What a suck up

Command of English?   Yeah, "thrown out to sea in a chaff bag" was positively Shakespearean.  As was "nigger in the woodpile".  Such eloquence, the likes of which way never hear again.

I've always thought Adam a dill, but his validation of my judgment lately is so thorough it's still surprising me.

Update:  I know that there is also the odd "Leftist" journo who is making comment about what a "brilliant" broadcaster he is, in terms of effectiveness with his audience, even if you don't agree with his views.   But this is a very stupidly narrow way of judging a broadcaster career performance.   Even without criticising the political content (the anti carbon tax support, for example) what about the (I think) 11 defamation cases he faced?   Isn't a "brilliant" broadcaster one who is careful enough to avoid such a large number of financial losses for his employer?

Wonder drug continues to be no wonder

Results of an observational study published yesterday in JAMA:

In this study, during rapidly expanding hospitalization for COVID-19, 70% of patients received hydroxychloroquine alone or with azithromycin. Patients who received hydroxychloroquine with or without azithromycin were more likely (relative to patients receiving neither drug) to be male, have preexisting medical conditions, and have impaired respiratory or liver function at presentation. There were no significant differences in in-hospital mortality between patients who received hydroxychloroquine with or without azithromycin and patients who received neither drug.

The lack of observed benefit of hydroxychloroquine associated with in-hospital mortality, following adjustment for preexisting disease and severity of illness on admission, is consistent with recently reported data from other observational studies.^17,23,24

Some good media news

Alan Jones, veteran Sydney radio host, announces he will retire on health grounds 

I find it a considerable puzzle how he has any substantial following at all.  Even if you ignore the content, I find his style to be so obviously pompous (how long has he been slipping opera into the end of his show?) and arrogant (an over-inflated self regard for his role as political kingmaker),  I don't understand his appeal at all.  

The biggest problem with the internet...

....is that it has put conspiracy minded idiots in instantaneous contact with other idiots, setting up a community and cycle of mutually reinforcing idiocy, all with the ability to be politically exploited. 

Today's example:  Obamagate is still trending on Twitter, with the main concern of many of the posts being that despite the number of mindless tweets on the topic, it's some sort of serious conspiracy that Twitter is repressing the hashtag from being number one on "Trending"!

And all it took is one Fox News "story" that is pure speculation (my bold):

"Sources are telling Watters' World that Attorney General Bill Barr was just given a trove of smoking gun documents that could point directly at former President Barack Obama, revealing his powerful connection to 'Spygate' and the Russia hoax," Watters said on Saturday.

Of course, Trump, an idiot, then just had to tweet "Obamagate", and his cult followers, not to mention the sad sack Qanon followers who find meaning in fantasising about how their Annointed One will (finally!) unleash an attack on the Deep State that has corrupted all that is good and right in the world, resulting in mass arrest and executions of liberal criminals, jump on board and find more evidence of conspiracy because their hashtag is not No 1.

The US is in so much trouble, because this idiocy is exploited and encouraged by the large slab of idiots in the Republican party.

The two best things I have read on the Michael Flynn scandal

David Graham in The Atlantic: he even thinks that the FBI notes about the tactics to use in interviewing Flynn are a worry, but still notes that the outcome is ridiculous:

But as it happened, the notes didn’t have to convince Sullivan, because the Department of Justice withdrew the charges before the judge had to reach a conclusion. (Sullivan could still reject the DOJ’s motion. The long-running prosecutor on the case abruptly withdrew from it today, a likely sign of disagreement, and The New York Times reports that the motion stunned prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office.) Flynn’s defenders argued that the FBI was out to get him, and if the FBI is out to get you, it will find a way. But there’s a corollary: If Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department wants to let you off, it will find a way too.

The whole process is stunning: Flynn was accused of committing several crimes, admitted to one to try to get himself off easy, agreed to cooperate, reneged on the deal, and is now free, having escaped punishment for both the crime to which he confessed and those on which he avoided prosecution.

