Put them in the military..or something

I watched last night's Foreign Correspondent on the issue of illicit drug testing at European music festivals, and it was a pretty good way to get me feeling old and cranky with youff of today.

Actually, the editorial line taken by the show was more moderate and balanced than I expected, especially given that it was done by someone from JJJ who has reported on music festival drug deaths for a few years.  Yes, while it generally did paint the testing services in a positive light, they did balance it with at least one guy who ran tests acknowledging that those who have concerns that it virtually endorses illicit drug use do have a point.

It was sort of funny, though, that it featured a recent English festival at which the organisation which had previously done the free on site testing pulled back their involvement this year to only giving drug counselling.   (There was one fake looking scene where a couple said "yeah, we'll still go get counselling at least", and afterwards the dissolute woman said she had learnt for the first time that she should not mix alcohol with her ketamine taking - seriously?  I thought.   She looked a very experienced user.)   Yet no one at the end of the festival had been too badly endangered by their drug use anyway.   Kind of makes you wonder about the efficacy of the testing part of it, then.

But the worst thing about it was the "so this is what decadent youth of today think is having a good time?   Standing in a field in the sun, drinking and using illicit drugs to dance stupidly for three days straight?"   The people on screen, especially the English youth, playing up to the camera, all looked so distinctly uninspiring to my "I must be getting old" eyes.   Sure, I guess most of them actually hold down jobs, but I just have trouble handling the idea that people want to be off their face for so long at these events.

I mean, at least people at Woodstock had something they felt they were legitimately rebelling against - and the free love bits were just all part and parcel of wanting the world to change to something non-violent and less materialist.

Today's music festival scene, on the other hand, just looks like so much self indulgent hedonism that has emerged from youth having too much money, spare time and no interest in changing the world at all - it's given them an ugly tattoo or ten and enough cheap drugs, as well as a free ambulance tent if they have taken too much unknown substance and have started hallucinating, after all.

In my parent's day, the response was all "they should do some national service, that would straighten them out."    I'm still not at the stage of wanting that - although I am getting awfully close!

PS:  I am not at all sure why, but I find (for want of a better description) young yobbo behaviour when done with an English accent particularly annoying.    Is it the sense that it is a sadly fallen culture, compared to the stoicism of only (say) 80 years ago?

Unbelievable, and good

I've watched the first two episodes of the well reviewed Netflix true crime series Unbelievable - and it is really good.

This review in The Guardian is accurate, I think.   I like the way it describes the second episode as being better than mere "competence porn" - because, yes, you cannot help but feel that the first two episodes are virtually written to be police training films.  (The first episode is the grating, but quite distressingly plausible, example of everything detectives could possibly do wrong in questioning a rape victim; the second episode shows a virtually perfect example of how it should be done.)

But look, the acting is really good, so far, and it is not sensationalist despite the weirdness of the crimes.

Well worth watching.

A scandal to come?

Heh.  I see that Helen Dale, who vapes to get her nicotine hit, has re-tweeted a tweet of reassurance from Public Health England that they are not backing down from their (unusually strong) support of vaping:

No situation?   I'm not at all sure that there are any cases of young people developing life threatening lung problems within a year of smoking, are there?  


I'm sure I have commented on this before:   England's health authorities seem to have been completely persuaded unusually quickly that vaping is a pretty good thing, at least for smokers.   They don't seem to have any of the concerns of the equivalent US bodies, which have always been much more dubious.  True, there may be regulatory differences that account for some of this - such as tighter regulation in the UK of vaping liquids, and far fewer English youth getting hooked on nicotine this way.  But I still have my strong suspicions about something being not quite right about how strongly PHE has decided to endorse this nicotine delivery method.

It has a whiff of - something: perhaps money buying influence, and/or one or two key strong personalities within a health bureaucracy deciding a line and pushing it onto others.

There are hints of academic resistance - earlier this year, before the current spate of problems in the US, there was this headline in The Sun (OK, I know, not my preferred journal of health news): 

A LEADING scientist has accused health bosses of purposely "ignoring" the dangers of vaping.

