History

Viking food: beef cooked in beer, served with turnips and hazel butter. From a venue at the Viking longhouse at Stiklastadir pic.twitter.com/Kw4UrLEAC1

— Nrken19 (@nrken19) September 21, 2022

 

The epistemological edifice is crumbling

Well this should have set the cat among the pigeons.

From How Sure Should We Be About Healthcare Interventions? by John Mandrola.  The subheading is The Study of the Week should reset our prior beliefs about the success of healthcare interventions.

We have become accustomed to the fact that only 20-30% of psychology, sociology, etc. academic findings actually replicate.  That took a while to sink in but people are beginning to accept that there is a lot of wooliness in academic research in the softer sciences.

The same thing has begun happening in a much sterner science, i.e. medicine.  Every couple of months it seems like some foundational assumption or treatment is overturned.  For example, there is the very recent kerfuffle about the effectiveness of colonoscopies which I blogged about here.  A medical treatment which was simply assumed to be effective until actually tested.

Mandrola is writing about some research published a few months ago which looked at the research on the effectiveness of some 1,567 treatments.  From Most healthcare interventions tested in Cochrane Reviews are not effective according to high quality evidence: a systematic review and meta-analysis by Jeremy Howick, et al.  From the Abstract:

Of 1,567 eligible interventions, 87 (5.6%) had high-quality evidence supporting their benefits. Harms were measured for 577 (36.8%) interventions. There was statistically significant evidence for harm in 127 (8.1%) of these. Our dependence on the reliability of Cochrane author assessments (including their GRADE assessments) was the main potential limitation of our study.

Conclusion

More than 9 in 10 healthcare interventions studied within recent Cochrane Reviews are not supported by high-quality evidence, and harms are under-reported.

There are some methodological quibbles that could be made but this looks reasonably robust.  But if so, oh my goodness.

Only 6% of medical treatments were confidently believed to have benefits.  8% of interventions were believed to have harmful outcomes.  

It is not quite so bad as that stark conclusion suggests.  Just because the intervention does not have high quality evidence for a positive impact doesn't mean that possibly most of them are beneficial.  But we certainly don't know and shouldn't be confident.  My suspicion is that many interventions are indeed beneficial but perhaps with narrower application than currently accepted. 

Be sure to ask your doctor.  

An Insight

Pillars of our society:
- Free speech
- Children going to school
- Medical consent
- Perjury is a crime
- Care for the poor and vulnerable
- Right to make a living
- Free to travel
... all under assault.

— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) September 21, 2022

Democracy under threat from the darkness of incompetence

Heh.  Well, sort of.  This is actually kind of astonishing.  

My latest in @TheAtlantic https://t.co/w6GIOEMhZv

— ProfEmilyOster (@ProfEmilyOster) October 31, 2022

Professor Oster is an economics professor at Brown University and claims to unapologetically data-driven.  I have followed her work for a number of years now.  She tends to blog and tweet for the young mother's audience but she has some good work.  But her intellectual creds have taken a hit during the Covid-19 pandemic.  

She has followed the government line and endorsed almost all the otherwise indefensible positions of the past three years in terms of school closures, masks, vaccine mandates, etc.  All of which went against the pre-pandemic response plan as well against past practice and emerging data.

And that was probably the greatest sin of the past two years.  As more and more data became available demonstrating why the bad decisions had been bad, even given the knowledge limitations of the time, Oster became increasingly resistant to the new data.  Her default seemed to be, well, government knows best.  For a public intellectual it was a shameful position.

And now she is asking that all the political leaders, the agency leaders, the academics and the public intellectuals who were dramatically and vociferously wrong and who exacted grave consequences on both citizens and on those who spoke honestly from data and experience.  It is one thing to be wrong.  It is quite another to be maliciously and vengefully wrong.

I presume this might have been some sort of trial ballon by the clerisy.  If so, I suppose it was worth floating.  Currently 83% of respondents are panning the idea (in terms of how badly the article is being ratioed.)  1,751 snarky comments versus 365 hearts.  

Our public intellectuals are all for melodramatic claims that Democracy Dies in Darkness.  But when it comes to responsibility and accountability to their fellow citizens upon whom the inflicted the evil of their wrongness, there is a desperate plea for some more darkness.  "Can't we all let bygones be bygones since we were so maliciously wrong?" just isn't cutting it with the denizens of Twitter.  

There has been no accountability so far and when the threat of Monkey Pox came along, exactly the same players seemed willing to commit exactly the same mistakes.  Again!

Time to establish some responsibility, accountability, and consequences to blithe public intellectuals who do harm to their fellow citizens.  

UPDATE:  As might have been expected, el gato malo who was a bastion of sensibleness throughout the pandemic is not, uh, especially receptive to Oster's plea for redemption.  From emily oster's no good, really bad, terrible idea by el gato malo.  He reminds that Oster repeatedly over the past 36 months would gather the data together on a subject, sort of acknowledge that the data did not support the CDC policy, and then make excuses and support the bad policy anyway.  

I see wonderful things

tardigrade with volvox algae pic.twitter.com/oaA4qe9IRM

— microscopic images. (@microscopicture) September 16, 2022

 

Offbeat Humor

Combining history with a wicked sense of humor...im just a little jealous https://t.co/9lvVbXmhjB

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) September 22, 2022

 

Data Talks

In July, more housing permits were issued in the Dallas metro area (population 7.6 million) than in the entire state of California combined (population 39 million). pic.twitter.com/I54XC4n69v

— Joey Politano 🏳️‍🌈 (@JosephPolitano) September 21, 2022

 

Witches Chant

Witches Chant (from Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I) 

by William Shakespeare

Round about the cauldron go:

In the poisoned entrails throw.

Toad, that under cold stone

Days and nights has thirty-one

Sweated venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first in the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork and blindworm's sting,

Lizard's leg and howlet's wing.

For charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witch's mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock digg'd in the dark,

Liver of blaspheming Jew;

Gall of goat; and slips of yew

silver'd in the moon's eclipse;

Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver'd by the drab,-

Make the gruel thick and slab:

Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,

For ingredients of our cauldron.

