Friday: Hili dialogue

68 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

1. Two things you don’t mess with in Chicago. Bad, bad Leroy Brown, and seagulls.

2. Very nice video, Malgorzata.

   Regarding the Griswold v Connecticut case prohibiting state banning Contraceptives and the would you believe it statement. How about Missouri and their attack on women’s reproductive rights today. Now you can get a three day waiting period just by going into the one remaining clinic in the state plus a new harassment, you must get a pelvic exam at this same time you start this waiting period. There is no level to low for these people.

   1. There is now a bill in the Ohio legislature that would ban many forms of contraception under the guise of protecting women’s health. Surely, there is an underlying religious component of this. As always, religion poisons everything.

      It’s issues like these that get people very excited (more so than the economic), particularly women when old white men try to tell them how to live their lives. I hope that these issues will get the voters out next November to drive Trump and the loathsome Republicans out of all levels of office. The right wing Republican base is always highly motivated; those who oppose it, not so much. This needs to change. If it doesn’t, we’ll be living in a bizarro 1950s world for a long time.

      https://www.wcbe.org/post/bill-would-ban-coverage-some-birth-control-along-abortions

      1. Yes, most certainly religious. And their intent stated in the article flies in the face of science. Colorado’s action 10 years ago shows this in spades. Starting with a gift from the Buffet family they provided IUDs to all women who wanted them. This action reduced unwanted pregnancy about half and reduced abortion something like 64%. Providing women with their rights does more to reduce abortion than anything these religious groups can ever do. Stupidity and religion, hand in hand.

         1. Yes, that can’t be repeated often enough:
            if you really oppose abortion, then you promote contraception. If you oppose contraception, you really are promoting abortion.

3. Midway is one of those battles where only a tiny change could have completely reversed the result. The US dive bombers kept searching longer than they probably should have and fortune favoured the brave, they attacked the Japanese “Tinderbox class” carriers at just the right time.

   I remember a TV programme about it a few years ago interviewing one of the dive bomber pilots who led the attack, and you just wanted to do that “we’re not worthy” thing to the screen.

   Mind you, for most “stunning and decisive” naval battle I’d go for Salamis (Trafalgar was decisive, but not at all surprising).

   1. I guess having de-coded the Japanese traffic and therefore, knowing in advance what they were up to helped a little.

4. Alan Turing died in 1954. In 1942 he was in the midst of his groundbreaking work at Bletchley Park.

5. Alan Turing couldn’t have died in 1942.

   1. Coming from stage left, a “lizard in human suit Illuminati” conspiracy nut.
      In 3 … 2… 1…

6. I did understand the French in the D-day video. It turns out gunfire sounds the same in French as it does in English.

   1. The gunfire, ricochets, siren, explosions & airplane sounds on that Twitter Gif of the Canadian Juno beach Bernieres-sur-mer landing is grafted on from a war movie or something. Shameful.

      1. The sound track sounded heavy handed to me too, but those cameras probably did not record sound. Ken Burns could have come up with a better “ambient” choice.

         1. The original approx 2 minute motion picture footage was recorded by Sergeant D.W. Grant of the Canadian Army Film & Photo Unit using a 35mm cine camera – no accompanying audio. The preternaturally calm soldiers had me wondering, but I tracked down the full segment & it’s clear this LCA is in a second wave with their first wave fellows already roaming the secured beach** [& some vehicles too]. The clips of it most used today leave out the later stages.

            I looked up Ken Burns & his stuff for PBS etc.

            ** Still shells, mines & snipers even, but not nearly as bad as the first wave hell

7. Alan Turing died in 1954, not 1942.

   1. Thanks, I’ll fix it.

8. … in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, prohibited states from banning contraception for married couples (can you imagine such laws for anyone?)

   If Roe v. Wade were to be overruled, folks in deep red states may be called upon to do more than imagine such laws.