Professor Martin McKee from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine says that he has "serious concerns" about the safety of e-cigs.

 And a couple of doctors writing to the BMJ in 2018 expressed similar scepticism about the PHE endorsement:

We understand that such conflict, existing as it does among tobacco experts, reflects a wider uncertainty surrounding the long term health risks of e-cigarettes. That PHE, whose purpose is “to protect and improve the nation’s health,”5 should sanction e-cigarette use citing an embryonic and inconclusive evidence base, is astonishing.

There was a whole article  in an American journal looking at how the American and English appraisals of vaping could come to such different conclusions:   The E-Cigarette Debate - What Counts as Evidence.

I reckon that all it will take for the UK media to leap into strenuous criticism of the PHE approach will be one or two British youth developing the sort of serious lung issues we have seen in the US.  The tabloids, which love that sort of story, will give it plenty of coverage.

Perhaps there will then be a proper and thorough political or journalistic investigation as to how the PHE came to its conclusions, and I would not be at all surprised if there is an element of scandal to be discovered.

Let's see.  I've made my prediction:  will I be vindicated?

Italians and their pets

I thought England would still be the European country most besotted with dogs, but according to this diary entry at the Catholic Herald, Italians now prefer pooches to bambini:

A growing number of Italians are now opting for pets rather than children. Back in 2014, Pope Francis was already sufficiently worried about this new trend, and warned Italians to keep their devotion for their children rather than pets. It looks like no one was listening. The passeggiata, the traditional evening walk which used to be a chance to show off babies in prams and toddlers on their new tricycles, is now given over to strutting dog owners, and pooches nestling like a baby in a kangaroo pouch.

The land that was once synonymous with a large brood now has one of the lowest birthrates in the world (1.35), but boasts a one-to-one ratio of pets per person – more than any other European country. Italians spent more than €2 billion (£1.8 billion, $2.2 billion) on pet food in 2017, and more than €72 million (£65 million, $80 million) on “accessories” in the same year. When I say “accessories”, I mean rhinestone-studded collars and sheepskin-lined miniature four-poster beds.

The African divide

Reversing the usual formula for Western people talking about how their family and friends took their "hey I'm gay" news, Time magazine notes this about the coming out of a famous gospel singer from Rwanda:

...the reaction he has received, from family and friends to strangers, has been mostly “horrible,” underscoring the intolerance faced by LGBT people in many parts of Africa.

The articles goes on to note that although Rwanda does not make gay sexual activity a crime, it is far from socially accepted:

Some of Nabonibo’s best friends who spoke to the AP said they were too embarrassed even to talk about him. They requested anonymity for their own privacy. “This is crazy. I don’t understand why he thinks this is normal,” said one friend, shaking his head.

Another friend, a man who attends the same church as Nabonibo, said he was in a state of “agony” since the rest of his family knows he used to hang out with Nabonibo. Now he has blocked Nabonibo from all phone contact, saying he wants to “keep safe.”

There has been a similar reaction on social media, with many Rwandans questioning Nabonibo’s intentions and others condemning him. One wondered on Twitter: “How can a gospel singer be gay?”

The article also notes that in many countries on that continent, legislation is in reverse from the Western, liberalising trend:

In 2017, Chad enacted legislation criminalizing same-sex relations for the first time in the country’s history. In May, a court in Kenya ruled against overturning a colonial-era law criminalizing homosexual acts between consenting adults. Activists there who had challenged the law in court said they faced discrimination and threats to their dignity.

And in neighboring Uganda, a government minister in charge of ethics is threatening to introduce another version of an anti-gay law passed in 2014, and subsequently voided by the country’s constitutional court, that provided for jail terms of up to life for those convicted of engaging in gay sex. The original version of that bill, first introduced in 2009, had included the death penalty for what it called aggravated acts of homosexuality.

It's pretty remarkable, really:  living in the West, it is easy to imagine that everyone around the globe is moving in same liberalising direction on such matters.

It also points to the huge problem it may be if the Catholic Church hopes to increasingly provide conservative African priests to Western parishes.   It's going to go over like a lead balloon.

