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.]

The continuing crisis (not Covid-19)

I mentioned last week that I had liked parts of an esoteric book by DT Suzuki about Swedenborg.  Actually, it was mainly the translator's introduction, which gave a short account of the cultural concern in Japan in the early 20th century, as the nation came to the end of the Meiji era with its rapid industrialisation and social changes.

I thought it serves as a good reminder that:

a.  worrying about cultural and social change, as is common in the Western world today, is something that has been around a long time, and is shared by countries that don't have a Christian background.  (I generally like to think that the increasing number of atheists and agnostics in the West is a long lingering effect of the scientific revolution of Darwin, and the discovery of the vast age and size of the universe - remembering that the very nature of galaxies was only realised less than 100 years ago - but Eastern nations whose religion did not carry a key creation creation story had the same social worries); and/or

b. maybe at every period in history, people worry that things are changing for the worse and that they are in the midst of cultural or societal degradation of one kind or another.

Anyway, at the risk of upsetting a publisher, I am just going to cut and paste some relevant pages, and sorry about the size difference (I might try to fix this up later):

There's a gap now, but here's another high profile Japanese suicide from the period:

Well, I had not heard of either the famous suicidal teenager, or General Maresuke killing himself as a sign of loyalty to his boss.

Here's a different translation of the angsty teenager Misao's suicide poem, from Wikipedia:

Thoughts on the precipice

How immense the universe is!
How eternal history is!
I wanted to measure the immensity with this puny five-foot body.
What authority has Horatio's philosophy?^*
The true nature of the whole creation.
Is in one word – “unfathomable”.
With this regret, I am determined to die.
Standing on a rock on the top of a waterfall.
I have no anxiety.
I recognize for the first time.
Great pessimism is nothing but great optimism. 

I don't know - I guess you had to be in Japan at the time to understand why this would cause a sensation.   Also, as I have noted above, this guy is fretting about the size of the universe before scientists even had a clue as to how big it really was.    And that last line if a bit too Zen paradox-y for my taste. 


There is more from the book I want to talk about, but later.

A great take down of Fox News

At Slate, a good article:

Fox News During the Coronavirus Pandemic Is Awful Even by Fox News Standards 

accurately sums up the network  -

The Trump-boosting minimization of the novel coronavirus pandemic may well be a new low for Fox News—but it’s also a logical extension of the network’s decades-long war on objective reality. 

Ever since Fox News launched in 1996, the network has labored to construct its own closed epistemic system, underpinned by a variety of questionable “facts” and baseline assumptions that validate right-wing viewpoints while demonizing liberal values. The point is to prop up right-wing politicians by training its viewers to hate, fear, and distrust anyone who leans even the slightest bit left. Critical to the success of this initiative has been the discrediting of traditional authorities, such as mainstream journalists and academic scholars, that traditionally take a more liberal view on the world. Since Trump became president, this reflexive anti-intellectualism has redoubled as the network has engaged in an all-out campaign to support and bolster Trump by discrediting his many enemies. Who are Trump’s enemies? Anyone who contradicts, criticizes, or disagrees with him, for one thing; anyone who insists on citing objective, observable facts to challenge the president’s narcissistic, narrative-driven worldview. 

Seen through that lens, the network’s subpar coverage of the coronavirus is just another example of Fox doing what it does best: carrying water for a dangerously unqualified president by encouraging their viewers to believe that Trump’s personal grievances are and should be their own.

Virus watch

* As Axios notes:

Trump made 3 false claims in his Oval Office coronavirus speech

* Why aren't more mainstream media making this observation in their reporting on the Trump speech?:

Donald Trump looked sick and terrible during his recent coronavirus speech 

* The Trump travel ban means crowds rush counters in European airports, which is not exactly helpful from a contagion point of view:

'It's ridiculous': Trump travel ban sows panic in European airports

*  But Steve Kates, conspiracy nut and economics lecturer, has a theory:

The media’s hysteria about coronavirus is intended to destroy the American economy because media types are focused single-mindedly on defeating Trump.

There is therefore no longer any independent source of information you can trust since the media is now fully corrupted by its political messaging. Who can you turn to?

*  Tom Hywood in the SMH writes a totally tone deaf piece about how, despite the coronavirus giving him intense headaches for three days which were serious enough to have a heap of tests in a hospital to rule out a brain tumour, he wishes people would stop being "hysterical" about the fact they're worried they might have caught it from him(!).   As someone on Twitter summarises:

 And another:

Updates:

*  The transparent appeal to xenophobia by Trump in his speech is all about his ignorant "base", and is an embarrassment to all serious people.

