Friday: Hili dialogue

141 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

1. Nooz good. Commentary good. I don’t absorb 100% of it. But is still important.

   Maybe less nooz but more focused is less work. Dunno.

   Maybe just a few times a week. Dunno.

   Thanks to readers and PCC(E) for the efforts.

2. 1. Yes, I like having nooz here. I read probably 75% of it.

   2. My understanding is that nitrogen asphyxiation is a relatively common method of suicide for medical reasons (i.e., not despondency), so may not have needed animal testing.

3. Even if a perfect method of execution were possible, there is still one thing that will not ever go away :

   The slow, unfolding terror of the process.

   Perhaps some pathological mental conditions exist where terror – deimoia or phobia ? – do not materialize. But it seems to me the inexorable stages would effectively be torture.

   1. But it seems to me the inexorable stages would effectively be torture.

      I wonder if believing in an afterlife helps 🙂

   2. The murder-o-philes always want the torture element – they’re just unwilling to admit to it. Well, most of them. Some are honest enough to admit to being supporters of torture.

4. I like the nooz and read 100% everyday. I would miss it were it to go.

   1. i read nooz every day 100% everywhere i go
      first thing i read 😊 for years now
      very informative thoughtful and a good challenge !
      would be discombobulated if it went

      1. I also like the nooz and read 100% of it every day.
         I would dearly miss it!

      2. +1

      3. Exactly
         Best nooz I know
         In a great, balanced format
         Would sorely miss it
         Keep it going Professor

         From France

      4. +1

   2. Me toooooo!

   3. Me too. I love that it is from an American perspective which is often a portent of where the rest of the world will be.

      Please keep it

   4. Exactly
      Best nooz I know
      In a great, balanced format
      Would sorely miss it
      Keep it going Professor

      From France

   5. I read all of the nooz every day. From Canada.

5. I read all your news, Jerry. Do carry on if you are able.
   And with respect to nitrogen executions, it is well known that instant loss of consciousness follows the first breath of 0% oxygen atmosphere. My father witnessed two workers in the 1950s descending into a sewer and dropping off the ladder a few feet down: they passed out as they entered an atmosphere of zero oxygen content. It does not matter what the atmosphere consists of, poison gas or harmless. One expects people to asphyxiate slowly in those circumstances, but gas exchange across the alveolar wall depends on the partial pressure of a gas on each side of the alveolar wall. If there is no oxygen in the inhaled gas, there is zero partial pressure of oxygen in it. This will strip 50% of the oxygen in the blood passing through the alveolar capillaries with each breath. So the effect is that as the blood comes out of the lungs through the pulmonary veins after that first breath gets pumped through the left heart and up into the brain, the brain is exposed to a 50% drop in O2 saturation within a couple of seconds of that breath, and that makes you lose consciousness. Each successive breath drops the O2 sat. further, and death soon follows, with irregular (agonal) breathing, and possibly seizure activity, but consciousness is lost at the outset and the person will be unaware of this. I’m afraid I laughed when the problem was raised that if any nitrogen leaked from the mask it pose a threat to bystanders, observers and corrections staff; do they not realise that the nitrogen content of the air we breathe is 80%? A few extra wisps will pose no further threat than when I used to use liquid nitrogen on skin lesions.
   If one wishes to argue against capital punishment (and we should) it is best not to tell hysterical tales about it as it just makes one look daft. Like the “unbearable agony and pulmonary œdema” inflicted by pentothal in lethal injections, which mysteriously is not a problem when used to induce general anæsthesia in the OR.

   1. Hi Christopher,

      I heard a radio programme where they investigated methods of execution, and the claim was that the effects of nitrogen asphyxiation was as you described, so I was surprised by the reports in this case. Do you (or anyone else) have any suggestions as to what’s going on here? My guess would be either false reporting or (more likely) botched implementation.

      BTW, also a regular reader of news and opponent of capital punishment.

      1. This purely speculation. Undoubtedly some have justification in their minds for describing any execution as cruel and painful and they feel they are doing the right thing by describing it as “the cruelest thing they have ever seen.” But they destroy their case by being inaccurate. I have read that Smith tried to hold his breath as long as he could, so there would be some movement with that as he struggled not to inhale. Once he inhaled, he would become unconscious more or less immediately. After that involuntary movements, perhaps seizure activity and agonal breathing might be expected, but he would be unconscious and unaware. I think this is as humane a form of death as we can inflict, absent knocking someone out with IV barbiturates (if you have ever taken a beloved pet to be euthanised, you know how quick and easy that death is). I’ll repeat for anyone unclear: I oppose the death penalty, but as long as some jurisdictions continue to impose it, it must be as humane as possible, and not just for the condemned, but also to minimise the effects on those witnessing it. One of my arguments against it is that it damages those who administer it, and those who witness it. In the case of relatives of a murder victim, they may think it will do them good to see a murderer killed, but I’d argue it has the opposite effect.
         Nitrogen and helium are often used by suicidal people looking for painless asphyxia. There is no sensation to this asphyxia, as respiratory drive is increased by accumulating CO2, not by hypoxia, and there is no accumulation of CO2 by these means. Helium is actually used more than nitrogen, as it is more easily available, being sold for party balloons and the like. There is a description at PubMed:
         https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9412544/

         1. Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

            1. +1

         2. Fully concur, Christopher. Complete sudden failure of oxygen apparatus at high altitude kills aircrew without any warning. Milder hypoxia may be recognized only by other crew members as briefly confused speech or task incompetence before the casualty passes out.

            In an execution chamber with an ordinary room atmosphere, a loose-fitting mask that became dislodged during wilful initial struggling might allow inhalation of some air from the room, delaying the process. Gradual hypoxia, like alcohol and hypoglycemia, can have initial disinhibiting effects with agitation and combativeness. If the condemned man correctly made the connection in his mind, the fear would make this worse. Until it didn’t.

