Tuesday: Hili dialogue

58 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

1. Only one thing to say on kazoo day, you haven’t lived until you have experienced the Temple City Kazoo Orchestra, music starts about two minutes in.

2. Already in 2015 scientists were concerned about the kind of research going on in Wuhan.

   https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18787

   An experiment that created a hybrid version of a bat coronavirus — one related to the virus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) — has triggered renewed debate over whether engineering lab variants of viruses with possible pandemic potential is worth the risks.

3. Hili dialogue…🤣🤣😂🤣🤣😂…

   1. Agreed 😜😅😅😅

4. THE ODJB was my first musical love. I wore out a set of LPs when I was in high-school. The ODJB was, of course, the first group to record jazz, with their February 1917 recordings of “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixieland Jass Band One-Step”.

   While not exactly a kazoo, Red McKenzie played a hot comb and tissue paper:

   1. I used to play comb in the departmental orchestra that convened once annually to wander the halls playing Xmas carols. The most excellent paper for that was the very thin wax paper that separates layers of Parafilm.

5. Alas, Snopes says the KFC ad is a fake.

   1. I can’t tell if I should be disappointed or not.

      Very convincing … though I skipped the fine print.

      MAD Magazine would run really “bad” but obvious parody ads, I wonder if this was found on the cutting room floor?

      1. After reading your comment, I went back and read the fine print. It’s obviously a fake, but still funny!

         1. I’ll check – thank you.

6. Regarding the Columbia incident, I hope everyone reads Heather Cox Richardson’s column on the issue:

   https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-27-2025?source=queue&fbclid=IwY2xjawIFwFtleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHdrqlMTtN8xB_8mTyzWAXksMdUT30xCihFzEBUT4lHcSEcM6xt41_PMghQ_aem_WhWFsf_jEH46NfyHEms6Xg

   1. Thank you; you beat me to it.

      Just the info that in 2024 Colombia accepted 124 flights with deportees shows how unnecessarily performative these Trump shenanigans are. And the scary thing is how China is standing there with a bouquet of flowers to soothe poor, jilted Colombia…

      1. She’s wrong. See my comment below with link.

   2. I subscribed to Heather Cox Richardson recently but I’m disappointed in that piece. She says:

      “Over the past four years, Trump and MAGA Republicans repeatedly insisted that Biden had maintained “open borders,” while in fact, what the administration did was to try to address a situation made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.”

      She is completely wrong here. Biden opened the border on day 1, reversing Trump’s policy that migrants apply for asylum while in Mexico.

      Biden then did absolutely nothing as huge numbers crossed the border. It became the largest influx of migrants in recorded US history.

      Finally, toward the end, as it appeared to be helping Trump, he acted.

      NY Times article on this:

      Recent Immigration Surge Has Been Largest in U.S. History

      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/briefing/us-immigration-surge.html

      If she can be this wrong, is she a trustworthy source?

      1. You’ve got it right, Frau. I live down here in a real border town. Biden administration repeatedly claimed there was “no problem at the border” while all sorts of unvetted people poured across. It was intentional as hell and, as you say, when they realized how it was playing out politically, they stopped it. Then they wanted credit for fixing what they claimed was never a problem. Complete bullshit. If I say this out loud here in Tucson I’m a “racist”. That, too, is complete bullshit. The jig is up. If families are separated and good, law abiding people are deported, the blame lies at Biden’s doorstep.

7. Headline needs a semicolon.

   And with early jazz it’s unfortunate that little movie footage exists from the period preceding talkies. But for eclectic instruments, I like slide whistles a lot. There’s one in King Oliver’s Sobbin’ Blues, but I think even better is the (Danish) Peruna Jazzmen’s version and here you can see it in action.

8. Meanwhile, Dept of That Didn’t Take Long, dateline Jasper Co. IN, late yesterday afternoon, there is one fewer of the 1500 MAGAts after one of them tangled with an officer there.

   And the hunt is on for another in TX that never should have been released because of other serious charges pending.