Which means the Catholic who is only serious in the degradation he causes to the reputation of Catholicism, CL, has another go at his trademark "Whataboutism".   "Oh look, CNN once referred to it as the Wuhan virus, so it's OK for the President to keep pandering to xenophobia." 

*  You would have to suspect the virus would hit India hard, but so far, it's hard to know what is going on.  But nationalist Hindus with their faith in all things "cow" (promoted by government officials?!) indicates problems ahead:

India has conducted nearly 5,000 COVID-19 tests so far, according to the World Health Organization, which says that the “country is responding with urgency as well as transparency.” But so far, India has only reported 74 confirmed COVID-19 cases and one death, on Thursday. Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute tells TIME that count is “just not right.” He believes there must be many more cases, but they have just not been identified. “I’m deeply worried that there’s a lot of community transmission and we are just not aware of it because there is not widespread testing,” he says.

Jha expects there will be a large uptick in cases over the next two to three weeks as testing capabilities improve. Jha and other experts worry that misinformation from government officials and BJP lawmakers touting cow products and unproven homeopathic remedies as ways to prevent infection add to the country’s challenges in containing an outbreak.

The potential Tom Hanks crisis

I think it obvious.  If:

a.  Tom Hanks were to die of the coronavirus, and

b.  Donald Trump never catches it,

it would be a convincing proof that there really is no God.  Lisbon 1755 would have nothing on that inducement to a crisis of faith.

Depending on mood, my seriousness here ranges between 50 and 95%.

And by the way:  I just checked on Google Maps, and he's barely 62km from me as the crow flies.   I feel I should go and stand on the footpath with a sympathetic placard during the weekend.   I hope he tweets something positive about his treatment at what is, after all, a pretty new and modern hospital. 

And one final thing:  can you imagine what his death in Australia would do to our tourism industry after the appalling fire and smoke apocalypse of early 2020? I think we should all just start growing potatoes and chickens and back yard now, just in case Australia has to permanently close for business....

Virus has driven them mad

I am gaining some sense of schadenfreude from watching the wingnut residents of Catallaxy work themselves into a frenzy caused by the attempt to reconcile their fantasy belief that Donald Trump's presidency was and is a glorious success with the unavoidable reality that his performance in the face of a genuine emergency has been as terrible and utterly embarrassing as every Never Trumper always knew it would. 

Steve Kates hasn't been posting much, and seem truly confused as to who to believe, seeing his Dear Leader's early denial of seriousness of the issue has now been transformed into a foreign invasion crisis with an ill-considered response that has hurt the markets more.

Currency Lad, forever stuck in 1950's era nostalgia for Mums who stayed at home and men who went out in the world to do men's things, even said yesterday, after a brief uptick in the stock market, that "Looks like Trump was right again".  Hilarious.

[He operates now as a pathetically predictable, culturally anachronistic, unpaid, completely unconvincing political shill, whose speciality in all matters is "whataboutism." (He cannot write anything more that about 200 words on any Democrat without mentioning Ted Kennedy's unfortunate history.)  Sometimes I suspect he doesn't really believe some of the guff he writes, but then again, he might also write so to convince himself and starts buying into the one-eyed fantasies.  As I have often said:  pretend something for long enough and you can start believing it.]

There are many others who are crapping on there - some are critical of Trump on this issue, but very few.    And the nonsense that some are spouting is profound.

We also have the spectacle of waiting to see if the chronically insecure and needy Lizzie and her high risk husband can get to and from an American based cruise ship without catching the virus.  Look, they deny climate change and think all of Australia's eucalyptus forest should be replaced with foreign trees that don't burn as well - we're not talking sensible people here, but they have money to burn and are a living example of Dunning-Kruger incompetence to judge risk wisely.   They'll probably make it back, but it's clearly a high risk enterprise.  

Anyway, it's - sort of - entertaining.

Update:  here's a quality [sarc] contribution to the blog.  Literally, a man bragging about beating up a woman (petty thief or not - it's wrong.)  

Easiest money ever

Noted at the ABC:

Kristy Wildy did not know she could get paid for donating her poo, but it was an unexpected bonus for the 55-year-old who has been contributing for the past 12 months.

Ms Wildy has been a blood donor for years, and she said donating her stool was a no-brainer.