            It also has to be said that pure nitrogen at ordinary atmospheric pressure has the advantage of being non-toxic in itself and, unlike ether, non-explosive. Purging gas from the room afterward is not necessary to protect attendants, other than leaving the door open I suppose. Executions will always be rare. You don’t want a method where inadvertent deviations from a complex safety protocol could kill people.

   2. They were my thoughts also, with the oxygen exchange and rapidity of the process.
      Whether it should be done at all is a separate matter – important not to conflate them.

      I’ve wondered why they didn’t use the nitrogen for years now. I think… but not certain.. that it is one of the methods favored in MAID – euthanasia – in Canada.
      Were I on the way out I’d I’d absolutely pick it.

      Point of amusement: in Japanese the characters/kanji for euthanasia are “safe, happy death.”

      D.A.
      NYC/FL

      1. 安樂死, same in Chinese, except, of course, the pronunciation is different.

   3. My father witnessed two workers in the 1950s descending into a sewer and dropping off the ladder a few feet down: they passed out as they entered an atmosphere of zero oxygen content.

      That’s a classic “knock down” from hydrogen sulphide. With individual variation, that would imply above 500ppm H2S (0.05%, v/v) ; regardless of the oxygen content of the air.
      The H2S gets into the blood stream, then into all cells where it blocks (if I remember the biochemistry correctly) the cytochrome-C oxygen-handling enzymes in the mitochondria. At which point, everything falls apart in a matter of seconds. The amount of oxygen which the cells and their mitochondria can process is effectively zero, completely regardless of the concentration of oxygen in the inhaled gas.
      Forced ventilation with H2S free air is the only effective treatment. In the classical “climbed into a tank to clean it” multiple mortality event, the first person in collapses, the second person follows them, then the third … the cycle only stops when someone remembers being warned about these multiple mortality events in their training courses – which courses I’ve run many times at work. It is a very common class of industrial fatality. Every time I’ve presented the course, I’ve been able to find a recent multiple-fatality in the country of the people I’m training. It’s depressing.
      1/2 (for PCCE’s length criterion)

      1. 2/2
         In the industrial diving world, it is by no means unknown for a technician to connect up the wrong bottles to a diver’s demand valve, and instead of getting a lung full of 10% O2/ 90% He, they get 100% Ar (which is used as a suit inflation gas – He and HeliOx have too high a thermal conductivity). Most of the time the diver survives – if the life-support technician realises what they’ve done wrong and corrects it before the blood-oxygen drops too low. But that blood oxygen takes time to drop – compared to the almost instant loss of the oxygen-processing chain that happens in H2S poisoning.
         My bet for what happened in the murder chamber is that the oro-nasal of the mask didn’t fit well, and sufficient oxygen leaked into the inhaled gas to support a slow, agonising death. The diving incidents I’m talking about typically happen with “band mask” type hard helmets which take minutes to don and an assistant to adjust onto the diver. The oro-nasal fits firmly around the, well “oro-nasal” region (!) and bathes the area in the supplied gas, while separating exhaled gas through a couple of valves onto the side of the face, to be vented around the diver’s neck, through another set of valves. Good luck getting that equipment onto someone who is resisting.

         Besides, the witnesses and jurors would struggle to see the terror in the eyes of the person being murdered. Which is the point of the exercise.

6. On this day:
   1531 – The 6.4–7.1 Mw Lisbon earthquake kills about thirty thousand people.

   1564 – The Council of Trent establishes an official distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

   1788 – The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sails into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on Australia. Commemorated as Australia Day.

   1841 – James Bremer takes formal possession of Hong Kong Island at what is now Possession Point, establishing British Hong Kong.

   1863 – American Civil War: Governor of Massachusetts John Albion Andrew receives permission from the Secretary of War to raise a militia organization for men of African descent.

   1870 – Reconstruction Era: Virginia is readmitted to the Union.

   1885 – Troops loyal to The Mahdi conquer Khartoum, killing the Governor-General Charles George Gordon.

   1905 – The world’s largest diamond ever, the Cullinan, which weighs 3,106.75 carats (0.621350 kg), is found at the Premier Mine near Pretoria in South Africa.

   1915 – The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the U.S. Congress.

   1926 – The first demonstration of the television by John Logie Baird.

   1934 – German–Polish declaration of non-aggression is signed.

   1939 – Spanish Civil War: Catalonia Offensive: Troops loyal to nationalist General Francisco Franco and aided by Italy take Barcelona.

   1942 – World War II: The first United States forces arrive in Europe, landing in Northern Ireland. [Better late than never, I suppose…]

   1945 – World War II: Audie Murphy displays valor and bravery in action for which he will later be awarded the Medal of Honor.

   1949 – The Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory sees first light under the direction of Edwin Hubble, becoming the largest aperture optical telescope (until BTA-6 is built in 1976).

   1950 – The Constitution of India comes into force, forming a republic. Rajendra Prasad is sworn in as the first President of India. Observed as Republic Day in India.

   1962 – Ranger 3 is launched to study the Moon. The space probe later misses the moon by 22,000 miles (35,400 km).

   1966 – The three Beaumont children disappear from a beach in Glenelg, South Australia, resulting in one of the country’s largest-ever police investigations.

   1998 – Lewinsky scandal: On American television, U.S. President Bill Clinton denies having had “sexual relations” with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

   2001 – Diane Whipple, a lacrosse coach, is killed in a dog attack in San Francisco. The resulting court case clarified the meaning of implied malice murder.

   2009 – Nadya Suleman gives birth to the world’s first surviving octuplets.

   Births:
   1880 – Douglas MacArthur, American general, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1964).

   1891 – Wilder Penfield, American-Canadian neurosurgeon and academic (d. 1976).

   1892 – Bessie Coleman, American pilot (d. 1926). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]

   1905 – Maria von Trapp, Austrian-American singer (d. 1987).

   1908 – Stéphane Grappelli, French violinist (d. 1997).

   1911 – Polykarp Kusch, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1993).

   1922 – Michael Bentine, English actor and screenwriter (d. 1996).

