More health problems with e-cigarettes

Vox has a good summary about the health issues, although it doesn't mention the unusual one that I noted before but doesn't seem to have attracted much attention (about lead coming from the heating element of some brands):

Vaping may be more dangerous than we realized

Sinclair Davidson meanwhile is still posting pro-vaping stuff at Catallaxy.  I wonder if he vapes.  Could explain a lot.

If only Rupert Murdoch would take it up - I'd be all for that.  I'd also be happy for him to develop a late age interest in hiking Mount Everest.  

The dubious Ita

Look, Ita Buttrose had an affair with lumpy, married boss Kerry Packer - why should I trust her judgement on anything else after that?

Her comments about the ABC yesterday were somewhat worryingly vague, even muttering about unconscious bias and "more diversity of views".   (Show us the Right wing commentators with talent as broadcasters, Ita - if Sky News at Night and talk back radio are any guide, they don't exist.   Or if one wants to argue (ridiculously) that Alan Jones has obvious talent because look at his audience numbers - well, as if he is going to take a pay cut to work at the ABC.)

She was appointed by Morrison and a government that still had members who spend every waking moment unhappy that the ABC does not have hosts who agree with them.   And the Murdoch press is running a "must further defund the ABC/SBS" campaign in The Australian already, as if the motivation for that is not glaringly obvious.

I don't think Ita is going to be good in the job, somehow.

Another American peculiarity

Emotional support animals on airplanes, I mean.  Has any other country got suckered into this to anything like the Americans?   I mention them because of this remarkable story in the Washington Post:

An attack on a plane by a fellow passenger’s emotional-support dog left Marlin Jackson needing 28 stitches, according to a negligence lawsuit filed Friday against Delta Air Lines and the dog’s owner. In the suit, Jackson claims he bled so badly that a row of seats later had to be removed from the plane.

Jackson had just taken his window seat in the 31st row for a June 2017 flight from Atlanta to San Diego when the dog, sitting on the lap of the passenger next to him, lunged for his face, pinning him against the window of the plane so he couldn’t escape, the lawsuit alleges....

Before he took his seat, Jackson asked Mundy if the reportedly 50-pound dog — a “chocolate lab-pointer mix,” according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution — would bite, and the dog owner said Jackson would be safe.

“While Mr. Jackson was securing his seatbelt, the animal began to growl at Mr. Jackson and shift in Defendant Mundy’s lap,” the lawsuit reads. “Suddenly, the animal attacked Mr. Jackson’s face, biting Mr. Jackson several times. … The attack was briefly interrupted when the animal was pulled away from Mr. Jackson. However, the animal broke free and again mauled Mr. Jackson’s face.”

Massey said teeth punctured through Jackson’s gum, above his lip and beneath his nose. He has suffered permanent scarring, the complaint says, and his attorney said he still experiences numbness in the area, and has intermittent speech issues.

This has not been the only time one of these dogs has bitten, apparently: 

The alleged attack is one of numerous reports in the past few years of emotional-support animals causing trouble for airline passengers, incidents that have pushed airlines to crack down on which animals they allow on planes.

In the months following the attack, Delta tightened rules around emotional-support and service animals. The airline required passengers beginning in March 2018 to provide “confirmation of animal training,” proof of the animal’s immunization records as well as a letter from a doctor or licensed mental health professional regarding the request for the support animal.

When Delta announced the change, it cited an 84 percent spike in reported animal incidents since 2016 “including urination/defecation, biting” and the incident involving Jackson.

No laughing matter

In one of their ongoing highlights of ridiculous American hospital charges, NPR has the story of a woman (a midwife, no less) who had a pretty normal birth, and got a charge on her hospital bill for nearly $5,000 for having used nitrous oxide (laughing gas) for pain relief during the birth.

All very ridiculous (and the charge was revised down, when challenged, to around $500), but I was more interested in the fact that the gas is only coming into common use in birthing in the US recently.

My wife used it when (trying to) give birth to our son, now 19 years ago.  It seemed simple, safe and helpful.  But here's the story from the US:

Part of that problem comes down to the recent resurgence of the practice in the United States. In 2011, two hospitals in the U.S. offered nitrous oxide for childbirth. Now an estimated 1,000 hospitals and 300 birthing centers provide it, said Michelle Collins, a professor and director of nurse midwifery at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.

The use of nitrous oxide has long been common during childbirth in the United Kingdom and Canada, in part because of its low cost. Many people in the U.S. have learned about the practice while watching the popular British period drama Call the Midwife, set in the 1950s. Epidural anesthesia largely displaced nitrous oxide in the U.S. in the 1970s.

Hmm.   Moved from a cheap, self administered, form of pain reduction to a highly medicalised one that removes all pain (if done properly) but also carries (I think) a very small risk of serious complication?

Is there something culture specific about the degree to which Americans seem to want to go to avoid even the hint of pain?   I mean, why hasn't the prescribed opioid problem been replicated in other countries?   Is it innate, or a result of what strong capitalism in medical practice pushes people to expect in their (the doctors') own self interest?   I mean, even the way medicines are advertised there just seems so odd to Australians.   (Mind you, I recently heard a breast enlargement ad here on FM radio recently - if I were able to ban that I would.)

I may have mentioned before, but I suspect Japan might be at the other extreme of expectation of tolerance of discomfort (or used to be, at least) as I was told by a specialist there some years ago that he did gastro-endoscopy, and without any form of anaesthesia at all.   But then again, I think Japanese women get to stay in hospital for days after birth.  Here, I just heard of a young woman who had a two hour labour, gave birth at 2am and was discharged at 9am (!)  (But there were midwife visits at home daily for the next week or so.)

Anyway, I still think Americans are a bit odd with the pain issue.