"I wanted to become a donor because I thought I was a fairly healthy person and I would have something to contribute," she said.

Ms Wildy donates about three or four times a week and said the process was quick and easy.

She said the $25-per-donation payment was a bonus and could be lucrative, depending on donation rates.

Who would have thought...

...that Democrats voting in the primaries might not care for the candidate who kept going on Fox News repeatedly to diss Obama and Hillary Clinton?:

Not a good look

Been meaning to note how Europe just had a remarkably warm winter, and Antarctica a remarkably warm summer (or at least, end of summer).

It's like something might be going on, globally.

Apparently Sinclair Davidson, of all people, recently went on a cruise to Antarctica.  I hope he was trying to make jokes with the (likely environmentally conscious) passengers about how he and the IPA had helped flame global warming denial, and that they considered leaving him stranded on an ice berg. 

I have also been watching some pleasant Youtube videos of an Antarctic cruise by one of the travelling couple vloggers who I have taken to watching recently:  Kara and Nate.  Their first one showing them getting on the ship is here.    I think they are quite likeable as travel vloggers, although I perhaps prefer the couple who do The Endless Adventure.   Both couples are very positive and take setbacks, or spiders or cockroaches in the room, on the chin.    

Viral conspiracies on the Right

Given that they have spent the best part of 20 years echo chambering themselves into believing that the most important long term global problem is a conspiracy by scientists and "leftist" media, is it any wonder that the American Right and its Australian counterpart is showing itself as swinging wildly from one bad take to another on Covid-19?   (And yes, I'm sure there will be people on Twitter on the Left with bad takes too, but I don't think they are any numerical match for nutball belief amongst Trumpers.)

Not that there is a consistent line from the Right - it's either all a media beat up of nothing worse than a flu, fuelled by Deep State operatives who only want to see Trump fail, or a devastating Chinese created bio-warfare planning gone wrong (or right) that will devastate the globe.   But there is also always time for "Chinese as filthy disease carrying foreigners who should be let into the country again" opinions too.   Many are excited by the End of Globalisation they think it heralds - ignoring, as they are wont, the obvious benefits that increased trade has brought both to the West and to helping the global poverty rate decrease.

It is incredible, though, how gullible they are in finding no fault in their Dear Leader.   In truth, the US response has been worthy of a (incompetent) tin pot dictatorship, which is what Trump followers want their country to be, anyway.

And isn't the "Dear Leader" praise of Trump that CDC and health officials feel obliged to give really creepy??  These takes are all accurate:

Update:  to watch the Australian wingnut Right take every conspiracy possible, of course you only need to read Sinclair Davidson's Respite Home for the Stupid and Offensive Right.    monty is there trying to be sensible, but why he bothers I don't know.  

Also, Will Hutton makes an interesting historical point on public health and the Left:

The lack of global public health capacity, standards and enforcement are crippling. The US’s problem is not only that it is led by a fool and a knave, but that its hugely expensive private healthcare system does not invest in public health capacity – such as isolation beds for patients stricken with a contagious virus.

Yet America’s problem – just like China’s problem over unregulated markets for wild animal meat – is our problem, too. One of the foundations of the rise of the left in the 19th and early 20th centuries was the growing recognition that no individual, however wealthy, was insulated from disease epidemics. Sanitation, clean water and immunisation were public goods necessary for everyone to stay alive. The left was their champion.

Now, one form of unregulated, free-market globalisation with its propensity for crises and pandemics is certainly dying. But another form that recognises interdependence and the primacy of evidence-based collective action is being born. There will be more pandemics that will force governments to invest in public health institutions and respect the science they represent – with parallel moves on climate change, the oceans, finance and cybersecurity. Because we can’t do without globalisation, the imperative will be to find ways of managing and governing it.

 

Some impressive sarcasm here...

Remarkable

You could be mistaken for thinking that this is so stupid, it must be a fake account.  But there is no sign of that, as far as I can see:

Another post preview

Hey, I had another weekend in which I had an hour to kill at St Lucia, so it's into the UQ library and up to the 4th floor to look at their (very comprehensive) collection of books on religion and stuff to try to pick out something interesting and get as much out of it as I can in 50 minutes.  (I have to allow for walking to and from my car.)

I am finding this an inordinately fun thing to do, probably because it has reminded me of the serendipity of browsing a library which I enjoyed as a young man, before the internet arrived.   (You can stumble across things on the net, of course, but the more evolved it has become, the more it seems the serendipity has been drained out by too many people - or companies - thinking they know what I might find interesting.)  