Double, double toil and trouble,

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

 

Children playing in Montmartre, Paris 1960 by Horace Sutton

Children playing in Montmartre, Paris 1960 by Horace Sutton

Click to enlarge.

Dad Jokes

A weasel walks into a bar.

The bartender says "What can I get you?"

"Pop" goes the weasel.

An Emily Litella moment. "Never mind."

A morality tale more than it is news per se.  From Dems Pounce on ‘Report’ About Ron DeSantis and Clarence Thomas That Turned out to Be Fake News by Stacey Matthews.  The subheading is “On 24 June, the day after the luncheon, the court handed down its decision for Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the 1973 decision which enshrined the right to seek an abortion,” UK Independent reporter Eric Garcia wrote in a since-deleted article.

Except that the conspiratorially minded reporter overlooked that the luncheon was a year and a day before the decision was handed down, stripping the report of virtually all of its possible significance.  

We all have our biases, and interpret signals, patterns and information through the lens of own experiences and prejudices.  This reporter wanted to see something nefarious in the actions of two individuals who don't share his ideological convictions and thought he had found evidence of that which he was already convinced.  

He seems to have been genuinely embarrassed and apologetic for making so basic and transparent an error.

We all are prone to this type of mistake.  There is a pleasant, though reprehensible, schadenfreude when we see those with whom we disagree make this mistake.  But we are all prone to the same error.

In perhaps my junior or senior year at Georgetown I was taking a class along the lines of Economics of the Energy Industry or Oil and Economics or some such.  It was a small class.  One of the students was an early herald of the much later Occupy Wall Street radical.  Anti-capitalist and prone to conspiracy theories.  

While the professor worked his lectures and syllabus evenhandedly based on the evidence, this student was convinced that there was a massive conspiracy among oil company executives to collude to maximize profits and to handicap any alternative energy competitors from reaching market.  Themes which informed every contribution he made to any classroom discussion.

He was, in effect, a monomaniacal ideologue and an intellectual boor.  He never surprised us with additional credible information or jarred us with a contributive credible insight.   Just the same ideological cant delivered with quivering conviction in a profoundly predictable fashion.

The substance of one exchange has stuck with me all these decades later.  The details escape me but it was something along the lines of.

Professor:  On October 15th, 1974, producers and government regulators met to discuss future oil supplies given the recent oil embargo by OPEC the year before.

Anti-Capitalist student:  Yes, and the day before the meeting, executives X, Y, and Z met for a day of bird hunting and agreed on prices for the coming year.

Professor:  Well, there was a hunt.  All these executives are from the oil patch and enjoy hunting.  It is a common activity amongst those in the industry.  But there is no evidence or testimony that there was any price fixing.

Anti-Capitalist student:  Prices rose over the next twelve months.

Professor:  Because of the embargo.

Anti-capitalist student:  Or because of the pricing collusion.

I only later learned to identify this as an argument based on the logical fallacies of begging the question (argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion) and post hoc ergo propter hoc (the predicate event must have caused the subsequent outcome).  

At the time I merely recognized that student was creating an argument based on a belief system which could not be refuted by evidence.  He wanted to believe that oil industry executives colluded to control energy prices and prevent energy alternatives arising and there was nothing the professor could say or evidence he could show which would change the mind of the true believer.

While he was making a plausible argument, there was no actual argument to be had.  It was a charade.  His was a belief based on conviction, not evidence.  And evidence was only admitted into discussion which could support the belief, and none which might threaten it.  

A model of discussion which is distressingly common today, especially among journalists.  

Never mind!

But that is as matters stand

A sign of the times and possibly the end of a fantasy.  From Coal mine demolishes neighboring wind farm to boost country's energy supply, drawing ire of climate activists by Lawrence Richard.  The subheading is The German energy giant RWE admits the situation appears to be 'paradoxical'.  Nothing concentrates the mind on reality like a reality about to be suffered good and hard.

Despite three decades of engineers and economists warnings about the unreliability and expense of renewable energy as an integral strategy of the totalitarian approach to anthropogenic global warming, governments have blithely pursued the chimera of clean renewables without pursuing the only clean energy which works, nuclear power.  

From the article.

A German energy company is dismantling a wind farm to allow for an adjacent coal mine to expand its operations, officials said. 

The German coal mine Garzweiler, operated by energy company RWE, admits the situation appears to be "paradoxical" — sacrificing one energy source for another — but defended the decision as necessary to strengthen supplies amid the ongoing energy crisis, Oilprice.com reported. 

"We realize this comes across as paradoxical," RWE spokesperson Guido Steffen said in a statement. "But that is as matters stand."

Indeed.  That is as matters stand.  Reality is what it is.  

The world is stochastic

From Quit by Annie Duke

That’s why, if I had to skill somebody up to get them to be a better decision-maker, quitting is the primary skill I would choose, because the option to quit is what allows you to react to that changing landscape.

Any decision is, of course, made under some degree of uncertainty, stemming from two different sources, most of our decisions being subject to both.

First, the world is stochastic. That’s just a fancy way of saying that luck makes it difficult to predict exactly how things will turn out, at least not in the short run. We operate not with certainties but with probabilities, and we don’t have a crystal ball that tells us which among all the possible futures will be the one that actually occurs. Even if you know for sure that a choice will work out for you, say, 80% of the time, that means, by definition, that the world is going to hand you a bad outcome 20% of the time. The problem for us as decision-makers is that we don’t know when, in particular, we are going to experience the outcomes that make up that 20%.

Second, when we make most decisions, we don’t have all the facts. Because we’re not omniscient, we have to make decisions with only partial information, certainly far less than we’d need to have to make a perfect choice.

That being said, after you’ve set out on a particular course of action, new information will reveal itself to you. And that information is critical feedback.