Yet Flynn’s escape is not merely an isolated outrage. It is also a test case for loyalty to Trump. Since Flynn flipped on Trump, and then flopped back, his fate offers a lesson for others who might find themselves in a bind and tempted to turn on Trump, who continues to engage in the sort of behavior that got him impeached.

And today, at Axios:

Mary McCord, former acting assistant attorney general for national security, claimed in a New York Times op-ed Sunday that the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the case against Michael Flynn "twisted" her words to suggest that the FBI's 2017 interview of Flynn was illegitimate.

Why it matters: The Justice Department's filing relies in part on McCord's July 2017 interview with the FBI to argue that the FBI had no valid counterintelligence reason to interview Flynn, and that the former national security adviser's apparent lies were therefore immaterial....

The bottom line: "In short, the report of my interview does not anywhere suggest that the FBI’s interview of Mr. Flynn was unconstitutional, unlawful or not “tethered” to any legitimate counterintelligence purpose," McCord concludes.

 There has been the suggestion that Sullivan could, before deciding on the motion, ask for some sort of further explanation or investigation as to how the decision to withdraw was made.   It would seem that McCord's piece gives him plenty of reason to believe that the withdrawal of the charges is corrupt, but I don't know how he can get around a corrupt Attorney General...

Update:  a tweet on point -

Update2:   Another good article at The Atlantic: What Judge Sullivan Should Do

The distraction machine

And sure enough, Obamagate is trending on Twitter, and the Wingnut Right and Qanon idiots are beside themselves.

Update:  one thing I have noticed about Qanon on Twitter:  it seems to have unusually large support from women.   Not sure if all accounts are genuine, but this strikes me as odd.  Has anyone looked into this issue? 

Shipwreck story humour

Boy, that Tongan teenagers shipwreck story has gone viral.  It has given us this funny stream of tweets, too:

By the way:  I'm not doubting the story, but all photos I see of the survivors make them look way older than the ages they were when they were shipwrecked (13 to 16, and were on the island for "more than a year".)

About that Biden allegation...

This article at Vox about Tara Reade's allegations, from a reporter who had lengthy discussions with the complainant, is the single best thing I have read about the matter.

It convinces me that her complaint is highly dubious, given that her story has changed very significantly, and she has left raising the "worst" version against him until now, and not at the early stages of his career elevation.  I often don't care for Bill Maher's views, but his take on this matter seems right to me.

I know it's tricky, but Democrats and Democrat sympathisers with any brains should not let the mainstream media keep making this into another "Hilary's emails" situation - where they elevate an ill founded allegation to a significance it does not deserve, all to the benefit of the Wingnut Right.

A shipwreck tale.

It seems lots of people are sharing this article (actually, a book extract) in The Guardian about a 1960's case of 6 shipwrecked Tongan teenage boys in the Pacific who did not go all "Lord of the Rings".  

I note that the story rights were given to Channel 7 in Australia at the time of the rescue, but I don't remember it from my childhood.  (Although I would only have been 6 at the time.) 

Anyway, it's a nice, positive story.

Cooking confessions

*  As it happens, I have never had cause to make up my own dry curry mix before.  Well, I have made dishes that used a mix of these curry base spices, but I don't know that they were called curries, and I never had reason before to look up a simple, base curry mix of spices.   (This makes me feel inadequate as a cook.)

Anyway, I was making a prawn curry (from a Filipino food website) and it just called for "curry powder", but I had only one that said it was a meat curry powder.   I decided to make up from scratch instead, and used this mix from this website, and the quantity was just right for the 4 person meal:

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp ground coriander seeds
• 1 ½ tsp cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• ½ tsp chili powder
• ½ tsp ground ginger

As the website explains, you can add a wide variety of extra spices, and apparently Indian families have their favourite combinations they like.   I am still surprised I never did this before.