This week's choice was a very esoteric one - a translation of a book written in the early 20th century by the Japanese Zen Buddhism populariser DT Suzuki on the European mystic oddball Emanuel Swedenborg!    (Title - "Swedenborg - Buddha of the North".)

And yet I found stuff in it that was interesting and about which I want to post.

A detailed post is coming.

Late movie review - Logan Lucky

I think this might have only recently become available on Netflix Australia?

Watched it on Saturday night, and what a pleasant surprise.   I didn't think it had been very well reviewed when it came out, but it turns out I was wrong.   I was right, though, that it hadn't made much money ($48 million internationally - that's a crime.  Ha ha, a pun.)

It's a very enjoyable, well directed, light weight heist movie in an unusual setting.  Remarkably, I read afterwards, the screenplay was by a first time female writer - she should be really proud.   I wonder if she is from West Virginia, because she does not mock their bogan-ish interests at all.

There were a couple of things I realised about half way through - there is (I think) not a swear word to be heard in the entire movie, even though there are many characters who are crims or ex-crims.   And the style of somewhat eccentric humour is reminiscent of that in the good natured Coen Brothers comedies:  perhaps Raising Arizona and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (neither of which featured swearing either) are the closest comparisons.

[I love to excitedly point out to my son when there is an enjoyable movie that features modern adults but no swearing.  "Yet" - I like to say - "did it ever occur to you while watching that it wasn't realistic?   See - you can still make movies with realistic characters who do not swear!  We should have more of that!"]

I think some Americans say some of the Southern accents are a bit off, but I reckon if you're not from there, you aren't going to notice.  Even Daniel Craig seemed convincing to me.

So - highly recommended.

Another salmon recipe

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the successful recipe of grilled salmon on  mashed potato full of leek, and rocket and corn.  Last night I tried another recipe and it was pretty nice too...crispy skin salmon with bean puree and a (sort of) tomato salsa.  

This recipe was from Woolworths, and the only adjustment I made was a little olive oil and lemon on the salsa.  

Pretty nice, and although serving size for 4 looked a little small on the plate, the bean puree still made it a filling meal.  (We always get by on buying the 4 pieces of salmon for $13 pack at Coles or Woolies.  The pieces aren't  huge but its enough.)

Yesterday's toilet paper exchange

This is a close approximation to how a toilet paper exchange went in my workplace yesterday:

Nearby business person comes into our office [which is near a pharmacy and Coles]:  "The pharmacy and Coles have both got some toilet paper in! Coles have doubled the price, but the pharmacy is selling it at normal price but they'll only sell me 4 packets.  Can you go down and buy some more?" [She was speaking to a staff member - not me]

Me, calling out from my office:  "Can you stop trying to get other people caught up in your panic shopping?"

Panic woman (to me):  "What?  What's wrong with you?  You don't know when they'll next get some in.  They say Coles have ramped up the price, but the pharmacy is selling it but they'll only sell me four."

Me:  "If people keep doing what you're doing, we'll never get back to normal supply and stock.  Isn't that obvious?"

Panic woman:  "But my son and daughter have both run out!"

Me (internally dubious, but still):  "Well, OK, you might have an excuse for buying more than one packet then..."

Panic woman:  "Yes, and I mean 'who cares'?"

Panic woman (to the staff member she had started with):  "Does your daughter have any. Go buy some for your daughter."   [Staff member's daughter lives about 60 km from her.]

Staff member (who, mind you, had been complaining to me about the ridiculousness of the panic buying, sounding defeated):  "Yes, yes, OK I will get one packet for my home.  You want me to get another for you?"

Panic woman:  "Yes please. Get two."

PS:  that evening, I told my wife about it.  Her reaction "But if people keep doing that we'll never get back to normal."   Obviously, I married wisely.

Now they praise her..

I'm seeing a lot of pro-Warren comments on Twitter now that she is out of the race.  Thanks fellas, for coming out now.

I think I am probably also being persuaded by the moderate Democrats arguments that Sanders is just not as electable as Biden, because he is simply not carrying the more moderate states, and the ones that flip between red and blue, in the middle of the country.   Sanders even acknowledges that he is not increasing the youth turnout as he had hoped, which is what he needs to kick out the old white people from middle America (who are killing us - as I like to say.) 

I am also persuaded by the suggestion that, given the age of the two front runners and doubts their health, they should chose a VP runner now.