   1925 – David Jenkins, English bishop and theologian (d. 2016). [He famously said in an interview, “I wouldn’t put it past God to arrange a virgin birth if he wanted. But I don’t think he did”. However, his widely quoted comment about the resurrection of Christ being “just a conjuring trick with bones” was a misrepresentation.]

   1925 – Paul Newman, American actor, activist, director, race car driver, and businessman, co-founded Newman’s Own (d. 2008).

   1928 – Roger Vadim, French actor and director (d. 2000).

   1934 – Huey “Piano” Smith, American pianist and songwriter (d. 2023).

   1935 – Paula Rego, Portuguese-born British visual artist (d. 2022).

   1944 – Angela Davis, American activist, academic, and author.

   1945 – Jacqueline du Pré, English cellist (d. 1987).

   1946 – Susan Friedlander, American mathematician.

   1953 – Lucinda Williams, American singer-songwriter and guitarist.

   1955 – Eddie Van Halen, Dutch-American guitarist, songwriter, and producer (d. 2020).

   1958 – Anita Baker, American singer-songwriter.

   1958 – Ellen DeGeneres, American comedian, actress, and talk show host.

   1964 – Adam Crozier, Scottish businessman. [He was CEO of Royal Mail at a crucial period in the Post Office scandal when the Post Office was still part of Royal Mail, in which hundreds of sub-postmasters were falsely accused of, and prosecuted for, theft or false accounting. Prosecutions were conducted based on revenue shortfalls identified by the Post Office’s Horizon computer system. These were erroneous and the result of bugs and errors in the system. Post Office officials knew about the bugs as early as 2002, but chose to continue with the prosecutions regardless. A recent TV drama has reignited interest in the miscarriages of justice.]

   1965 – Kevin McCarthy, American politician, 55th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

   1967 – Col Needham, English businessman, co-founded Internet Movie Database.

   Death is like an arrow that is already in flight, and your life lasts only until it reaches you. (Georg Hermes):
   1630 – Henry Briggs, English mathematician and astronomer (b. 1556).

   1697 – Georg Mohr, Danish mathematician and theorist (b. 1640).

   1795 – Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, German harpsichord player and composer (b. 1732).

   1823 – Edward Jenner, English physician and immunologist, creator of the smallpox vaccine (b. 1749).

   1885 – Edward Davy, English-Australian physician and engineer (b. 1806). [Played a prominent role in the development of telegraphy, and invented an electric relay.]

   1932 – William Wrigley, Jr., American businessman, founded the Wrigley Company (b. 1861).

   1943 – Nikolai Vavilov, Russian botanist and geneticist (b. 1887).

   1948 – Fred Conrad Koch, American biochemist and endocrinologist (b. 1876).

   1962 – Lucky Luciano, Italian-American mob boss (b. 1897).

   1973 – Edward G. Robinson, Romanian-American actor (b. 1893).

   1985 – Kenny Clarke, American jazz drummer and bandleader (b. 1914).

   1996 – Henry Lewis, American bassist and conductor (b. 1932).

   1997 – Jeane Dixon, American astrologer and psychic (b. 1904). [One of the best-known American psychics and astrologers of the 20th century, owing to her prediction of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, her syndicated newspaper astrology column, some well-publicized predictions, and a best-selling biography.]

   2000 – Kathleen Hale, English author and illustrator (b. 1898).

   2000 – A. E. van Vogt, Canadian-American author (b. 1912).

   2011 – David Kato Kisule, Ugandan teacher and LGBT rights activist, considered a father of Uganda’s gay rights movement (b. 1964).

   2017 – Tam Dalyell, Scottish politician (b. 1932). [Posed the “West Lothian question.]

   2017 – Barbara Hale, American actress (b. 1922).

   2020 – Kobe Bryant, American basketball player (b. 1978). [Four years ago!]

   1. 1962 Ranger 3 misses moon. As I commented the other day, the moon ain’t easy…particularly for the first time. Apollo man on the moon was the culminating project of a decade of several sequenced projects divided at the highest level between human space flight (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo itself) and robotic (unmanned) spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control (Ranger to hit the moon, Lunar Orbiter for orbital entry, moon gravitational parameters, and high-resolution photos of surface, Surveyor for landing dynamics, soil mechanics, insitu high res photos). It was not until Ranger 6 that we hit the moon as planned and Ranger 7 to hit it and send back pictures up to impact. And yes the launch schedules, data analysis and redesign were extremely aggressive…and there were important engineering data in Ranger 3’s 22,000 mile miss!

      1. I loved the Ranger sequences of photos as the spacecraft neared the Moon before crashing, which gave them a you-are-there feeling. In a scrapbook during that time, I paired those photos with similar sequences showing increasing magnifications of electronic circuits, which were then also fairly new to the public.

         1. Clever idea!

   2. 1531 – The 6.4–7.1 Mw Lisbon earthquake kills about thirty thousand people.

      As I walked along the Lisbon waterfront a couple of years ago, dodging the sellers of low-quality cannabis (sense : drug, not sense : rope fibre), I was thinking, as geologists tend to do, of precisely that earthquake.
      The earthquake killed almost nobody. Falling buildings, then fire, then a tsunami were what killed almost everyone. Which is the case in almost every earthquake.

      That is why you work out the fastest way uphill when you arrive in an earthquake-prone place by the sea. Your regular fire training should suffice for the rest of the hazards.
      Can you raise significant (i.e. lethal) tsunami on a lake? I can’t see a reason why not, but I can’t think of an example.

   3. 1697 – Georg Mohr, Danish mathematician and theorist (b. 1640).

      Arrrgh! TRIGGER WARNING REQUIRED !
      For centuries his construction for calculating strain from distortion of previously known shapes has plagued generations of people studying the distortion of rocks in metamorphic belts.
      The same maths was used to calculate how to steer oil wells in the pre-calculator days, but the tool for doing it was mystified as a “OuiJa Board”. But yeah – directional drillers loved a bit of mysticism.

