she is, less than a week later:

Well, that's weird...

....an article at The Conversation in which a group of Western academics defend the Chinese practice of snake farming (for food.)

No.  I reckon the one thing they don't factor in is this:  we should want Chinese and Asian people to stop believing that specific animals have specific beneficial medical effects if eaten.   Encouraging eating snakes (which are considered one of the traditional medicine animals) only encourages them to yearn to eat other animals which are endangered or, for disease vector reasons, best left alone.

Yes, so much for biggest populist reason for Brexit

A rotten Army culture

Tonight's 4 Corners story on the war crime incidents involving the SAS in Afghanistan was a devastating indictment of a rotten culture within the "elite" end of our Army, and it's unfortunate that it probably won't get the publicity it deserves due to the Covid-19 concerns. 

You would have to be a Catallaxy level idiot not to see a huge problem with the way some members of the SAS were operating, and how others were letting it slide, as well as how the Army could initially credulously accept version of events which let them label a killing as self defence.   I mean, there was even audio of other SAS members saying they knew that what one of their guys was doing was wrong and he was crazy to let anyone else see it happen.    They also knew it was counter-productive to winning the PR war with the locals.  


I know it's true that the Army - and the SAS in particular - gets to experience the worst of wars by being so "up close and personal" with the death and destruction.  But I also found years ago, from personal experience, that Army officers generally were easily the most "up themselves" of any in the ADF,  with a somewhat obnoxious belief in their being the only really "serious" arm of defence.  It doesn't surprise me that they would be the service with the biggest cultural inclination to excuse themselves of criminality.

A major reckoning is coming - and is well overdue.

Update:  took him a while, but Catallaxy level idiot CL weighs in with a post which is essentially a complaint about how dare the ABC expose a likely war crime.   I doubt he actually watched the 4 Corners program itself, which makes clear the whole internal culture issue, and I also have no doubt he has no personal experience of the defence force.   Just a culture war idiot whining.

Update 2:  read the comments following the thread, and how patently obvious all (or nearly all) have not watched the ABC program in question.   (One points out he hasn't watched 4 Corners since 1997!  Another claims that you just can't trust anything the ABC says, clearly ignorant of the fact that she  can watch the video killing with her own eyes!) 

CL himself, displaying his routine level of ignorance and supposition, opines:

I assume the man was shot because it was a very hot op, he was considered a spotter/combatant and they couldn’t wait around for MPs to arrive. Being tied up with him for any length of time may also have made them sitting ducks.

They deliberately stay ignorant, but are sure that it must all be a beat up anyway.  Because ABC. 

A useful recommendation

I read this on the weekend on Twitter, but here it is written up in The Guardian:  the Europeans think it is safer to take paracetamol if you think you may have caught Covid-19; rather than ibuprofen or aspirin. 

Coronavirus humour

I thought this was amusing:

[For those who need guidance:  it's the house in Parasite.  You would need to watch the movie to know why that's funny.]