I had previously said Sanders/Warren may well work, but now I am leaning towards Biden/Warren (and, as someone on Twitter suggested, Biden also undertaking to only stay in for one term.)   I think that could keep both sides of the party happy enough (except for the more ratbag Sanders bros, but really, numerically they can probably be ignored.)

Oh, and I should note again how Tulsi Gabbard is a ridiculous, non serious show pony who is using her campaign to get a job on Fox News, as this article argues.

 

Hard to imagine the compulsion

Well, I was looking at The Straits Times for news about how COVID-19 is going in Singapore (I figure that soon the government will be offering to pay me to fly over as a tourist), and noticed this story: 

44 weeks' jail for man who took upskirt videos of women by hiding camera in shoe

This isn't usually the sort of story worth reading, but the details here are surprising:  he first started this behaviour in 2013, and has been arrested 5 more times for it between then and 2018!  He is only 27.

The guy not only has a clear sexual fetish compulsion, but he's really bad at executing it (assuming his goal is not to get caught, I suppose.)  I find it hard to understand how men develop such a specific sexual fetish, especially these days given the amount of free internet pornography that relates specifically to, well, actual sex. 

Anyway, the guy needs psychological help, clearly.

Do the shelves still carry disinfectant?

May this be a lesson to all teenagers of the benefits of room cleaning:

New research from Singapore published Wednesday showed that patients with the novel coronavirus extensively contaminate their bedrooms and bathrooms, underscoring the need to routinely clean high-touch surfaces, basins and toilet bowls.

On the other hand, the virus was killed by twice-a-day cleaning of surfaces and daily cleaning of floors with a commonly used disinfectant, which suggests that current decontamination measures are sufficient as long as people adhere to them.

The research letter was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and comes after cases in China where the pathogen spread extensively through hospitals, infecting dozens of health care workers and other patients.

This led scientists to believe that, beyond catching the infection through coughing, environmental contamination was an important factor in the disease's transmission, but its extent was unclear.

Researchers at Singapore's National Centre for Infectious Diseases and DSO National Laboratories looked at the cases of three patients who were held in isolation rooms between late January and early February.

They collected samples from their rooms on five days over a two-week period.

The room of one patient was sampled before routine cleaning, while the rooms of the other two patients were sampled after disinfection measures.

The patient whose room was sampled before cleaning had the mildest symptoms of the three, only experiencing a cough. The other two had moderate symptoms: both had coughing and fever, one experienced shortness of breath and the other was coughing up lung mucus.

Despite this disparity, the patient whose room was sampled before cleaning contaminated 13 of 15 room sites testing, including their chair, bed rail, the glass window of their room, the floor, light switches.

Three of the five toilet sites were also contaminated, including the sink, door handle and toilet bowl—more evidence that stool can be a route of transmission...

Air samples tested negative, but swabs taken from air exhaust outlets were positive—which suggests that virus-laden droplets may be carried by air flows and deposited on vents.

"Significant environmental contamination by patients with SARS-CoV-2 through respiratory droplets and fecal shedding suggests the environment as a potential medium of transmission and supports the need for strict adherence to environmental and hand hygiene," the authors wrote.

That phrase "fecal shedding" puts me in mind of a certain blog I am known to read.   "Australia's leading libertarian and fecal shedding blog" has the ring of accuracy about it.

But anyway - the report doesn't say what the "commonly used disinfectant" was.  Is spraying Glen 20 in copious quantities going to do it?  Or antiseptic wipes?  Or are both all sold out anyway?   Perhaps I should check my Coles. I was due to buy some anyway - honest!  

Einstein in Prague

Nature reviews a book with a very narrow focus:  the 16 month period starting in 1911 in which Einstein lived in Prague.  This is in the period between his publishing on special relativity and general relativity.  (When young, I had always assumed that general relativity came first, then special. Seemed a reasonable assumption.)

The reviewer finds the book to be surprisingly good, for the way it discusses the people around Einstein at that time.  For example:

There are quirky observations, almost worthy of playwright Tom Stoppard. For example, Einstein and writer Franz Kafka probably met at a 1911 cultural soirée in the house of Berta Fanta, a “philosophically ambitious” socialite who held a salon above her husband’s pharmacy in Prague’s Old Town Square.