   Roe is premised on the “right to privacy” that SCOTUS first recognized in Griswold — the one Justice Douglas, writing for himself and six others, discovered in the “penumbras, formed by emanations” from the Bill of Rights. If SCOTUS abandons this non-textual “right to privacy” in overruling Roe, the basis for upholding Griswold would go with it.

   Such laws would be extremely unwise, I think, and I should hope no state legislatures would actually consider passing them, but, were they of a mind to do so, nothing in the US constitution would stand in their way.

   1. However, if you look at what is going on in Missouri and other states, Roe v Wade does not mean much. What is needed now is congressional law to outlaw the slow death to women’s rights happening right now. Obviously the bill of rights means nothing to them.

9. Chrissake, that video exchange between T. Carlson and New Criterion wingnut James Panero is right out of the far-right nationalist, isolationist, protectionist handbook.

   Can anti-flouridation be far behind? Can’t have our precious bodily fluids adulterated by a dirty commie plot.

   1. Fluoride works as a topical application at 0.15% in FDA regulated toothpaste or supplemental fluoride pills prescribed by an M.D. prepared at a pharmacy. One can also brush more often.

      Where does the fluoride in the water supply come from, and what does the label say, do they test the water after? How much should one drink? What does it do to the pipes of various composition? Do people need fluoride in their bones? What is it doing with magnesium in the body?

      1. Pace Gen. Jack Ripper and the John Birch Society, water flouridation is one of the 10 greatest public health achievements in the US in the 20th century, according to the Center for Disease Control. According to the World Health Organization, the recommended a level of flouride is .5 – 1.5 milligrams per litre of water. Studies consistently demonstrate that water flouridation has been responsible for a significant reduction in cavities among children in industrialized nations.

         1. It shouldn’t be surprising that fluoride increases tooth health. That is not the problem : Where does the fluoride come from? what does the analysis certificate report? How is fluoride introduced to the water and at what point is the water tested? What are the side effects of fluoride? is water treatment superior to topically applied fluoride which is subsequently spit out, combined with good tooth brushing and flossing?

            1. Have you any evidence that fluoride at the levels recommended by the NHO has any adverse health consequences?

            2. No. So what? Id have to look. It isn’t surprising that fluoride improves dental health when the prior condition is poor dental health. It is, for the record, a good thing – in general.

               What good is fluoride in bone? What is the point of having fluoride in absolutely everything that uses water – your soup, your shower, your drinking water, when it only need be applied on the tooth surface?

               And back to my original point : fluoride in toothpaste combined with good tooth brushing and flossing works ( I write “works” above meaning “it works”). This raises another question : what good is fluoride in water when the prior condition is good dental health?

            3. Far as I know, there’s no federal department of water fluoridation. If you have questions, check with your local municipality regarding the fluoridation policy for its water supply. Or call the John Birch Society; water fluoridation was its traditional bête noire.

            4. My town’s water is not “fluoridated”, as I discussed with them when I moved to the town years ago. But I too recommend talking to the town managers about any aspect of the water supply. I can assure you there is a lot to learn, in addition to the test results they send every year (in my town anyway.

            5. I spent a few years in a town in Upper Michigan where the teeth of folks in their 20s were full of ginormous, black carries. They looked like they had been sucking on lemons throughout their childhood. I asked about it and learned there was no fluoride in the water. Coincidence? I think not.

            6. I’m confused by what you wrote. Are you insinuating that someone asserted a “coincidence” between improved dental health and adding – among other things – sodium monofluorophosphate to a water supply? Are you making a claim about the analytical results of the water supply? Are you claiming that because water treated in such a way can prevent cavities that nothing else is changing?

               I already wrote what I wanted to express about the topic for now elsewhere on this thread.

            7. The research may already have been done Thyroid. I don’t know. I only present my experience as an interesting anecdote for your learned consideration.