   1. Read about that other guy this morning. He is right here in Harris County (Houston) Texas. There is a warrant out for his arrest. The charges? Soliciting a minor. Nice guy

9. On TFP: I think Bari started off very strong and I was excited to have her on the mission that she took on. She has grown the TFP enterprise incredibly fast. Some of her writers seem to be the careless word mongers that we see on the regular political press, but she also has some gems and good seems to strongly outweigh bad day to day.

   But this morning I read the transcript (admittedly edited from the full audio interview) of the moms for MAHA. What utter bullshit. I will now go listen to the tape as they say – its an hour….why can’t there be an unedited transcript…in the words of the great Bluto suggesting a beer at the Delta frat party: “it don’t cost nothin’”. But I wander: the couple of paragraphs on vaccines and rfk jr (affectionately referred to as “bobby” on the transcript) is just pap and dangerous and has no referenced basis in scientific findings as far as I can see. Why would bari bring us this without some hard questions or at least have a paul offit on the panel?

   While she has editorial control but does not write almost all of the other columns, she is the interviewer for this piece…a piece that belongs on the tv show The View rather than the TFP I signed onto at the beginning. I am off to spend an hour that I do not really have with the audio….

   1. Ok. I listened to much of the audio including the full vaccine discussion, though I use the word discussion in a most liberal sense because it was more an infomercial from this Fast talking Calley Means character and while Bari asked a question or two, those questions were not addressed. She said that she cannot fact check them in real time…true, but she could after the episode is in the can…but apparently did not. So all these assertions just fly out with the TFP hechsher on them…a very sorry commentary…Bar: I want better than this please!

      1. I’ve noticed that health issues are not left/right.

         It’s ignorance of science that lets people on both sides think RFK Jr is a fine selection for Dept of Health.

         TFP would be well advised to get some nonpartisan, scientific writers.

         1. And yet he has been endorsed by the former director of the CDC and by some Ivy League and similar caliber professors with training in medicine, health policy, and vaccine safety. (Obama also considered appointing him in 2008 to run the EPA.) Support of him is not a simplistic matter of scientific ignorance.

            The chief reason to oppose RFK Jr. is his penchant to run ahead of the evidence, generally because he sometimes places too much confidence in confounded observational studies when the conclusions match his prior beliefs. (This failing is shared by many Covid vaccine cheerleaders.) Chief reasons to support him include his indefatigability, his desired assault on the corporate capture of the regulatory apparatus as well as pharma capture of the media through its advertising dollars, and his preventive emphasis on obesity and childhood chronic disease.

            One can deny that any causal relationship exists between Congress granting legal immunity to vaccine manufacturers in 1986 and the vast expansion of mandatory childhood vaccines that then followed. But one is not a loon to question whether there is an undesirable connection and to wonder why vaccine schedules vary across the West. Moreover, one can also wave the “safe and effective” banners, but it doesn’t make one a conspiracy theorist to insist on properly-performed safety studies and government transparency when it comes to side effects. Nor does it make one anti-science to consider the desirability (or lack thereof) of each vaccine relative to the absolute risk of a disease, any demonstrated efficacy in morbidity and all-cause mortality, the known (and unknown or unstudied) side effects, and the age and health of the prospective recipient. One size-fits-all mandates or recommendations for young and old, healthy and unhealthy don’t shore up my confidence in “The Science”—especially when the practices of many of our advanced European partners diverge from our own.

            The Biden Administration making unjustified claims about Covid vaccine effectiveness (you can’t transmit the virus!); vastly exaggerating the danger the virus posed to young, healthy people; supporting unnecessary and prolonged school closures; pushing vaccine mandates on low-risk populations (and the hundreds of universities that did likewise); and then coercing social media to remove TRUE accounts of side effects lest it encourage “vaccine hesitancy” have done far more to encourage skepticism of government pronouncements and promote vaccine hesitancy than anything RFK Jr. has done. Many public health specialists warned about this at the time but the far-right was not the only group to politicize vaccines and health policy and react in herd fashion.