      1. Yikes! I didn’t check out his credentials.

      2. Is this Mohr’s circle? There are more Mohrs, and that was Christian Otto Mohr.

         1. A family of traumatisers.
            In finest “Et tu, Brute” style, after a particularly traumatic two nights of skull sweat to actually understand the Mohr circle, and how to use it, my Structural Geology lecturer admitted that he never understood it himself, and had to re-read his text books every time he had to use it.
            “Infamy, Infamy – they’ve all got it in fer me!”
            Well subscribed class : when there was only one applicant, “Alan the Alien” didn’t run the class. Both Jim and I regretted that either of us had signed up for it – though both of us found it useful in our different ways (Jim doing seismic deconvolution to find oil fields; me steering oil wells to achieve Jim’s planned trajectories.)

   4. I got distracted and I’ve only just realised that I didn’t post this. Whoops!

      Woman of the Day:
      [Text from The Attagirls on X/Twitter]

      Woman of the Day aviator Bessie Coleman born OTD 1892 in Texas, the first African-American woman to be awarded a pilot’s licence and the first ever Native American to qualify.

      Bessie’s family were sharecroppers. From a very young age, she picked cotton, which she hated, and walked four miles each day to her segregated, one-room school where she loved to read and proved to be outstanding at maths. At the age of 23, she was working as a manicurist on Chicago’s South Side, when her brother, a former soldier in France during WW1, teased her about how women in France were so liberated, they could even fly planes. “That’s it!” said Bessie. “You just called it for me.”

      Flying schools in the US didn’t accept women, African Americans or Native Americans then and Bessie offended on all three counts. The only way she could hope to realise her dream was to qualify for the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Paris. This required fluent French so she took a second job in a chilli shop, working all the hours she could, and started studying.

      In 1920, Bessie set off for Northern France by ship. Her training craft was a Nieuport Type 82, a 27-foot-long biplane with a 40-foot wingspan, so fragile that she had to inspect every part of it each time she boarded. There was one cockpit for an instructor, one behind it for a student, no steering wheel, no brakes. There was a large wooden stick to control the plane’s pitch and roll, and a rudder bar to control its yaw. To stop, she had to land and then drag the plane by skidding the tail along the ground. It taught her accuracy and precision. She learned how to loop-the-loop, bank and do a tailspin.

      On 15 June 1921, Bessie was awarded her pilot’s licence, granting her the right to fly anywhere in the world.

      Back in the US, she was famous for her skilled flying in notoriously dangerous air shows where she was known as Queen Bess. She dazzled spectators by walking on the wings or parachuting from the plane while a co-pilot took the controls. On one occasion in California as she took off for a show in LA, the motor stalled. The plane nose-dived from 300 feet, breaking her leg, fracturing her ribs and destroying her plane. She told the doctor at the scene to “patch her up” so that she could get to the show. He took one look at her injuries and called for an ambulance.

      Bessie sent a telegram to her fans: “Tell them all that as soon as I can walk, I’m going to fly!” It took her months to recover, and two years before she was flying regularly again.

      Her ambition was to open her own flying school but in 1926 while testing a new plane the day before a show, it accelerated suddenly, nose-dived, went into a tailspin and flipped upside-down about 500 feet in the air. A wrench left in the engine by mistake had jammed the controls. Bessie fell from the plane and died instantly when she hit the ground, along with her co-pilot. His body was trapped beneath the plane. When rescuers tried to move the plane off him, one lit a match for his cigarette, igniting gas fumes and sending the wreckage up in flames.

      Bessie was just 34.

      I was especially touched to learn that when Dr Mae Jemison, a NASA mission specialist aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour, became the first African-American woman in space in 1992, she carried with her a photo of Bessie.

      Ad Astra, Bessie.

      https://twitter.com/TheAttagirls/status/1750782820518129846

      1. was to qualify for the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Paris. This required fluent French so

         …
         I wonder if the “Star City” cosmonaut academy outside Moscow still does tuition in Russian, requiring fluent Russian as an entrance qualification. That must have been galling to a good number of candidates over the years, even without the Anglo-American reluctance to learn any dialect of “Foreign”.
         (Canadians take a bow for being, officially at least, bilingual. Doing your Government’s work permit applications was repetitive until I realised that the English and French entry boxes were duplicates and I only needed to fill in half of them.)

7. I read 100% of da nooz and enjoy your commentary on it.

8. Please keep the nooz coming. It’s one of my favorites and I look forward to reading your sensible and thoughtful analysis. My favorite way to start off my morning, your nooz and coffee.

9. Hopefully the time you spend to gather and post things on WEIT are fun for you, you’re getting some satisfaction out of it or learning new things as you harvest items of interest. If it quits being fun, ditch it like a bad relationship.

10. Please keep the nooz, unless, of course, you are tired of putting it together every day. I always read it. As always, thank you so much for what you do here on this site.

11. I like da nooz. I start the day with the Hili dialog. It eases me into the day.

12. While I do read other news sources, you always seem to find an interesting item of two that I missed. So yeah, I would miss your news review. But like Greg Z said, if it is too much of a drag to you, drop it.

    1. If I tell Jerry I don’t read any other news sources, perhaps he’ll feel obligated to continue.

       But yes, though I look forward to reading it each day, he should drop it (or maybe just truncate it) if he wants for he is PCC and we want to keep him happy most of all.

13. Regarding Cain’s distant sisters, that really doesn’t answer the question. The Old Testament is packed full of genealogy, and, especially for Adam’s family, it strains credulity (again) to think that they just left the sisters out of the story.

    1. And there are the unexplained “sons of God” who show up in the first verses of Genesis chapter 6:

       When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

       It’s almost like it was a bunch of made up nonsense…!

       1. Genesis 1:27 says that God made male and female humans in His own image. In Genesis 2, He makes one male human and then takes his rib (apparently the original Hebrew says “side”) and uses it to make the first woman. Some believers who want to reconcile the two
          accounts say that Genesis 1 shows that God created multiple men and women at the same time, while Genesis 2 focuses on one particular couple. This explains how there could be people not related to Adam and Eve. Q.E.D.

