What a failure of a "gotcha"

Roger Franklin thinks that Sarah Ferguson should be embarrassed that she didn't do the research to see that one man who was on the show and speaking about his time as a child at a Ballarat orphanage, Peter Clarke, has once said that "it was great fun" growing up there.  On Revelation, about which I posted, his attitude was more nuanced, in that he said some nuns were good, some not; and that there was "no love" there, except that between the children.  He seemed to remember some mates there fondly enough.

So what?   The earlier comment and the present one are not necessarily inconsistent at all.

And if Roger thought it was a case that Ferguson was out to give an overall bad impression of the orphanage - she actually had the main guy who claimed he was the subject of some highly dubious attention and actions by Pell say that he was really happy living there!  He literally said he "loved it". 

The show, if anything, gave a very balanced picture of the place, just as you might expect from talking to a bunch of former residents:  Bernard (the main focus of the story) was clearly generally happy there; but some others said they didn't like the intense religiosity of daily life; some thought some of the nuns too strict; I think all acknowledged some nuns were fine and there was some fun to be had; and Clarke himself said he thought it a case that the nuns just weren't trained about how to deal with really troubled kids.   That observation would be undoubtedly true, for the era.

Franklin is just out to try to make any "gotcha" he thinks he can.     He instead just shows himself up as the stupid old duffer that he is. 

Trump Vs the doctors

Gee, I wish someone on a podium with Trump would just lose it during a press conference and yell at him "Mr President, you are simply wrong.  Shut up and listen to experts in the field.":

A strong piece on Trump and COVID19

Have a read of Fintan O'Toole's really great bit of analysis of Trump and his weird, contradictory impulses as to how to react to COVID-19.  Here are the opening paragraphs:

On July 4, 1775, just his second day serving as commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary forces, George Washington issued strict orders to prevent the spread of infection among his soldiers: “No person is to be allowed to go to Fresh-water pond a fishing or any other occasion as there may be a danger of introducing the small pox into the army.” As he wrote later that month to the president of the Continental Congress, John Hancock, he was exercising “the utmost Vigilance against this most dangerous Enemy.” On March 8, 2020, well over two months after the first case of Covid-19 had been confirmed in the United States, Dan Scavino, assistant to the president and director of social media at the White House, tweeted a mocked-up picture of his boss Donald Trump playing a violin. The caption read: “My next piece is called Nothing Can Stop What’s Coming.” Trump himself retweeted the image with the comment: “Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me!”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Donald Trump is no George Washington, but his descent from commander-in-chief to vector-in-chief is nonetheless dizzying. Trump’s narcissism, mendacity, bullying, and malignant incompetence were obvious before the coronavirus crisis and they have been magnified rather than moderated in his surreal response to a catastrophe whose full gravity he failed to accept until March 31, when it had become horribly undeniable. The volatility of his behavior during February and March—the veering between flippancy and rage, breezy denial and dark fear-mongering—may not seem to demand further explanation. It is his nature. Yet there is a mystery at its heart. For if there is one thing that Trump has presented as his unique selling point, it is “utmost Vigilance,” his endless insistence that, as he puts it, “our way of life is under threat.”

If the United States is to be run by a man who has perfected the paranoid style, the least its citizens might expect is a little of that paranoia when it is actually needed. Yet even on March 26, when the US had surpassed China and Italy to become the most afflicted country in the world, Trump continued to talk down the threat from the virus.

Many people have it. I just spoke to two people. They had it. They never went to a doctor. They never went to anything. They didn’t even report it. . . . The people that actually die, that percentage is much lower than I actually thought…. The mortality rate, in my opinion . . . it’s way, way down.

 Oh, OK.  I can't resist posting a few more paragraphs further in, which really do point to deeply offensive attitudes held by Trump:

Trump has long characterized those who do not appreciate his genius as “haters and losers”: “Haters and losers say I wear a wig (I don’t), say I went bankrupt (I didn’t), say I’m worth $3.9 billion (much more). They know the truth!” runs a typical tweet from April 2014. In The Art of the Deal, Trump claims that “There are people—I categorize them as life’s losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others.” But in Trumpworld, as in the rightwing ideology he embodies, life’s losers are not just hateful. They are a different species. Winners are one kind of human; losers a lesser breed. Trump— like so many of the superrich—believes that this division is inherited: “What my father really gave me,” he tweeted in June 2013, “is a good (great) brain, motivation and the benefit of his experience – unlike the haters and losers (lazy!).”