            RFK Jr. has enough baggage and merit that I could not fault senators no matter how they voted, but I can think of worse things than to have a vaccine skeptic running HHS and then have the safety studies he directs vindicate much of current practice. (BUT HE’LL HIDE THE SCIENCE! Really? Like whom?) Unfortunately, as with virtually all contentious topics over the last decade, both the traditional and the social media environments are polluted with hitjobs, wrong information, exaggerations, and distortions—all motivated by a combination of money, politics, and ideology. Anybody who thinks they know RFK Jr. who hasn’t listened to him directly and extensively—unedited and without commentary, is likely mistaken. Even if they are senators—or scientists.

            1. Do you have links to stories on this?

               A search on “scientists who have endorsed RFK Jr” just finds stories of scientists condemning him.

               Vaccines are tested before they’re released. I don’t buy your criticisms of the Covid vaccine.

               I agree RDK Jr is correct on poor eating habits but that alone is not much.

               He’s probably going to get the nod as Trump is threatening Republicans who don’t confirm his picks with being “primaried.”

            2. Frau K, I appreciate your reply and question, but since there is no “reply” button under your response, I provide my answers here.

               Here is former CDC director Robert Redfield’s endorsement: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-has-plan-make-americas-children-healthy-again-its-good-one-opinion-1957026. There are also videos online of him discussing related issues.

               One needn’t get into the politicized media game of competing lists of “experts” who are “for” and “against” to dismiss the “scientific ignorance” assertion. Two men who would work for Kennedy—Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford, health policy) and Marty Makary (Johns Hopkins, medicine)—both support him, of course. Martin Kulldorff, formerly at Harvard and one of the world’s most cited vaccine safety experts, largely owing to his statistical work in the field, supports him. Only the most obtuse or partisan could dismiss these four men as scientifically ignorant. (Questioning their judgment is another matter, and that is fair game.) Here is Kulldorff’s case for Kennedy:
               https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/12/23/the_cure_for_vaccine_skepticism_152125.html

               Which of my Covid vaccine criticisms do you not “buy”? That the observational studies are confounded? (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jep.13839) That the Biden Administration made unjustified claims? CDC director Walensky said, without evidence, that “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus—they don’t get sick.” That’s “not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real-world data.” She also told Congress that infected people can’t transmit the virus if vaccinated. Leading politicians echoed these errors and enforced policies informed by them long after the evidence clearly showed otherwise.

               While on the topic, I am curious: Where is the evidence that initial and annual Covid vaccines are beneficial to infants? Why is the US an outlier in recommending this? Where are the RCTs demonstrating efficacy of the Covid boosters, particularly in the young and the healthy? You’ve mentioned Paul Offit before, as I recall. Is the 73-year-old still refusing to get boosted while recommending the US revisit its booster recommendations? Is he scientifically ignorant? We fired nurses, first responders, and military who had recovered from Covid and subsequently refused vaccination: where is the reliable evidence that shows a person recovered from Covid gains further protection from severe disease or death by being vaccinated? By what evidence, and using what moral determination and principles of autonomy, did university administrators threaten expulsion and declare that the risk of myocarditis for healthy young men was acceptable even given the extremely low incidence of Covid complications in this population? Are you aware that the top two career officials overseeing vaccine research and review at the US FDA were pressured out of their jobs by the Biden Administration because they didn’t believe the data supported authorization when the first booster was approved? In fall of 2024, there was still no such randomized data and we continue to approve the vaccine under emergency use authorization. Why?

               We need reliable data, not dogma, and the willingness to change our minds. Vaccine supporters—whatever that means—should welcome it. Here is one place Kennedy can start. Where are the randomized trials that compare the current US childhood vaccine schedule against countries (Denmark, for instance) that vary significantly from our own? What proof do we have that our schedule is more beneficial than others? Note: this would investigate not each vaccine individually for its efficacy, but the combination, frequency, and timing of multiple vaccines and any side effects and effects on all-cause mortality resulting from the administration schedule. Why would anyone other than the pharma industry oppose this? How did even asking such questions become politicized?

            3. Frau K, I appreciate your reply and question, but since there is no “reply” button under your response, I provide my answers here. I had to exclude the links to bypass moderation.

               Former CDC director Robert Redfield’s endorsement of RFK is titled “Donald Trump has a plan to make America’s children healthy again” and is at Newsweek. There are also videos online of him discussing related issues.

