Wednesday: Hili dialogue

59 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

1. “Finally, on May 8, 1980, an even more amazing feat: the World Health Organization officially confirmed the complete eradication of smallpox from the planet. Science (and, of course, epidemiology) get the credit”

   Yes, as well as the people involved.

   But it also means, of the processes going on simultaneously, none of them – known or unknown – conspired in unpredicted ways to inhibit the eradication. There was no unknown element that would stymie eradication efforts. There might still be, but it is unknown, or vanished.

   Does my attempt at philosophy make sense?

   1. Had me wondering what the heck you were on about, until I read that last sentence. 🙂

      1. I’ll take that as a “no”

   2. Today it could not happen. Too many anti vaccine people. Happened with measles. We thought measles were gone.
      You are right it takes education and effort by the people as well as just the scientists.

      1. Take my reply as a yes.

      2. Measles is still a large chunk for us to bite. It is very, very contagious. But there is realistic hope for polio. I regularly check (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_eradication) to see how far we have advanced. I hope that civilization will not get totally screwed before polio (and dracunculiasis) are eradicated.

   3. Humans deliberately making a species (? can we say species for virus?) extinct… I wonder about the morality!

      1. Smallpox isn’t extinct – it is officially stored under WHO supervision at the US CDC reference lab & the Russian VECTOR reference lab. Unofficially I would bet a lot of money it is still stored illegally at Porton Down, Wiltshire in the UK [& other labs in the world too I suppose]. It is also ‘out there’ in an inactive form that can resurrect under the right conditions e.g. some pox scabs were found in a library book. It is also recreatable via ‘relatives’ such as horse pox.

         P.S. From Wiki: The last known cases of smallpox in the world occurred in my home town of Birmingham, UK in 1978. A medical photographer, Janet Parker, contracted the disease at the University of Birmingham Medical School and died on 11 September 1978. Professor Henry Bedson, the scientist responsible for smallpox research at the university, killed himself.

         1. A very sad case.

2. Harry Truman wished he had sacked MacArthur much earlier in the Korea Police Action, such as when MacArthur addressed the VFW at their request but by message as he could not be there. MacArthur’s version of foreign policy was leaked to the papers and Truman later demanded he withdraw the message. Too little, too late.

   We had nearly 4 inches of rain last night and this after one inch the night before and some earlier rains. Wet.

3. I loved the Liverpudlian ranter. A performance.

   1. Me too, but the accent being so broad, I don’t think Liverpudlian really does it justice – that is SCOUSERS’ Scouse.

      1. I admire the people of Liverpool for their actions over the Hillsborough fire ,they even forced the stun to say sorry about the lies they printed .

         But the accent leaves a lot to be desired .

      2. Scouse, with extra meat and tatties.

   2. Really amazing. Especially sweet when her voice went up a couple of octaves. I hardy understood a word, but by the infection and profanity you could get a fookn’ good idea what she was syin’.

      1. Clearly one thing she’s delusional about — no way is she ‘fookin starvin’!

4. It’s Victory in Europe Day because it was on May 8, 1945, that German forces agreed to an unconditional surrender.

   People of my parents’ generation used to refer among themselves to “VE Day” and “VJ Day” — the days marking Victory in Europe and Victory in Japan — occurrences seared into their memories, “The War” (as they always referred to it, and when they did there was never any doubt at to which war they were talking about) having been the defining experience of their youths.

   1. Might say – of their lives, that and the depression.

   2. One of the things I’ve really noticed is how differently people here in Europe think about the war than Americans (I moved here to Amsterdam about half my life ago, and as an amateur musician usually play at Remembrance Day ceremonies – 4 May here).

      It’s very odd to have (older) friends who remember playing in the bunkers just after the war, and being reminded by their parents not to play with any ammunition they found.

      The tram bowling, by the way, was the European Tram Driver championship. The Belgians won.

      1. But don’t you think people who are standing in the middle of war might look at it differently than those who participated from many miles away.