Sometimes, that new information will be new facts. Sometimes, it might be different ways to think about or model a problem or a set of data or the facts you already have. Sometimes, it will be a discovery about your own preferences. And, of course, some of that new information will be about which future you happen to observe, a good one or a bad one.

When you take all these aspects of uncertainty together, it makes decision-making hard. The good news is that quitting helps make this easier.

Everyone has had the thought go through their head “If I had known then what I know now, I would have made a different choice.” Quitting is the tool that allows you to make that different decision when you learn that new information. It gives you the ability to react to the world has changed, your state of knowledge has changed, or how you have changed.

This is why it’s so important to skill up on quitting, because having the option to quit is what will keep you from being paralyzed by uncertainty or being stuck forever in every decision you make.

History

This 2,000 year-old gold bracelet from the ruins of Pompeii reads:

“From a master to his slave girl.”

It’s made of over a pound of gold. The metal content alone was worth more than 5 years of a legionary’s wage. pic.twitter.com/qiQx7G7DyD

— Roman Helmet Guy (@romanhelmetguy) October 22, 2022

 

History

Lee Kuan Yew on Japanese culture, work ethic, and IQ. pic.twitter.com/nqLlAXHrHY

— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) September 21, 2022

 

An Insight

At some point, there may be collective realisation that the Covid response is the greatest scandal in the history of Capitalism since 1945.

And that's a high bar.

— Toby Green (@toby00green) September 21, 2022

 

I see wonderful things

Cloud Waterfall. 🌊⛅pic.twitter.com/jSNcJDRGWr

— Cosmic Gaia (@CosmicGaiaX) September 21, 2022

 

Negative information can be compelling

This past week there has been two news releases related to the ongoing public debate about the origins of Covid-19.  The debate has been whether Covid-19 emerged naturally in the wild and was communicated humans via the wet markets of Wuhan or whether the virus is engineered and or man-made origin.

The Chinese government has been vociferous in its insistence that Covid-19 is a natural phenomenon.  The American public health authorities under the guidance and influence of Fauci has likewise been equally insistent and more than willing to suppress speech to the contrary and professionally punish dissenters.

Both parties of course have obvious motives for taking these positions.  The Chinese government doesn't want the blame for careless lab work (best scenario) or accusations of deliberate bioweapon research (worst scenario).  Fauci et al are known to have funded such research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  Fauci is already on the hook for one of the worst public health responses on record.  He especially would not want to have to deal with accusations if he both created the crisis and also failed badly to respond to it.

Epistemically however, the argument has mostly been one over a balance of probabilities and has seemed like that was all that it could be.  The Chinese government will not allow any evidence to emerge that they can control if indeed the release of Covid-19 was the consequence of a lab accident.  While data on the American side is a little more accessible, the full weight of public health institutions are still deployed to prevent discussion.  

I am inclined to believe that Covid-19 was engineered and that it escaped owing to poor lab protocols but am also cognizant that the case might be strong but is not overwhelming.  I have been inured to the conviction that we might never know. 

One of the reports released this week was from the U.S. Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) which concluded that Covid-19 was more likely than not engineered and escaped a lab.  Fair enough.  I agree but I also don't see anything in the skimming read which nails the case down.  Still a balance of probabilities.

The more interesting report, and a report which I am not sure got as much exposure, was from, of all places, Vanity Fair.  From COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a “Complex and Grave Situation” Inside a Wuhan Lab by Katherine Eban and Jeff Kao.  The subheading is The Wuhan Institute of Virology, the cutting-edge biotech facility at the center of swirling suspicions about the pandemic’s onset, was far more troubled than previously known, explosive documents unearthed by a Senate research team reveal. Following the trail of evidence, Vanity Fair and ProPublica provide the clearest picture yet of a laboratory institute in crisis.

So they are using information from the same source as the Committee report.  But the Committee report is preliminary and cautious in its conclusions whereas the Vanity Fair reporting seems willing to use the full range of documentary sources and from that also willing to draw reasonable conclusions more emphatic than that from the bureaucratic processes of a Senate committee.  

The Vanity Fair report covers a lot of ground but the substance is:

The WIV has two campuses and performed coronavirus research on both. Its older Xiaohongshan campus is just eight miles from the crowded seafood market where COVID-19 first burst into public view. Its newer Zhengdian campus, about 18 miles to the south, is home to the institute’s most prestigious laboratory, a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) facility, designed to enable safe research on the world’s most lethal pathogens. The WIV triumphantly announced its completion in February 2015, and it was cleared to begin full research by early 2018.

Like many scientific institutes in China, the WIV is state-run and funded. The research carried out there must advance the goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As one way to ensure compliance, the CCP operates 16 party branches inside of the WIV, where members including scientists meet regularly and demonstrate their loyalty.

Week after week, scientists from those branches chronicled their party-building exploits in reports uploaded to the WIV’s website. These dispatches, intended for watchful higher-ups, generally consist of upbeat recitations of recruitment efforts and meeting summaries that emphasize the fulfillment of Beijing’s political goals. “The headlines and initial paragraphs seem completely innocuous,” Reid says. “If you didn’t take a close look, you’d probably think there’s nothing in here.”

But much like imperfect propaganda, the dispatches hold glimmers of real life: tension among colleagues, abuse from bosses, reprimands from party superiors. The grievances are often couched in a narrative of heroism—a focus on problems overcome and challenges met, against daunting odds.

As Reid burrowed into the party branch dispatches, he became riveted by the unfolding picture. They described intense pressure to produce scientific breakthroughs that would elevate China’s standing on the world stage, despite a dire lack of essential resources. Even at the BSL-4 lab, they repeatedly lamented the problem of “the three ‘nos’: no equipment and technology standards, no design and construction teams, and no experience operating or maintaining [a lab of this caliber].”

And then, in the fall of 2019, the dispatches took a darker turn. They referenced inhumane working conditions and “hidden safety dangers.” On November 12 of that year, a dispatch by party branch members at the BSL-4 laboratory appeared to reference a biosecurity breach.