               One needn’t get into the politicized media game of competing lists of “experts” who are “for” and “against” to dismiss the “scientific ignorance” assertion. Two men who would work for Kennedy—Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford, health policy) and Marty Makary (Johns Hopkins, medicine)—both support him, of course. Martin Kulldorff, formerly at Harvard and one of the world’s most cited vaccine safety experts, largely owing to his statistical work in the field, supports him. Only the most obtuse or partisan could dismiss these four men as scientifically ignorant. (Questioning their judgment is another matter, and that is fair game.) Kulldorff’s case for Kennedy, The Cure for Vaccine Skepticism, is at Real Clear Politics.

               Which of my Covid vaccine criticisms do you not “buy”? That the observational studies are confounded? (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jep.13839) That the Biden Administration made unjustified claims? CDC director Walensky said, without evidence, that “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus—they don’t get sick.” That’s “not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real-world data.” She also told Congress that infected people can’t transmit the virus if vaccinated. Leading politicians echoed these errors and enforced policies informed by them long after the evidence clearly showed otherwise.

               While on the topic, I am curious: Where is the evidence that initial and annual Covid vaccines are beneficial to infants? Why is the US an outlier in recommending this? Where are the RCTs demonstrating efficacy of the Covid boosters, particularly in the young and the healthy? You’ve mentioned Paul Offit before, as I recall. Is the 73-year-old still refusing to get boosted while recommending the US revisit its booster recommendations? Is he scientifically ignorant? We fired nurses, first responders, and military who had recovered from Covid and subsequently refused vaccination: where is the reliable evidence that shows a person recovered from Covid gains further protection from severe disease or death by being vaccinated? By what evidence, and using what moral determination and principles of autonomy, did university administrators threaten expulsion and declare that the risk of myocarditis for healthy young men was acceptable even given the extremely low incidence of Covid complications in this population? Are you aware that the top two career officials overseeing vaccine research and review at the US FDA were pressured out of their jobs by the Biden Administration because they didn’t believe the data supported authorization when the first booster was approved? In fall of 2024, there was still no such randomized data and we continue to approve the vaccine under emergency use authorization. Why?

               We need reliable data, not dogma, and the willingness to change our minds. Vaccine supporters—whatever that means—should welcome it. Here is one place Kennedy can start. Where are the randomized trials that compare the current US childhood vaccine schedule against countries (Denmark, for instance) that vary significantly from our own? What proof do we have that our schedule is more beneficial than others? Note: this would investigate not each vaccine individually for its efficacy, but the combination, frequency, and timing of multiple vaccines and any side effects and effects on all-cause mortality resulting from the administration schedule. Why would anyone other than the pharma industry oppose this? How did even asking such questions become politicized?

10. Thanks for the correction on that gross fraudulent story.

    I highly recommend listening to Jon Stewart telling Stephen Colbert his lab leak case for covid-19 from 2021. Easy to find by searching YouTube.

    Stewart made me laugh in a very classic Stewart way!

    1. Stewart made all the sense of a crackhead. I’ve seen that stuff — I thought he was parodying the crank virus-ignorant crowd. Egad, there’s actually real science that has been done, but I have a rant below.

11. Deportation isn’t a punishment. Anyone found to be in any country illegally can be administratively removed immediately to the country he is a citizen of without needing to have been misbehaving (like missing court dates or being just generally making himself undesirable.) The only exception would be those who made an asylum claim and are cooperating with the country’s efforts to determine if their claim is really based on a credible fear of state persecution in their home country …or is just a dodge. If a person with an asylum claim in play was missing court dates it could be taken as evidence that he was not a bona fide claimant and was seeking to disappear. If a person’s asylum claim is denied, he becomes just another illegal alien.

    If an illegal alien has no asylum claim in play, he does not have any court dates to miss and he can be removed as soon as he is apprehended. This is what would happen to me if I, a foreigner, was caught working in the U.S. without a visa, or came in as a visitor and simply stayed.