And let's note this, which will no doubt attract some rubbish comment from a reader:

Take Oskar Kraus, a philosopher at the German University. Originally trained in law, he took against Einstein, writing countless articles in philosophy journals unpicking what he saw as egregious internal inconsistencies in relativity. His writing and stance foreshadowed the anti-relativity strand of the Deutsche Physik movement, an eviscerating force in German academia during the rise of the Third Reich. Kraus, who had been born into a Jewish family but converted to Protestantism, was arrested by the Gestapo and ultimately fled to Oxford, UK.

Country accountants are a menace to society

Why do accountants turned politicians from country electorates (such as Barnaby Joyce and this Rennick character from [groan] Queensland) think they know better than the CSIRO, NASA, and God knows how many professional scientific organisation?:

You may have to go to Twitter to watch the video.

Panic attack

I guess I may as well add to the millions of words being committed to pixels on the strange matter of panic buying toilet paper (and, so I am told, pasta, rice and even flour!) in Australia as the first reaction to a (currently small) outbreak of COVID-19.

It is puzzling because:

a.  most tweets and comments I am reading are calling it out as irrational; yet

b.  we all seem to have sufficient numbers of irrational neighbours around us such that the stores are empty of these items.*

It would seem to indicate that society would break down within less than 24 hours if ever the government announces something really shattering - the late sighting of a dinosaur-killer sized asteroid that's going to hit the planet within the next 48 hours, for example.   I'm guessing now that we'd hear the sound of smashing glass (and in America, gunfire) within 5 minutes of the announcement.

Would it help if the government was more pro-active in explaining what things will not run out, even if we get a large scale pandemic?   Is it yet another example of the unpredicted consequence of social media that it supercharges rumour and genuinely fake news so that the truth is crowded out?

It is a worry.   And I think it does point to the need for a more pro-active role by government to quash rumours and misinformation of all kinds.

Update:  First Dog has a somewhat amusing strip on the topic, that starts like this:

* (Oddly, my local Coles seems to have more fresh fruit and vegetables than they have had for quite a while - the fires of early this year really affected supply lines for a while.  But people are leaving it in favour of long life goods.)

Posted only because Teilhard de Chardin is surely only rarely mentioned on Twitter

I see, now that I Google to double check his name spelling, that there was also speculation a few years ago about Pope Francis removing the "warning" the Vatican placed on his works. 

Incredible abilities in mobile phone cameras

This is getting ridiculous, what they can get into a mobile phone camera:



Last week, I also saw some photos of the night sky taken by a young astrophysicist holidaying in New Zealand, like this one, taken on her Huawei P 30 Pro....  [ For some reason, Google is not letting me upload a photo at the moment.  I'll try later...]

Update:  here it is -

Apparently, she just fiddled with the settings, set it up on a rock, and let it take the pic.  Amazing.

More in the narrative "old people are killing us"

The Washington Post notes, regarding the Super Tuesday Democrat votes:

In another sign that a head-to-head featuring Sanders and Biden would mirror the 2016 primary in fundamental ways, preliminary exit polls showed a stark generational divide in support for the two septuagenarian men.

In the seven states where polls have closed so far, Sanders has led by a median 37 points among 17-to-29-year-olds and 20 points among 30-to-44-year-olds. But Biden has led by 24 among 45-to-64-year-olds and by 33 among seniors.

Mind you, I think it is really guesswork how Sanders would perform in a Presidential campaign.  On the other hand, I don't have any doubt that Biden will appear somewhat doddering and "past it" on more than one occasion.

I don't understand why Warren is not appealing to Democrats as a more youthful version of Sanders, and with more detail in her policy ideas too.   I can imagine her being more aggressive with Trump in debates than Hillary, which could play well if done right.  Will Wilkinson has expressed a fair bit of qualified support for her.

But, as we all know, American politics is a bit weird.    

Update:  just saw over a late lunch that Warren ran third in her home state of Massachusetts (!)

She's out.  

PS:  I was watching on Youtube the coverage by the Washington Post - it's very professional.  

 

The verdict is in...

Obviously, I was never likely to become a fan of Scott Morrison as Prime Minister, but as I have mentioned before, I have been willing to ignore him in the role for the most part.

But after seeing the 7.30 interview with him last night, I think I can safely predict that the historical verdict on him is already done and dusted - a waffly, smirking lightweight of a politician who got the top job  with no inspiring policy ideas on anything, who's obviously against enforcing any reasonable standard of accountability and openness in his government, and with a puzzling propensity to lie and stonewall even on relatively unimportant matters. 

I even have a suspicion he might not make it to the next election.  We'll see....