In How to Get Rich, Trump links his own germaphobia to the idea that some people are born losers. Winners are people who think positively—and positivity repels germs. “To me, germs are just another kind of negativity.” He then goes on to tell the story of an unnamed acquaintance who is driven home from the hospital in an ambulance after being treated for injuries sustained in a crash. The ambulance crashes and he has to be taken back to the hospital. “Maybe he’s just a really unlucky guy. Or maybe he’s a loser. I know that sounds harsh, but let’s face it—some people are losers.” The train of thought here is typically meandering, but the logic is clear enough. Losers are inevitably doomed by their own negativity, of which germs are a physical form. Infection happens to some people because they are natural losers.

In 2013 Trump suggested that there was an upside to the great recession caused by the banking crisis: “One good aspect of the Obama depression is that it will separate the winners from the losers. If you can make it now, you deserve it!” Apply this to Covid-19 and you get an instinctive belief that it too will separate the wheat from the human chaff. Great public crises are not collective experiences that bring citizens together. On the contrary, they reveal the true divisions in the world: between those who “deserve” to survive and thrive and those who do not. Faced with the threat of the coronavirus, this becomes an ideology of human sacrifice: Let the losers perish.

A not so late movie review: Knives Out

Saw this in Google Play on the weekend, encouraged by strong reviews (not that I read any - I was just going by the average on Metacritic and Rottentomatoes) and good word of mouth on Twitter.  I had seen the trailer at the cinema and didn't think it looked all that good, but I assumed that it was just a case of a poorly made trailer.

Turns out my trailer reaction was a bit closer to the mark.   Look, there is nothing wrong with it, really:  it kept my attention to the end and I hadn't worked out the resolution ahead of time (but I virtually never do in murder mysteries);  it's just that it was much more old fashioned and traditional in the "whodunit" genre than I expected.  For some reason, I was expecting something more innovative.

Sometimes funny, but not that often.   Whoever did the make up (and perhaps, the lighting) seemed to make no effort to make the big name stars look less than their age - in fact, I thought it was like they were made to look older.   Except perhaps for Chris Evans - he looked his age, whatever that is.

Overall, maybe it was just a case of the movie being oversold in its reviews that I felt under-whelmed.  Not trying to put anyone off watching it; and maybe I was just in the wrong mood.   But I think despite it being well directed and having a complex script, it's still pretty forgettable.

Update: it just occurred to me that I felt a similar way about the movie Spotlight.  Nothing wrong with it; well made, etc:  just it didn't meet the expectations indicated by reviews, and feels forgettable.  In fact, I already can't remember any "classic" scene from it. 

Not how things should work

In any normal presidency, a crank economist would not be shouting at a medical expert that he (the economist) knows more about how a drug has been proven effective. 

And a president would not be pretty much taking the side of the crank economist and encouraging people to try the drug.

Who is paying the Institute of Paid Advocacy to have this thought?

Anyone who has been paying close attention would know that the IPA (see title) ran a video a few days ago in which one its current gormless "I'm just waiting for pre-selection by the Libs" youngsters [geez, I wonder how much Roskam smarts over still being there] advocated for an immediate reduction of COVID-19 restrictions, all in the interest of not killing the economy and avoiding the unemployed killing themselves.   [Note how this advocacy kindly puts into the minds of the unemployed that they will soon be contemplating this.]

What I want to know is this:  the IPA's takes over the last couple of decades have virtually all been traceable to funding sources - the support of the tobacco industry, climate change denial, kill the ABC, etc.

Which of the current funders would be pressing a line that they know better than experts when it is safe to reduce restrictions?  

I suspect Gina Rinehart would - she has a family background of generic nutty ideas and is still devoted to climate change denial.  It is bad for business.   But it would be good to know who else.  Has Rupert made any statements to anyone?   It is very suspicious.

Anyway, about the only media outlet reporting on the IPA video that I can see is The Australian.   Of course it would. 

Genki desu

Because we cannot live on a diet of COVID19 news alone, let's consider this story of Japanese pop!

I'm not sure why, but Youtube was recently suggesting World Order music videos to me, and in a recent bit of late night curiosity, I watched quite a few. 

I was vaguely aware of them before: the Japanese "boy" band which shows a deep resolve to sticking to the formula of electro pop with robotic choreography done in public while wearing Japanese business suits.   I'll even put up (what I think is) their biggest hit, which is as intensely idiosyncratically modern Japanese as you can get:

Anyway, watching the videos made me curious about the leader of the group - especially as the song credits show that he writes them (sometimes in collaboration).  There was something a bit familiar with his odd set of characteristics:  a good looking, clean cut man heading a band, writing its thematically unusual songs and heavily into choreography as part of performance;  and I realised I was thinking of David Byrne.