Reid studied the words intently. Was this a reference to past accidents? An admission of an ongoing crisis? A general recognition of hazardous practices? Or all of the above? Reading between the lines, Reid concluded, “They are almost saying they know Beijing is about to come down and scream at them.”

And that, in fact, is exactly what happened next, according to a meeting summary uploaded nine days later.

[snip]

Vanity Fair and ProPublica downloaded more than 500 documents from the WIV website, including party branch dispatches from 2017 to the present. To assess Reid’s interpretation, we sent key documents to experts on CCP communications. They told us that the WIV dispatches did indeed signal that the institute faced an acute safety emergency in November 2019; that officials at the highest levels of the Chinese government weighed in; and that urgent action was taken in an effort to address ongoing safety issues. The documents do not make clear who was responsible for the crisis, which laboratory it affected specifically, or what the exact nature of the biosafety emergency was.

On a separate note entirely, the reporters allude to something we have seen more and more of during the past two years - the administration bringing its full weight to bear on critics, often through the Department of Justice.  Often there is no actual charge but the process of determination is the actual punishment.

In the foreword of the interim report, Burr wrote, “My ultimate goal with this report is to provide a clearer picture of what we know, so far, about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 so that we can continue to work together to be better prepared to respond to future public health threats.”

Burr has served in the US Congress for 28 years, first as a congressman and then, since 2005, as a senator. By today’s standards, he is a moderate Republican, having voted to convict Trump in the January 6 impeachment. Long known for his work on biodefense issues, he helped lead passage of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act in 2006 and also worked to speed up the FDA’s approval of drugs for rare diseases.

The pandemic also immersed him in scandal, as ProPublica has previously reported. In February 2020, after receiving Senate intelligence committee briefings on the health threat of COVID-19, he sold up to $1.7 million in stock holdings before the market tanked, sparking a Justice Department investigation into insider trading. Burr said he relied on public news reports to guide his decision to sell stocks. He stepped aside as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee after the FBI seized his cell phone. In January 2021, the DOJ closed its investigation without charging him.

This is alarming.  We seeing so many instances of cavalier and illegal retributive actions by the Administration against critics.  Not because the critics were doing anything illegal but because they were inconvenient to the Administration's narrative.  

Back to the article which is very old-fashioned.  Old-fashioned in the sense that it is substantive reporting, well written and informative.  Not like most of what we get today.  

Seven days after the Zhengdian party branch members wrote their memo about rushing to the front line to defend against viral dangers, fallout arrived in the form of an official visitor from Beijing. That visitor, Dr. Ji Changzheng, is the technology safety and security director for the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the sprawling state agency that oversees more than 100 research institutions in China, including the WIV. His visit was billed as a senior safety-training seminar for a small high-level audience, including the WIV’s research department heads and top biosafety officials.

But the meeting, chronicled in a one and a half page summary uploaded to the WIV website on November 21, was no pro forma seminar. According to Reid, it appears to have been “out of the ordinary and event driven,” and distinct from the annual safety training, which had been held in April.

For Reid, the import of Ji’s opening remarks practically leapt off the page. Ji told the assembled group that he had come bearing “important oral remarks and written instructions” from General Secretary Xi Jinping and China’s premier, Li Keqiang, to address a “complex and grave situation.”

Though the summary’s language is characteristically vague, Ji described:

many large-scale cases of domestic and foreign safety incidents in recent years, and from the perspective of shouldering responsibility, standardizing operations, emergency planning, and inspecting hidden dangers one-by-one, [he] laid out a deep analysis, with many layers and taken from many angles, which vividly revealed the complex and grave situation currently facing [bio]security work.

The WIV’s deputy director of safety and security spoke next, summarizing “several general problems that were found over the course of the last year during safety and security investigations, and [he] pointed to the severe consequences that could result from hidden safety dangers.”

But what drew Reid’s full attention was the word Ji used to describe the important “written instructions” he was relaying from Beijing: “pishi.” When China’s senior leaders receive written reports on a worrying or important issue, they will write instructions in the margins, known as pishi, to be carried out swiftly by lower-level officials. As Reid interpreted it, the pishi that Ji arrived with that day appeared to have come directly from Xi, arguably China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. To Reid, it suggested that Xi himself had been briefed on an ongoing crisis at the WIV.

Is it possible that Ji meant to invoke the authority of China’s supreme leader in a general way? As Reid acknowledges, “When Chinese officials want to be taken seriously by whoever their audience is, they invoke more senior officials.” To assess whether Ji had simply been dropping Xi’s name, as a way to underscore the importance of his message, Reid researched nine of Ji’s visits to different facilities prior to the pandemic. All were characterized as annual or routine. None mentioned a pishi. “There wasn’t this bandying about of Xi,” Reid says.

Throughout the article, Eban and Kao emphasize and reemphasize one weak link.  Reading bureaucratic Chinese is reading through a glass darkly.  Much is necessarily inferred rather than explicit.  This is negative space inference.  In World War II, America anticipated another major attack by the dominant Japanese Navy.  US intelligence had trouble tracking where Naval assets were and what they were doing.  They eventually tracked many of the aircraft carriers and battleships to a particular anchorage.  Not through direct evidence such as aerial photographs or human intelligence but by the signals chatter of ships issuing shore leaves, receiving fuel and supplies, etc.  

And then the fleet went silent.  Americans still had no direct evidence of what was going on but the silence told them that communication security protocols had been put in place and therefore the fleet was almost certainly at sea.  

All of which is negative space intelligence, dogs that don't bark in the night.  It is less than ideal but it is much better than nothing and can often be compelling.  

I take Eban and Kao's point but they have multiple lines of investigation, not just linguistic.  All the lines are mutually reinforcing of one another and of the overall conclusion.  Covid-19 was a consequence of bad lab safety protocols and the accidental release of an engineered virus.

We'll see how much energy this report gets.  It is the most solid and holistic reporting I have seen on the issue for a while and it should be exciting headlines even though it runs counter to the narrative established by the CDC and Fauci.  

