Blog housekeeping

https://lee-phillips.org/

medicine

See you on the other side.

I have to post something about food. Just because it feels like the appropriate way to end it here.

Tacos!

You do realize, though, that the comments from this post will probably not make it over to the new blog... :-(

[singing]
Turn out the lights
The party's over
They say that all
Good things must end
Call it a night
The party's over
And tomorrow starts
The same old thing again
[/singing]

Thank you, I’ll be here all night, don’t forget to tip your server, and try the roast beef.

I think it is very useful to have a place to comment where whatever you say, no matter how foolish, is guaranteed to vanish from the intertubez forever within hours.

Belgium!!

Yeah, well unless you mess up at a place that won’t vanish anytime soon.

Q. Why is the Scienceblogs Respectful Insolence like a leaky faucet.

A. Sometimes its better to move than to fix it, especially with lead piping.

Drip, drip, drip...

In that case there are many more short alphabetic sequences left unclaimed as nyms. I can be a shape shifter! But I'm not entirely anonymous since my email address is real.

Safari on the iBook won't let me connect to the new site. You probably have either an invalid certificate or you've enabled an unsupported security protocol. It is possible to have an https site that I can see. This one, for example:

That one works just fine with Safari on the iBook.

Light up the Orac bat-signal!

https://www.statnews.com/2017/10/31/chronic-pain-opioid-crisis/

Integrative medicine on the march!

You probably have either an invalid certificate or you’ve enabled an unsupported security protocol.

The two sites have the same certificate issuer.

^ Here; it's not my field of expertise. If you're using Safari on an iBook, though, I'm guessing it's pretty ancient (v3?).

Farewell old blog!

^^ For a G4, you could try TenFourFox; there's an analogous build for G3's. I'll warn you in advance, though, that it's going to tax your machine. I have the luxury of being very near a university campus, so I've gotten four Intel MacBooks out of the junk heap in just the last year, but moving up to OS X 10.6.8 would probably make your life a lot easier, and it still has Rosetta, so you can keep using PPC-only applications.

Just walk forward into the light and we'll meet again on the other side.

A quick update on the migration to a new domain

oracknows — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 08:30:08 +0000

A quick update on the migration to a new domain

Here's a brief update on the move, announced last week.

Things are progressing, and most of my old material has been transferred to the new blog, which is located at respectfulinsolence.com. Of course, there are still some things to tweak and fix, which is why, given how insanely busy this week is going to be, given my impending trip to CSICon on Thursday afternoon, I've decided to hold off on writing new material for the new blog until sometime next week, probably November 1 or 2. I'm just gratified that there are so many of you who are still checking back and commenting. Please be patient.

This will officially mark the longest period of time in nearly 13 years that I haven't produced new material for Respectful Insolence. It feels a bit weird, and I must admit that there are things happening that make my keyboard fingers itch to comment on. I have thus far resisted. On the other hand, I should've taken a break more often before.

In any case, given that my traffic and Google juice are going to tank big time for a long time anyway, I might as well take my time and make sure everything's in good shape before opening the floodgates on the new blog. Also, before Friday I need to radically retool my integrative medicine talk for CSICon, both to fit it into a much shorter time period and to make it (hopefully) still interesting and worthwhile for anyone who was at QEDCon and saw my talk there. Oh, and let's not forget my real job, where I have to finish a final report on a grant that's due October 29. Damn real life interfering!

Yes, holding off until November 1 or 2 to begin Respectful Insolence, Mark III, seems a very good idea. Hang in there. It'll be just as good, if not better, than the current incarnation. Over time, I might even transfer material from Respectful Insolence, Mark I (my old Blogspot blog, which now exists only as an archive for the first 14 months or so of my blogging) over to the shiny new blog, so that all of Orac's Insolence can be found in one place. First things, first, though.

oracknows Mon, 10/23/2017 - 04:30

Tags

http://respectfulinsolence.com/

medicine

I'll keep checking! Both here and there. If for no other reason than to see what the trolls may be up to.

It might be a good time to convert some of your blinking lights from incandescents to LEDs.

No rush. Get it right. All of us regulars will be at the new site as soon as you are able.

Throughout my travels across Woo-topia (tm) , I've yet to see ANY of the usual suspects mention Orac's move.( Not even Truth Wiki )
NOT ONE!

This is interesting because I think if the positions were reversed, many of us would be reporting it or discussing it at the very least.

I know how much they hate Orac *et compagnie* so they would find a way to mock or insult them even though there's not much of a reason to do so -but did that ever stop them?

This makes me assume that these people are not very good at seeking out information.

They're probably too busy sharing pictures of Andy or organic produce on facebook

Please be patient.

I think I'm getting withdrawal symptoms.

This is worse than that holiday in a rural pension where the proprietor's idea of wi-fi was a length of string and two paper cups.

If I go full-on Trainspotting I'm going to have serious trouble explaining it to the NHS. Although that might get you some new readers!

@Orac,

Have you applied any respectful insolence towards artificial intelligence?

If Yes, can you provide a quote for my next book?

@Narad,

I'm writing a scholarly book about artificial intelligence and would like your input on the marketing paragraph below:

The notion that computers could be “intelligent” was discussed by Alan Turing in the paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950) in which he proposed what became known as the Turing test: if a machine could convince you through conversation that it was human, it was doing as much as any human could to prove it was truly thinking. Today, artificial intelligence invokes a sense of wonder and amazement in many people, but for some, it’s an opportunity. Since the year 1987, at least one hundred forty-eight patents titled with the phrase “artificial intelligence” have been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The book Patents and Artificial Intelligence – Thinking Computers provides an easy-to-read summary of such patents. Within many of the summaries, there are inventor profiles and news articles that are insightful and thought-provoking. Pioneering inventors hail from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and Taiwan. Prominent organizations include Amazon, Disney, Ford, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Sony. Diverse quotes present the emotional impact of artificial intelligence. Chapter ten describes select patent-pending applications intended to expand the boundary of computing mechanisms. In the final chapter, anticipation builds as artificial intelligence turns from invented to inventor. In reverence to mankind’s ability to create, this book is meant to explore the applicability of “intelligent” machines that can think to the nth power in a blink.

I second Michael's comment. When you're set up, we'll be there.

"too busy sharing pictures of Andy or organic produce"

They should start a webzine: Playwoo.

Pardon, does anyone have the URL for the new blog?

Weird, indeed. Any more blog post-less days and Young Master Crosby will fire up the conspiracy machine and tell us The Truth about why you're not posting.

Even those who, like me, never comment will be there. I never miss your blog.

can't believe that they can't even bother to do URL redirects for a little while :-( could have done a patreon or gofundme so that ppl would have 6 months of redirect.

This is interesting because I think if the positions were reversed, many of us would be reporting it or discussing it at the very least.

AoA certainly went through a period in which they would rage against National Geographic even when it was out of the picture and complain about "Science" Blogs. Then again, it may be a function of commensurate moribuntity.

^ "moribundity"

Long day.

Not "moribundance"? I have a sad.

I will definitely keep checking! I learn so much here, and I'm so happy that the transition is going as quickly as it is.

Can you please provide a link to a video of your talk at QEDCon?

I don't see any RSS feeds on new page right now. Are there plans to make some notification options for new blog posts also?

As a regular reader who enjoys your work, I’ll be looking forward to R.I. Mark III??

I'll be there.

Despite my status as chronic lurker and very occasional poster, I will be watching very anxiously for your new site to open up the floodgates of insolence again!

@Chris: try blogname dot com for the site.

I have been missing my near daily dose of insolence so much that I have been reduced to reading posts at a secret other blog by that guy you sometimes plagiarize from.

Chris -

By the way that is a different "Chris" than who you typically think of. I was told to switch from the .net that I found, to .com on the other thread.

It is because of Travis that I cannot post with my regular email that is hooked into my gravatar.

@ Chris:

You can change your email at gravatar.com--I just did. I had been blaming WordPress for my gravatar not showing up any more, but I didn't realize every time you use a new email, you have to let them know.

Of course, then it'll probably disappear from all your older posts....

I didn’t realize every time you use a new email, you have to let them know.

And they will track your behavior at every Gravatar-enabled site and sell it to the highest bidder, even if you don't use Gravatar.

For your entertainment whilst Orac fiddles with the intertubz...

As you may know I follow woo in all its splendor,
recently major league woo-meisters Null and Adams have sought to cash in on peoples' fears about natural catastrophes -
whenever there's a hurricane, flood, earthquake, tsunami or wildfire you can be assured that they'll ramp up fear and then hawk their wares-
survival gear, videos/ books on
survival, food caches to store, supplements, air and water filters etc. -
and preach to their followers about the rewards of 'preparedness' as they describe in detail the horrors Nature can inflict upon us.

Thus, recent events have kept both busy-
just today I heard Null offer a premium** - for 400 USD! - a water filter because people are dying of water borne illnesses in Puerto Rico.. You may be next.

Adams sells expensive Ranger Gear for preppers ( Natural News)

All of which hilariously illustrates the depths to which they'll sink. What's next, insulting young war widows?

** he gets free airtime on Pacifica's landbased NYC station and according to Doug Henwood who worked there gets paid handsomely for his products by the financially strapped station. IIRC 40 or 50%.
-btw- the hoary old cad , who instructs listeners about where is best to live because of AGW, lost much in the Naples FL hurricane. Adams, who doesn't buy AGW, had flooding in TX.

Schadenfreude for us. Not the first time

To help DW keep an eye on woo behavior - - -

Humans recognize patterns. Looking at Jaks site, the pattern that jumps out at me is that the comments for his post mostly consist of a coupla fellow travelers posting off topic, and more than a few responses from Jake himself (about 30 to 40%, I'd guess).

Until the last 3.

His 29 SEP post has 24 comments, 22 from Hans, 1 from Jake, and one from some other guy, almost all completely off topic, as you would expect.

The 21 OCT post has 1 comment, from Jake himself. Not and addendum, as he has done in the past, but a comment.

The 23 OCT post has 5 comments, all from people I've never noticed posting in the past, mostly passing for on topic.

Change doesn't really bother me, and I well understand human behavior isn't predictable with a small number of samples. But, dayum, it smells like something isn't right.

I noticed in the "new" Respectful Insolence website it states,

"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."

This is a falsehood in that the postpositive adjective "insolent" can be an attribute adjective for the noun "fact".

Furthermore, the words "can not" renders the statement absolute thereafter further reinforcing its falsehood.

Several suggestions:

1) A statement of fact may be disputed with insolence;
2) A statement of fact may be insolent.
3) A statement of insolence may be disputed with fact; and
4) A statement of insolence may be fact.

Hope this brings clarity to the new and exciting RI website.