Adam has thoughts

What's going on with Adam Creighton?   Is he hanging up his soft libertarian, capitalism-is-great-and-let's-leave-it-alone credentials for good with today's column "Maybe it is time we accepted greed was never good"?

He's never impressed me, as many posts here over the years will attest, so I'm not going to be one to welcome him into the centrist, capitalism-needs-good-regulation-as-all-reasonable-people-have-known-since-about-1850 fold.  He'll probably have another change of heart next week, anyway.

And didn't he write a whinge about our immigration program last week, that it was letting in too  many unskilled?

As with Jason, it seems, soft libertarian types are now lost and wandering around listening to anyone from Pauline Hanson via her acolyte Mark Latham (who, I see, has re-joined Twitter because he couldn't bear to be around without annoying people) to "I'm just being reasonable, having articles both anti immigration and anti urgent climate change action" Lehmann.

Sad.

Conan does Greenland

I enjoyed the clips of Conan O'Brien's recent trip to Nuuk, Greenland.   It's a one hotel,  two traffic light town, with what would appear to be no tourism infrastructure at all, but it's still interesting to see.

I thought all of the locals were pretty attractive, amusing and likeable people, too:

Musician's death noted

Ric Ocasek's death gives me the opportunity to note that I enjoyed The Cars in the 1980's:  fun, catchy pop that I may still have on vinyl in a cupboard at home.    He was a bit of an odd looking dude, though; but then again, I suppose a lot of pop/rock stars of the era were not exactly handsome.

Not sure what difference Bolton leaving has made, really...

Yes, this is a ridiculous way for a President to act:

Update:  more Twitter commentary on the matter:

"It belongs in a toilet"

Has this story flashed around the innerwebs yet?   I saw it via a Dave Roberts tweet this morning:  a link to this very important update to archaeological science:

Experimental replication shows knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work

You can read the full article at the link.  A highlight or two:

Fecal samples were formed into knives using ceramic molds, “knife molds” (Figs. S1–S2), or molded by hand, “hand-shaped knives” (Fig. S3). All fecal samples were stored at −20 °C until the experiments began...

Neither the “knife mold” samples, nor the “hand-shaped knives” could cut through hide (Figs. S5–S6). Despite the hide being cold from refrigeration, instead of slicing through it the knife-edge simply melted upon contact, leaving streaks of fecal matter (Fig. S4).

I have even downloaded the supplementary material so you can see what a frozen human poo blade failing to cut looks like.  Here:

And now I have no idea how to end this post appropriately...

Explaining the Many Worlds, again

Sean Carroll has a new book out, promoting the Everett Many Worlds theory as being correct even if (to say the least) counter-intuitive, and so there is some good reading about it around the 'net.

First, Carroll's own essay at Aeon gives a nice, pretty clear account.  Well worth reading.

Secondly, the book must be pretty good, because fellow physicist Bee Hossenfelder gives it a good review at Backreaction.

And finally: another good review at NPR.

Update:   Peter Woit liked the book, but is very annoyed that Sean Carroll is participating in some nonsense descriptions about what Many Worlds means.

The Orwell failure

Oh look - a really long essay about Orwell and 1984 in particular, which I think gives plenty of ammunition to my unpopular but resolute position that the book is vastly over-rated and actually a failure on most levels.

My only regret is that I did not have stuff like this to bolster my dislike of the book in high school.

Living Dutch style

I have never been to the Netherlands, and didn't understand how some of their "let's live well below sea level" worked for much of the country until watching these interesting videos from Channel News Asia this morning:





What's that breed of cow in the second video, by the way?  They are very pretty looking, for cows.

Highly regarded movies I didn't much care for

I caught up with the 1995 Michael Mann film Heat for the first time last night.  (It was a cheap hire on Google.)   While it was sort of amusing watching Al Pacino play a cop who seemed potentially more dangerous (and nuttier) than criminal mastermind Robert De Niro, I don't think the film had all that much going for it.  One big shoot out on the streets of LA isn't enough.   That bank heist before it seemed way, way too easy.   A lot of the dialogue was hard to follow - you more or less just had to hope that it would become clearer in the next scene what they had been talking about in the one before. My son said it reminded him a lot of playing Grand Theft Auto, and I think he is right. 