Offbeat Humor

pic.twitter.com/RMYLlxnwNn

— Coddled affluent professional (@feelsdesperate) September 21, 2022

 

Data Talks

*NEW RESEARCH* Excited to post my new report on the uneven geography of remote work, with my new colleague Eric Carlson. We find remote work is not just the coastal superstar cities, but in places across the US https://t.co/91GZDXmGZm

— Adam Ozimek (@ModeledBehavior) September 20, 2022

 

The Stork at Hammersmith, 1933 by Eric Ravilious

The Stork at Hammersmith, 1933 by Eric Ravilious

Click to enlarge.

History

An open air school in 1957, Netherlands. In the beginning of the 20th century a movement towards open air schools took place in Europe. Classes were taught in forests so that students would benefit physically and mentally from clean air and sunlight. pic.twitter.com/Vjhe5spfRO

— 🌲Wool Wearer ☦️ (@Kiefer_Wool) September 20, 2022

 

An Insight

At a time when many comments from just a few months ago have aged badly this timeless quote from Bertrand Russell is both inspirational and comforting. Stick to the facts, respect those that disagree and you are sure to have few regrets. https://t.co/lgQ0ChnpE8

— Maria Chikina (@ChikinaLab) December 28, 2020

 

I see wonderful things

James Webb telescope just dropped its latest image, Neptune, and its rings. pic.twitter.com/4116oujC4z

— Latest in space (@latestinspace) September 21, 2022

 

A brooding prospect of shortage but no conviction yet that there will be a shortage

Just a note on something which might, in two months, be a big deal, or might, in two months, never have seen the light of day.

For perhaps four months now, I keep seeing intermittent news stories about an emerging diesel fuel emergency.  It has usually been cast primarily as an East Coast and Midwest issue.  The stories are usually in obscure outlets with very narrow areas of focus.  

The importance of the issue is that diesel fuels much of the US transportation fleet.  No diesel, little movement of goods.  

The news stories never get much prominence and there seems no national panic.  But they keep coming and seem to be coming more frequently and are beginning to show up in more mainstream outlets. 

Supposedly we are down to a 25 day supply of diesel which could be panic inducing if I actually what the normal supply levels are.   None of the reports I have seen raising the alarm over the 25 day supply mentions why 25 days is alarming.  

A little searching and I find an article in Freight Waves from two years ago which seems to shed a little light.  From Diesel inventories have done something in the US not seen in at least 30 years by John Kingston.  Published October 19th, 2020.  

The most easily understood inventory number is “days cover.” That number is reached by taking  daily consumption, dividing it into inventories and the result is the number of days of consumption that could be covered by existing stocks.

For distillate inventories that don’t include jet fuel, that number tends to run in the range of 28-35 days. But earlier this year, as diesel inventories began to soar due to changes being made by refiners seeking survival — more on that later — the days cover figure broke above 50 days. In the history of the EIA series going back to 1991, the days cover figure broke above 50 only a handful of times. It was never sustained above that level.

This year, the days cover figure broke through 50 days in late May and stayed above it for nine out of the next 10 weeks. The growth in inventories was unprecedented. It dropped below 50 days in early August but stayed in the 47 to 49 days’ range all through September and into October. That was unprecedented.

But last week, that number plummeted to 42 days, a drop of 6.1 days. It was easily the biggest one-week decline in the history of the series. It meant that in one week, six days of distillate/diesel inventory cover disappeared. That had never happened before.

The story is that during Covid-19 disruptions, diesel fuel inventories have gone from their normal levels of 28-35 days way up, breaching historical highs of 50 days of inventory.  Now that things are settling back down, inventories at first settled back to their more normal levels of 28-35 days.  

Now they have dipped below that to 25 days inventory.

Does this presage further losses in days inventory and a potential shortage?

I have no idea.  25 days does not seem like panic territory.  With two caveats.  Part of the drawdown is presumably a consequence of the rebound in the airline industry (jet fuel and diesel being from the same distillate feedstocks).  This should be a matter of simple supply-chain catch-up.

The first caveat is that a good number of refineries were shut during the Covid-19 lockdowns.  Given the current regulatory regime bias against fossil fuels, many of those refineries have not been able to reopen due to near terms economics, longer term strategies, or regulatory burden.  If we had all the refineries we had three years ago, we would expect the supply chain kinks to straighten out but that might not be possible now.

The second caveat is that diesel can be used as a substitute for heating oil.  Given that there are mixed winter forecasts for the US (some models predicting colder than normal and others slightly warmer) and given that the northeast is already supply constrained for natural gas, it is possible that demand for diesel will be above normal.

All of this is to say that I see a quiet rumbling of concern about diesel fuel supplies (days inventory) as well as concerns about demand and capacity to increase supply.  Will this lead to a real shortage of diesel which actually affects transportation in general and goods deliveries in particular?  

I have no idea.  It is one of those things that sit out there at the edge of the radar.  Known to exist but uncertain in nature, speed, direction or magnitude.  

A brooding prospect of shortage but no conviction yet that there will be a shortage.

Offbeat Humor

Remembering the time the Pope used a bat-related metaphor and a pro-bat account countered with a scriptural argument in favor of bats pic.twitter.com/O3ap90mP4T

— Zackie Daytona, Regular Human Journalist (@BudrykZack) September 21, 2022

 

Once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

From "Me and My House" in Harper's (November 1955); republished in Notes of a Native Son (1955) by James Baldwin

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

The Stranger by Rudyard Kipling

The Stranger

by Rudyard Kipling

The Stranger within my gate,

  He may be true or kind,

 But he does not talk my talk—

  I cannot feel his mind.

 I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,

   But not the soul behind. 

The men of my own stock

  They may do ill or well,

 But they tell the lies I am wonted to,

  They are used to the lies I tell.

 And we do not need interpreters

  When we go to buy and sell.

The Stranger within my gates,

   He may be evil or good,

 But I cannot tell what powers control—

  What reasons sway his mood;

 Nor when the Gods of his far-off land

  Shall repossess his blood. 