Apparently, Mr. Dochniak never bothered to read this page on the new blog:

https://respectfulinsolence.com/about-respectful-insolence/

OK, I'm getting tired of this whole transition and am rethinking it. So here's what I'm probably going to do. I still need to update the internal links as much as I can, and I don't want to open the new blog for business until that's done because it involves a massive search/replace function of the whole database that, if it goes wrong, could bring the site down, However, I've found plugins to do this task, and Alain has offered to assist me by producing a script, which will be very helpful. I also still need to import the most recent comments.

Once I complete these two tasks, though, I will probably announce the new blog and shut down commenting on this blog for good, even though I still don't plan on posting any new material on the new blog until the middle of next week at the earliest. This will give you guys a chance to kick the tires and point out any issues, while still given me a chance to understand more how to deal with a site that is mine and one alone with only the technical help the hosting service provides.

with only the technical help the hosting service provides

You can also add in my help when needed. I'm not going away and you are definitely not alone with the tech help from the hosting services.

Alain

From the link at #32

However, discussions on Usenet rarely reached a particularly wide audience...

Back in the day, I was talking with a young guy who fancied himself The Lord’s Gift to Humanity and Technology. I mentioned Usenet (I don’t remember why, exactly), and he ask what it was. I explained that it was a system of message boards that covered almost every conceivable topic, and a few topics that, those who conceived of, or were interested in, should probably shot, imprisioned, or institutionalized.

He ask me for the URL.

He was shocked to learn that you can do things on the Internet without a browser.

@Orac (#32),

I read it and would like to say oops...

He was shocked to learn that you can do things on the Internet without a browser.

Speaking of which, I need to install a new rendition of kde and at the very least, add the kontact groupware suite because I just built a server (web, smtp and imap for now, more later) this weekend and need an email client (Kontact incidentally) to move off gmail (I have my own domain).

Alain

kde & Kontact, on my laptop that is.

You do realize that I now have no idea what you're talking about... :-)

I do actually. I was replying to Johnny but I might explain the whole thing up:

Since over a year, I have been building entire Linux distributions which, for the most part are lighter weight compared to most Linux distribution out there.

Recently (early September), I bought a domain: vocatus.pub (Vocatus with a capital V as first letter is the latin translation of alcohol, lowercase v is another word) and this weekend, among a whole host of work, I set it up with a new Linux distribution of my own and the needed software to host a website and have email services.

Now to get back to my laptop, I need a good set of software and KDE (which is built from source) is my desktop user interface. You can have a look at ht_tps://www.kde.org/plasma-desktop for the desktop and ht_tps://www.kde.org/applications/office/kontact/ for Kontact.

as for my website, it live at ht_tp://vocatus.pub/

I plan to use that virtual machine to tests software that I will develop later on (ht_tp://ofbiz.apache.org/ among others) for the beer brewing industry around here but in the meantime, I've been taking care of the algebra behind brewery operational cost & profit which will goes in ofbiz (an Enterprise Ressource Planning system).

To get back on kde and kontact, I usually start a script before going to bed and it build overnight (takes 2 or 3 hours at most).

Alain

As for my choice of latin translation of common words, it is because I need to be compliant with Quebec's 101 law which mandate French as company name; latin fit the bill but it also fit the bill for an easily pronounceable english word.

Alain

MJD: Don't you have to be intelligent to go spouting off about artificial intelligence? I don't think you know anything about how computers work. I mean, you don't seem to know much about anything, but you seem more out of your depth than you usually are with this stuff. Maybe you should start off with baby steps like, say getting a library card.

Egads the graphics are yuuuge!

Maybe you should start off with baby steps like, say getting a library card.

Since the Samuel Johnson quote that gives the blog its name seems to be throwing him, perhaps he should start with Boswell's Life. Maybe he has a theory as to the cause of the good Doctor's OCD.

Very Rev: I'm afraid that's too advanced for him.

Just another lurker sticking my nose above the commenting parapet to say: I'm in withdrawal and looking forward to your posts on the new site when you have the time.
Cheers

Another 20 kids vaccinated from the evils of influenza today. Another 20 left with anaphylaxis due to latex plunger resulting in autism.

Perfect score. High five bitches!!

Johnny: "I mentioned Usenet (I don’t remember why, exactly),..."

That is where I first encountered Orac with my older more poisonous 'nym of HCN (it is a play on my initials).

I am using the old HCN email because of some troll in Wisconsin. Oh oh... I just noticed it is misspelled. Oh well, Orac has my actual email address (I emailed him some video I took of him discussing Daleks at TAM 9).

Also, I don't know if anyone here has seen this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/23/bear-in-myanmar-has-giant…

Basically, wow. I know it's not on topic, but since we're all left to our own devices for now, I thought I'd post it and see what people thought.

OT but interesting

The apparently very reputable journal Child Development seems to have made a slight error and published a nice bit of woo that I don't remember seeing mentioned here—Electromagnetic Fields, Pulsed Radiofrequency Radiation, and Epigenetics: How Wireless Technologies May Affect Childhood Development http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12824/full

A response by two British authors is here (good read). Regular RI readers might find the reference list, especially under the letter G amusing. https://peerj.com/preprints/3355/

@ jrkrideau:

That woo is incredibly similar to the crap I hear courtesy of prn.fm and assorted anti-vax theorists ( AoA, TMR, Fearless Parent etc).

EPIGENETICS! Oy vey.

Cell phones, computers, wifi, televisions, smart meters, electrical wires ( indoor and out) cause autism, ADHD, cancer and just about everything.

Or else problems with the microbiome cause everything.

MJD: Don’t you have to be intelligent to go spouting off about artificial intelligence?

That's never been an impediment either to him or a whole bunch of other people. Nor should you expect it to be. After all, the opposite of artificial intelligence is natural stupidity.

PGP (#42) writes,

I don’t think you know anything about how computers work.

MJD says,

I've placed this in the books preface:

AI is best thought of as a friend in that friends let friends reboot.

@ PGP and Orac's minions,

Is there any hope of us becoming friends at the "new" RI website?

I’m writing a scholarly book about artificial intelligence and would like your input on the marketing paragraph below

It begs the question, viz., "this book is meant to explore the applicability of 'intelligent' machines that can think to the nth power in a blink" (the latter phrase is also idiotic), and as I've noted before, the jig is up – the very phrase should be retired. Jesus, even back when I was in grad school, it was clear that the field was just "programs [or, now, dedicated machines] that do cool things."

Write this (PDF), get a Ph.D. Roger Schank's fundamental legacy is irritating phone trees in which one has to keep shouting "agent" at the robotic voice.

^ I would also file AlphaGo Zero in this category. Mining a search space isn't "intelligence."

^^ And as for the Turing test, I've gotten people to argue with the output from dadadodo.

Eric Lund: Hah! Good point.

Aside, does anyone else hate automated phone services with the passion of a supernova? Those things might have been designed as a particularly refined sort of torture, and they're almost bad enough to make me believe in the supernatural. Or aliens.
On the latest adventure in tech support (tm) I somehow got redirected to the accounting department, which I suspect was located in Calcutta.

Oh well, since I'm home with little to do today...

Here are recent finds that the minions might think hilarious...

- look at the website for World Mercury Project- ( RFK jr**)
whilst the site is rife with hilarity-
look at who works with them, partners etc.
but my own absolute FAVE is a photo of.....drumroll..

A few puddles of mercury with a syringe nearby

the fluid in the syringe is tinted ever-so-slightly grey ( a similar tone to the dreaded liquid)
I think this suggests that there is SO much Hg in vaccines
You can SEE it. Holy crap.

Or
look at linked in profiles for Jacob Crosby ( Austin, TX) and
Michael J. Dochniak ( MN)

** RFK jr married the actress who plays Larry David's ex-wife on his show. I'm waiting for the former to show up since friends and family are frequently featured playing funny versions of themselves.
That episode would write itself I'm sure.

which I suspect was located in Calcutta

Tamil Nadu is a better guess.

Aside, does anyone else hate automated phone services with the passion of a supernova?

Make room for me on that bench.

I recently had occasion to attempt to set a PIN for a credit card (which was recently upgraded to the newfangled kind with the chip). Any time I tried to choose a PIN in the automated system, I got bounced to a person who couldn't actually help me--the best they could do was send me back into the automated system. OK, so the live support people aren't supposed to know my PIN, and there are good security reasons for that, but a system that does not achieve such a basic goal is bad customer service.

I have no idea where the call center might have been--they spoke adequate English and their employer was paying for the call. They just couldn't help me do the thing I wanted to do.

Tamil Nadu is a better guess.

Yeah, I guarantee nobody I've ever gotten over there spoke any Indo-European language natively.

In case you've ever wondered why Verizon customer service people sound like they hate their lives, they use prison (slave) labor for this purpose. I am not making this up.

Also I just found out that Haribo uses slave labor to make their gummies. I am sad because they were my favorite.

Eric Lund: They just couldn’t help me do the thing I wanted to do.

That was the exact problem I had, with a different thing. Turns out the problem I had wasn't with the thing I purchased from the company, but the way it was interfacing (or not) with the computer. And no one at the company knew what to do with a PC.

Narad: Yeah, I probably didn't get the region right, but it was definitely not in the US. Even worse, I think my call was at the beginning of their morning.

JP: Well, that's a bummer. I wouldn't expect too much out of Verizon, but I'm surprised about Haribo. Aren't they swedish?

DW: I hadn't heard of fearless parent, and now I'm depressed and confused. How in the world is being barefoot and pregnant empowering?

@PGP:

Haribo is German. But it turns out that global capitalism poisons everything (the slave labor is from Brazil.) At least Haribo has pledged to investigate and fix it, but who knows if anything will come of that.

What's next, no Legos or stuffed animals for my nephews? I guess the saying is true, "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism." Just about everything involves exploitation somewhere down the line.

I *have* to use Verizon, sadly. They are the only company that gets service where I live. (I'm on my brother's family plan.)

I get to have fun with Directv and Verizon in January. Since they are not available in Thailand, I plan on getting out of the contracts because they can't provide service. I am sure they are going to yell and scream for their termination fees.

One of the big problems is sourcing for parts of products. Currently there is a large fresh veggie recall that is rippling through the food industry. If you use one of the contaminated source vegetables in one of your products, you need recall your product. When Peanut Corp of America sent contaminated peanuts out, over 5,000 products were recalled.

This is a problem throughout industry, not just food. One bad supplier can screw up lots of other products. Of course NN will test all these to make sure they meet their standards (or is that profit margin).

I learned the hard way with DirectTV to NEVER EVER enroll in an auto payment program.

When I moved two years ago, I went from a home I owned to a rental, and had to get cable instead. DirectTV was supposed to send me a "recovery kit" for the chip in the box (which I got to keep) but never did.

They took $200 out of my checking account without my authorization. I demanded they return it, and I really had to fight to get them to admit they were the problem. They sent me the money back on a card. I couldn't get cash off this card, which meant I risked losing money because I couldn't use it for partial payments either.

I got the last laugh. I found out what my balance was after I'd spent most of it, andI went to the gas station and told the clerk I wanted $XX and XX cents exactly in gas, leaving me with a zero balance.