Straight talking from James Comey

I like the way James Comey speaks bluntly in his Washington Post column:

It is tempting for normal people to ignore our president when he starts ranting about treason and corruption at the FBI. I understand the temptation. I’m the object of many of his rants, and even I try to ignore him.

But we shouldn’t, because millions of good people believe what a president of the United States says. In normal times, that’s healthy. But not now, when the president is a liar who doesn’t care what damage he does to vital institutions. We must call out his lies that the FBI was corrupt and committed treason, that we spied on the Trump campaign and tried to defeat Donald Trump. We must constantly return to the stubborn facts.

The rest of his article explains, again, why it is absolute nonsense being peddled by the conspiracy loving Right (facilitated in large part by the massive propaganda campaign of Murdoch's Fox News) to be calling it a "treason" or a "coup".
 

Upper class twit spotted on Twitter

I think Gillette is just trolling conservatives now

Has Twitter exploded about this yet?:

A new ad campaign from Procter & Gamble-owned razor brand Gillette features a father teaching his transgender son how to shave for the first time.

The video shows Samson Bonkeabantu Brown, a Toronto-based artist, opening up about his first experience shaving with his father since his transition.

Wittgenstein's rope

I don't remember hearing of this before.   It's a very surprising bit of maths.  Apparently, Wittgenstein used it as an example of how wrong our intuition can be.

Add a metre to an Earth equator spanning rope and how high does it raise it off the ground?

Watch the 6 minute video to find out.

Update:  for those who can't watch a video, here is an explanation from a book footnote.  For a yard of extra rope, it's nearly 6 inches:

So for a metre, it's going to be something similar.  Enough to trip over for the entire length of the equator. 
 
I'm still having trouble getting my brain to accept this...

I don't think Tim will pay for a copy of this cartoon

In an article in The Australian, about Tim Wilson's (and David Sharma's) failure to get cabinet spots despite (in Timbo's case) his PR campaign on franking credits, is accompanied by this cartoon:

That's a really bad attempt at a likeness of Wilson.   It makes him look about 60 and super jowly while still missing the dark circles under his eyes.  Tim's probably ordering a copy to burn as I write.

China and greening

Not sure I find this article very convincing, but it's of interest nonetheless:

China succeeds in greening its economy not because, but in spite of, its authoritarian government 

There are some sceptical comments following it too: some pro-nuclear, some with a soft denier air about them.    

A credible figure

The Washington Post did a weird weekend profile of self-hyping George Papadopolous, who claims Alexander Downer recorded him on his phone and was acting not as a dipolmat but as a spy for the Deep State that was determined to sink Donald Trump's candidacy.  He looks a very believable character:

He's also only 31.

Yet more NYT reporting on those Navy UFOs

Look, it's a pretty intriguing read, and who doesn't love a good UFO mystery;  but to me there are aspects of this story that still have an air of "too good to be true" about them.

It sounds like the two ex Navy personnel invovled appear a new TV show about it, so I would like to see how they come across in interviews.

One of the problems I have is that these remarkable sightings were not leaked by anyone for about 4 years.

I would love to know more, though...

Glass overboard in the 1970's

First, a memory:   in about 1974 or 1975, I had my first weekend on the rather decrepit Navy Reserve training vessel TV Gayundah,  being a good little Navy Cadet on a first time experience of seeing Moreton Bay and pretending to be a sailor.   I remember it had anchored off Moreton Island, at night, and it was a pretty impressive sight getting up in the morning and seeing the blue, clear water and the long, pretty pristine looking island close by.  (It had not, at that time, yet been overrun by 4WD on the beach.)  The vessel itself was a converted "Motor Refrigeration Lighter", and the sleeping quarters were in what used to be the refrigerated hold.   It was pretty cramped, old and smelly, but it had a certain old world appeal.   I have found a photo on the 'net:

(Gosh, I must seem old for having been on that...)

That night, people were having soft drinks (or beers?) on deck, and at one point a kindly navy cadet officer (a school teacher in real life) called out to everyone that he had seen glass bottles floating in the water, apparently from our little ship, and he told us to be more considerate and don't throw bottles overboard.  True, this may have been because we were near the island and our bottles could easily have ended up there:  but still, I think that, in principle, he was sensible enough to feel throwing rubbish overboard was not appropriate.

Fast forward to 2019, and this is what twit Patrick Moore says he was doing, around the same time as my experience,  when he was doodling around the oceans with Greenpeace:

That sounds..really pathetic.

Interesting results

I wonder - would anyone who really preferred to remain have still voted Labour?  It did have a remain faction of politicians, didn't it? 

To really provide a definitive resolution as to what should happen according to public opinion, wouldn't you need a referendum with three choices (hard, soft, or no exit), and with some form of preferential voting? 

Australia is much more sensible this way.

Heatwave in May in Japan

Some extraordinarily high temperatures being experienced in Japan this May, particularly in the normally cooler Hokkaido:

Two die, nearly 600 taken to hospitals nationwide as heat wave hits parts of nation Unseasonably hot conditions gripped wide areas of Japan on Sunday, with the town of Saroma in Hokkaido setting the highest temperature ever recorded in the country for the month of May.

Two men — one in Shimizu, Hokkaido, and the other in Tome, Miyagi Prefecture — died and at least 575 people nationwide were taken to hospitals by ambulance suffering from symptoms that appeared to point to heatstroke, according to data compiled by Kyodo News.

The mercury hit 39.5 degrees in the northeastern coastal Hokkaido town at 2:07 p.m. Sunday — the hottest at any observation point in Japan for the month, according to the Meteorological Agency. The previous record, set on May 13, 1993, was 37.2 degrees in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture.

But Australian libertarians and tax haters just had a weekend conference with "star" Australian denier Jonova giving a talk.

Why are libertarians such numbskulls on this matter?