The men of my own stock,

   Bitter bad they may be,

 But, at least, they hear the things I hear,

  And see the things I see;

 And whatever I think of them and their likes

  They think of the likes of me. 

This was my father's belief

   And this is also mine:

 Let the corn be all one sheaf—

  And the grapes be all one vine,

 Ere our children's teeth are set on edge

  By bitter bread and wine. 

Another one of those Kipling poems which you would wish not to be true but, inescapably, are. 

It is an age old question - what establishes the bonds of community?  Blood, language, shared experience, shared goals, shared beliefs?  Yes, and more, and less.  Some mix.  

In a world of thin margins, present peril and deep risks, who would you stand with?  Someone you understand, whether you like them or not, or a stranger whom you cannot understand?

Kipling suggests that we choose to stand with those whom we believe we know; the known quantity.  And I suspect he is correct.  Most of us would.

The reality is that most of us would wish to stand with anyone with whom we think we share some minimum set of beliefs and goals.  When given the choice of standing in some peril with 100 random Americans versus standing with 100 random upper middle-class, upper income, highly educated, professional individuals from around the world, which would you choose?  Possibly one might debate the merits and tip one way or another.

But if the question is reposed: With whom would you stand to achieve a specific goal?  Or even more specific: With whom would you stand to face a mortal danger?  All of a sudden, I think, the answer becomes much more clear.  And it is Kipling's answer.  

The gulf of incomprehension is always an existential threat but it is smallest with those with whom we share some common tapestry.  James Baldwin noted this in early 20th century Europe as American literary exiles struggled and enjoyed the differences of Paris or Berlin.

From The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American by James Baldwin.

In my necessity to find the terms on which my experience could be related to that of others, Negroes and whites, writers and non-writers, I proved, to my astonishment, to be as American as any Texas G.I. And I found my experience was shared by every American writer I knew in Paris. Like me, they had been divorced from their origins and it turned out to make very little difference that the origins of white Americans were European and mine were African — they were no more at home in Europe than I was.

The fact that I was the son of a slave and they were the sons of free men meant less, by the time we confronted each other on European soil, than the fact we were both searching for our separate identities. When we had found these, we seemed to be saying, why, then, we would no longer need to cling to the shame and bitterness which had divided us so long.

It became terribly clear in Europe, as it never had been here, that we knew more about each other than any European ever could. And it also became clear that, no matter where our fathers had been born, or what they had endured, the fact of Europe had formed us both was part of our identity and part of our inheritance.

James Baldwin and Rudyard Kipling - who would think of them as kindred spirits and yet it would seem so.  

Data Talks

We had 39,707 gun deaths in 2019, the year before the pandemic.

Now we're at nearly 49,000 — a 22% rise.

One thing is clear: gun violence hasn't returned to pre-pandemic levels.

My story, with graphics by @olgapierce: https://t.co/tw7yvtx6qV

— Jennifer Mascia (@JenniferMascia) September 8, 2022

 

A walk in the park by William Edward Fox (British, 1872–1948)

A walk in the park by William Edward Fox (British, 1872–1948)

Click to enlarge.

The intellectual organization of political hatreds

From The Treason of the Intellectuals by Julien Benda.

I shall now point out a last important perfecting of all political passions to-day, whether of race, class, party or nation. When I observe these passions in the past, I see them consisting in purely passionate impulses, natural explosions of instinct, devoid of all extension of themselves in ideas and systems—at least among the majority. The revolt of the workers in the fifteenth century against the possessing classes was apparently not accompanied by any sort of teaching about the origin of property or the nature of capital. Those who massacred the Ghettos seem to have had no views on the philosophical values of their action. And when the troops of Charles V attacked the defenders of Mezières, it does not appear that the assault was enlivened by a theory about the predestination of the Germanic race and the moral baseness of the Latin world. To-day I notice that every political passion is furnished with a whole network of strongly woven doctrines, the sole object of which is to show the supreme value of its action from every point of view, while the result is a redoubling of its strength as a passion. We must look at the system of ideology of German nationalism known as “Pangermanism” and at the similar ideology of the French Monarchists, if we wish to realize the point of perfection to which our age has carried these systems, with what tenacity each passion has built up in every direction the theories apt to satisfy it, with what precision these theories have been adapted to this satisfaction, with what opulence of research, what labor, what profound investigation they have been carried on in all directions. Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds. It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity.

Ever since these systems have been in existence, they have consisted in establishing for each passion that it is the agent of good in the world and that its enemy is the genius of evil. But to-day these passions desire to establish this not only politically, but morally, intellectually and esthetically. Anti-semitism, Pangermanism, French Monarchism, Socialism are not only political manifestations; they defend a particular form of morality, of intelligence, of sensibility, of literature, of philosophy and of artistic conceptions. Our age has introduced two novelties into the theorizing of political passions, by which they have been remarkably intensified. The first is that every one to-day claims that his movement is in line with “the development of evolution” and “the profound unrolling of history.” All “these passions of to-day, whether they derive from Marx, from M. Maurras or from Houston Chamberlain, have discovered a “historical law,” according to which their movement is merely carrying out the spirit of history and must therefore necessarily triumph, while the opposing party is running counter to this spirit and can enjoy only a transitory triumph. That is merely the old desire to have Fate on one’s side, but it is put forth in a scientific shape. And this brings us to the second novelty: To-day all political ideologies claim to be founded on science, to be the result of a “precise observation of facts.” We all know what self-assurance, what rigidity, what inhumanity (comparatively new traits in the history of political passions, of which modern French monarchism is a good example) are given to these passions to-day by this claim.

To summarize: To-day political passions show a degree of universality, of coherence, of homogeneousness, of precision, of continuity, of preponderance, in relation to other passions, unknown until our times. They have become conscious of themselves to an extent never seen before. Some of them, hitherto scarcely avowed, have awakened to consciousness and have joined the old passions. Others have become more purely passionate than ever, possess men’s hearts in moral regions they never before reached, and have acquired a mystic character which had disappeared for centuries. All are furnished with an apparatus of ideology whereby, in the name of science, they proclaim the supreme value of their action and its historical necessity. On the surface and in the depths, in spatial values and in inner strength, political passions have to-day reached a point of perfection never before known in history. The present age is essentially the age of politics.