They never did send a "recovery kit" to my new address, and I still have the worthless chip and their worthless boxes.

Panacea, DirecTV won't even get to play that trick with me because the bank account will no longer exist.

I will be direct depositing to my Thai accounts.

I can hardly wait to retire and begin a new adventure in life.

The apparently very reputable journal Child Development seems to have made a slight error and published a nice bit of woo that I don’t remember seeing mentioned here—Electromagnetic Fields, Pulsed Radiofrequency Radiation, and Epigenetics: How Wireless Technologies May Affect Childhood Development http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12824/full

Sage and Carpenter have come to Oracian attention, IIRC, along with their BioInitiative project. This new attempt by Sage and Burgio to stovepipe their fantasies into a new arena (Child Development) sounds like grist for the mill.

HDB: I was really impressed by the quality of the BuzzFeed article discussing the original "wireless in your baby's brain!" article and the various rebuttals.

Just proves they're not all clickbait and listicals.

the quality of the BuzzFeed article

The comment thread, however, is a compendium of Crazy and sadness. Schumann frequences! Mitochondrial chromophores! Secret military research that everyone knows about! Tobacco science! Suppression of the Truth!

The Sage & Burgio paper invokes Blank's "DNA = fractal antenna", which is wrong on so many levels (in a fractal way) that to take it seriously is to prove one's fundamental incompetence.

Is there any hope of us becoming friends at the “new” RI website?

If ‘us’ includes me, then, no. It’s not a question do which forum we’re on, and it’s not me, it’s you. You say a lot of things I disagree with, you say them in a really stupid way, and you do a few things I think are stupid. You’ve given me no indication that you have any redeeming qualities. I believe you are sincere in your stupid beliefs, but you are still wrong. Being wrong isn’t really the problem, i’ve been wrong, and probably still am on a coupla points. But you continue to be wrong even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

If you want friends, I would suggest Jake’s place. They will disagree with your latex fetish (it’s all about the mercury, don’t ya know?), but as long as you are unliked by our host and his minions (and you are), you will be just fine by them.

But AoA might be an even better fit. They know vaccines cause autism, as do you, but they seem to accept any hypothesis as long as vaccines are involved.

And don’t overlook the Canaries, Bolen, sMothering, and Food Babe (what are the broccoli bands made of?).

You have choices. Please use them. Exclusively.

@PGP: Fearless Parent is a conspiracy site, and dear Louise Habakus Kuo, who never met a vaccine she liked or a conspiracy theory the didn't, writes for them. Makes me ashamed to live in the same state.

MJD: AI is best thought of as a friend in that friends let friends reboot.

That's your intro? Dude, do yourself a favor and scrap the book right now. You don't seem to have even the most rudimentary knowledge of AI. You also are confusing computers with true A.I. Computers are not intelligent.

Finally, do yourself a favor and enroll in a writing class. That sentence reads like something a precocious first grader might write. At your age, you can and should do better.

MJD:Is there any hope of us becoming friends at the “new” RI website?

No, because you're an intellectually challenged creep.

MI Dawn: I am aware of LKH, and I note that Kelly Brogan also writes there. I'm just surprised that two formerly professional women both supported Trump and seem to be advocating for women to abandon the public sphere entirely. They've got a really odd mix of rightwing cant and hippie-dippie Earth mother nonsense going on there.
(As I wrote elsewhere, I have a really low tolerance for both nonsense and performative emotion.)

@Johnny (#73) and PGP (#75),

Thank you for your advice.

I've always been able to depend on both of you to acknowledge my concerns at this unforgiving blog.

Here's MJD's FINAL list of Orac minions at Scienceblogs Respectful Insolence:

1) Johnny (the bad one)
2) lilady (RIP)
3) PGP (Pgpig)
4) Narad (daran)
5) Denise Walter (it)
6) Herr doktor bimler (Interestingly confusing)
7) Prometheus (wimpy and assertive)
8) Orac (The one)
9) Eric Lund (A Genius)
10) JustaTech (kinda mean in a good way)

then...

99) MI Dawn (More salt than sugar)
100) Alain (unpredictable)

...at this unforgiving blog.

That sounds as if there is something you’d like to be forgiven for. I confess that I don’t recall you asking for forgiveness for, well, anything. Remind me.

Here’s MJD’s FINAL list of Orac minions at Scienceblogs Respectful Insolence:

Any particular sort criteria in that list? Why is our host included in the list if it’s a list of his minions?

HDB@72: As a rule, you should avoid reading the comments at news sites, including BuzzFeed. That's where trolls like to hang out when they are not under their respective bridges.

Ditto YouTube comments. A few are informative, most are troll-infested.

I consider Facebook and Twitter to be questionable neighborhoods for the same reason. These things have their uses, but they are far too easily abused. Which is why neither of them have reached the point where I would consider it more useful than annoying to have.

@ Eric Lund:

I know what you mean:
I look over a few twitter accounts of twits... I mean ANTI-VAXXERS and WOO-MEISTERS..
and oh wow, what loads of crap

AND I don't do facebook but one of the computers I use belongs to someone who does and I can tune in.
( also public fb sites of the usual suspects)
There are also loads and loads of crap - and a few smart people who put up artwork, liberal news and television comedy clips-

Crap is mostly bragging about children/ grandchildren/ expensive travel/ restaurants/ home renovation.. Food porn. House porn

ALSO there's a clueless relative who continually sends e-mail news which is basically a TV station's news.
As if no one can do this on their own

Another relative sends him ultra rightwing memes and videos when he is quite left. Clueless as well.

But hey, I read Bolen and Adams so no damage to me,

I see we both made the list.

"AI is best thought of as a friend in that friends let friends reboot."

Pure nonsense. Doesn't speak well for your grasp of AI.

Hey, food porn is a good genre. And I like seeing pretty pictures of travel and kids and so on.

Facebook does have a lot of crap - mainly from right wing relatives - but I mainly like it for keeping in touch with friends. Also I'm in some good groups - including mushroom ID groups and political groups - and I post a lot of politics and news. And sometimes get in arguments.

Twitter is more fun and less stress because I have no family on there and I choose who I follow well. Also there are a lot of jokes.

Also I just got a very good rundown of how to make sauerkraut and related things in the Anarchist Cooking Club on FB. I might have to try it.

Previously misposted:

Paging Alain. Tara could also use some migration help.

Also I just got a very good rundown of how to make sauerkraut

From scratch?

From scratch?

Yep. Just cabbage and salt, although you can gussy it up. It also had a description of the fermentation process, where to buy an affordable air lock lid thingy, and so on.

I will admit that food porn from restaurants leaves me cold. I am only interested in people's cooking.

@JP: my mom used to make jars of sauerkraut every year and can them. My brother adored it. As you said, just a huge crock with sliced cabbage and salt in water. We didn't have an air-lock thing...just a huge stone crock that we kept plastic wrap over. Stirred daily. But I forget how long it took.

Yep. Just cabbage and salt, although you can gussy it up. It also had a description of the fermentation process, where to buy an affordable air lock lid thingy, and so on.

I recall some amusing stories from MDC involving barrels and kraut gone bad, but I have to ask why you're doing this when there are perfectly fine options available in the grocery store.

@ JP:

Unfortunately most of this is bragging about expensive places to eat.
HOWEVER one guy is a socialist who REALLY hates Trump and finds
interesting articles/ photos.

re sauerkraut
many woo-meisters mistake it for the nectar of the gods or fountain of youth so they endlessly carry on about its probiotics' effects on the microbiome or suchlike.
Anti-vaxxers go on and on because the GI tract is the second brain and if you fix it, the regular brain gets well
( * a la* Wakefield I suppose);
Others rave about kombucha.

Kombucha scares me ( and not much else does)

I mean, if I were going to buy an airlock and so forth, I'd be doing this.

but I have to ask why you’re doing this when there are perfectly fine options available in the grocery store.

First of all, for fun. And I imagine it makes good sauerkraut.

Also, unless you want to drive to Portland, you can't get good (fermented) sauerkraut here, only the vinegar kind, which tastes vingar-y and is limp and disappointing. Also you can't use the vinegar type to make bigos, which I would like to make this winter.

@ #76 MJD

. . . list of Orac minions . . .

Despite my lower level of comments here and singular sense of humor, I have communicated several times with our Master Masher of Medical Mendacity and you didn't even put me in your top 100! Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

but I have to ask why you’re doing this when there are perfectly fine options available in the grocery store

I can't answer this one specifically for sauerkraut, since I've never tried to make my own. I did attempt kimchee once, but was dissatisfied with the results and haven't tried again.

I can, however, answer in the case of pasta sauce. Commercial tomato-based pasta sauces are mediocre or overpriced, and usually both. I can make my own spaghetti sauce that is at least as good as the mass market stuff, for a lot less. I can even adjust the spice level to my liking. Oh, and I have much less risk of getting a product with too much sugar in it.

Likewise with pizza. I haven't gone so far yet as to make my own pizza dough, as there are dough balls available in the grocery store. But if I start from one of those dough balls, I can put the toppings I want on the pizza, and even experiment a bit, rather than being stuck with the old cheese/pepperoni/sausage/"supreme" quadrumvirate. Again, the cost of my method is similar or less than the commercial stuff, even if I use good stuff for ingredients.

If JP thinks (s)he can make better sauerkraut than the commercial stuff, for less cost, then more power to her.

I prefer my own homemade pizza, too; I make the dough myself, it is easy and cheap. It comes out much better than "take and bake," and just as good if not better than the pizzerias around here.

@ sirhcton (#91),

You scare me, that's why you're not listed.

That's the biggest compliment one can give to an Orac minion.

@Johnny:

I mentioned Usenet...

He ask me for the URL.

He was shocked to learn that you can do things on the Internet without a browser.

Actually, in theory you can do Usenet directly via browsers. RFC 1738 originally defined the nntp:// and news:// URI schemes to talk directly to NNTP/NetNews servers from browsers, and older Netscape versions did support it for a time. RFC 5538 still has them defined. That said, I'm not certain anybody really supports them anymore.

Also you can’t use the vinegar type to make bigos, which I would like to make this winter.

Madam, you do recall that you're speaking to a Bohunk, right? Are you looking in the refrigerated aisle? I've made dandy bigos. Yes, you may have to rinse the stuff out, and no, I'm not disparaging home prep for either quality or entertainment value, but c'mon.

Kombucha scares me

I've always imagined the main SCOBY as being housed in the toilet tank by the die-hards.

Yes, dear, I have looked in the refrigerated aisle. I used to buy Bubbie's, after all.

I dunno, more than one recipe I have read (Polish, English) says not to use vinegared sauerkraut.

Kombucha scares me

I think I have mentioned this, bit I quite like good kombucha. I like a couple of the store brands (spendy though), and a couple of my friends make a really good batch. I don't like it enough to make it, though.