            8. And while fluoride itself is good for teeth, to say nothing about any other body part, the fluoride has to come from somewhere – it has to be prepared somehow – it has to be analyzed for purity. I know nothing about these facts, but it seems very important to know, and should be available on a local municipality basis – the WHO isn’t going to have that info.

               I assume the fluoride in toothpaste is of very high purity with no low level mineral impurities, but who knows. Nonetheless, it is spit out at the end – not ingested.

      2. Minor update: Just checked my toothpaste:

         Drug facts
         Sodium monofluorophosphate:
         0.76% (0.15% w/v fluoride ion)
         If more than is used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, contact a poison control center.

         … not that NaF is classified as a “drug”.

         1. “Note” not “not”

      3. Thyroid, where does this obsession with fluoridising drinking water come from?
         I have no real strong opinion either way (regarding fluoridisation of the water supply), though I tend to favour healthy teeth. And toothpaste only works if you use it. There is definitely an advantage in fluoride in your water, and no well established negatives in the low doses used. Doses that cause problems (mainly bones) are easily 20 to 30 times (a safe range, I’d say) higher than the dosage in fluoridised water in developed countries, even if all your fluid intake is fluoridised water.
         I think most of the fluoride used in the water supply comes from Fluorite (CaF2), a common mineral. Why is it’s provenance so important? Am I missing something?

         Do the ‘precious bodily fluids’ that Ken posted above have something to do with this fluoride scare?

         1. since when is a list of questions and observations denigrated as an “obsession”? Since when is another comment’s words insinuated with my questions as a “scare”?

            I already wrote what I want for now on the topic above (or below?).

10. I’m a bit confused about ladybugs vs. Asian lady beetles vs. ladybird bugs, or whatnot, or even if they are all the same thing. Supposedly the Asian lady beetles are the invasive evil biting stinky ones and the ladybugs are the nice ones I guess. But yeah I wonder which of those the swarm was.

    1. The lady beetles/bugs in the radar image are largely, if not exclusively, species of the genus Hippodamia. These beetles are [obviously] abundant generalists, exceedingly common in the western US, and feeding on aphids in a wide range of habitats. They go through numerous generations, following the spring flush of vegetation from coastal and low-elevation desert, grassland, and forest, and migrating to the higher mountains by the end of the season.

       They then hibernate en-masse as adults [possible only because they are nasty-tasting — even hungry bears ignore them], usually in rock-falls on mountain crests. Commercial collectors often obtain hundreds of pounds of these little beetles from the hibernation sites — these are the ladybugs sold in garden magazines and stores. If you buy them for chemical-free aphid control, keep in mind that the first thing in their program upon release is to fly up a few thousand feet on the first warm breeze and relocate a hundred miles or so from your garden.

       So what we see in this radar image is the reverse migration from the hibernation sites back to the lowland habitats. They aren’t particularly strong flyers, so just take advantage of favorable wind patterns for their migration.

       1. Ah thanks. “Convergent lady beetle” it is then. Named for the “white lines that converge behind the head”. Which is one of the “good guys” I guess.

          1. The convergent l.b. is H. divergens, but there are typically several species of Hippodamia in western US habitats, and the hibernation assemblages are also likely to include several species. Easy enough to call them all Hippodamia rather than reaching for a longer, non-obvious official “common name”.

             As to “good guys”, from an aphid’s POV, they are all terrorists. Some European and Asian lady beetles are certainly invasive in an ecological sense, but the losers are typically native lady beetles. [My sense is that in the Pacific Northwest, the non-native ones explode initially, then come into balance, and I doubt a significant longterm decline in the natives. Overall, the ecological services stay the same, more beetles = fewer aphids. Plants are likely happier, and humans maybe better off, aside from critterophobes who think any insect is a plague-of-Egypt.