    I understand the reticence to remove people who have been in the country a long time and stayed out of trouble but this signals a reward for success in evading the authorities. These individuals would have to have been, on average, of large positive benefit to the country before they tipped the balance away from the reputational cost to confidence in the immigration system. And maybe they are so valuable, on average, that you should look the other way for fear of losing them or deterring their relatives back home from coming to help you, too. That’s a judgement call that reasonable people can disagree on. I just want to point out that it is not cost-free to let illegal aliens know that if they stay underground long enough they’ll get a pass. Who will provide for them when they become too old and too sick to work gainfully, even if they are doing important, unpopular work now?

12. Let me recommend again the analysis from TWiV on the lab leak vs., we market. As opposed to a conclusion with low confidence, the TWiV scientists actually discuss the data and what it means. This episode aired after the New York Times Op Ed:

    https://www.microbe.tv/blog/2024/06/09/twiv-1121-sars-cov2-still-didnt-come-from-a-lab/

    The notes contain several previous episodes that also cover the origins.

    They discuss the data and the research that generated the data. As I have said before, I think there is a China coverup here, but the coverup is of the wet market origin. China was supposed to have stopped wet markets after SARS 1 was found to have started in one. The scandal is that the wet markets continued to operate and were the source of a second pandemic.

    1. Thank you, A Different Mike! Hopefully people will watch TWiV and even access primary source material discussed there.

    2. Yes, and as someone else mentioned yesterday Paul Offit thinks highly of that TWiV episode and covered/summarized it on his Substack.

       1. And TWiV brings us a mix of researchers, clinicians, PhD’s, MD’s, DO’s, and even a science writer with a PhD in microbiology on their regular shows with special guests who are leaders in the technical field.

    3. Thanks for all this, and especially for the Paul Offit summary. His Word continues to have a lot of weight with me.
       I don’t know why disparagement of lab leak conspiracists from researchers and government officials is supposed to be off the table. They are in positions of power and persuasion, but do a disservice when they ignore material evidence for a zoonotic origin that has been out for a while. This while leaping to innuendos – at least I know of no evidence for a lab leak other an innuendo. I fully understand why one would get exercised over that.

    4. Trying to carefully word this comment that may sit on the cliff edge of the rules “Roolz” but with my years of involvement my edge of the scientific community — I’m astonished and disappointed regarding our host’s comments regarding origin of SARS-CoV-2. Others above have left links motioning TWiV and the commentary and references therein. What concerns me is that origins of SARS-CoV-2 — and other pandemic viruses — are fundamentally an issue of ecology, evolution, and the circumstances of the human virus/interface. This had been an area of intense, high-level science for a long time, and has certainly accelerated in the past 3 decades. The lack of curiosity that I perceive from such a distinguished scientist — Those rigorous, dense papers, books, and the references therein. — Please reconsider this issue rather than snarking on the Biden administration.

       I came here to learn, drawn by a perceived theme of evolution and ecology, got my eyes opened to trans-gender nonsense & woke-ism, thank you very much, so here’s a reciprocal favor — in this case, please, please think it over. There’s a vast trove of intellectually rigorous work — the TWiV references a tip of iceberg. that might be interesting and enlightening. And guess what — important to the future of humans and the natural world.

       1. I agree. I think it is easy to mistake what is going on in the media for what is going on in science. The great thing about TWiV is that it gives non-scientists a good look into the science around vaccines, and specifically around the origins of covid. There are multiple lines of evidence leading to the market for the origin, but as stated above there is mostly innuendo for a lab leak. And there is no new data for lab leak, just a new report. The same when the Op-Ed came out. It was not reporting on new data, it was going over the old innuendos.

       2. Yep, and all we’ve heard in opposition to natural origins is “low confidence,” not why the FBI/CIA came to that opinion. In contrast, a number of us have posted science-based reasons both yesterday and today that point to natural origins.

          The FBI/CIA is in the business of ferreting out crooks. How does it go, “to a hammer, every problem is a nail,” or something like that. By their very nature they’d be expected to lean toward if conspiracy. Consequences of leaning that way and being wrong are far less than leaning away from it and later being found wrong. So “low confidence” may well be their way of rejecting it from a CYA standpoint.