I am unfamiliar till today with the writings of Julien Benda.  The Treason of the Intellectuals was published in 1927.  That second paragraph above though, could be a description of the radical progressives of out times, the new authoritarians.  

Second rate pundits bemoan political polarization today, rarely acknowledging that the passions in print are nothing in comparisons to the passionate spilling of blood in decades and centuries past.  Polarization today is neither extreme not unusual when considered with even a modicum of knowledge of history.  The plague of "political polarization" is merely self-gratification of those intellectuals.  

Benda was writing a century ago when the treason of intellectuals was about to tip the world into a global war of genocide, ideological extermination, and a titanic struggle between the forces of authoritarianism and Classical Liberalism.  

If we want to understand the current manifestation of political polarization, Benda's essays suggest that we look towards the faddish and self-serving thought processes of  disconnected "intellectuals" perched in the mainstream media, advocacy think tanks, government agencies and academia.  

The body politic is actually in pretty good condition.  More prosperous, more tolerant, more open, more inclusive, more inquiring and more widespread than at any point in the past.  William F. Buckley's thought is ever more justified.

I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.

The fanatic catastrophism of racism, authoritarianism, division, secular extremism, climate alarmism, gender monomaniacalism, etc. are prevalent only in select hot house environments such as the aforementioned mainstream media, advocacy think tanks, government agencies and academia.  Everyone else goes about being productive and living good lives to the extent that they can shield themselves from the petulance and maliciousness of the clerisy.  

I wonder whether Buckley was familiar with Benda's work?  I would guess so.  From Buckley.

The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than "newness") and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).

Modesty and one's mother

Perhaps it is evolving mores or bad translations or changed linguistic meanings but the sculpture Modesty, 1749-52, by Antonio Corradini (1688-1752) seems misnamed to me.  It is also called Chastity or Veiled Truth, also improbable candidates it would seem.  Lightly Veiled Truth if one were accurate.

  

Click to enlarge.

More provocatively.

Click to enlarge.

The patron who commissioned the work, Raimondo di Sangro, did so as a memorial for his mother who died when he was young.  His respect for his mother translated into a beautiful work of art.  

It is an exquisite work of art.  But for one's mother?  It is relatively easy to switch back and forth, like one of those optical illusions involving silhouettes (vase versus faces, old crone, young woman, etc.) between a classical conceptualization of modesty and modesty that borders on a sensuous tease.  You have to choose the former over the latter, but you are choosing.  

History

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 is the true rehearsal for the World Wars. Industrial warfare enters a new age of violence with casualties pulling up to an unseen level. Let’s explore this a bit more, shall we? (Thread) pic.twitter.com/J5pBdcCvcc

— La Fayette, We Are Here! Podcast (@lafayettepod) September 20, 2022

 

An Insight

What happens when the good people of Park Slope try to organize a neighborhood watch…
Not a parody: https://t.co/d2DCb18dWW

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) September 20, 2022

 

I see wonderful things

Every year on the anniversary of his death, the National Trust leave the bedroom light on in John Lennon’s childhood home, all night.

Beautiful. pic.twitter.com/5pJqaJyf5u

— Michael Warburton (@MichaelWarbur17) September 21, 2022

 

Offbeat Humor

One day I want to be as happy as the Martha’s Vineyard residents kicking illegal immigrants off their island pic.twitter.com/rz4sa2ushd

— Millennial Republicans (@mrepublicans16) September 20, 2022

 

Data Talks

Even in a journal like @PLOSONE that welcomes "negative" studies, there's a huge hole of non-significant studies. This is not publication bias, it is research misconduct. https://t.co/7eRESTEBkF pic.twitter.com/rOY3BBYOyO

— Adrian Barnett (@aidybarnett) September 19, 2022

 

Penelope at her loom. Attributed to Sidney Harold Meteyard (1868-1947)

Penelope at her loom. Attributed to Sidney Harold Meteyard (1868-1947)

Click to enlarge.

That can make life a garden

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed -- That can make life a garden.

Offbeat Humor

Click to enlarge.

History

Evocative ancient faces

Mummy portraits from Graeco-Roman Egypt, 1st-3rd c. CE

Painted using an encaustic technique. Pigments mixed with hot wax applied directly onto the surface of thin wooden panels. #Archaeology #Roman #Hellenistic #Egypt pic.twitter.com/qgdKwEzatw

— Arys🏺🪶 (@ArysPan) September 20, 2022

 

An Insight

Aramco CEO:

"When you shame oil and gas investors, dismantle oil- and coal-fired power plants, fail to diversify energy supplies (especially gas), oppose LNG receiving terminals, and reject nuclear power, your transition plan had better be right,"#EFT #OOTT

— TexanObservator (@TexanObservator) September 20, 2022

 

I see wonderful things

Wanna see how a new island is made? Watch the Kavachi undersea volcano as it erupts underwater in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in the Solomon Islands

[full video: https://t.co/6DWTW0khPG]pic.twitter.com/Rk4af1Y2iT

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 22, 2022

 

Offbeat Humor

You got your Maslow, I got mine. pic.twitter.com/qPpJTkmU4w

— John Donovan (@ArmorerArgghhh) September 21, 2022

 

Offbeat HUmor

Does it still count as wildlife if it falls asleep on a comfy garden chair? pic.twitter.com/4cXjAVpTj1

— Julie Walker (@NicerMarmot) September 20, 2022

 

Data Talks

Why aren't there more women in management roles? A new study suggests many aren't interested (via @BW) https://t.co/2VWkkQEuca

— Bloomberg (@business) September 17, 2022

 

A Fantasy of the Deep by Arthur Hopkins (1848-1930)

A Fantasy of the Deep by Arthur Hopkins (1848-1930) 

Click to enlarge.