             1. Ah thanks I figured I was being a little footloose with the terminologies there haha. By the way I consider the “bad guys” the guys that try and get into every little crack of my house! Which I’ve been told (on reddit) are “Asian lady beetles”. Them and those dang “stinkbugs” which I’m not sure are actually stinkbugs because they don’t seem to stink very much.

             2. Home invasion by ANY bug seems to be an issue for US suburbanites. But coccinellids are about as non-threatening as a “pest” can get. I find just a few [several native species, plus the European 11-spot l.b. each spring, but most of the beetles seem to end up in cool, dry places: my basement and subfloor crawl space. Just enough in the windows on sunny days in late winter/early spring as harbingers of spring..

                The Asian ladybug [Harmonia axiridis] differs only in its sheer abundance in suburban habitats — especially where it’s just enlarging its range. They aren’t asking for hand-outs, just a cool, dry place to curl up for the winter.

                Also on H.axiridis: the color polymorphism in this and other coccinellid species attracted the attention of early geneticists, including T H Morgan and especially P.C.C’s academic grandfather T Dobzhansky. If these little predators were easier to culture, they might have become a go-to model organism, with lady-bug rooms in every biology department.

             3. Interesting. Okay I guess they’re not so terrible. You’ve about got me to the point of joining hands and singing Kumbaya with my new ladybug and stinkbug friends haha.

    2. Ladybirds (coccinellidae) come -as it behooves good insects- in dozens of genera and hundreds of species. The overwhelming majority of them are predatory and can be considered a farmer’s or gardener’s friend. Aphids, mealy bugs, scale insects, etc., all of them on the menu of different species.

11. While patching up Alan Turing, you might want to attend to:

    “suspended for seven year by World War II.”

    and

    “I’ve looked a photos of Hitler’s father and his son,”

    1. The comment about Hitler has been completed:
       “and I don’t see a resemblance. Do you?” And Prince Harry does not resemble Prince Charles.

       Given that Hitler didn’t resemble his father, it reminds me of the speculation that Hitler might have been Jewish. The Jewish Virtual Library has this to say about that: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/was-hitler-jewish “Hitler’s father, Alois, was registered as an illegitimate child with no father when born in 1837 and to this day Hitler’s paternal grandfather is unknown. Alois’ mother, Maria Schicklgruber, is known to have worked in the home of a wealthy Jew, so there is some chance, however small, that a son in that household got Hitler’s grandmother pregnant.”

       The article then discusses DNA taken from saliva samples of known relatives and concludes that though the conclusion was inconclusive, Hitler wasn’t Jewish.

       An interesting side note refers to a photograph published in 1933 in the London Daily Mirror “of a gravestone in a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest inscribed with some Hebrew characters and the name Adolf Hitler, but this Bucharest Hitler could not have been the Nazi leader’s grandfather. At the time, though, this picture sufficiently worried Hitler that he had the Nazi law defining Jewishness written to exclude Jesus Christ and himself.”

       1. I read somewhere that the son of the Jewish houshold was about ten years old at the time .
          Adolf looked more like his mother
          The fuhrers grandad was either Johann Georg Hiedler or his brother ,and there were various ways of spelling Hitler’s surname .

       2. .. some chance, ‘however small’? Wasn’t it current practice that the ‘master of the house’ and/or his son(s) to sleep with ‘house help’ (if young and pretty) in those days?

12. The metric system thing illustrates how Fox works.

    There’s a vehicle speed limit sign in the graphic, obviously from perhaps Europe. It would obviously cost lots of money to replace every speed limit sign in the U.S, and it’d be worse and unsafe to put two numbers in the sign. I do not see this ever happening even with the house, Congress, Supreme Court, and White House stocked with Democrat physics Ph.D.s.

    But that’s not what Fox is putting forth – they are “against the metric system”. I wonder if any Fox viewer understands this – the “against the metric system” is an easier take home message.

    1. Yes, how much would that cost, changing all those signs. As much as one F-35 aircraft. Not even close. If the speedometers in the car show both MPH & KPH most people would be smart enough to handle the conversion even if too lazy to change the signs.