MJD: If you want a more forgiving environment, go mix with your fellow dolts at Age of Autism or "Thinking Moms" or anywhere else, really. Alternatively, try not being dumb.

JP: Seconded on the 'only good food porn is recipe porn.' I got a look behind the scenes of a food shoot a few times, and that kind of ruined menu photos for me. I like playing around with recipes myself. I don't think I'd go so far as to make sauerkraut myself. (I don't like it that much, and we have enough Eastern European influence here that it's relatively easy to find.)

I get to, in the near future, learn a whole new way of eating. At the end of January when I move to Thailand I will be learning to eat Thai. Since I am not a real fan of hot peppers, this could become interesting. I don't plan on eating at the many western fast food places that have invaded Chiang Mai.

I like to cook, so my lady is going to have to teach me. My diet is going to be in her control.

I think I need to find something to stop the pepper burn, any suggestions?

Oh boy. I have never been foolishly enough to order "Thai spicy" at a Thai restaurant; I usually get a step up from mild to be honest. (Thai food is a *lot* spicier than Mexican food; I do love it.)

Actually living in Thailand, I am afraid you will probably just have to adjust to spicy food.

JP, we'll see if my stomach survives or how long it takes to adjust.

JP,

I prefer my own homemade pizza

Can you point me to a recipe, pretty please? (the groceries around here sell 10KG of floor for 9$).

Alain

JP,

for the dough that is.

@Alain:

This is the one I use:

https://www.google.com/amp/www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/pizza…

There are other recipes out there, but some call for special flours and so on, and I like to use a stand mixer, which this recipe is meant for. I'm sure it would come out just as well done by hand, though.

Rich: Coconut milk or any sort of fat helps stave off the burning. Also, DO NOT EVER touch your eyes or any soft tissue directly after handling a pepper: if you do, wash with milk, not water.

Many thanks JP,

One thing that I wonder about that recipe is about replacing the instant dry yeast with wet yeast from a beer fermentation.

I'll try that.

I also consider buying a bread making machine. Beer yeast based bread, should be good.

Alain

@Alain:

My uncle makes beer, and sometimes I help. I don't know about using wet yeast in bread - I mean I've never tried it - but one thing that is really nice is to bake bread using the spent grain from making beer, especially from a dark beer.

Actually, we have a bottle of Uncle Gary's mead lying around; he made a sort of half beer, half mead last year that he called "Viking Brew" and it was good - also strong - and so I am interested to try the mead. My friend Sara F. makes mead (and also pickled garlic and stuff) and it is very good. Actually, I bet she would have some tips.

Hey JP!

What do you do for sauce on homemade pizza?

Yes, dear, I have looked in the refrigerated aisle.

And there is none? No vinegar in Krrrrisp Kraut.

@sadmar:

For red sauce, I use whatever I have on hand, usually some canned pizza sauce (one can always spice it up.) I mean, for pasta with red sauce, I will make my own ragu or whatever, but I haven't gotten to the point where I have homemade red sauce on hand.

I also make a pizza with a little mozz, some gorgonzola, pears, and caramelized onions, and for that I just brush the crust with a little olive oil.

@Narad: Nope, sadly. I'm not in Chicago, or even Portland. There is a little hippy outfit that sells femrmented krauts, but they are all stupid expensive.

he made a sort of half beer, half mead last year that he called “Viking Brew” and it was good – also strong – and so I am interested to try the mead.

I remember once brewing a beer/mead with equal parts of malt extract and honey. Opened after two weeks it was disqusting, but then I put the rest of the bottles away and couldn't find where I had hidden them for six months (yes, drunkenness was involved) and in that time it suffered a sea-change into rare and strange and rather tasty.

DO NOT EVER touch your eyes or any soft tissue directly after handling a pepper

IOW don gloves -- or take your gloves off -- before toilet breaks. Trust me.

I love that most threads on RI evolve into food discussions...:)

An idea for a guest contributor on the new RI:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154966141331981&set=gm.105350…

MI Dawn writes,

I love that most threads on RI evolve into food discussions

MJD says,

Epiphany:

Orac's minions often think with their stomach, making their comments acrid from an excess of natural secretions..

Also, DO NOT EVER touch your eyes or any soft tissue directly after handling a pepper

I dunno. A little groin warmth on a cold day can be cozy, after a fashion.

Narad: It's not warmth, it's just burning. I've touched my eyes a couple of times after handling a hot pepper and that was bad enough. Also, like I said, you have to wash with milk.

It appears that the New York State Senate is being lead down the Chronic Lyme Disease path.

Actually, in theory you can do Usenet directly via browsers.

I've seen people FTP with a browser, and there are web sites that provide USENET access, but why would you want to. It's like walking with your laces tied together - there's just better and easier ways to do it.

Thai food is a *lot* spicier than Mexican food...

Back in the day, when my daddy was off in Viet Nam, one of the hispanic guy in his barricks received a 'care package' from home containing among other things a few jars of pickled peppers. As GIs do in such a situation, they were shared around, along with a coupla beers, and laughter and good times were being had by all. This included offering a pepper to the little old lady housekeeper they hired to clean the common areas, as was the custom of the day. Mama-san made some noise, then ran off, and they were concerned that they had offended her. Then she came back with her pickled peppers, and offered them around.

'Hotter than a coal fire' is how dad described them.

Back on topic - - -

I suspect that our host's concerns of loosing Google juice may be underestimated, and RI may soon be a distant memory.

Jake has noted that Science Blogs is coming to an end, and he is refusing to tell any of his copious readership where to find the new site. This will no doubt hasten the demise of RI, as thousands will now not get the word of where to find our host's musings.

/sarcasm

http://www.autisminvestigated.com/scienceblogs-die-eviction-notice/

That said, Autism Investigated will not link to any new domain of any former “Science”Blogger. Autism Investigated will throw any comments containing those links in the trash. Cut off their oxygen, and let them wither away into nothingness.

JP:

Do you have recommendations for good premade pizza sauce, in either cans or jars? We've tried what Trader Joe's sells, but were underwhelmed...

I just get whatever is on sale, to be honest. Classic is pretty good.

*Classico

Narad: It’s not warmth, it’s just burning. I’ve touched my eyes a couple of times after handling a hot pepper and that was bad enough. Also, like I said, you have to wash with milk.

I'll take the burning over soaking my balls in milk, thankyouverymuch. Perhaps some people are made of sterner stuff.

^ I am reminded, though, that The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo by Oscar Acosta (Hunter Thompson's "Samoan attorney") goes on at some length about hot peppers and dairy. I found it to be a good read, but I don't know whether it's still in print.

@hdb:

I remembered the name of the style of beer/mead: it is called Braggot, and apparently was quite popular in medieval Europe.

The bottle of mead we have had been sitting around for a couple years, but I don't think it goes bad, that is kind of the point. I don't remember how long Sara aged her mead for, but it came out good (sometimes she would add things for flavor, like berries.)

@ Johnny:

Right, few people @ RI know how to look up stuff on the net.**

HOWEVER don't Orac and his minions usually mention or link to whomever they critique so that others may read the original?
I know I do always. I want to spread the cheer.

I venture that you, Rebecca, Narad, Lawrence and I have already contributed to Jake's cumulative hits.

Orac has a large readership and is quoted in SB articles and non-web media as Dr DG. He writes in actual journals and speaks at medical conferences as well as at skeptical gatherings.
He has another site where he writes and a following on twitter. He may be sought out by other blogging collectives.
He has a few real world jobs.

I also doubt that Orac is searching for work via linked in as well. ( see linked in Jacob Crosby Austin TX).

Indeed, Orac is so well known that Mikey continually attacks him in his inimitable, potentially libelous manner. He's been targetted by Null's minion, Richard Gale, by Bolen, whale.to and diverse anti-vaxxers far and wide.

In fact, if he's so weak why did Jake himself waste time writing about him and going to his events?

** in fact, I must brag:
my bing fu/ google fu is so good I just bought HALF price transcontinental airline fare for a popular locale during vacation time.At UNITED yet.

@Johnny: thanks for the info about Jake thinking he would have any impact on Orac's traffic. I needed a good belly laugh!

# 109 Alain

replacing the instant dry yeast with wet yeast from a beer fermentation

Don't do it. They are two different types of yeast.

You can buy cubes of wet yeast for baking (Metro should have them) but again it is not a beer yeast. Or you can use the traditional style dry yeast but I really don't think the beer yeast will proof properly.

I can confirm what people have said about touching your eyes after handling a chili. Yeouch! Once was enough.
Also, and related to the above:
How can you tell a chemist in the Men's Room?
He washes his hands before he takes a piss.

The bottle of mead we have had been sitting around for a couple years, but I don’t think it goes bad, that is kind of the point.

RLY? Regrettably, G—le Books doesn't have a scan of W.H.T. Tayleur's Homebrewing and Wine-making, which has recipes for country wines and, intriguingly, Cor!, a "jungle juice."

@Narad:

I mean, honey doesn't go bad. And wines get better with age up to a point. From what I've gleaned on the internet, mead ages well and a lot of people say it actually reaches its peak at about 6 years.

HOWEVER don’t Orac and his minions usually mention or link to whomever they critique so that others may read the original?

As a general rule, I try to, but when I cite Jake, I feel it’s absolutely necessary. I believe if I didn’t, then some one would pipe up ‘there’s no way he said that’, then I’d have to go get the link and post it anyway. It saves a lot of noise if I post it right off.

Jake’s blog is almost sad these days. There was never much to it, but the last few posts he’s made have been particularly content free. Now that he’s kicked out of UT, I imagine him sitting around, doing nothing but reading the web thinking he’s a journalist, and becoming more socially isolated by the day. No job, no friends, no classes, and more importantly, no prospects of any.

Narad: I'm not keen on either of those options, especially since washing with milk around soft tissue seems like a really good way to get a yeast infection. I'd like to keep my streak of avoiding those unbroken.

Johnny: "No job, no friends, no classes, and more importantly, no prospects of any."

And since he lives in Texas, lots of access to guns :/

MJD: No, unlike you, we just like tasty foods. I doubt you even know what an oven is for.

And since he lives in Texas Florida, with his mom

FTFY.

Jake’s blog is almost sad these days. There was never much to it, but the last few posts he’s made have been particularly content free.

"How is it that a president who met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this year to discuss a vaccine safety commission ends up appointing an executive from one of the biggest corporate perpetrators of vaccine injury? How is it that that same president met with Dr. Andrew Wakefield last year?"

Yah, Jake, it's a mystery.

Isn't Florida even more permissive than Texas when it comes to guns?

Rich: Also, speaking of beer, that is another way to quench the burning.

@jrkrideau

Don’t do it. They are two different types of yeast.

You can buy cubes of wet yeast for baking (Metro should have them) but again it is not a beer yeast. Or you can use the traditional style dry yeast but I really don’t think the beer yeast will proof properly.