Yeah, so I'm coming a couple of decades late to learn about him, but looking up the life story of this guy - Genki Sudo - was quite surprising.  While David Byrne is seen as a man of wide ranging interests and talents, he's got nothing on the career path of Genki.   He made his name as fighter in that mixed martial arts UFC competition, and was allowed to do over-the-top, theatrical (and somewhat amusing) entrance choreography.  I think it makes UFC look a lot less serious than I assumed it was, and a bit like WWF.  Here is an (apparently) famous example from 2006:

He went from that to form World Order, whose song titles indicate a strong interest in liberal internationalism, with a cynical attitude towards the American Right.  As its most recent example, have a look at this 2018 video, for the sarcastically upbeat anti-Trump song (turn on the captions to see the lyrics) "Let's Start WW3":

The video ends on Genki's long standing slogan "We Are All One" featuring all nation's flags.

And now - Sudo has now left the group to become a politician!   Here's his entry on the Japanese Diet website:

His political goals according to this website are:

As a politician, his three main goals is furthering food safety, helping global environment protection and “a foreign policy that involves peaceful and realistic negotiations (translated quote).”

Yep, he's definitely liberal.

Wikipedia says he has also been a successful wrestling coach, and has written 14 books! [David Byrnes has written quite a few books himself, and in another similarity, I see that they have both been married once and divorced.  Sudo has no kids, though, apparently.]

Quite the varied career, to put it mildly.  

Hope he does well as a politician, anyway.  I have no idea whether he is likeable in real life - there are not that many interviews with him around, that I can see.  But a pretty interesting character.

Oh - and the title for the post:  "genki" means healthy, lively or vigorous, and the Japanese greeting of "genki desu ka" (pretty much "how are you going"?) can be answered "genki" or "genki desu".  So I believe.  Genki Sudo does seem pretty "genki".  

So obviously,wildly, inappropriate

And yet, Fox News is trying to endorse it (mind you, this was prior to the above Trump performance, but still):

Quite frankly, if this virus doesn't manage to take out Rupert Murdoch as ironic revenge for his malignant effect on American politics, there ain't no justice.

This seems...a really bad idea

From the Jakarta Post:

Annually, some 20 million people from Greater Jakarta travel to their hometowns to celebrate Idul Fitri in a tradition called mudik (exodus). The tradition, public health experts say, could lead to massive COVID-19 contagion on Java, an island of 141 million people, where many regions have far worse healthcare systems than Jakarta....

 President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced that he would not officially ban people from traveling for the Idul Fitri holidays, ignoring warnings from public health experts that the consequences of failing to prevent people from leaving Jakarta, the epicenter of the outbreak in the country, could be dire.  

“[The President] underlines that there is no official ban on people going on the mudik during the 2020 Idul Fitri holiday period. The travelers, however, must self-isolate for 14 days, will be given ‘people under observation’ [ODP] status, as per the World Health Organization health protocol, and will be monitored by the respective local administration,” presidential spokesman Fadjroel Rachman said in a statement on Thursday, shortly after a speech by the President on the matter.

State Secretary Pratikno, however, later clarified Fadjroel’s statement, saying that the President actually called on people to stay in the capital, though he did not categorically state that the President would ban the mudik.

More about the mudik tradition, due in May this year, which until now I knew nothing about.

Would suggest facemasks are worth wearing

As noted at Science:

You may be able to spread coronavirus just by breathing, new report finds 

The disagreement over whether apparently healthy people should be wearing masks when out and about is surprising.   Provided there are enough around (so that health care workers have plenty), it's hard to imagine it hurting. 

In other COVID-19 news:

What a surprise.

The sad thing is that I thought Austin had a reputation as a Democrat stronghold within Texas.   Seems even liberal students in the US did not exercise common sense.  Or did the fact that they went on a chartered jet mean that these were the Republican students in Austin?   Would be interesting to know...

Pell and the ABC

I thought I had missed one episode of the ABC's Revelation series, but I was mistaken.  Turns out I saw part of the first one, all of the second episode (which I posted about), and then last night I saw most of the final one, which centred on Ballarat and George Pell. 

I reckon if it weren't for the COVID-19 situation, it would have attracted more commentary questioning its timing, when Pell's High Court appeal is due next week, and the most widespread view seems to be that the court will overturn his conviction.