       1. My older car – a 1978 Ford – has its speedo in miles an hour. NZ has been metricated for about 30 years. It’s no trouble at all to do near-enough mental conversions of metric speed limits to MPH, there are only about 5 common speeds to remember – 100, 80, 70, 50, 30 kph.

          But who is this moron on Faux News who thinks ‘cups’ and ‘teaspoons’ are significant official American units of measurement?

          cr

       2. If the speedometers in the car show both MPH & KPH

          What do you mean “if”? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car with a miles-only speedo.
          I’ll add a caveat that until I learned to drive, I didn’t pay much attention to the speedo. And my first car was a Volvo, older than I was, so it was obviously calibrated in kmph, with a nod to mph in there too.

13. Recently you pointed out the low level of comments on science type postings. I do read them. In fact, they’re my favorite part, though I’ve grown surprisingly fond of the Hili dialogs. In most cases, I would comment “That’s cool!” or “How interesting!” if I commented, and that gets old. I appreciate the effort you take to read and summarize them. I’ll try to remember to let you know I’ve read them, but frankly both memory and business may interfere.

14. Whenever I see images of the Canadian military on D-Day, I think of my dad dressed in his olive drab outfit. He was in the Canadian army, which is very often mentioned in accounts of D-Day. They were involved at Juno Beach. I’m grateful he wasn’t involved there, but served in Italy. Otherwise, I might not be here.

15. Hili looks sad…..

16. If I recall correctly, Hitler’s paternity is uncertain, so Alois Hitler (pictured) may not be his biological father. There is a striking resemblance between Hitler and his mother Klara.

    https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/images/og-klara-hitler-35139.jpg

    1. It was adolfs daddy that was born out of wedlock ,and he spent the first 39 years going by the name Schicklergruber .
       “Heil Schicklergruber “

       1. Oh, yes. That is right. My bad.

          1. Nevertheless, Adolf definitely looked more like his mother Klara…Just narrow the face slightly and put this little toothbrush moustache, and what do you see?

17. Re bird mobbing, I understand that the term “mobbing” re birds can apply to only one bird, though I’d prefer to call it “harassing.” Whatever it’s called, one day while on my way to a class on divination in the the classical world and ancient Near East, I observed a tiny hummingbird going after a hawk. That poor hawk just couldn’t get away. It was amazing and very funny. My immediate thought was that in the ancient world this would definitely be regarded as an omen — of what I can’t say, but it would definitely portend something worthy of note.

    1. “Meanwhile back in Africa, Crows are Riding on the Backs of Eagles”
       https://www.earthtouchnews.com/wtf/wtf/meanwhile-in-africa-crows-are-riding-on-the-backs-of-eagles/

       The title speaks for itself.

18. Hili: Sphinxes were guarding a temple, I’m just basking in the sun.

    Multitasking moggy.

19. Re:
    A man’s best friend is his otter:

    One of the commentators on Twitter asks

    Are otters allowed to be kept as pets in Britain?

    I don’t think it’s specifically allowed or banned – it’s not as if there’s a list. There are rules banning the keeping of “dangerous animals” without a license – and the local council (who administer such licensing) can impose as tight a set of license conditions as they like. But I doubt an otter would classify as “dangerous” – they’re not particularly big, and close relatives (ferrets) are moderately popular pets.
    Trying to breed or sell them is likely to attract a really different level of attention from “the authorities” though. Homing one that is a “rescue” via a recognised wildlife centre is unlikely to attract any significant opprobium.

    1. There otter be a law on this.

20. My kind of botany. #PenisoftheDay pic.twitter.com/loPRcjVVN8

    And doing a credible stab at a rainbow willy too!

    There’s a Japanese tentacle pr0n joke in there, writhing to rise to a magnificent eminence.