          1. However, the commonest interpretation of that part of the Old Testament is that two different origin stories were crudely welded together, probably during the exile in Babylon when they also picked up the Utnapishtim story from the Epic of Gilgamesh and crowbarred that into the Bible too under the name of Noah.
             Or were you talking about the theology, not the evidence in the actual structure and language of the books.
             Isn’t there a third Jewish component of the Bible too? Something to do with the Hebrew for “the Lord”, “YHWH” and the “elohim”, but I forget the details.

             1. Yes, I think that it’s clear–to anyone willing to read Genesis with an open mind–that the book is a hodgepodge of different writings. However, believers who refuse to give up the notion that the Bible is the infallible Word of God cannot accept such an explanation. They have to reconcile any discrepancies. God wouldn’t contradict Himself!

                There are also those who believe that God DID put in what look like contradictions in order to test our faith, but faithful study will make things clear; if it doesn’t, just believe anyway.

                “I believe in the Bible; even the parts that contradict the other parts.”–Ned Flanders

             2. The “Documentary Hypotheses” for the mash-up that is Old Testament, also called “JEPD” (Jehova, Elohim, Deuteronomy, Priestly).

                Obscure joke: the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator personality type for Jesus is INRJ, and Moses is JEPD.

             3. [Reply-depth limit]
                [Doug]
                Ned Flanders for president of the Springfield Seminary! If that doesn’t destroy his faith (see ; religious leaders passim), nothing will.
                File idea under the Greek “those whom the godS would destroy, they first drive mad”.

                [Barb]
                “Documentary Hypothesis” – that was the phrase I was trying to remember. It obviously didn’t survive redaction before going into Long Term Storage.
                But INRI[J] did.
                I’m not quite sure who Myers and Briggs were, but “INRJ[I]” was the Latin … errrrr, “drag” acronym nailed above Jeebus’ head while he was executed (properly, with torture, none of this namby-pamby lack of cruel & unusual punishments ; the ultimate biblical authority). Something like “Here Writhes Rex J[I]udes”.

14. I ALWAYS read the nooz! Please keep it up.

15. “Sometimes a movie is just a movie. And sometimes, alas, not a good one.”

    That’s a good line.

16. I read almost all your items on this site, including nooz. Have appreciated all your hard work over the years.
    When it becomes a burden to you, you owe it to yourself to step back. But if it remains a source of value in your routine, it will remain a much-appreciated source of value in my routine.
    Thanks!

    1. + 1 You said it better than I could.

    2. There’s the one I was waiting for.
       +1

17. Yes, please keep up the nooz, daily American politics and the like is poorly reported in detail here in the UK.

18. I do like “da nooz” and read most or all of it every day, depending on interest and available time. There is always some item I hadn’t heard about–or at least not the way you focused on it. Thanks for including it in your posts!

19. I thought that Barbie was much better than expected!

    1. Cute. Like “Sears’ Best”? I assume.

       1. Sears’ Best?.

          1. Yes. In U.S. in the 1960’s, the retailer Sears Roebuck and Co often advertised a product as “Sears Best”. My cynical friends would point out that that did not mean the product was necessarily any good….just Sears best…could be terrible but was the best they had. So Barbie better than expected might mean it was terrible but that you had expected it to be even worse.

          2. Caustic soda – sears best.

             Though weld splatter does a pretty good job of searing too.

    2. I can see where it would be seen as a bad movie, from the standpoint of art ‘n stuff. But I was entertained by it so I did not mind. I especially liked the last line.

       1. Remind me of the last line?? I thought it was, surprisingly, quite decent as “art”. I had had no interest, never played with Barbies, didn’t buy them for my daughter, but was pressed to see it by a quite intelligent friend, who saw it 3X! I thought it was fairly brilliant as satire. Gosling deserved the nomination, but so, certainly did Gerwig, and Robie. I saw it with a few gfs, and am going to watch it again online with my bf.

          1. I enjoyed Barbie with my wife. But we both had prepared with THC mints, so I, at least, wasn’t watching too critically. Maybe I had low expectations and was surprised?

             I thought Gosling’s acting was not good enough to suspend my disbelief, whereas Margot Robbie’s acting was often amazing and knife-sharp. And while America Ferrera’s feminist monologue is being widely reposted and praised, I thought it broke the “spell” of the movie, which I estimate was otherwise 60-70% very artfully satiric and fun.

             I loved the combo Barbenheimer meme — like mixing salt with caramel, or pepper with chocolate.

          2. I don’t remember exactly, but according to my recollection: following reassurances from America Ferrera and daughter that she’d be fine, and a remark about being a real woman at last, Barbie says, “I’m here to see the gynecologist.”

             1. 😂

20. This is my preferred daily news source. I would miss it if it went away, so I want to thank you for providing it and make sure you know I appreciate your efforts.

21. I particularly look forward to your news and value both your coverage and the comments from your readers. I hope you want to continue it. I seldom comment, even though I read your site regularly, both because I am often quite late reading it, and because I don’t feel I have anything of quality to add to the conversation. But I feel you should stop if this is no longer enjoyable to you.

22. I read all of it, every day.

23. I do enjoy this site – good example of what Believers are up against 🙂

    Actually we agree on concern about this trend – interestingly this project is partly backed by Microsoft, who have so much money to spread for various good sounding causes – Steps to Decolonize Higher Education https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/steps-decolonise-higher-education-after-yourself-change-curriculum

24. I am inundated with things to read but always make time to read the WSJ, da nooz (100%), TGIF and selected essays on the Free Press, and occasional must read X links.

    I marvel at your agile mind in churning out consistently top flight news analysis.

25. I read the Nooz every day. Thank you for your perspective.

26. Yes, I read Da Nooz every day, 80 – 100%! Including your detailed analysis, links, and reader comments. (The other 20% is that I can’t read/absorb everything in a timely manner.)

27. I read Da Nooz today, oh boy!

    And I do every working day. I miss it on the days when you are not here.

