Not a good look

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

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

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

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

Viral conspiracies on the Right

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Some impressive sarcasm here...

Remarkable

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

Another post preview

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

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

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

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

A detailed post is coming.

Late movie review - Logan Lucky

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

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

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

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

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

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

So - highly recommended.

Another salmon recipe

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

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

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

Yesterday's toilet paper exchange

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panic woman:  "Yes please. Get two."

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

Now they praise her..

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

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

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

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

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

 

Hard to imagine the compulsion

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

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

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

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

Anyway, the guy needs psychological help, clearly.

Do the shelves still carry disinfectant?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Einstein in Prague

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

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

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

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

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

Country accountants are a menace to society

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

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

Panic attack

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

It is puzzling because:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Incredible abilities in mobile phone cameras

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



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

Update:  here it is -

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

More in the narrative "old people are killing us"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She's out.  

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

 

The verdict is in...

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

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

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

The continuing crisis...

Oh:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on Monday that "millions" of migrants would soon head for Europe, drawing accusations from EU leaders that he is trying to pressure them into backing his incursions into Syria.

Turkey gave the green light to refugees and migrants on Friday to leave for the European Union and thousands have since massed at the Greek border, triggering fears of an influx like that which poisoned European politics in 2015.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel described Turkey's move as "unacceptable" and EU migration commissioner Margaritis Schinas said nobody could "blackmail or intimidate the EU".

But Turkey, which hosts roughly four million refugees, is trying to hold off another mass influx from Syria – where government forces backed by Russian air power are advancing into the last rebel stronghold of Idlib.

Man, that part of the globe is such a never ending mess.

What I've been watching...

*  In case you haven't noticed, season 3 of Babylon Berlin is up on Netflix (yay).  The first episode (the only one I have seen) was pretty good, even if the main crime looked a little overly theatrical in execution.   Also - the opening sequence would seem to indicate that the stock exchange in Berlin really did not take the stock market crash of 1929 at all well.   Was it a dream?   What was the end sequence about; that was a little confusing too.   Anyway, I'm happy to be watching again.

*  Another favourite, Occupied, continues to impress into its 3rd season too.   It reinforces my distrust of everything Russian - and I am curious as to whether Bente, or her daughter, is going to somehow end up in some Russian mafia prostitution ring.   Thinking about it, though, I guess every character is flawed, or does something ethically dubious, in one way or another.   But that's life.   Bente does seem particularly corruptible, though, boo.

*  I saw the Australian made, low budget time travel movie Predestination on the weekend.   It's  (loosely, I think) based on a Robert Heinlein short story, and it's quite a handsome looking film despite an obviously small budget.   (Made by German born twin brothers who grew up in Brisbane!  They have gone on to make bigger budget films, even if they are far from famous.)   I was getting tired and started having trouble staying awake near the end, but I understood  the silly time travel paradox that it showed.   I thought it wasn't bad, but perhaps needed a more compelling "hook" in the first act - waiting for the story to unfold without understanding where it was going lost my son's interest.   Anyway, a nice effort.