*  The prawn curry I had made once before, apparently on 7 June 2015.   Given that I posted about how it was nice, I'm surprised it took me this long to go back to it.   But looking at my old post, it seems I made a strange mistake:  I said that a "14 oz" can of coconut milk was about half a "normal" can.  But it isn't - 14 fluid oz is 414 ml, which is a "standard" sized can here for vegetables, soup etc.   So it would appear that the first time I made it, I may have used half of the coconut milk.  I didn't this time, and maybe that is why I found it particularly good yesterday.

The original recipe is kind of vague as to how much prawn head "stock" to use.   Yesterday, I boiled up the prawn heads (25 or so) in about 2 - 3 cups of water, but let it boil down until there was about one cup left.   This was added to the two, 400 ml, cans of coconut milk, and it made a lot of sauce.  Enough for 6 meals, I reckon, if I had more prawns to hand.   

I think the key thing in it is seasoning at the end with fish sauce.  Anyway, apart from the painful time of shelling and cleaning 26 raw prawns, this is pretty easy dish that is good to eat.  

*  Tonight, I made another thing for the first time:  a pea puree.   (To go with confit duck leg - bought pre-made by Luv-a-Duck).  I thought it pleasant, but there are million versions of it and perhaps it needed some thing extra - cream or lemon perhaps?   I didn't use mint - I didn't have any and am not sure it is a good match for duck.   All I did was boil 2 cups of frozen peas, fry off in butter a smallish onion, and blitz all of it with two or three teaspoons of parmesan cheese and a bit of the pea cooking water.   Maybe more cheese would have been better?   It looks great on the plate, at least.   
 

The sourdough issue

I had been interested in trying out sourdough breadmaking for some time, but now that it has come such a thing as a result of the lockdowns,  I don't want to give people the impression I'm a meme follower by joining in!

Anyway, I was interested in this NYT summary of what is going on in sourdough starter, apart from wild yeast:

But sourdough would not be sour without a second and equally important element: bacteria, specifically the kind that feed on the sugars to produce lactic acid and other organic acids that give the bread its tang. These, too, are found on the flour or other dry ingredients.

The yeast and bacteria have evolved a form of metabolic cooperation. “They’ve figured out how to work together,” Dr. Wolfe said.

There are some bad bacteria present as well, the kind that can cause food to spoil, but the acidic environment of the growing culture greatly reduces their number. And baking has a final “kill step,” Mr. Philip said — heat in the oven that will destroy good and bad microbes alike.

I wonder what commercial sourdough bakers use, then?   I assume there must be commerical suppliers of the right kind of bacteria to add?  

The article notes someone who has kept a sourdough starter going for 60 years!:

Ione Christensen has been baking breads and making pancakes for most of her 86 years, using sourdough starter, a bubbling brew of wild yeast she has kept alive since her mother gave her a batch.

That was six decades ago, which makes Mrs. Christensen, a Canadian former senator from Whitehorse, Yukon, one of the most experienced wild yeast wranglers around.

The deliberate killing of an old, family heirloom sourdough starter was a funny event in an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

And finally - I had some truly delicious sourdough from an Italian bakery in Brisbane last weekend.   As well as an excellent Black Forest cake.   It's called Gerbino's, and I think it's probably our favourite in the city now.

Singapore still struggling

SINGAPORE: Singapore reported 741 new COVID-19 cases as of noon on Thursday (May 7), including two healthcare workers and two quarantine order officers.

There are now 20,939 COVID-19 cases in the country. The vast majority of the new cases are work permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) in its daily update of preliminary figures.

Seven of the new cases were cases in the community, of which five are Singaporeans or permanent residents, and two are work pass holders.

The death rate is still low, though:

Twenty people have died of the disease in Singapore.

It's a very puzzling disease, isn't it?   