28. I am not much of a news guy. I read the headlines. I like it that they’re there.

29. I read every Hili Dialogue, in full, by opening the e-mail notification and reading the website. I wonder if busy people just read the e-mail and if this under-estimates reader engagement measured by hits on the website. Anyway, I value Da Nooz as a resource quite like no other and do hope you continue to find preparing it as rewarding as we do reading it.

    1. +1

    2. That’s certainly a possibility.
       I wonder if there’s a setting in the “Email notifications” to only include (say) the first kilobyte of each post. I see that on other sites from which I get frequent digests.

30. I read da nooz every morning right after I take my tea out of the microwave.

    1. Tea and microwave probably don’t belong in the same sentence! Though I confess I do re-heat tea that way if the pot has gone cold.

       1. What happens to water boiled in the microwave that differs from water boiled in a kettle or on the stove? It all reaches 212 one way or another. Or is it that people put the tea bag in the microwave as well? If that’s the case, I still don’t understand the problem. I bet if tea were made via microwave, via kettle and via stovetop, a blind taste test would reveal that no one could tell the difference.

          1. The approved way to make tea in a microwave is in a Styrofoam cup where the water gets, I dunno, pretty hot I guess. What, you want me to reach in and grab a cup of boiling water with my bare hands? Then you let it sit on the counter while you rummage around in a drawer for a stupid tea bag.

             As a non-tea-drinker I’m sure that I could not tell the difference in a blind taste test. Except that the microwave tea would be cold, half-way along its proper transition to iced tea.

          2. The difference I’ve seen cited is that boiling by conduction from below (hotplate, under-heated kettle) is that the churning and agitation of the surface by convection entrains more air in the hot water than the microwave boiling (where all the water heats almost uniformly, with relatively little convection.
             The original question was “whether Americans really lacked kettles“. To which the answer is obviously “yes”. How else would they heat the water for making their coffee?

             1. I have read that the British are surprised that Americans do have kettles — the old fashioned kind you put on the stove. They usually use electric kettles, which are less picturesque but more efficient. Perhaps drinking tea in the US is associated with a certain level of quaintness for those in the market for a nice kettle to make their nice cuppa tea..

             2. [We’ve reached the limit of reply-depth.]

                I’m trying to think of the last time – outside a camp stove circumstance, that I saw a “stove top” kettle. It must have been in the same cupboard as I saw (and used) a “stove top” percolator for making coffee …. no it wasn’t – it was about 5 years ago, in a German holiday apartment (so … “quaintness” granted) where there was one of those “screw the two halves together, octagonal” coffee percolators. Sorry, I don’t know the style’s name – produces ridiculously tiny coffee at ridiculously high cost in grounds volume.
                These things – I remember distrusting the gummed-up pressure-relief valve in the base. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404763846835?hash=item5e3dce28b3:g:9mwAAOSwzoBls2GY
                A “Moka”.

             3. For me, the original question/comment was Christopher’s: “Tea and microwave probably don’t belong in the same sentence!”

                My comment was in response to that. But why is more air in hot water a detriment to tea? I think there is some tea-woo going on.

                BTW: coffee in America is usually made by something other than boiling water on the stove or in microwave/kettle. Espresso/coffee makers/machines, 3rd party (Starbucks), does the UK have Keurig? That’s huge here. I would wager that fewer than 20% of coffee drinking Americans actually boil water to make their coffee. I’d guess the only boilers would be instant coffee drinkers, but that’s not coffee. 😉

31. I read all of the news. It’s available on the major news outlets, but so much there is sullied by analysis that almost none is reliable as straight news. Your analysis is a welcome sight, as you value truth over spin. All that said, I would understand if you decide to cut back.

    One more piece to add:

    The International Court in The Hague stopped short of calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. I didn’t expect this outcome, but perhaps Israel’s excellent accounting of itself at the Court had an impact. See brief story here: https://www.jta.org/2024/01/26/politics/international-court-of-justice-rules-that-some-allegations-of-israel-committing-genocide-are-plausible

    Israel would have completely ignored an order for an immediate cease fire and would have declared the court’s decision invalid and irrelevant. But the lesser verdict might have been taken to give the Court a way to save face. After all, by calling for Israel only to do what it’s already doing—allow aid in, take measures to reduce civilian casualties, etc.—the Court will be able to claim that its ruling had an effect. It seems to me that their ruling was self-serving.

    1. Here’s the full decision: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-ord-01-00-en.pdf. The “remedies” are enumerated near the end of the document.

32. Dear Professor Coyne.
    I read your news and Hili plus company report every day and value your news perspective and detail and the most important thing is that it is always very reliable, without bias unlike many many alternative sources .
    Thank you for your continuing effort and tremendous web site.
    Yours Sincerely.
    Robert Ladley

33. Jerry, for what it’s worth, I read your Nooz most every day. The topics you choose align well with what I follow and your comments, opinions and occasional crankiness make me think. I hope you will continue with it.

    Oh, and as for Barbie, I gave it a similar 15 minutes, even scrolling forward to see if it might improve. I decided it was not made to target my age cohort.

    1. I don’t know, but I think my age (74) allowed me to appreciate the movie more than otherwise. For a lot of young people, I think some of the scenarios were hypothetical rather than lived, and so less pertinent or poignant. (I posted some other comments above.)

34. I read Nooz ever day. Please continue.

35. then again, Spouses’ day could also be misconstrued

    1. :o)

36. I read all of nearly all of your articles on WEIT, including the Hili Dialogues Nooz section. I hope you keep it up, but perfectly understandable if you don’t.

    I haven’t seen Barbie yet, but my wife and I will likely give it a try soon. My first thought based solely on the uproar it caused on the internet among those that hold manliness in particularly high regard is that it must have something going for it.

37. derweitblick has this to say about WEITblog: Selected and carefully researched content on our key topics – you can find this on our WEITBlog. We want to support you in achieving even more in and with your work in order to achieve your professional and private goals more efficiently and calmly.