I can understand,

Actually, I got this beer yeast book: Yeast: the practical guide to beer fermentation

When I was working in a few last job, in a microbrewery, I had this project for the boss (general manager that is) to figure out the psychometric of beer tasting and I understood the particular condition that yeast need to be withdrawn.

They don't do it the way one of my friend and I used 10 years ago which was to withdraw from the top of the fermenter after 3 or at most, 4 days after the start of fermentation.

The 3 or 4 days is right when yeast is under selective pressure (which it is always but that moment is crucial) to rise to top or drop down to bottom according to yeast vitality.

It has been a few weeks that I have been thinking about yeast selective pressure and how to take up some yeast from the top of my fermenters without spoiling the beer but that's a work in progress with due date around end of January 2018 when I'll fabricate the kit and fermenters.

What I meant to say is that, I will test with yeast based pizza crust but if it's not a success, dry yeast will be fine. They both come from the same family.

Alain

Most things are a mystery to Jake, sadly.

From arsenic to goat glands: A history of the world's worst medical cures.

The CBC Radio programme The Current had an interesting interview with Dr. Lydia Kang, co-author of a new book on the history of quackery.

Kang, L., & Pedersen, N. (2017). Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything (1 edition). New York: Workman Publishing Company.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-october-27-2017-1.43…

There should definitely be alarm at RI over the prospect that it won't be linked to on Jake's site, and thus will wither and die from lack of attention.

By the same token, Kroger will go out of business if our local freebie arts paper stops accepting its ads.

Say, does anyone know who this ORAC was, the one whom it is claimed founded the blog?

Do you think they really existed or they are a mythic figure?

Ahh, mead. But of course it needs to be paired with mutton. Muttan and mead. But that should be paired with hookers and blow ftw.

I couldn't necropost on the old blog and thread.

For anyone who is interested, Rebecca Bredow is back.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2017/10/26/michi…

She has a new lawyer too. That's #4 since the case was moved to Oakland County.

@ Dangerous Bacon:

Ha ha!

re Jake-
do you know that he posts MISinformation about himself just like ( he claims) Dr Offit did **
whilst he is listed as living with his mum in Ponte Vedra, FL his LINKED IN listing says he is in the Austin area.

First changing names of commenters, now this. SHAME!

For other hilarity, his blog and twitstream provide lots-
a senator who said she was pursued is not believed because the man had polio.
Secondly, he disputes her stated ethnicity.

Jake, let me fill you in-
people with polio can move AND

just because people have lighter hair, eyes or skin doesn't mean that they are not Native American, African American, Jewish, Chinese, Hispanic, Japanese or Samoan-
people can be more than one group.

He seems to only parrot ultra right memes.

In other news...

Mike Adams claims that the Pharmatocracy (tm) is now about to come crashing down.

Null is perseverating about the history of depopulation and genocide due to the oil-igarchs/ pharma lords ( Rockefellars)

I sincerely hope that Orac will soon get the show on the road because steeping myself solely in woo is not healthy.

** he didn't update his position at CHOP- see Autism Investigated

our local freebie arts paper

I use the term "alterno-rag."

And if there was any doubt Jake has gone fully ‘round the u-bend (as our friends across the pond would say), he’s now regurgitating Breitbart.

I’m sure it has something to do with investigating “the who, what, when, where and why of the autism epidemic (in that order!), particularly the role vaccines play in causing it as well as the government’s role in covering up that cause”, but I’m not able to see it.

Orac, have you given any thought about making your new website mobile-friendly? Have you tested the website on different devices (iPad, Android, tablet, laptop, etc) and on different browsers such as Firefox and Safari?

When I was studying for a degree in Interactive Media, I learned that websites must be accessible to most browsers and to most devices. A website must be just as functional on a mobile device as it is on a laptop. A website must be just as functional on Safari as it is on Firefox or Internet Explorer.

In my computer classes at college, I learned about the importance of responsive web design and adaptive web design.

From my observations, the new site looks good on a phone, bad on a tablet, and almost unreadable on a desktop (I don’t laptop after getting a tablet).

My rule of thumb would be ‘the smaller the screen, the better it looks’. The only way I can stand to read the new site on a desktop is to zoom out to the limits of the software.

I suspect that this is temporary, and that the migration is the primary concern at this time (as it should be).

Denice,

I sincerely hope that Orac will soon get the show on the road because steeping myself solely in woo is not healthy.

Trust me, we're hard at work to move the show on the road for yesterday, if not last week :)

Alain

Dear Melissa,

I can't speak (write?) for Orac but, in my case, this will be done in due time. First priority is to get it to run and second, look good. Sadly, there are 168 hours in a given week and I'd personally need double that to manage my usual workload.

Alain

Mobile is where at least half of readers come from now these days. That's just a fact.

Even with my glasses on I don't like reading stuff on my mobile. If I enlarge the text I have to constantly move the screen around in order to read it. I want a nice big screen. I don't have a tablet and I don't want to get one. So take your time.

KIm ( AoA), noting the end of science blogs, says " good riddance" to those who would harm her children and colleagues.

-btw- it's all facebook now. The right place for her efforts.

Angus says we may be trying to bury evidence or suchlike.

I saw that and was suitably amused.

Johnny (#156) writes,

From my observations, the new site looks good on a phone, bad on a tablet, and almost unreadable on a desktop (I don’t laptop after getting a tablet).

MJD says,

I visited the new RI site today and it looks practically perfect in every way.

Just continue feeding the birds and move forward, Orac.

"Now that he’s kicked out of UT..."

Wait. The Kid got kicked out of school? I missed that bit of news. The administration must be relieved, insofar that they were even aware of him.

From http://www.autisminvestigated.com/about/

Jake Crosby is editor of Autism Investigated. ... He was dismissed from the Ph.D. Epidemiology program of the University of Texas School of Public Health, due to academic misconduct by the school’s administration.

Jake has yet, to my knowledge, to clarify exactly who has committed exactly what act of misconduct, but I would suspect that a comma has intentionally been left out of that sentence.

@Johnny #165:

Has he just libelled them? I mean, more seriously than usual?

and almost unreadable on a desktop

It's fine on a large monitor* with images blocked, but ABP for some reason is being difficult about this, viz., not showing all of them as blockable items, meaning that I have to add the rules by hand.

* As compared with commenter Dagian, I want a nice large keyboard even more.

^ The text size is awfully large (as is the header text, which, as I've noted, should be a trivial CSS tweak), but it's worse with CSS turned off entirely.

Johnny@165: I hadn't heard the news either, but I also spotted that dangling modifier. I expect that Mr. Crosby will provide the relevant details approximately when Hell freezes over.

Angus says we may be trying to bury evidence or suchlike.

And John Stone remains conspiratorially clueless.

^ Hey, did they delete this, or is the machine I'm at just flaky?

^^ "Insidious Pharma Shill #1: Dr. Paul Offit, a.k.a. 'Skeptical Raptor'"

It's a thing of beauty.

@ Narad:

Oh I know.

The quality of their detective work illustrates precisely how to regard their other investigations into various malfeasance of governments, corporations or media outlets..
Heh.

It’s fine on a large monitor...

27 inch iMac here, and the text "The future home of" in the title of the first post stretches across a full 5 inches of the screen, and the text "Right now, Orac is busily transferring content from the old blog to this shiny new" in the body of the post takes 6.5 inches. A full page of text in the main body of a post displays 38 lines.

Easy to read from the next room, sure, not so easy if you're in arms reach. 'Zoom out' is is going to be my new best friend.

27 inch iMac here, and the text “The future home of” in the title of the first post stretches across a full 5 inches of the screen

The images do smallify if one shrinks down the window. Y'know, like to phone size. But still with too much leading.

^ Lotta gas on the sides of the text as well, because the wrapper is bigger than the content area.

^ The leading is in style.css line 137, BTW, as 'line-height'.

^^ The margin gas is going to be a problem for so long as one thinks it's cutesy to have the image wrap around the top of the text, of course.

"KIm ( AoA), noting the end of science blogs, says ” good riddance” to those who would harm her children and colleagues.

-btw- it’s all facebook now. The right place for her efforts."

If (as she claims) only Facebook and other social media count, then it doesn't matter if AoA is "going strong" - no one is paying attention. :)

Yow, that's huge. Looks okay at 80% though.

^ Hey, did they delete this, or is the machine I’m at just flaky?

Archive.is is good for rescuing material that the authors thought better of so only a cached version remains.
http://archive.is/fmeLs

A change is gonna come. Respectful Insolence is moving.

oracknows — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 22:01:17 +0000

A change is gonna come. Respectful Insolence is moving.

Well, QEDCon is over, and this box of blinky lights is on its way back across the pond to its home in the US, having had an excellent time imbibing skepticism from its (mostly) British and European partners in skepticism.

Before I left, I made a somewhat cryptic remark about "major changes" to this blog coming up. Well, the cat's out of the bag, so to speak. Basically, Scienceblogs is shutting down at the end of the month. I still remain grateful for the opportunity Scienceblogs offered me. I wouldn't be as prominent as I am now without it. However, unfortunately, Scienceblogs has barely existed as an entity for a few years now. Unfortunately, Scienceblogs isn't just shutting down, it's going away completely.

As a result, I'm now in a frantic race to transfer all the old material to a new host. Sadly, I expect a lot of problems, because I have nearly 12 years worth of material to transfer, over 5,000 posts and 360,000 comments. Indeed, I've already encountered them. Let's just say that WordPress' export/import tools are not as...robust...as they could be.

Transferring the blog is going to be a big task, because it's necessary to break up the transfer into many small chunks, and then each import frequently requires multiple tries to get everything transferred. As a result, I've decided that I can't do this properly and still produce my usual level of quality output. So I'm going to stop blogging for however long it takes to transfer everything over. I expect that it will take at least a week. There will be an announcement here and on Twitter when I christen the shiny new blog with its first bit of new Insolence.

In the meantime, please do me a favor. If you run across the new blog (which isn't indexed on search engines yet while I make the transfer but it's also not too difficult to figure out the address), please don't comment. Until the transfer is complete, if I see any new comments on the new blog before I finish transferring all the material, I will delete them. Also note that if you're commenting now on a post published September 30 or early there's a chance your comment might not make the transition to the new blog.

I hope you all will all join me at the new blog when the transfer is complete. There are a number of advantages. One is that the Scienceblogs site is so...2011. The theme and design literally have not been updated since...around 2011. The new theme is much more responsive to mobile devices, adjusting itself nicely for desktop and mobile devices and a lot cleaner. Those of you who are inappropriately in comment moderation purgatory will be released.

I think you'll like it, and I think I'll like it.

oracknows Mon, 10/16/2017 - 18:01

Tags

If there is any way that a simple lad such as myself can be of assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask.

I would ask that, please, do not allow fellow minions to post pics as comments. Links to pictures, sure, and I probably will myself. But I feel that 2 or 3 or 4 (and more) memes in a row will detract, rather than add, to the Respectful Insolence.