Covid problems in the Gulf

The Gulf countries' treatment of their large number of migrant workers has always been a problem, and throw in compulsory lay offs due to COVID-19, you're got a bad situation:

Low-wage migrant workers in Qatar, one of the richest countries in the world, say they have been forced to beg for food as the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic takes a devastating toll, following a surge in the outbreak that has seen one-in-four people test positive.

In more than 20 interviews, workers in the World Cup host nation have described a mounting sense of desperation, frustration and fear. Many told the Guardian they have suddenly been left jobless, with no other way to earn a living. Others say they are desperate, but unable, to return home. Some have been forced to plead for food from their employers or charities.

“I don’t have much food left. Just some rice and lentils. It will last only a few days. What happens when this food finishes?” said Rafiq, a cleaner from Bangladesh who lost his job in March.

Qatar, home to over 2 million migrant workers, now has one of the highest rates of infection per capita in the world with almost 18,000 cases in a population of just 2.8 million. Over 25% of those tested for the virus in the past week have been found to be infected; the vast majority migrant workers.

The government says almost all the cases are mild, and death rates have remained very low, with just 12 fatalities.

The cost to livelihoods has been compounded by a government directive in mid-April allowing companies that have stopped operating due to coronavirus restrictions to put workers on unpaid leave or terminate their contracts. The government said food and accommodation, which is usually arranged by employers, must continue to be provided, but workers’ testimonies suggest in some cases this is not happening.

Some COVID-19 thoughts

*  The reaction to the lock down indicates that the old science fiction trope of a slow moving generation ship to get to the stars is wildly improbable.  If a lot of people can't stand not getting out into the open for a month, how will they go over a lifetime?    (Oh, but if they are born into a ship, they'll never know the difference?   Well, you got to get the first shipload of adults used to it.    I'd guess they'd be killing each other within a year.)

*  I cannot imagine the pandemic in the USA not doing Trump serious political harm.   Here's why:

1.  It looks unlikely that he will be able to hold rallies anytime soon - in fact, anytime before the election.   Not that he wouldn't have enough dumb-ass, wingnut cult followers to go to them; but Trump will have enough people around him to tell him that any surge in infections within a few weeks of a rally is going to be a bad look.  And Trump himself, as a germophobe,  might worry about whether he can avoid catching it in a huge, crowded room of re-circulating air.    So no, he is not going to be able to run a campaign like the last time.

2.  If Trump can't or won't do his rallies, he has to find other alternatives, and as we have seen, his rambling on in front of normal people does not work in the same way as his rambles in front of cheering wingnuts.  The more he tries to talk in response to serious questions, the worse he looks.

3.  As I have opined before, I think he will find excuses to avoid appearing at a debate with Biden, too.   He now has a record to try run on, and can't just make motherhood statements while roaming around the stage looking like he is menacing a woman (something which played well with the large number of misogynistic followers.) 

4.  Perhaps most importantly, there is no way the economy is going to be back to anything like what it was before the pandemic in the space of 6 months.   So the old adage that people won't vote out a sitting President if they have jobs and feel economically secure and comfortable - nature has taken away that traditional advantage from him.

5.  Turnout against him on the Democrat side is, unless a natural disaster intervenes, surely going to be huge.

*  The progression in India seems oddly slow - but numbers are picking up, and it would still be surprising if it does not develop into a very big problem.

Doctors depressed about conspiracies

At NBC, a report on how American doctors are very depressed about the wave of conspiracy misinformation around Covid-19:

Halazun, like many health care professionals, is dealing with a bombardment of misinformation and harassment from conspiracy theorists, some of whom have moved beyond posting online to pressing doctors for proof of the severity of the pandemic.

And it's taking a toll. Hazalun said that dealing with conspiracy theorists is the “second-most painful thing I’ve had to deal with, other than separation of families from their loved one."

Several other doctors shared similar experiences, saying that they regularly had to treat patients who had sought care too late because of conspiracy theories spread on social media, and that social media companies have to do more to counteract the forces that spread lies for profit.