38. I read 100% of da nooz every day. You are, IMO, the best nooz aggregator on the web. Because of your efforts, and the insightful comments and enlightening links offered by those who participate in the discussions on your website, I am a much better informed person than I was before I discovered this site.

    I hope you continue to offer us da nooz, but will completely understand if you choose to spend your time on other endeavors.

    1. Exactly!

39. I am told that the US lacks kettles because the residential voltage is only 110V not 240V as in the UK, and that thus boiling a kettle would take too long:)
    I do not know if this is accurate though!

    1. It depends on the circuit they’re in. AIUI, the “standard” American plug can deliver 15A, for 1650 W power, while the UK’s 230V sockets can deliver 13A, for 2990W. But it’s not as simple as that, because as the element heats up, it’s resistance rises so it’s current and power fall.
       When we had to use (company dictat, for repatriation of profit) American kettles on our unit’s 110V circuits, I don’t remember them being noticeably slow.

    2. The electric kettles they sell in the US bust their seals (seams) too quickly. The older ones were better but, like everything else one purchases these days, the quality decreases and the price increases. Infuriating!

40. I read the nooz every day and find it very valuable. In fact it is the only news I read on most days.

41. I read the daily nooz and attached comments every day, if not always first thing. I enjoy looking for hidden jokes and puns!

42. “. . . and, we’re back, though I’m not sure that this long-form news will continue, as it’s time-consuming and perhaps not many people read…”

    Not only do I read it…I look forward to it. I value your insight and I’m a veteran of the news business. I’ve picked up authors and other news sources thanks to your work. Your efforts have enriched me intellectually.

    I can’t justify the time you spend on this, only you can. I can testify that this project continues your life-long mission of educating and informing.

43. First comment. I read every Hili Dialogue, and greatly enjoy them. I share them with my wife. She enjoys them too. Thank you so much.

    Been reading daily since the beginning (or close), after purchasing your WEIT book — during my departure from a fundamental Christian life.

    Thank you so much Dr. Coyne – I knew nothing about Evolution. Take care.

44. I enjoy your version of da nooz as often as I can, I appreciate the tremendous effort you put into it but fully understand if you have had enough.

45. Count me as among those for whom WEIT is daily read.

46. Good morning Jerry. I read the Nooz every morning. When I get up at 4.35am, I fed the cats, make a cup of tea and then check my emails. I click on your excellent daily email and read it on the website. My 15-year-old Burmese cat Siti is on my lap while I read. I generally read 100% of it, the only things I skip are reports about the U.S. House of Representatives because I live in NZ and it is not relevant to me. I enjoy your balanced, analytical and impartial well-written accounts. You don’t get that in many other news. I don’t know how long I have been a subscriber but it’s been many years. I know writing and assembling a daily email like this is hard work. I appreciate your dedication and would miss your daily emails but I understand if you need to cut back. Gerry, thank you for years of entertainment and education.

47. Nooz is good, I enjoy it, but it is behind the science and culture war issues for me. And the stuff of your ever-busy life, food and travels.
    D.A.
    NYC

48. “Da Nooz” is a great addition to Hili’s dialogues and the tw**ts, or whatever X calls them nowadays. I don’t always agree with your “take,” but that’s what makes discussion interesting. I don’t know what you use as your news source(s), but sometimes WEIT is the only place (or first place) where I’ve read it. I couldn’t blame you if you dropped the feature, but I would miss it dearly.

    And I’d like to give Jez a positive plug for continuing the “on this day” list. I read and enjoy those every day as well. I’d like to add a quote that would make a good lead in to the death list: As everything in this world is but a sham. Death is the only sincerity. -Yamamoto Tsunetomo Those stoic Samurai!

    My wife and I watched all of Barbie…yawn…though it did have some scenes that were hilarious. My favorite funny was when all the Kens were serenading their prospective Barbies with the Matchbox 20 song, “Push.” Gosling’s Ken was well acted and he had the best lines imo: Brewski Brews- LOL! Though I have no idea how it made the Best Picture list.

49. (from the above story)
    You should post the approval of the Arab world – all of it – for 10/7 all the time.

    Nothing explains the entire situation as clearly and totally as that one chart. Versions of it, from separate data sources, have been going around since late October. They show MASSIVE support for 10/7 throughout the Islamosphere.

    We are incapable in the west of imagining there are effectively NO peacemakers on the other side. Yet that is the case. No single issue unites them as much as antisemitism: it is required and taught in the Koran.
    D.A.
    NYC
    https://themoderatevoice.com/the-suicidal-stupidity-of-a-two-state-solution/

    1. +1

50. I appreciate da nooz very much. I read most of it daily and I hope you choose to continue it. Thank you!

51. I’ve not only read “Da Nooz” daily for a couple of years, I also read all the comments and, time permitting, check out the links suggested.

52. I enjoy the news summary and check for it most mornings. Thanks for the extra effort.

53. I love da news – especially your comments, which often provide balance. Please keep da news going.

54. I’m on the fence about Da Nooz, and I see that I’m an outlier among my fellow readers. I’m a news junkie and have made my way through my regular news sites–including but not limited to the NYT, the WSJ, the Economist, and the Guardian–by the time the Hili Dialogue is published each day. That said, I am grateful for Jerry’s deep dive into the Israeli-Hamas war and hope it continues for as long as the war does, which, sad to say, seems like a long time.

    1. Same here, mostly. I often skip da nooz that’s indented, as I’ve already read about it, and I go straight to Jerry’s comments. I especially appreciate his analysis of news about the Hamas attack on Israel. I frequently send those links to family, who are too busy raising their own families to read very much.

55. I enjoy and am informed by ‘da nooz’ daily. I am also delighted that your website increases my vocabulary regularly, both directly and via the comments. Your time is of course your own to do with as you choose (as if you have any ‘choice’ in the matter). I enjoy your provision of vicarious travel as well.

    One of my favorite theories about the story of how Eve was created from ‘Adam’s Rib’ is that it was actually an explanation for why human males lack a baculum or os penis (that was the ‘rib’ that was removed to create Eve). How many other mammalian females were created is left a mystery.