Sure, this interface is 2011, but it’s clean and readable. That’s a feature, not a bug. I’d hate to see that go away.

The new interface is also clean and readable. My only complaint about it is that the header text is too large. I'll eventually figure out how to fix that, but first things first.

I don't really see a problem with the look of the current interface either. One thing I REALLY like is the lack of multiple videos all trying to play at the same time. Meh. Be really careful about change for change's sake. Unless there is some clear improvement (like for mobile device readers), don't fall prey to "creeping featurism".

Thanks in advance for your efforts to retain the old comment threads.

Good luck with the move and I look forward to the new site.

P.S. another who likes the look of the present site.

Unfortunately the present site sucks on mobile. That's its biggest problem.

...header text is too large.

Yeah, font size is larger than I need without reading glasses. That is, way too big.

Good luck. I assume that even though you won't be posting on your new blog until you get things sorted, a certain friend of yours will continue to post over at "Science-Based Medicine"

Looking forward to read on your new blog. Good luck with moving everything.

Orac,

Need help for the migration?

I have ~20 years of experience with regard to computer and regularly build linux platforms from bottom to top (using recipes from http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/systemd/ and its BLFS counterpart).

Alain

And for those of us with no google-fu, I hope you will post a link here since I don't go on Twitter.

Of course I'll post a link. Why would I not? ?

This site is nearly unusable on my Tablet - has been for a while now.....good to see you're moving to a better platform.

Ooohh! I like the new design--especialy the sidebar not crimping the width and only appearing when you want it.

I knew something was up when the blog got a new favicon a few days ago.

Yes, please tell us where the new site is once it is operational.

I made a guess about your new site location, which appears to be incorrect. In the process, I found that your old Blogspot site (where you last posted in 2009) is still up.

Well the obvious URL to try worked. Looks good, fonts are a bit big on the desktop, but I often have to shrink down these things that are designed to also be read on phones.

Hope you didn't have to chase off any cybersquatters to get that URL

@KayMarie:

I generally like large fonts, because I like to run everything full-width and read at a comfortable distance from my screen--old eyes, y'know.

The problem with the header font size is that it's so large it forces the tags to intrude into the picture above them. But as Orac says, first things first.

Strangely I got a bit farsighted quite early, but so far it hasn't gotten significantly worse. So I'm not sure if they got old early, or are currently a bit young?

I was always farsighted, so I didn't need glasses until my lenses stopped accommodating, and then I could just buy reading glasses at the drug store until I needed more than +3.5. Unfortunately I'm almost up to 5 powers now, and sitting the regular distance from a computer is too close for the main lens and too far away for the bifocal part.

As the Teletubbies would say, uh oh.

I hope you do not enable https with an invalid certificate or a security protocol that is not supported by the Safari browser on the iBook (which is pretty much all of them). There are https sites I can browse, so it is not impossible to avoid this fate. But I have lost some of my favorite sites due to badly configured security "upgrades".

Hurricanes, wildfires, threats of nuclear annihilation, Donald unleashed and now THIS?

However, the recalibrating/ reprogramming may send a signal to various cranks and charlatans so we may be entertained whilst the process continues.

AND they'll probably alight here.

Right now all the usual suspects are spectacularly boring. Especially Jake, Kim and Mikey.

Best wishes, Orac.

It's really, really slow with Firefox 42 on OS X 10.6.8, with most of the final load seeming to be from widgets.wp.com. Maybe it'll improve after I block some of the cruft, such as pinterest. (RLY?)

5000 posts.
That is unreal.
Write a book with your greatest hits!

Every little box of blinky lights deserves to live in a stable home.

Yah, typical mobification. Visually dull on an actual machine. So it goes.

I'll admit it. I hate change.

But I'm sure I will love the new site and I'm relieved you're saving the old stuff. I have learned a lot here, and I often find your analysis of certain issues makes good grist for the grind when I'm discussing the issue elsewhere.

looking forward to the new digs.
hopefully the new place has a good 'reply to' feature to better pick up on the conversation in thread.

Having the <blockquote> text larger than the body text is also peculiar.

If I may be so bold (and even if I mayn't):

I suggest two "perpetual" comment threads not associated with specific posts:
In Other News for the obvious, which are fairly frequent
Outside as in "take it outside" for off-topic babble not constituting "news"

and maybe one called Rubber which is write-only and self emptying

Yah, typical mobification. Visually dull on an actual machine. So it goes.

As long as the new site does not end up as an example on the recently revived Web Pages That Suck (http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/). That would be a dubious honor to share with our friend MJD (http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/dailysucker/2011/11/13/mallard-adhesive…).

Seconding Herr Doktor B. This place is a treasure trove of knowledge and wit.

Thanks for putting the effort into migrating everything, Orac. I've done similar (thankfully years ago) at my place of work via self-written software so I know how daunting the task appears and how mind-numbingly tedious it is trying to get everything right.

Will we get the ability to edit comments, a la Disqus? (Please, please, pretty please!) That would totally allay any complaints I have about how the layout appears on a real computer.

I have to disagree with Johnny, though, about the ability to add graphics to a comment. Sometimes a photo or graph can be integral to the substance, as so with the OPs. You can't always expect readers to take the time to click through, and there might not be a usable direct link to the image. It's better, methinks, if commenters can take a quick screen grab, and then upload that small image within or at the bottom of the comment. I think minions are pretty responsible, and drive-by trolls won't make the effort, so I'm not too worried about some Attack of the Memes. Of course, if we get the option, and it gets abused, that would call for a change...

Yah, typical mobification.

For real.

Perhaps the particular element is not enabled yet -- no comment enumeration?

Web Pages That Suck

Now there's a blast from the past. I used to read that website regularly, back around the turn of the century when I was occasionally doing HTML coding. It was basically the equivalent of "Guidelines for Giving a Truly Terrible Talk" for Web page design. (In those days, "web" was spelled with a capital W.)

He's even saved the intentionally stupid design that was his front page back then. If you should stumble on that version of his home page, I dare you to click on the button that says, "Click Here". (Which would be a classic example of Schmuck Bait.) That link goes to the same image it pointed to back in the day.

That would be a dubious honor to share with our friend MJD

Don't forget Pattimmy Bolen.

It’s better, methinks, if commenters can take a quick screen grab, and then upload that small image within or at the bottom of the comment.

Use Imgur or something and link to it. Hell, I block images on the posts as it is.

At least the "pastel-lettering-on-a-slightly-darker-pastel-field" fad from a few years ago seems to have played itself out....

Blog posts by Orac are informative and have good search engine page rank. This will be a blow to the public when links are broken and page rank is reset.

I hope the owner of the domain name considers offering some sort of redirection service for a long period. Or transfer the domain name to someone who can operate such a redirection service.

I know. There's nothing I can do about it, although I have been told by a couple of bloggers who link to me that they will try to update some of the incoming links. I can also do that to some extent over at my not-so-secret other blog, but the internal links are all going to be broken. I intentionally kept the WordPress link format the same; so maybe there's a script that could chug through all the internal links and convert them. Otherwise, I might just have to do it manually for maybe the last few months of posts at least. Painful. Also, as a result of the migration from Movable Type to WordPress back around 2011 and how it dealt with media I'm very much afraid that a lot of pictures from before then are going to go bye-bye. I already know that the migration then failed to convert the internal links. There are a whole bunch of .php URLs that never converted. Of course, I never converted them over the last 6+ years myself; so they'll just stay broken. Nothing to do about it. I fix them when I happen to come across them, but that's about all. I have no organized plan to fix them and never did.

As for the lost Google juice, my traffic is about to tank as I loose all my search traffic. Posts that I consider important and prominent that aren't all cross-posted at my not-so-secret other blog (some Burzynski posts, posts about various cancer quackery, posts debunking antivaccine articles) are about to plummet to the bottom of Google search returns. I had been thinking of leaving Sb a while ago because I feared just this eventuality some day. If I had, I could already of had a head start on rebuilding and maybe even gotten Sb to do a 301 redirect to save some of that Google juice. Now it's too late. It's back to the beginning, and I'm utterly screwed, traffic-wise, at least for many months, if not years. It sucks.

I hope it won't switch to a disqus system.

Good luck with the transfer Orac!

"Said there's been a change
You push just a little too far
You make it just a little too hard"*

Nah, it looks fine.

Content is what matters to me in any case.

*Tom Petty - "Change of Heart"

Orac, maybe some of the obnoxious trolls will not be able to find you even with directions.

Oh, are going to upgrade your blinky lights?

@Orac,

In my latest book titled, "Patents and Climate Change - There's No Place Like Home" I wrote the following in the biography, "He is an active participant in the Science Blogs™ Respectful Insolence."

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/patents-and-climate-change

Now that the site is shutting down, and in hindsight, it should have read, "He was a reluctant participant in the Science Blogs™ Respectful Insolence. :-)

Either way, it's been a nightmare.

I can tolerate rather awful appearance if I can actually accomplish what I want to do at a site without a lot of messing about and waiting. Salon has become an excellent example of a web site that looks pretty good but is horrible in terms of performance - every time you go there or click on something while there it wants to open about two dozen other web sites, run gobs of scripts, load a bunch of crap and generally perform like a server running on an original IBM PC that has to phone home to Microsoft for permission to execute anything but a no-op.

Mike the Mad Biologist runs a nice clean efficient site. And he says mean (i.e. true) things about Donald Trump, which is an added bonus.

I have the feeling the traffic loss won't be as bad as Orac fears. RI and Orac as an individual are now well established as key voices on the topics they address, especially I think, among journalists. Reputation doesn't go away over night, and not that many people are totally new to these topics either. Anyone who has Googled on this stuff over the last few years will know RI and Orac, and many will make more of an effort to seek out new comments than just stopping at the top hits on the first Google page. At least that's what I'd do if wasn't checking in here daily. I mean it's not hard. Say if I wondered whether Orac has comments on the opioid/DEA/pharma scandal that just broke, I could just just Google "opioid insolence" or something...

It's hardly uncommon for web navigation particulars to shift over time, so I think savvy web users are pretty used to hunting out new locations for their old sources every now and then.

Add to that the crossover with the posts on SBM, and I doubt Orac will suddenly become a voice in the wilderness.

I hope you're correct, but most migrations to new hosts or domains are accompanied with SEO interventions, such as a 301 redirect from the host I've leaving (something I had no idea about until now) in order to minimize loss of Google juice. There will be none of that there. Rebuilding is likely to take months, if not years, and all incoming links over the course of twelve years will now be permanently broken. I can't really afford to hire an SEO expert to try to mitigate these issues.

Posts ... are about to plummet to the bottom of Google search returns.

That is very unfortunate, though there will be rejoicing in Wooville.

@orac #39:

I intentionally kept the WordPress link format the same; so maybe there’s a script that could chug through all the internal links and convert them.

Portability is the best argument in favour of building a site with relative rather than absolute URLs. Of course that's no help if the CMS itself demands absolutes, like some obsessive digital authoritarian god.