          I think it’s very likely that the Biden admin also listened to the evidence from scientists and reached the conclusion of a natural origin and for that reason tried to tamp down the leak angle without spending time explaining details to a public largely unqualified to understand them. In contrast, LAB LEAK in flashing red neon is easy to grasp.

          1. I assume that the environmental samples used in the studies by Western virologists were all collected by Chinese researchers under the supervision of the Chinese government.

             The CIA probably assumes that these samples were tampered with. Why would a government that is engaged in forced organ harvesting hesitate to tamper with scientific samples?

             Please correct me if I am wrong. Does anybody know the custody chain of the samples used in the studies cited by the readers here?

             1. I think this is probably the paper you want for that. Thirty-five apparently Chinese authors, published in Nature. They began collecting samples on 1 Jan 2020. That would have been well before anyone in the West had any sense of the seriousness of the whole thing.

                To my thinking, the reaction was swift. Had it been anything orchestrated by bureaucracy, it would have taken much longer for the wheels to turn. And also, if a coverup was afoot, you wouldn’t want to have 35 people in on it. More than one, sure, for plausibility, but not 35.

13. The Irish poet W.B. Yeats died on this day, 1939. He is probably best known for “The Second Coming” (Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…), one of the iconic poems of the 20th Century. Being that he lived in tumultuous times (WWI, Influenza Epidemic of 1917, Irish War of Independence, Irish Civil War), his poetry still resonates. He is the greatest artist of my own experience. What I’m copying here are the second and fourth stanzas of “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen.” If you want lighter fare, look up “The Wild Swans at Coole,” my favorite of his poems.

    We too had many pretty toys when young:
    A law indifferent to blame or praise,
    To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong
    Melt down, as it were wax in the sun’s rays;
    Public opinion ripening for so long
    We thought it would outlive all future days.
    O what fine thought we had because we thought
    That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.

    Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
    Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
    Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
    To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;
    The night can sweat with terror as before
    We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
    And planned to bring the world under a rule,
    Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

    1. Thank you for this reminder. Those nine-and-fifty swans inhabit what is probably my favorite poem of his. (If only it were a mere nineteen autumns!) I’ll also revisit Auden’s tribute to Yeats. Both artists are a welcome retreat from the noises of our day.

14. Saying “My heart goes out to you,” and offering a Nazi salute are not mutually exclusive.

    1. I think you are trying to preserve a hypothesis after its expiration date.
       According to Wikipedia:
       “The salute is performed by extending the right arm from the shoulder into the air with a straightened hand.” You can easily find footage. The elbow is not bent. The hand does not go to the heart.
       Clapping the hand to the heart (bent elbow) and then snapping the arm out is, at most, a very poorly done Nazi salute and more like other common salutes to a crowd.

       1. Are you really arguing about the biomechanics of the Nazi salute? I have asked several people how they would express “My heart goes out to you” as a hand gesture/salute. In all cases the palm faced outward, not downward.

          I am not willing to give Musk the benefit of the doubt given his strong support for the AfD.

          1. More like Roman salute (I don’t know if this will work): https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExNGsxbndjNjNkMnAxejltNmMxeGhibDB1dXVzMXFtZjVnbXp2M2xzeCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/kkztByfxn8dVK/giphy.gif

             1. ‘Roman salute’ is just another way of saying fascist salute. It’s not really historically supported (I think the first example is the painting, The Oath of Horatio from 1784), and didn’t become prominent until the Italian fascists started using it. The Nazis then copied it from the Italians because they liked the look.

                Besides, do you really expect people to believe that Musk was performing one of the most widely recognized and taboo gestures in the western world in tribute to ancient Romans? Especially when the far more parsimonious explanation (given his recent support of AfD and the way he’s allowed and echoed alt-right content on Twitter) is that he actually intended a Nazi salute?

    2. Especially considering that immediately after his line about “My heart goes out to you”, he added, “It is thanks to you, that the future of civilization is assured.” I mean, it’s not a direct quote of any Nazi or neo Nazi expressions, but it’s certainly along the same sentiment as the 14 Words.

