What We Know

Milton Joseph Rosenau, M.D.

We entered the outbreak with a notion that we knew the cause of the disease, and were quite sure we knew how it was transmitted from person to person. Perhaps, if we have learned anything, it is that we are not quite sure what we know about the disease.

MILTON J. ROSENAU, M.D.
in JAMA, Aug 2, 1919

A little over a century ago, Doctor Rosenau published his findings in the Journal A.M.A. in an article titled EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE MODE OF SPREAD OF INFLUENZA; in particular the devastating “Spanish Flu”.

Milton Joseph Rosenau, M.D.

We entered the outbreak with a notion that we knew the cause of the disease, and were quite sure we knew how it was transmitted from person to person. Perhaps, if we have learned anything, it is that we are not quite sure what we know about the disease.

MILTON J. ROSENAU, M.D.
in JAMA, Aug 2, 1919

A little over a century ago, Doctor Rosenau published his findings in the Journal A.M.A. in an article titled EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE MODE OF SPREAD OF INFLUENZA; in particular the devastating “Spanish Flu”.

Spiteful Models

Acceptable Supermarine Spiteful

One of the most spiteful and most unhealing properties of scientific models is their capability to strike down truth and take its place.

And often, these models serve as blinkers, by limiting attention to an excessively narrow area. The exaggerated trust in models has contributed much to the affected and ingenuine character of larger parts of current natural research.

Erwin Chargaff

Informed Consent

UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights

An excerpt.

Article 6 – Consent

1. Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.

2. Scientific research should only be carried out with the prior, free, express and informed consent of the person concerned. The information should be adequate, provided in a comprehensible form and should include modalities for withdrawal of consent. Consent may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without any disadvantage or prejudice. Exceptions to this principle should be made only in accordance with ethical and legal standards adopted by States, consistent with the principles and provisions set out in this Declaration, in particular in Article 27, and international human rights law.

3. In appropriate cases of research carried out on a group of persons or a community, additional agreement of the legal representatives of the group or community concerned may be sought. In no case should a collective community agreement or the consent of a community leader or other authority substitute for an individual’s informed consent.

Alchemy of Our Time

From Wikipedia

This is not a book review. I tried doing one and it wasn’t of use to anybody. What follows is very much my own thoughts as a consequence of exposure. Perhaps one could tell that by the introductory definition. Worry not; you should see the relevance soon enough.

Nevertheless, the ISBN is 3752629789; enough to find the book in a library (a what?) or online.

The book “Virus Mania” was originally written by European authors Engelbrecht, Köhnlein and Scoglio; recently joined by Kiwi Doctor Samantha Bailey in the latest edition. That edition has a whole new chapter addressing the current global calamity in the context of the ideas presented earlier in the book.

I “cheated” and first skipped straight to that chapter. At the end, I had the following to say:

The authors explain the nature of infection and what is necessary to establish causal links between a purported pathogen, testing for that pathogen and associating an illness with a suspected pathogen. Readers ought to be surprised to discover that causality has not been established; lacking in all three aspects. Foremost for the individual is that no unique set of symptoms has been associated with the virus in question.

I found the book to be readable; all the big words are explained along the way. Language is engaging and the subject appears to be well researched, referenced to hundreds of sources (over a thousand) identified in the book’s Literature section. You might miss your stop if you’re reading it on the bus.

You could buy the book based on just that chapter.

Farewell to Phil the Greek

When the days are lonely, cold and dark, remember the warmth of brighter days in good fellowship.

Picture Released by HM on Twitter
»The Queen wishes to share this private photograph taken with The Duke of Edinburgh at the top of the Coyles of Muick, Scotland in 2003«

Best chap for the job of supporting the Monarch for more than 70 years.

Suppressing “Bad Ideas” is a Toehold of Tyranny

The recent ban by a bookseller of Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos highlights the propensity to try to shut down ideas that one doesn’t understand or those ideas that challenge one’s position. Using any tragedy as justification, no matter how disconnected. [Do I smell a Reichstag fire?]

Suppression of “bad ideas” is a toehold of tyranny.

How the Motor Car Saved the Cities

A reminder of gentler times found at Historic UK

The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894

By the late 1800s, large cities all around the world were “drowning in horse manure”. In order for these cities to function, they were dependent on thousands of horses for the transport of both people and goods.

… The main concern was the large amount of manure left behind on the streets. On average a horse will produce between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day, so you can imagine the sheer scale of the problem. …

Each horse also produced around 2 pints of urine per day and to make things worse, the average life expectancy for a working horse was only around 3 years. … The bodies were often left to putrefy so the corpses could be more easily sawn into pieces for removal. …

This problem came to a head when in 1894, The Times newspaper predicted… “In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.”

That calamity was averted by the introduction of motorised vehicles; some electric in the cities and others by internal combustion engines.

Much Ado About 0.005%

What a tangled web we weave …

New direct-injection gasoline/petrol engines will be equipped with particle filters to meet evermore stringent emissions limits, imposed quite arbitrarily by bureaucrats let off the leash to run amok.

Let’s look at the scale of the “problem”:

A Mirror to Our World

Germany’s premier weekly print magazine is wrapped in a scandal that is set to rock the foundations of trust in the publication.

The new fabrication scandal in which reporter Claas Relotius falsified his articles on a grand scale; inventing facts, persons and quotations in at least 14 of his stories. They were indeed “good stories” that fitted the narrative of editors and other German  media colleagues. Recently the New York Times reported:

Mr. Relotius invented a condescending fiction. On the venerated pages of Der Spiegel, a German newsmagazine, Mr. Relotius portrayed Fergus Falls as a backward, racist place whose residents blindly supported President Trump and rarely ventured beyond city limits. He made up details about a young city official. He concocted characters, roadside signs and racially tinged plotlines.

Der Spiegel is trying to set the record straight but a repair of the reputation is likely to take many years.

“When the narrative fits, facts become secondary“, wrote Mathias Bröckers, author and editor for various German publications, indicating that Der Spiegel had a history of fake news going back at least as far a 9/11; an attack on the USA by Islamic terrorists.

Too Much Patience

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. 

George Washington