Anyway, not the pits, but not that great either.

A few weeks ago, we watched Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).  Technically well made, with the long, long single tracking shots; its basic theme of "you have to be nuts to want to be actor" is a tad self indulgent in just the right way to win critics' praise and Oscars, but is not of that much interest to the rest of us.   And does Edward Norton ever get to play a normal human?

Again, not the pits, but...etc.

I'm finding it a bit difficult, lately, to find streaming service movies which have I have missed and really like when I do get to watch them.

 

Shadow self

Happens to a lot of blokey blokes, it seems

Jack the Insider, the ever genial blokey writer, says today (in relation to the apparent suicide of that ex footy player) that he too has had periods of suffering from suicidal ideation.  He writes:

...for many years, suicide ideation was like an unwelcome houseguest I couldn’t get shot of. The demons of anxiety, panic and desolation mutter away. “I’ll never be any good.’’ “I’m letting everyone down.’’ Combine that dark mantra with a sleepless couple of nights and you’re in the danger zone, borderline psychotic, suffering silently from a pain that won’t go away.

Some people still cling to the atavistic notion that suicide is for the weak. It’s not. It can’t be. It is almost the hardest thing anyone can do, bearing in mind the hardest is to survive and live on.

Mental illness is, if not invisible, then something sufferers are adept at camouflaging. It hides in plain sight. There are no ugly blemishes or boils, no hacking coughs, no greying of complexions. It is almost impossible to see in others.

I’ve spoken on live television. I’ve spoken at venues where audiences that number from fifty to five thousand. I flick the switch to the wisecracking good bloke, that part of my personality that people expect to see. I do it easily and without any reservations. I like that part of me, but I know it is a disguise.

Well that's very clear, direct writing on the topic, if a little worrying in its warning that it can be impossible to tell if someone is suffering this way.   (On the other hand, I suppose, it could be seen as comforting for those who blame themselves after a suicide for not noticing.)

He also says this:

Beyond mental illness the one thing they shared with Frawley was a personality type. They are characters who everyone wants to be with. Larger than life, the lives of the party. I often wonder if there is some correlation between that personality type and frequency of mental health problems.

It could just be more my personality than any particular insight I have into other people, but it's fair to say that I have always felt that I do not want to be around "life of the party" types;  perhaps due to a sense I've instinctively had that brashness can too easily be a cover for inner dissatisfaction?

Either that, or I just dislike other people having too much fun. :)
 
Also on this topic, I noticed on Twitter this thread by some people complaining about RU OK day - many saying that they had suffered mental health issues and they did not enjoy the day at all, thinking it was shallow and a patronising take on a problem which lasts all year, not just one day, etc etc.

To be honest, even allowing for their problems, this annoys me.   Any "day" which intends to promote awareness or raise money for research can annoy people affected by the illness.   I'm sure I read once that parents who have lost a baby to SIDS can find the "red nose day" a distressing reminder of their loss.  I can understand that, at least for the first few years after their baby's death. 

But really, you have to allow for the greater good that such promotions may achieve, and the good intentions of the people who create such awareness of a health issue.  

Sure, have a whinge about the lack of readily accessible mental health services, if that is something you know about, but don't get upset at a program that can do some good.

From (old) cinema to reality (almost)

The internet makes it easy to remember things now.

This story:

 Cockpit coffee spill forces commercial jet to make emergency landing 

put me in mind of an old movie that I probably watched as a kid one Saturday afternoon on the black and white TV about a plane crash where it turned out to have been caused by spilt coffee.

And the internet reminds me - the movie was Fate is the Hunter.   A very dramatic noir-ish title, for a plane crash movie, no?   About the only thing I remember about it is the coffee spill revelation at the end.   Obviously, modern pilots need to watch more old movies.