    I think most Americans have stovetop kettles rather than electric ones. I have both, but the small electric one is only used when traveling. Many hotel coffee makers will not make really hot water for tea. The electric kettle also works well to boil eggs and in a pinch to heat up soup (but needs vigorous cleaning if used that way). I’ve never had any problems with the electric kettle blowing circuit breakers or fuses and it is quite fast.

    1. One of the features of WEIT I love is the freedom we commenters have to be our sesquipedalian selves.😉

56. Yea nooz!

57. For the past few months I have been reading all the nooz each day.

58. My wife and I finally had Covid a few weeks ago — relatively mild because of multiple (7) vaccinations — and putting cups of water with tea bags into a microwave was quick and satisfying, given our diminished capacities. We usually got two cups of tea from one tea bag, though the second zapped cup had to steep longer, of course.

    The last time I used a teapot — a fanciful and colorful ceramic one — was many years ago when I used it, along with an inflated Earth ball, to illustrate Bertrand Russell’s teapot argument about the burden of proof. (It helps that my wife’s last name from a previous marriage is Russell.)

    It’s funny how “microwave radiation” seems to be no longer a thing.

59. I start every day with the Hili dialogue. The internet is full of so called news sites that spend far more effort pushing an agenda than in raising the level of understanding of their readers. The sites that do are a tiny minority and we could use a million more of them. Unfortunately people who can, and are willing to, manage such a site as well as you do seem to be few and far between.

60. Roger Vadim’s birthday … a remarkable monsieur. He had a child with Catherine Deneuve. Subsequently he was married 6 times, his wives including Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda.

61. The execution of Kenneth Smith was barbaric. I’m against capital punishment anyway, but that method was sick. Surely they could have administered gas to anaesthetise him first? To minimise the suffering. You want him dead? Your choice. But if you want to make him suffer as revenge for his crime then it makes you no better than him.

    I’d rather my taxes went to pay for life sentences for 100 murderers than risk killing one innocent person. We KNOW that innocent people have been murdered by the state. The legal process is not Infallible.

    Watch the excellent film “The Life of David Gale”. It made me double down on my belief that there is no place for capital punishment in a civilised society.

62. Da nooz is da bomb! [No? too silly?]

    Anyway, keep it coming… please.

63. “perhaps not many people read it”

    Surely they wouldn’t stay subscribed if they didn’t? We all have different interests, so I expect everyone doesn’t read every single thing, but you have a lot of variety so there’s something for everyone in most posts.

    As a ‘foreigner’ I don’t read everything about US Universities, but as a world citizen I read the pieces about Trump. I’m also involved in gender issues and skepticism, and love film, cats, unusual facts, travel and humour, so there’s plenty for me.

    I can’t read everything about Israel and Palestine as it makes me feel helpless, but the article on “Civilian participation in “Hamas’s October 7 Massacre”” was powerful and I read every word.

64. Pretty late commenting here. But better late than never! I could only read part of the nooz this morning, as Friday is the regular – for over 30 years – day to have breakfast with a group of friends. Keeping up traditions is important, and reading the nooz is one for mine. I learn a lot, from both you and the comments. I sure hope it continues but understand if it becomes too burdensome. Thanks for all you do.

65. I’m a big fan of the nooz here and all WEIT posts. I start my day with Hili Dialogue and coffee. I canceled The New York Times. This is where I come to find out about the nooz.

66. I read da nooz everyday as well as all your other posts. I rarely comment. I enjoy reading comments from others, but I usually am late to the game and generally don’t have much to add.

67. I never miss Da Nooz. It’s part of my daily essential reading.

68. I read Da Nooz every day, and look forward to it.

69. Jerry,

    Please continue the NOOZ whenever you are able. I read all of it every day

70. Just to add to the majority, I’ve been reading WEIT almost from the outset, and always read Da Nooz. Please keep it going if you can.

71. Restaurants in the USA have no clue how to make tea. When you order tea they fill a cup with hot water from the boiler, place it on a saucer and place a tea bag next to it. By the time it reaches your table the water has dropped in temperature to maybe 80-85 degrees Celsius making it useless for proper tea. Standard fermented black tea needs to be infused at FULL boiling temperature (100 degrees C or 212 degrees F.)

72. I discovered your site just a year ago and am greatly appreciative of the nooz and your views. The site is a perspective on the world I didn’t have before. I can understand it is taxing to keep up with daily and would urge you to reduce output when rest is needed. Your books, among others such as Dawkins’, have turned my life around, from indoctrinated Christian to a person who delights in life revealed through science. I enjoy Hili’s adventures and the light-hearted tidbits you share at your site and love hearing about your ducks (I have a soft spot for ducks too).

73. I read most of the news. Because I’m not from the US, I usually skip those bits that are very specific to that side of the ocean. Otherwise, I welcome all international affairs that are covered here, both by the information and your particular take on them.

74. Every day I read all of WEIT. I put off reading until evening because I found I would often ignore other obligations I might have while reading Da Nooz and the Hili Dialogues.

    On the other hand I turn 78 in a few months and I can feel my capacities slipping. I continue volunteering on issues similar to some of my work but it seems to take more effort now. I admire your capacity to continue putting out so much information and analysis. I can’t think of another website that fills my desire to continue learning and thinking in such a diverse level of information. Thank you for maintaining WEIT. If you need to slack off a bit I could understand that.

    A lot of commenters add to the mix of ideas and information available here.

75. Hi Jerry,
    I check every morning to see if you’ve changed your mind and decided to restart your blog, but no luck. I’ve been reading your blog religiously (not the best term) for many years and feel like I’ve lost a longtime friend whose sensible and courageous opinions I almost never disagree with, and often pass along to friends.
    I’ve often wondered how long you could dedicate so much time to your blog, and fully understand discontinuing it, but wish that you would at least reconsider total elimination. Please at least bring it back on a limited basis. I’ll keep hoping and looking.

Comments are closed.