Actually, WordPress URLs should work regardless of what format is is chosen, date included in the URL or not.

Narad will need a new killfile script.

and maybe one called Rubber which is write-only and self emptying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s2uiPubmoA

Wow MJD, you just couldn't resist getting a jab in, could'ya; you can't let Orac move house in peace?

Then again, you never let anything go, do you?

The new site shows up on a quick Google search with this description:

A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt

When you get back to writing regular blogs, the recent settlement against Johnson & Johnson for talc and cancer may not have the features to justify an insolent response. But, it does share many of the characteristics of the alleged vaccine-autism connection.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/08/23/does-t…

This is one I've been meaning to write about for a while, but somehow never got around to it. We have an ambulance chaser (actually more than one) in my neck of the woods running TV ads to recruit clients to sue J&J for this.

Now that the site is shutting down, and in hindsight, it should have read, “He was a reluctant participant in the Science Blogs™ Respectful Insolence.

Um, what?
Did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to comment here?
You chose to put your ideas out there. You chose to come here and comment when Orac and Prometheus shredded them. You have chosen to repeat your flawed claims despite regularly having them torn to pieces here. You chose to attempt threadjacking even after being warned several times that if you didn't stop, you would be placed in moderation. And you have chosen to continue trying to threadjack despite Orac doing what he warned you he would do and placing you in moderation.
You were a willing participant here. Don't try to twist and say you were reluctant when after having your "theories" torn to shreds multiple times, you showed up again and again and repeated them.

What a coincidence, with a twist. I'm presently trying to migrate my website - with the exceptional complication (for me) that my present site is built in raw html with Dreamweaver, and I'm trying to rebuild it as a WordPress site.

I have absolutely no idea how to make the conversion, and web designers etc don't want to know. I've even tried to hire someone for a day's money, but nobody seems interested. As soon as I reveal that I've designed and built both versions myself, they lose interest.

I feel your pain.

Why would you want to do this? What would be the payoff?

Epsilon (#53) writes,

...you can’t let Orac move house in peace?

MJD says,

RIP (Respectful Insolence in Peace) Orac.

Now that's an oxymoron...

If you're asking me, my site is all but useless on mobiles, as I didn't understand responsive layouts when I built it on DreamWeaver. Google's bots are endlessly threatening me over this. And I want to future-proof.

Ah, yes. Well, my new site will be much more responsive on mobile. Yes, it actually looks better on smartphones than it does on desktop computers, but more than 50% of traffic to most blogs and websites these days comes from mobiles. So if the huge text doesn't look quite optimal on larger screens, I will probably just have to live with it. If there's one way my traffic could be better in the long run, it will be because Google won't be penalizing me for a poorly responsive template that doesn't look so good on mobile, which describes the current template. I do think the new template is much cleaner. It just has featured photos and blog posts, and the sidebar is available in a menu that when activated shows the search box, recent posts, and recent comments so that the user only sees them if he or she wants to see them. Also, for now, there will be no ads. If I get my traffic back up to where it was before and I have to start spending more on dedicated hosting I might have to reconsider ads, but right now I'm just using a WordPress hosting service and a domain I registered in 2011.

Wow. Like seriously. You just made another jab in response to me chastising you over jabbing at him.

Are you dense?

OK. I'm not as dumb as I thought I was; I did find the new site after a bit of trial and error. I guess I've been reading you too long to just go for the obvious! (blushes with shame).

Check speed of loading too. Possibly your images need to be quite light. I've just noticed that my theme includes a slider, which takes forever to load. Looks good on desktop, and a problem on mobile.

No, my theme loads pretty fast.

Loss of Google juice is a rational fear when moving sites like this, but I think the damage to RI will be less than most under similar circumstances. I just did a Google search for Respectful Insolence, and Safari's autocomplete feature suggested the Wikipedia entry of Orac's not-so-secret identity.

The other blog on this site that I still read regularly, Martin Rundqvist's Aardvarchaeology, is likely to take more of a hit, because Martin isn't as famous as Orac.

The new site was the third site listed in the search results for Respectful Insolence, after this site and Orac's old Blogspot site. I haven't tested the new site for usability yet, but appearance and loading are adequate.

Epsilon (#62) writes,

You just made another jab in response to me chastising you over jabbing at him.

MJD says,

While other commenter's fixate on website vanity, we're staying true to the heart and soul of this dying blog.

Let me say this, when Orac gets his new website I'm sure that he'll be as happy as a fly on a fresh file of dog shit.

@ Epsilon,

You surely can't be upset with that cheerful analogy, can you?

I agree with Politicalguineapig. Don't use Disqus. It totally sucks. You may as well disable comments.

In the sorrowing few moments of the Scienceblogs Respectful Insolence, the greatest gift for this 7-year commenter would be a symbolic life-time ban.

@Orac,

Please, I've tried so hard to be banned with distinction.

Now that the site is shutting down, and in hindsight, it should have read, “He was a reluctant participant in the Science Blogs™ Respectful Insolence.

Um, what?
Did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to comment here?

I just thought it was some strange use of ‘reluctant’ that I was unfamiliar with.

Please, I’ve tried so hard to be banned with distinction.

And there we have it. You can’t be a great martyr in the war against big pharma and their evil vaccines, with ideas so dangerous that they must not be heard, if you’re still around. Better to be a dead and thought a hero, than to be an impotent and incompetent warrior.

maybe there’s a script that could chug through all the internal links and convert them

Find somebody who knows how to use sed. It should be straightforward and fast.

Better to be a dead and thought a hero, than to be an impotent and incompetent warrior.

Or perhaps more accurately, better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

I'd say it's better not to give MJD a permanent ban at this point. One, it's exactly what he wants. Two, while I agree he's obnoxious, he hasn't (to my knowledge) done anything in the comments that rises to Orac's historical level for dropping the ban hammer. Of course, the latter is entirely Orac's call.

so maybe there’s a script that could chug through all the internal links and convert them.

I can design such a script and have enough horsepower on my laptop to go through the entire SB backup in a reasonable timeframe:

The script can be run by sed and is called like this:

sed -e 's@/lib$64$\?$32$\?/ld@/tools&@g' \ -e 's@/usr@/tools@g' $file.orig > $file

source: http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/systemd/chapter05/gcc-pass1.html

Orac, your Mac most likely include sed (bsd sed probably?) but should you don't want to invest on some steep learning curve, I can help.

Brian Deer,

I've took job for which most web developpers shunned from and did an okay job under a very tight timeframe so if your timerframe is not so tight, I can do the best job.

Want me to help you?

Alain

Epsilon,

Are you dense? The proper question would be if MJD is trying reeeaally hard to be dense or if it comes naturally :)

Alain

Find somebody who knows how to use sed. It should be straightforward and fast.

On Unix-based systems, including Linux and the Mac Terminal window, if you are keeping the same directory structure it's a three-line C shell script:

for i in path_specification ; do
sed 's/old_URL_root/new_URL_root/g' $i
done

Replace the italicized parts with the specific text you need. For instance, if your posts are separated into directories by year, then month, then day, then post title (as seems to be case, judging from the exact URL of this post), then from the top level the path specification would be */*/*/*/*,html .

It's a bit more complicated if you are planning to alter your directory structure in any way (e.g., removing one or more levels), but there should be someone on your staff who knows how to do it.

Either way, it’s been a nightmare.

Yah, this is going to fall on deaf ears (I suspect that the cerumen has found a sinus to your brain at this point), but the best way to end a nightmare is to wake up, Dozeniak.

if you are keeping the same directory structure it’s a three-line C shell script

Needs more regexp. You're going to have to hold on to the string that needs to be preserved. I mean, it's trivial, but let's (tinu) not start handing out untested recipes.

let’s (tinu) not start handing out untested recipes.

Agreed.

Eric Lund,

I doubt Orac has staff(ers) working on that.

Alain

No, now that I've had some coffee and am not using a phone, Eric's right, so long as it's a simple string substitution.

For what I had in mind, duplicating the files first, that would be:

for i in path_specification ; do sed -e 's/old_URL_root/new_URL_root/g' -i.orig $i done

the -i.orig instruct sed to make a backup copy first before changing the file. Then it's easy to compare (again, there's tools for that: diff) the changes.

There may be a scalability issue given 10~12 years of blogging...

My only complaint about it is that the header text is too large. I’ll eventually figure out how to fix that, but first things first.

Looks to be in wp-content/themes/baseline/style.css?ver=4.8.2:

.entry-large .entry-title, .page .entry-header .entry-title { font-family: "Playfair Display", "Georgia", serif; font-size: 58px; margin-bottom: 2.5%; line-height: 1.2; position: relative; }

A few observations...

RI is rather quick to display on this laptop but terrible on a tablet I sometimes used. I would give up soon.
SBM works well usually on the laptop

AS you know, I look at various web woo sites, anti-vax nonsense and (mis) informational sites,
I've found that sites that sell woo work REALLY well: the woo-meisters must invest loads of money into their 'stores'
( Mercola, Mikey**, Null)
Also most of their videos work really well.

AoA is abysmal both in content and functionally***

RI may be more easily findable after the switch because Orac and his friend are both visible on twitter.

** after all, Mike is an internet prodigy as well as a con artist

*** I suppose Kim is too busy these days teaching karate to innocent children to get someone to fix it.

RI is rather quick to display on this laptop but terrible on a tablet I sometimes used. I would give up soon.
SBM works well usually on the laptop

I gave up on SBM on all platforms after the redesign(s). The Disqustink is just icing on a sad cake.

# 73 Alain.

It would be amazing if you could help me. Maybe we could do some kind of deal for your time, coz I don't think there's much fun in it.

I can be got via my contact page. http://briandeer.com/contact.htm

It would be great, as I'm kind of paralysed at the moment, with a Dreamweaver site up and running for years, and a parallel WordPress site, with just a front page and a few sample pages that went live yesterday.

Thanks for offering.

The new site looks good and I've already updated my bookmarks. Sorry that scienceblogs is going away, but glad that you'll be keeping on! Definitely second the "no ads, or at least no auto-play video ads", if you can help it. Those get so obnoxious. I'd rather see an option to donate to maintaining the site via pay pal instead (I would!)

Brian,

You can check your inbox, I sent you an email.

Alain

@MJD

Hmm. Maybe I should not have expected so much from the mighty, esteemed, shameless self-advertiser who plugs his book into 75% of his comments until the name comes up in our nightmares.

I was wondering if anyone knew how to contact Tim Lambert of the Deltoid Blog. He doesn't really blog any more, and hasn't been active on Twitter for several years. It would be a shame if his blog disappeared. There is a post that shows up every month for discussion on the blog, but nothing other than that.

Could someone give me a link please? Google isn't being helpful.

@PGP:

Try typing in literally the most obvious URL and see what happens. :-)

My only complaint with the new site is the font size and spacing in the comments make it so it takes forever to scan through comments.