I thought the show was most interesting in it description of the highly insular nature of Catholic schooling and clerical life in the period of the 1950's to (say) about 1990.   Both Paul Collins's and David Marr's comments on that seemed insightful.  I was also interested to hear a woman (unfortunately for her, the sister of the prolific child sex offender Ridsdale) who knew Pell from a young age saying he was always arrogant and a bit of a bully.  I'm sure I have said here before that I used to suspect that it might be more a case that his odd manner of speaking made him sound more cold and arrogant than he might really be.   My generous assumption seems to have been wrong.

I also have no doubt that he was legitimately considered with suspicion by some adults for his fondness of swimming and playing with boys, even at a time when there was much less awareness of the possibility that male authority figures in child centred organisations might be fond of sexually touching kids. 

At the end of the day, it's hard to know what to make of some of the allegations against him.  As the show suggested, though, they did tend to fit a pattern:   one of a sexually frustrated young man who would touch where he shouldn't but was perhaps smart enough to never do anything with an absolutely clear sexual motive.    (That is, of course, ignoring for the sake of the argument the offences for which he was convicted.)

As David Marr indicated, though, the overall impression of Pell's life is one that feels sad and tragic - a conservative wanting to fight societal change and maintain the influence of traditional Catholic thought, but becoming increasingly ineffective at doing so even while he climbed the ladder of authority within his Church.

Good news for some

I feel sorry for the donkeys, though. 

In which I once again save everyone's time

Spotted at, well, you can guess where:

Come on, once again I can save everyone's time.

It will be 200 pages devoted to the urgent need for the Australian governments to:

a.  deregulate everything, as fast as possible;
b.  start using blockchain technologies, they're terrific;
c.  urgently reduce all government spending on things other than the temporary workforce support, with public broadcasting getting special mention;
d.  reduce taxes.

Done and dusted.

No 1

Update:  at the same press conference, this answer, which will (I suppose) let Trump later claim that he always thought the recovery would be slow:

Update 2:  yet more from this bizarre presser:

Has any journalist attending these yet asked the obvious question - "why are the journalists in this room seated far apart for social distancing, but at every press conference it's breached on your side of the podium?"

Just another quick COVID-19 comment

Planet America on the ABC is really good:  smart, sharp and knowledgeable programming of the  kind  that has pretty much disappeared from commercial television.

Unfortunately, though, I often overlook watching it on its first screening, and it's the sort of topical show which it seems not worth going back to view on line even after a few days, given the speed with which Trump generates new, usually appalling, news.

However, I watched last night's episode and it was well worthwhile.  They had an interview with a New York doctor who painted a very bleak picture of the city at the moment.  You should watch it.

And I have been meaning to comment on this for a good few days now:   New Yorkers, being at the epicentre of the North American COVID-19 crisis, must be absolutely hating listening to Trump downplay the problem, trying to claim that there is plentiful protective equipment, and giving himself top marks for how his government has responded.    They must despise the man.

Our numbers do seem pretty good

Far be it for me to want to give any succour to right wing figures who are screaming "Think of the economy!  We have over-reacted!",  but I do get the feeling that it's not unreasonable to be starting to think that Australia might have caught COVID-19 in time.  I've been looking at the Worldometer table, and note that:

a.    as everyone knows, the South East Asian rich countries did exceptionally well;

b.    you can ignore the poorer SE Asian countries which currently show tiny case numbers, but presumably they have tiny testing rates, and I think the WHO should rightly be warning everyone of  terrible death tolls that may come from those places over the next 6 months;

c.    but compared to other Western nations, including virtually all of Europe and the USA, Australian figures do seem remarkably good, especially on a per capita basis.   We're still under "1" for deaths per million of population, and our "total cases per million" at 195 is close to that of South Korea, and a fraction of the figures for the likes of Germany, France (around 1/4), the USA (about 1/3) and the UK (about 1/2).   In fact, looking at the UK, why is their death rate running at 35 per million, while ours is barely 1?    

The trick, of course, is going to be how to judge an appropriate rate of "return to something like normalcy" without risking the numbers getting out of control.

But, the figures do seem to give some optimism that early action may have worked well, and the government should not be shy of saying that.   I think that, for general economic confidence reasons,  it would good for the government to also start talking about the criteria it will be using to look at when they will start to relax the present semi-lockdown.  It's probably a pretty hard thing to communicate, as I expect the expert opinion on that will be divided.

Update:  here's a report on the same topic in The Guardian today.