The ridiculous Right

Not a bad, short column here about the utterly ridiculous Tucker Carlson saying that he's glad John Bolton has gone, because he was a man of the Left:

"It is great news for America," as Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Tuesday evening, "especially for the large number of young people who would have been killed in pointless wars if Bolton had stayed on the job." Bolton was an inveterate hawk, perpetually undermining the president's better instincts on pursuing diplomacy and extricating America from her many misadventures in the Middle East. And anyway, as Carlson continued, Bolton "fundamentally was a man of the left," and — wait, what?

John Bolton, fundamentally a man of the left? Opposed to abortion and gun control, pro-private sector remedies to recession, unrelentingly aggressive on foreign policy John Bolton? Bomb Iran and invade North Korea John Bolton? Supporter of Barry Goldwater; member of the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump; Fox News commentator John Bolton? That John Bolton?

As she explains:

Some conservatives are putting in the difficult but necessary work of constructive criticism of their own movement. But Carlson and others like him have chosen the easier and more damaging method of handling disagreement via a constant game of "no true Scotsman." Instead of admitting fault, error, or even simple differences of opinion within their own camp — and different policy preferences unquestionably can develop from a set of ideological underpinnings unified enough to fund a single movement — they relabel anything objectionable as the property of their political enemies.

For this crowd, to have a bad position is to have a liberal position. If you're not with us, you're against us. To err is to be a Democrat. For Carlson, if Bolton is a disaster on foreign policy, that proves Bolton is a left-winger.

Yet more "what climate change looks like"

From The Guardian:

Parts of eastern Spain received what in some places was the heaviest rainfall on record on Thursday, as storms wreaked widespread destruction and killed at least two people.

The regional emergency service said a 51-year-old woman and her 61-year-old brother had been found dead in an overturned car that floodwaters had washed away in Caudete, about 60 miles (100km) south of Valencia, the private Spanish news agency Europa Press reported.

While on the topic of increased floods from climate change, a recent study at Nature confirmed that climate change is both increasing floods in parts of Europe, and decreasing them in other parts:

Our results—arising from the most complete database of European flooding so far—suggest that: increasing autumn and winter rainfall has resulted in increasing floods in northwestern Europe; decreasing precipitation and increasing evaporation have led to decreasing floods in medium and large catchments in southern Europe; and decreasing snow cover and snowmelt, resulting from warmer temperatures, have led to decreasing floods in eastern Europe. Regional flood discharge trends in Europe range from an increase of about 11 per cent per decade to a decrease of 23 per cent. Notwithstanding the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the observational record, the flood changes identified here are broadly consistent with climate model projections for the next century^4,5, suggesting that climate-driven changes are already happening and supporting calls for the consideration of climate change in flood risk management.

Of course, this will cause simple minded, dumb people, like Bolt, Blair and anyone at Catallaxy, to have a headache, because they cannot conceive that climate change is not exactly the same in every part of the world.

Vaping taking the big hit

I wonder if vaping JC from Catallaxy invested in some vaping company's shares?   Or if he is still vaping himself.  Because businesses involved in this activity must be taking a severe hit in sales, one would imagine.  From People magazine:

A student athlete still has difficulty climbing up stairs after being hospitalized with “severe lung damage” caused by e-cigarettes.

“My lungs were that of a 70-year-old’s,” Illinois teen Adam Hergenreder, who started vaping when he was 16, was told by the doctors, according to CNN.

Following days of persistent nausea and vomiting, the teenager was hospitalized in late August, where doctors were able to realize the full extent of the damage....

“If I had known what it was doing to my body, I would have never even touched it, but I didn’t know,” the teen said, adding that “it was scary to think about” the damage “that little device” did to his lungs.

After being released from the hospital, Hergenreder still finds it “difficult to even do normal activities, like going up stairs,” which leaves him winded. His future with sports is also in jeopardy.

“I was a varsity wrestler before this and I might not ever be able to wrestle because that’s a very physical sport and my lungs might not be able to hold that exertion,” he told CNN. “It’s sad.”

I did try to warn you, JC.