      2. I didn’t notice your comment before I made mine at #7.

         I assume part of the Tram Driver competition was demonstrating mastery of the emergency brakes?

         cr

5. Lauren Southern is a textbook example of right wing identity politics; she even worked with a group called “generation identitaire”.
   Here is a video of her working with them to block a boatload of immigrants. At 1:47 she looks upward toward what looks like a flare flying thru the air. Later, (~5:30) They light a flare on their own boat to draw attention. Whether she/they launched a flare towards the immigrant boat is unclear, but their harassment of the vessel is not.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAV0eI6MnrA

   1. Defend Europa is definitely right-wing identitarian. Yet the ‘rescue missions’ they sought to expose — open borders groups in chartered ships picking up immigrants at predesignated locations in collusion with local human traffickers — is illegal, and was soon after shut down forcibly by Italy.

   2. “Ben Collins proves that her denials are lies.”

      He does nothing of the sort. Where is the evidence that Southern “shot road flares out of a boat toward immigrants trying to enter Europe”? (BTW, “immigrants trying to enter Europe” is a very disingenuous way of saying “people trying to break your laws and sneak into your country in the dead of night”, but I digress)

      In the video footage, I see no flares launched and I don’t even see her HOLDING a flare. At 1:47 it’s obvious she is not looking at a “flare flying thru the air” but at a red light on her boat mate’s headgear.

      It does indeed look like Southern is the honest one in this exchange and Collins is engaging in a malicious smear.

      Disclosure: I’ve not read the WP article Collins linked to. It’s behind a paywall for me: I’ve read my allotment of free articles for the month.

      1. She is clearly and unambiguously HOLDING a flare; just pause the video at 22 seconds.
         The feed cuts out and we don’t know how it ends, so there is no definitive proof as to whether she launched one.

   3. In other words, governments have deserted their BASIC duty to protect their citizens from illegal immigration and have let a bunch of right-wing identitarians to step in.

   4. You’re right, Rik G, she is holding an unlit flare. That’s a country mile from lighting it and shooting it at somebody.

      If I had written “Ben Collins proves that her denials are lies” (as written above) I would feel an obligation to retract the statement.

6. The word for “ant” in Latin is “formica”.

   1. As well, formic acid will dissolve nylon. Don’t know the concentration of the stuff they shoot, but it will probably affect the surface of a nylon fabric.
      Science Fair project…. the effect of fire ant exudate on pantyhose!

   2. Yep, the word for formic acid in all European languages (anyway) translates to ant acid, like myrsyra in Swedish.

      And protein chemistry would not have advanced as rapidly if formic acid had not been such a generally excellent solvent for proteins, facilitating their handling for certain chemical modifications in the laboratory. For that matter, ants themselves probably wouldn’t have evolved if formic acid hadn’t been such an excellent way of dissolving their prey.

7. Tram bowling? My faith in humanity restored for a few days.

   1. I think that was a demonstration of electromagnetic track brakes. Those things work!

      Look how quickly the tram comes to a halt. It can probably outbrake a normal rubber-tyred bus. For emergency use only since all the passengers would end up sitting beside (or on top of) the driver.

      cr

8. Well, which is weirder? Tram bowling or bog snorkelling? The latter is certainly cheaper in terms of equipment required…

   1. Ecky-thump.

9. In the thirties and forties people would order Cokes in Georgia by asking for a dope. Early Coke had cocaine, although the company has never officially admitted it. When the drug laws were changed they switched to caffeine for the stimulate.
   My grandmother never referred to Coke’s as anything but dope.

   1. “…Early Coke had cocaine, although the company has never officially admitted it. When the drug laws were changed they switched to caffeine for the stimulate”

      Coca-Cola has always used [& still uses] coca leaf [cocaine] & caffeine, the latter originally obtained from the kola nut.

      A US-based company [Stephan Company] got a special dispensation from the US government to import coca leaf from South America to extract the alkaloid, cocaine for medicinal use – it then sells the spent leaves to Coca-Cola as a flavouring ingredient. Thus there was an effective amount of cocaine in ‘Coke’ from 1885 until around 1903 – after then the beverage still contained cocaine, but it’s an infinitesimal amount – a tanker full of the base syrup wouldn’t get a fly high.

      I don’t know if the hit of caffeine was increased in 1904 when the cocaine was all but removed – perhaps it’s always been fairly high [at around half the strength of an equivalent amount of instant coffee].

      1. You mean all those groovy times I had as a youth were not chemically induced by my Coke?

         1. Perhaps you were naturally high 🙂

10. In re: Nungesser & Coli, it may well be true that “They disappeared and their fat is unknown….”, but you may have meant something else.