Update:  I see from Bolt's blog (I can only see the header - no way I would part with a cent of money to a Murdoch publication) that he is saying something similar to what is in my last paragraph.   (Except he puts it in his bombastic way, that the PM must tell us how the lockdown will end; it can't go on for 6 months, that would be a disaster, etc)     The problem with Bolt's take on it all, though, is that he helping encourage the dangerous Right wing views that it was never a serious danger; it's enabled something like a Left wing dictatorship; and it's already low risk to go back to normal.  Just have a look at the headings of his other posts.  

Yes, too soon. Still amusing, though.

Back to COVID

It's hard to believe that it won't be a disaster in India.  Not to mention Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, and any nation when large numbers of the poor live in slum like areas.  From Science:

Fewer than 600 cases had been confirmed at the time of Modi’s announcement, although that number is widely believed to be an undercount. But without control measures, 300 million to 500 million Indians could be infected by the end of July and 30 million to 50 million could have severe disease, according to one model. And the world’s second most populous country has large numbers of poor living in crowded, unsanitary conditions and a weak public health infrastructure, with just 0.7 hospital beds per 1000 persons, compared with Italy’s 3.4 and the United States’s 2.9; India also has fewer than 50,000 ventilators.

Self indulgent observations (because it's not about you-know-what)

*  I reckon viognier is a very underutilised wine grape variety.   You can barely find it in a lot of liquor outlets, but it has distinctive characteristics which I like.  

*  Speaking of wine grape varieties that don't get a fair go - I remember drinking Australian made verdelho back in the 1980's, and now I don't think I have seen it for many years.   It was fine.  Why did it go out of style?

*  More about wine in the 1980's: the Hunter Valley used to be hugely into making semillon.  I think they still do, but again, I doubt that it has the sales that it used to.  I thought it was OK, especially if older, but I was never the biggest fan.   Hunter Valley wineries also always made a chablis style of wine, and I used to always dislike it for being extremely dry and (to my mind) acidic.  It always used to give me indigestion, like no other wine.   I'm glad you don't see that one around anymore.

* On to food:  I really like the frozen Scottish kippers you can buy.  I get the feeling they don't sell many in Australia, and they do stink up the kitchen when you grill them, but a very pleasing, salty treat, if you ask me. 

* My son has taken to making mojitos for himself, but he prefers using dark rum over white.  I presume he is following a similar trajectory to me - the first spirit I remember buying was Southern Comfort, which I think I drank with soda; but I used to enjoy cheap brandy with (don't know how common this is) dry ginger ale.  Scotch and dry was fine too.    I still like scotch and dry, sometimes, from a pub.   I presume it's a common thing that young drinkers most often do not have a taste at first for bitterness, or overly dry characteristics, in their alcoholic drinks.  That usually develops later.  Or it did with me, over my 20's.  
     

Made me laugh

So I saw the tweet about an English  woman asking about the name of a neighbour's cat via signs in the window.  Read about it here.

Then saw this later tweet, which amused me a lot:

Here's the full sign:

A sensible use of blockchain

Revelation, indeed

I didn't see the second episode of the ABC's Revelation documentary series about child abuse in the Catholic Church, but I ended up watching the final episode last night.

It really was pretty shocking stuff:  in particular, the couple of current priests who struck, shall we say, far from the expected tone in their attitude.

For example, there was the sad interview with a 90 something year old mother whose 13 year old son hanged himself in his bedroom in the 1970's.    Three Brothers from his school, one of whom was his class teacher, came to the house and asked if he had left a note.  He hadn't.  Later, it transpires that his teacher was convicted of multiple sex offences against his students.  

But the priest who also attended the dead boy's house to anoint him is still alive, and was interviewed.  He expresses the view that it was more likely a prank that went wrong than a case of the boy being a victim of sexual abuse(!).   Why would he express such a view after what has gone on?   Completely and utterly "tone deaf", if nothing else. 

Father Brian Lucas came out of his interview as a pedantic jerk, too. 

It was pretty powerful stuff, really. 

There was also another interview, from jail, of a brother who had been moved from place to place once his abuse was discovered.   His comments further put paid to the conservative idea that it was homosexuality that was at the heart of the problem,  rather than sexual immaturity, social isolation and opportunistic access to boys.   I cannot believe that conservative Catholics cannot get this into their heads:  it would never have been a case that a priest or brother could easily explain away spending time with girls or young women in their accommodation, or taking them on trips.   But they could readily be assumed to be having a mentoring or friendly relationship with boys, and they used this to access sex.  

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.