21. This pony working up the courage to jump this tiny step is everything.

    Look at the snow on the ground. My bet : yesterday morning the same pony came out casually, stood squint on a patch of ice, went arse-over-tit, and felt really embarrassed. And sore.
    I broke my arm doing exactly the same in my teens. Didn’t get an X-ray for about 3 days and the greenstick fracture was bloody painful.

22. WAR DIARY
    The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archives. June 6th 1944

    EXTRACT [greater detail in link above with pics]: Invasion aboard S.S. Monoway

    0315 – Reveille breakfast served

    0500 – preparations complete to transfer to LCA [Landing Craft Assault]

    0600 – seven miles off French coast transfer to LCA starts – Anti-seasick pills did their jobs

    0725 – Bernieres-sur-mer in sight
    Barrage on the beach and behind starts
    A lone spitfire fighter aircraft flys over the beach and gets hit with rockets from one of the ships firing on the beach

    0745 – H hour was suppose to be at 0745 but word sent to be postponed
    DD [Duplex Drive for seagoing] Tanks can’t launch due to rough seas, thus QOR [Queen’s Own Rifles] have to take the beach by itself

    0805 – order sent to start the approach

    0812 – A coy [Company] on the Right and B coy on the left hit the beach.
    On the beach the line between the two companies will be the railway station
    Several LCA hit mines on the run in casualties light

    All QOR flame-throwers at this point are lost
    200 yards from the water’s edge to the sea-wall – swept by enemy enfilade fire but the QOR rushed over and overcame this

    9 platoon, A Company, was on the extreme right flank of the company, facing them was a 88mm gun position which shredded the platoon. Two-thirds of the platoon either dead or wounded

    A Coy Landing

    B Company under C.O. Dalton just as unlucky, landing directly in front of a still active concrete strong point, almost half of the company was lost dashing across the beach.

    With its 88mm cannon a supporting flak ship was radioed for supporting fire onto this emplacement, but it was due to the heroic deeds of Lt. W.G. Herbert, Cpl. R. J. Tessier and Rfn. W. Chicoski which silenced it with grenades and Sten guns

    One of the LCA’s of B Company had its rudder jammed and ran ashore off course which had no enemy defence in front. Lt H. C. F. Elliot the platoon commander took initiative and took on flanking manoeuvres which convinced the enemy they had had enough. At this time B Coy was basically wiped out.’

    B Coy landing

    0830 – Second wave lands with C and D companies and Battalion Headquarters land – B Squadron, Fort Garry Horse also lands.

    C, D companies with B Squadron advance through Bernieres-sur-mer.

    0900 – Bernieres-sur-mer cleared

    C, D companies with B Squadron with A Company in support advance along the battalion centre line; Bernieres-sur-mer, Beny-sur-mer, Basly, Colomby-Sur-Thaon, Anguerny Heights. with great stress on capturing Anguerny Heights

    Brigade reserve, The Regiment de la Chaudiere land with 14th Field Regiment RCA with its self propelled Guns.

    1000-1715 hrs – Continuing with the advance with the open ground past Bernieres-sur-mer they get into contact with an enemy 88mm which takes out four Priests (Sherman tanks carrying a 105 mm Gun)

    Then a detachment of QORofC [Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada] riding on a tank outflank the position after seeing this fire starting and take out the gun

    Tank-infantry fighting helped take out enemy resistance along the axis of advance

    1730hrs – the battalion reaches its d-day objective Anguerny Heights with D company advancing with its forward position in Anisy from a sharp brush with the enemy. The Carrier Platoon under Lt. S. C. Biggs after a quick fight took the ring contour 70 on the map “the Big 2 Hill”

23. Hug an atheist day? – all the new born babies need to be hugged and congratulated on having an enlightened world view.

    rz

24. What flower is the ‘Gilliam Anderson’ one?
    I think the pony might be scared of the snow rather than the step.

    1. Sorry gravelinspector, I missed your post.

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