       After watching the video for myself, the way he carried out the gesture, and the expression on his face as he did so, I’m dumbfounded that anybody doubts it was a Nazi salute. I mean, I sort of understand the MAGA folks falling behind the party line. You could actually count it as an example of costly signaling, denying what’s so obvious to anyone with eyes. But non MAGA folks falling for the same apologetics? I just don’t get it.

    3. As far as I can tell, every public figure has at one time or other been photographed with their right arm outstretched.
       When the figure is a target of the woke, or poses some threat to DNC power, we are told it is a Nazi salute.
       When the person in the image is one of the woke or the DNC, it is explained as an inadvertent gesture or a wave taken out of context.

       I find it harder over time to take people seriously when their primary response to those they disagree with is to call them fascists.

15. I do wish the media would let the whole flat Earth thing go with Mike Hughes. He was a daredevil who was determined to get into the record books for a steam powered rocket and was a pretty good engineer. Prior to a funding appeal failing miserably he never once mentioned the shape of the planet but within about four days of declaring his intention to show we live on a mystic pizza he was inundated with cash (flerfs are so gullible). He sadly died when his recovery parachute malfunctioned and deployed soon after an ascent being made solely for publicity on a TV show and this FE connection continues to tarnish his reputation. I fully expected him to return from a successful flight and declare to the waiting press that no-one was more surprised than he was to see a curve! RIP Mad Mike, the world needs more like you.

16. I never knew there was a National Kazoo Day, but was surprised you didn’t take the opportunity to cite the role that the U of Chicago has played in the instrument’s history.
    https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/october-2006/marooned/

17. Thank you for your coverage of International Holocaust Remembrance Day: the lives of Istvan Reiner and Marion Ehrlich lost, those touched by Sir Nicholas Winston saved.

18. On the Columbian deportees:Trump squeezing the balls of Colombia for not accepting their criminal deportees back… is delicious.
    It is morally bankrupt to not accept your own rejected criminal citizens – take note Vietnam, Cuba and NK who also do this “refusal” trick – I noticed many years ago practicing a bit of immigration law. A few times I went to the Peruvian consulate to do paperwork for a (sad in that case, non criminal) deportation.

    I also noticed, happily, how quickly Colombia’s (socialist) president caved. 40 minutes. When you’re a superpower you can just do things.

    D.A.
    NYC

19. Apropos the Big Bang joke tweet, Douglas Adams did it first, and better. “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, the sequel to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, opens with these lines:

    The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

20. This is actually interesting stuff. E.C. Holmes, M. Worobey, others here.
    https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00901-2

    This is the highest level science. People might be curious about this. This one open access. Don’t forget references therein. A lot of it is open access. Read — learn — TWiV and other good source on MicrobeTV & listen to the many hours of clear, careful consideration by scientists and physicians you should be proud to know. Look up the papers.

    Forget the tribalist politics. We need clear, careful thinking. Worobey in particular was happy to consider lane spillover origins, a weak hypothesis, now just political fodder. Go look up Holmes’ papers. Expand your knowledge. But you can start this one in Cell. Some of you may know of the this journal.

    I won’t pester you further on this. But it sort of blows my mind, it’s such an interesting world and we have to listen to Jon Stewart crawling out from under Colberts’ desk? And CIA man…always so accurate.

21. I think that kazoo solo came in around the 1:55 mark, although I won’t bet money on it.

22. Regarding the pardon of the drug lord. How can we be sure that was a mistake? I for one would not be confident in the ACLU’s determination in criminal matters.

23. https://www.kazooamerica.org/kazoophony.html

    Way back when, I went to a concert by the Kaminsky International Kazoo Quartet, mentioned in the link above. Great fun.

24. Sir Anthony Hopkins portrayed Sir Nicholas Winton in the film ‘One Life.’ As usual, Hopkins was fabulous.

    Also in a fabulous performance is Helena Bonham Carter as the younger Nicky’s mom.

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13097932/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_t_6

25. To me, America’s biggest missed opportunity is Mitt Romney. He considered Russia the serious threat it was even then, unlike the clueless Democrats (who mocked him for this and never apologized), and Putin’s fanboy Trump. Had Americans elected Romney, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives would have been spared.

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