11. Prof. Coyne:

    Could you clear up the mystery as to why dog photos, without descriptions, are now appearing at the bottom of many of your posts?

    Thanks.

    1. I think Jerry would not mind us to speculate about it.
       Does he secretly loves d*gs too? I suspect so.
       It was also proposed the black dog was a metaphor for depression (so we should be happy it’s only a small puppy today).
       Or maybe he just wants some ‘enigmaticism’ on his site.
       Or maybe it is something entirely different, of course.

    2. IIRC, he previously mentioned the dog pix are the result of a wager, with not giving an explanation part of the terms.

       1. Matt,

          Losing a wager was my first thought, which is why I asked about that in a previous post.

          It seems to make the most sense to me.

          I wonder if Jerry will be forthcoming with any more detail at some point.

          1. Either that or, since black dogs interfere with the magic of Salah, to ensure continued banning in Pakistan.

    3. I mentioned my hypothesis, which is mine, the other day.

       Jerry is afflicted by the black dog from time to time. If you don’t know what that signifies, look it up.

       As I also said, it’s up to the rest of us to help lift his spirits. If we can.

    4. Read the first paragraph HERE.

       As Steve Pollard says, the posting of a Black Dog on WEIT signifies Jerry is below par. On a positive note – lately we see one dog – not so long ago Jerry was posting pics of packs of the buggers. A puppy might also be a good sign, but on that I’m speculating!

       1. Interesting, thanks Michael F.

          That also makes some sense.

12. It is also General Election day in South Africa today, hence a public holiday. Maybe an example to be emulated in the US? I always found it unconscionable that in the US it is made difficult for working people to vote.
    Universal voting should be a celebration of the struggles to obtain it. Very recently here, much earlier in the US, (1960’s ?), but still a cause for celebration, methinks, and worthy of a day off, two flies in one so to say.

    1. Making election day a national holiday has been proposed for a long time, but never seems to get any traction. There’s no excuse not to have it (same for automatic voter registration.) Absentee voting /vote-by-mail has grown dramatically, especially in rural areas, which helps.

       In Olden Tymes, I used to work on registration and get-out-the-vote drives. It was frustrating, as some folks just aren’t interested.

       Voting should be made as easy as possible, with all unreasonable barriers removed. But the Dems are fooling themselves to think it was voter suppression what cost them recent elections.

    2. Our elections are held on Sunday. School children are very happy about it, because the next Monday is a day off, for technical reasons (schools serve as polling stations).

       1. Many of us in the UK think we should vote on Sundays too. Currently we still always vote on Thursdays: this must serve to depress the turnout, although I’m not aware of any systematic studies. The CofE’s influence is now so vestigial that we could probably switch to Sundays without much oppositionl I’m all for it: at least we might be able to turn voting day into a bit of a carnival!

          1. If they opened their church halls as polling stations it might increase their attendance, once in five years. ‘Okay, we’ve just voted, might as well see what those people are singing about in this big stone building right in front of us’.

             cr

13. So the gull must be Larus marin-ated-us?

    😉

    1. I find that orange seagull hilarious. Serve the greedy bugger right. It was lucky not to end up as chicken masala itself.

       It looks pissed off. The staff at the wildlife hospital “managed to get him back to his original white colour but have not been able to wash away the smell.”

       cr

       1. I never thought of using highly dying foods as a way to trap food thieves until now!

14. I suppose it’s a sign of the times that Southern’s interlocutor chose an op ed (and an highly tendentious one at that) as documentation of his claim.

15. The videos of the ants and the cave fish are fantastic. If anyone has wondered what sort of fish Gollum fed on…

16. Attenborough is 93! Calloo, callay! I am old enough to remember his ‘Zoo Quest’ programmes on the BBC (yes, the only channel over here in those far-off days). I still have a much-treasured paperback of ‘Zoo Quest to Guiana’ of 1956 – original cost, 2/6d (12.5p; say 17c).

    The approach of 60+ years ago is, of course, not acceptable today. Part of the aim of the Zoo Quest expeditions was to collect animals for London Zoo. Yet the ZQ books still convey a wonderful impression of what it was like to explore the parts of the world that were not really well understood by those of us in the West at that time.

    1. Long may he reign!

       (Over BBC nature documentaries, that is.)

       -Ryan

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