Facebook seems to be taken some token action, not directly related to Covid 19, but it's pathetically inadequate:

Facebook removed a small cluster of groups and pages promoting the QAnon conspiracy in April, calling it part of a “coordinated inauthentic behavior” campaign around the 2020 US elections. It appears to be one of Facebook’s first announcements about cracking down on QAnon-related content, and it suggests Facebook views at least a few corners of QAnon as deliberate manipulation — not just false information.

QAnon is an expansive conspiracy theory that claims President Donald Trump is secretly planning to arrest high-profile Democratic politicians and celebrities for pedophilia or cannibalism. It originated on an independent message board but has found a home on Facebook, which still hosts a wide range of QAnon-related pages. According to a new report from Facebook, though, the company took down five pages, 20 accounts, and six groups linked to “individuals associated with the QAnon network known to spread fringe conspiracy theories.”

 

Why is Morrison's flim flam figure not attracting more attention?

Apparently, at the Senate yesterday, it was revealed that Scott Morrison (who I think is getting too much credit for his leadership on Covid-19)  was pulling figures out of the air when it comes to the matter of allegedly needing 40% of the population using the government's tracking app for it to be effective:

Multiple senators in the committee also questioned the 40 per cent of the population download target that has been touted by several government ministers, including health minister Greg Hunt and Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who have also regularly linked the uptake of the app with the ability to ease social restrictions around Australia.

But acting health department secretary Caroline Edwards said this target was not provided by her department, and no modelling has been done to reach this figure.

Ms Edwards and the other departmental officials backed away from this target, saying that any increased uptake of the app is a positive.

This led to a fiery encounter between the officials and Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick who was baffled by a lack of analysis on usage and the app’s effectiveness, suggesting the government hadn’t done its “due diligence”

“You’ve done modelling on the spread of the virus but it seems extraordinary to me you haven’t done modelling on uptake versus usefulness,” Senator Patrick said.

“That will come from some statistical analysis – you need this amount of uptake in order to get this result. Have you done analysis on that? It’s part of the fundamental design of any application. I have an engineering background and I’m looking for quantifiable analysis.”

Ms Edwards said that 40 per cent target had not been provided by the Health department and was not being used by the department.

“Every single upload of this app and use of it is useful to help our health authorities do their work. I’d take one, I’d take 10 per cent and if it gets to 40 per cent and beyond I’d be delighted,” she said. Every upload and use is a benefit. The more people who use the app, the better data we have to assist that process,” she said.

“That 40 per cent number is meaningful to many people. We’re not aiming for a particular number.”

Don't get me wrong - I support the use of the app.

But this is an example of Morrison being an advertising flim flam man that is not being highlighted by the media, as far as I can see.

Update:   I didn't see this before I wrote the post - an opinion piece at WAPO saying Morrison doesn't deserve as much approval as he is getting for Covid response.

Black holes getting closer

Big news in astronomy:

Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory have found the closest black hole to Earth yet, so near that the two stars dancing with it can be seen by the naked eye.

Of course, close is relative on the galactic scale. This black hole is about 1,000 light-years away, which equates to roughly 9,500 trillion kilometres.

But in terms of the cosmos and even the galaxy, it is in our neighbourhood, according to a study lead by astronomer Thomas Rivinius, who led the study.

The previous closest black hole is probably about three times further, about 3,200 light-years, he said.

The black hole is tiny, only 40 kilometres in diameter, and lives in the Telescopium constellation (the telescope), which neighbours the Sagittarius and Corona Australis constellations in the southern celestial hemisphere.

Given our galaxy is somewhere between about 100,000 to 200,000 light years wide, that really is in the local neighbourhood.

But, remember, Planet 9 at the far edge of our solar system might yet turn out to be a black hole the size of a baseball.   

I just hope there are no rogue black holes wandering around the galaxy, like the recent asteroid that make a pass around the sun. 