We are ideologically diverse. We welcome everyone from the center left to the hard left.

From Getting back on track with the Latino vote by Matthew Yglesias.  The subheading is A decade of bad analysis built on a flawed analogy.

As is common with Yglesias, it is written very much from an inside the D.C. beltway progressive view.  Consequently, while there are some intriguing points and occasional insights, there are also plenty of moments where all you can do is roll your eyes at the absurdity of an assertion.  

Reading it did spark a thought though.  Politics is always and everywhere a management of cliques, factions and alliances.  The individualism of the electorate gets lost to a degree in those elements and that can, at times, drive friction in the political system.  

In my lifetime, the nature of those cliques, factions and alliances within and between the parties have changed.  That is not especially surprising.

But I wonder whether there isn't something else going on.  When I think about it, I have the sense that the national parties, and even at the state level, have become ham-fisted in their management of those cliques, factions and alliances.  They have taken them for granted, treating them as pieces on a chessboard.  

Back in the seventies and eighties, when Congress was more relevant, the newspapers covered the ever evolving maneuvers within and between the parties and their respective cliques, factions and alliances.  Some amazing legislation was crafted out of the compromises and trade-offs which were made to satisfy the cumulative interests of all those cliques, factions and alliances across both parties.  

I have attributed much of our polarization and national strife in part to the increasing delegation by Congress of its authority to unaccountable agencies.  And I think that is still a correct assessment.

But, riffing off of Yglesias, I wonder if there is not something else going on.  I think one could make an argument that both parties have become less effective, though particularly the Democrats, at managing and tending to the interests of their cliques, factions and alliances.  

I think they have ended up making the cliques, factions and alliances into cardboard pieces and no longer interact with them at a personal or meaningful way.  Agendas change but the agency and interaction is missing from the relationships.  

Yglesias is focused on how the Democrats made an error by lumping Hispanic voters into a Hispanic box, presumed an agenda for "Hispanic" voters and then proceeded blithely to implement all sorts of policies incompatible with the values and priorities of actual voters of Hispanic origin.  

Yes, they made a mistake.  But I wonder whether both parties haven't been guilty of the same disregard.  I know they don't pay attention to the individual voter, but I wonder if they no longer pay much attention to the needs and well-being of the complex tapestry of their cliques, factions and alliances as they once did.  

That might explain why there is such a huge gulf between national policies and priorities espoused by national parties (and academia and MSM) and the values and priorities of the median voter.  The median voter can't make much difference as an individual and the political system won't pay attention to them.

They can make their voices heard by belonging to and supporting various entities which aggregate into those cliques, factions and alliances.  Once upon a time those cliques, factions and alliances were both responsive to the individual and effective at incorporating the median voter interests into the political process.  

Possibly those cliques, factions and alliances no longer listen to their memberships but I suspect the bigger issue is that the cliques, factions and alliances are simply taken for granted and no longer have much of an effective voice at the national table.  If that is the case, no wonder there is such national discontent.

Aside from that chain of thought, there was one other redeeming attribute of Yglesias's piece.  Unintended humor.  Yglesias makes the following snort-out-loud assertion without compromise of justification.

In the modern highly polarized Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus stands out as a bastion of ideological diversity, including some very left-wing members but also many stalwarts of the moderate faction of the Democratic Party.

If you are only thinking about and writing for the inside the D.C. beltway progressive view, then this statement sort of can be made to make sense.  

Taken on its own, though, it stands out as an astonishingly clueless assertion.  Particularly given their exclusion of Black Republicans.  Possibly, and only possibly, the Congressional Black Caucus is ideologically diverse within the context of the national Democratic Party.  But in terms of either Congress or the nation, they are not diverse at all, ranging from center left to hard left.  

American Lysenkoism

From American Medical Lysenkoism by Gary Levy.  Captures a thought I have been having over the past couple of years.

We clearly have had increasing evidence over the past six years of epistemic authoritarianism.  Increasing numbers of institutions are attempting to impose a worldview and suppress speech and research which contradicts that worldview.  This is most apparent in regard to Covid-19 but the dynamic is visible across the board.  

Other examples of imposed orthodoxy include the various manifestations of the transgender agenda, Critical Race Theory, Social Justice orthodoxies, DEI, ESG, Climate Alarmism, Keynesianism, etc.  This is on tip of the normal, but possibly increasing, level of political lying, erroneous reporting, malicious Machiavellianism, etc.  

This efforts to impose one truth, centrally determined, is enormously destructive.  The example from the modern era is Lysenkoism from the Soviet Union.  

Lysenkoism (Russian: Лысенковщина, romanized: Lysenkovshchina, IPA: [lɨˈsɛnkəfɕːʲɪnə]; Ukrainian: лисенківщина, romanized: lysenkivščyna, IPA: [lɪˈsɛnkiu̯ʃtʃɪnɐ]) was a political campaign led by Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko against genetics and science-based agriculture in the mid-20th century, rejecting natural selection in favour of a form of Lamarckism, as well as expanding upon the techniques of vernalization and grafting. In time, the term has come to be identified as any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable.

More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were dismissed or imprisoned, and numerous scientists were executed in the Soviet campaign to suppress scientific opponents. The president of the Soviet Agriculture Academy, Nikolai Vavilov, who had been Lysenko's mentor, but later denounced him, was sent to prison and died there, while Soviet genetics research was effectively destroyed. Research and teaching in the fields of neurophysiology, cell biology, and many other biological disciplines were harmed or banned.

Lysenkoism was a contributor to the mass starvation from agricultural failures and famine in 1930s Soviet Union resulting in the loss of several million lives.  

The attempt in the US over the past two years to establish a single, centrally determined, Covid-19 truth paired with a coordinated effort to suppress dissonant views, restrict speech, enforce punishments (firings and social stigmatization, and so on).  The parallel with Lysenkoism has become increasing obvious as it has become increasingly clear that the already suspect policies and centrally determined truths were indeed flat out wrong.  

Useful to see someone else pointing out the parallel.