Back to World Order

To the bafflement of my son and daughter, I am finding this particular recording of a stage performance of Machine Civilisation (the first song on this clip) pretty mesmerising and worthy of repeat viewings:



In fact, I have trouble explaining my reaction to it as well - I just know that it is weirdly cool.

The lyrics to the song are far from cheery, but they include certain themes which recur in the groups other songs (which are written by the leader-turned-politician Genki Sudo).   And in keeping with a theme running through recent posts here, they seem clearly Buddhist influenced. 

Someone in the factory trolling?

New information on chests

Back in 2014, I had a post about the history of men's swimwear, noting that it would seem that sometime in the 1930's it became acceptable, at least in Australia, for men on a public beach to go bare-chested in their swimwear.    Then in a post earlier this year, I noted that the British police were arresting men for sunbathing shirtless in parks in the 1920's.   Men's chests seemed to be a sensitive issue, but I hadn't found anything about how the turnaround to acceptability had happened. 

Well, on the weekend, I stumbled across a Washington Post article which fills in a lot of the story, at least in the USA:

...1930s America lived in fear of the male nipple. It was illegal in most states and cities for men to go anywhere shirtless, even at the beach.

It's a fun read, looking at what was a hot social issue a mere 90 years ago.  More extracts:

A headline on a June 16, 1934, Associated Press story called it the “Perennial Battle of togs” before listing which cities and states would jail men for indecency if they showed their chests.

“New York City, for example, is that way about half-naked natators at municipal beaches. It arrests them on sight. Fines of $1 are the penalty. The city fathers insist on complete bathing suits — tops and trunks, or one-piece suits combining both.”...

Many places where folks understood the outcome of a water-meets-light-colored fabric equation specifically banned all-white suits.

In D.C., men were urged to swim in the one-piece suits their hotels provided.

And the Northeastern fashion of flirting with lawlessness by wearing a tank but letting the straps slip to reveal some pecs was strictly and specifically prohibited.

“All we demand is decency,” William E. Whittacker, secretary to the Boston Metropolitan District Commission told the Associated Press. “But we won’t allow slipping straps.”

Geez, so many rules.

 The article notes that men might have been motivated to go topless by the reaction to Tarzan!:

Men grew tired of being told what they could do with their bodies and kept rebelling, especially after observing the way dames swooned after seeing Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller bare-chested in the 1932 “Tarzan the Ape Man” flick....

Not all women were thrilled with the views their non-Olympian peers provided. A group of pearl-clutching New Yorkers said they had “no desire to gaze upon hairy chested men,” according to a June 29, 1936, Associated Press story.

“In this year of campaigns we are having our own drive, and we won’t stop until every hairy chested man covers up on the beach or removes the curls from his chest,” said Grace Donohue, a spokeswoman for the group who demanded men wear shirts or wax.

So it was the hair that was the problem, not the nipples?

Anyway, it all came to a head by 1937:

One hot August day in 1935, police rounded up, arrested and fined 42 men who protested and swam topless on the beach in Atlantic City, according to the New York Times. City official Thomas D. Taggart Jr. logged each of their arrests and collected a $2 fine from each bare-chested man.

The summer of 1936 was the summer of the men’s no-shirt movement, and arrests and protests and slipped straps were an epidemic.

But next year, in the epicenter of the men’s protests and mass arrests, a lengthy experience with “bareback bathing,” as some called it, changed one important man’s mind.

“ ‘Bareback’ bathing for men, heretofore taboo in Atlantic City, broke down the last line of official resistence today and will be allowed this Summer,” the New York Times reported on March 29, 1937. “Mayor C.D. White succeeded in holding off the invasion of shirtless bathing suits all last Summer on the ground they were ‘not nice.’ But today he returned from a vacation in Florida a convert to the style.”

 A judge in New York overturned the ban the same year. And boom, male nipples were free.

Now you know.