Oh, drat. I did type in the most obvious URL and was NOT happy with the result. Even though it was about chocolate.

I am guessing it is this one:
https://respectfulinsolence.net/

You’d be wrong.

.com

Rats! And thanks.

Now added to my bookmarks.

Why do people hate Disqus?

your time is gonna come...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjHBa7qpRTg

Why do people hate Disqus?

Because Disqustink is terrible.

Oh no! Where ever will I go to get my vaccine marketing from now? Please don't tell me I'll have to go directly to the merck.com website from now on!

Why do people hate Disqus?

Because Disqustink is terrible.

And Narad just barely avoids being tautological.

I can't wait to see the new website. I am expecting some serious sci-fi-ish wallpaper with gadgets, gizmos, and hopefully . . ..David Bowie's Space Oddity.mp3 playing in the background.

So take your protein pills and put your helmet on. This new website will have everything: From woobashing and ridicule to straight-up mockery. Orac is dropping the modifier and going full-insolent: Gossip about Andrew Wakefield's bed-fellows will not be off the table—the more damage we can cause to his psyche, the better. One must pay for breaking ranks, if not so much as to set an example. Let the public know who to mistrust and who to adore. With the new podium, Orac is going to prove that he really can define the strength of free radicals.

So open the pod bay doors Hal, the rarified environment of scienceblogs.com is suffocating. A new horizon awaits. Let's just hope that the next generation of politicians, biochemists, and medical doctors will be as incompetent as the former—to provide grist for the WooMill: whose stones are not quite ground-down as of yet, ready to churn-out a few dozen metric tons of 100 Mesh Powdered Wakefield (fine grade).

It's nowhere near that sophisticated. Maybe someday. Right now I'm just spending every minute of my spare time trying to get all the old content transferred over before Sb goes away forever. Let me tell you, the importer really chokes on those comment threads with 2,000+ comments. I fear I'm going to be missing some comments. One thread with over 2,000 comments only imported around 1,300. I have to ask myself if it's worth it to spend so much time trying to get the last 700 comments to transfer when there's so much other material to do. I think I'm just going to stop and move on, taking note of this particular post. I'll go back to it if I have time. If not, oh well.

Why do people hate Disqus?

Because it's shit?

Just a thought.

Why is it shit? It's used at my not-so-secret other blog, and I actually rather like it. It has the advantage of decreasing bandwidth use by off-loading the commenting function.

@sadmar: I hate Disqus because the threaded comments are AWFUL!!! You have to constantly scroll up and down a thread, and often miss new comments because they are tucked under an earlier comment. It's OK if you keep a thread open constantly because then the thread will alert you to the new one, but otherwise you have to just scroll and look for a little blue marker and "new comment".

PLEASE, Orac....don't thread comments.

WordPress threads comments now. I like threaded comments. Sorry.

The main reason I come here about 1% as often as I used to is that comments are effectively threaded here now. Apparently if you follow a thread with email updates, you get a "reply" button which makes your comment nest below the comment you're replying to.

I always swore I'd never even try to follow a comment section that was threaded--not that I'd be any loss, but I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way....

Disqus threads comments, spams the shit out of me on unrelated topics, needs me to log in every time I want to say something - even though I ask to stay signed in, tells me what my friends are commenting on (I don't care) and fails to post my comments.

Other than that, I just hate it.

Those threated comments are putting me of as well. Especially with long threads, things get hard to follow.

I don't think threaded comments will be such a big deal as everyone fears, and here's why. Comment threads here have been MUCH shorter lately. As I go back through the archives, say 2015, comment threads of several hundred comments were very common, which is why it's taking me so long to transfer the content of that year. Basically, the importer is choking big time, and I keep having to chop up the XML file into smaller and smaller bits. This year, comment threads over 100 comments have been pretty rare. It's kind of depressing to have it hammered home to me that way, actually, how much lower the commenting traffic is now compared to two or three years ago.

The new template doesn't number comments, either. There is a date and time stamp. Numbers were always problematic, anyway, because they change a lot as I approve new moderated comments, such that references to comment numbers were frequently inaccurate after I approved a bunch of new comments. I like date and time stamps better, because they do not change when I approve more comments. If the threaded comments turn out to be such a big deal, you don't have to use them, and if they really cause a lot of protest I'll consider turning them off. I just hate threading through huge strings of quoted text, though. Maybe it's because I see all comments.

Perhaps import the first page only? because after that, the comments start to fizzle-out anyway.

Not all of the comments are worth saving, especially those of Narad [sic].

I used to comment a little bit through disqus and still get notifications about dorit.
A lot of those take me to web sites where I have to scroll past ads to find the right place to click to even see comments and then the linked comment doesn't show up. So, I have to scroll up and down looking for it. Sometime I have to click several times for more comments.

But, it seems to work ok for SBM.

There is a date and time stamp. Numbers were always problematic, anyway, because they change a lot as I approve new moderated comments, such that references to comment numbers were frequently inaccurate after I approved a bunch of new comments. I like date and time stamps better, because they do not change when I approve more comments.

At some point in the distant past ScienceBlogs had time stamps on them, so I could refer to a post as "Orac@1158" (or whatever time the computer says you posted it) rather than "Orac@110", which as you note might become post number 114 after you approve comments being held in moderation. I don't remember when the time part was suppressed, but yes, that made it more difficult to refer to previous posts.

Threaded comments have both advantages and disadvantages. The main downside, as MI Dawn notes, is that you have to search throughout the thread to find new comments. OTOH, if it's a bunch of people feeding a troll, you can easily skip over those posts, and it also makes it more obvious (as long as it doesn't go more than three or four levels deep) who is responding to whom.

I had noticed occasional threaded comments here, mostly replies by Orac, but I had never had that capability myself. That may be, as the good Reverend points out, because I never check the "follow by e-mail" boxes below the post button. As moderator, Orac obviously has to get those e-mail updates so that he can retrieve posts from moderation as needed.

@ Ziggy Stardust:

Loved your last album.

I agree with your comment- there are loads of woo awaiting Orac. It is endless.

- Recently I discovered an older Bay Area doctor who supposedly treats people with light following R. Rife's frequencies and with the assistance of a NASA engineer. His website is rather clean but he has a show on prn.fm and was interviewed by the chief woo ( progressive commentary hour recently). He's been at it for decades .Dr Len Saputo.

- TMR's Oracle explains how she educated a doctor she dated. Comedy gold.

- Kim Rossi ( AoA) tweets about her new career as a part time karate instructor for kids - some of them vaccinated for flu ((shudder)) and full time divorcee.

- Mikey goes full tilt righty loon- perhaps to attract the gullible to his store.. Similar at prn.fm- politics and economics conspiracies showing corruption by the powers that be.
This may be fortunate because they speak less about health.

This year, comment threads over 100 comments have been pretty rare. It’s kind of depressing to have it hammered home to me that way, actually, how much lower the commenting traffic is now compared to two or three years ago.

Turn MJD loose.

He'll say something stupid, minions will call him out on it, he'll say 'buy my book'.

Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.

Comment counts will soar.

Or do a reiki post. Nothing else seems to draw out the faithful. I remember one such comment thread several years ago where two reiki practitioners must have dumped hundreds of comments defending their little charade. One was in Toronto and believed she could cure cancer through therapeutic touch.

Threaded comments, the issue of finding recent comments aside, seem to offer the greatest advantage with a commentariat this is not too bright. At RI, with the present scheme, most commenters are good about quoting a little of that to which they are responding, making it quite easy to follow conversations.

Again, I really loathe having a site open other sites which open other site which open other sites. How pervasive this is becomes apparent if you use a script blocker that tells you what is going on. I wouldn't mind so much if the main site supplied a "you'll need to allow access to/scripts on these sites to use this site" - but none do that. Right now, this site has opened or wants to open 7 other sites. If I allowed all of those, it wouldn't surprise me to see that number double. I have passed up offers from my ISP for super high speed, simply because I estimate about 90% of my time waiting for something is waiting for those linked sites to get off their asses and respond with crap I don't want to see anyway.

If I remember correctly, ScienceBlogs had a "most active" feature on the side, rather than the current "editor's picks" on it's front page that generated the high volume of comments. Same thing happened to FreethoughtBlogs when they got rid of that feature-no more pile-ons, I guess, but I wasn't invested enough in each individual blogger to find out where the action was.

Right now, this site has opened or wants to open 7 other sites. If I allowed all of those, it wouldn’t surprise me to see that number double. I have passed up offers from my ISP for super high speed, simply because I estimate about 90% of my time waiting for something is waiting for those linked sites to get off their asses and respond with crap I don’t want to see anyway.

^ Exacly this. How bad can it get? This bad:

http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/20/gold-star-widow-releases-trumps-call-…

Allow just one script, dailycaller.com, and veiw that the site wants to load 30 different sites -- nevermind how many extra scrips will load if any of those 30 are allowed.

NoScript ftw.

Chris: Thank you! Now bookmarked. That saved me a lot of time- I ran two different searches, and one of them kept directing me to truthwiki (which is, in my opinion, blatant false advertising.)

DW: So Kim's a karate instructor? Geez, I'd hate to be the poor kids she's inflicted upon. Must be a spectacularly soft style. I'm in one of the hard styles myself, though I'd reluctantly admit that the standards have fallen a bit since I was a white belt.

Remember to change the .net to .com !

Please do include the comments from Peter Harris, the naturopath who contradicted himself in one paragraph and then lost his temper upon our pointing this out.

Oh and was it Cervantes who was going to come back to us with loads of peer reviewed papers about plant based cancer cures, that guy was a right tool.

If anybody wants to get more comments, we can always rile up the current incarnation of Vinu, I have a German paper showing a significant decrease in allergies with increased vaccination, that's bound to cause him to do his standard denial of reality.

Hey @squirrelelite. I just started reading that book you talked about (was that you?) called Jackson's Electrodynamics. The 1962 edition can be had, for free, in one giant .pdf, vide infra. (watch-out slow browser . . .It's a monsta file.)

http://www.fulviofrisone.com/attachments/article/475/Jackson%20J%20D%20…

But I'm not sure how much I like it. The Swedes have cleaner math in this other free book I found; although they put the differential term directly ahead of the integral symbol, like this: ∫∂x·4x³. Very strange.

The electrodynamic wave equation seems to follow directly from Maxwell's Law's (Heaviside Edition), and the Schrödinger Equation is just an intuitive variation of this—a logical consequence of results obtained from the photoelectric effect and divers old classics.

I'm doing my best to dodge QuantumWoo, an eclectic and illogical collection of unicorns gleaned from the misunderstanding of divers refraction experiments reinforced by bad textbook Feynman heuristics further amplified by pop misconception culminating in Deepak Chopra!—where entanglement and nonlocality (if believed) can be used to justify nearly anything including, but not limited to, overpriced chic getaways to the Esalen Institute marketed to people who just want to appear well-informed—aimed at gullible people who don't really want to understand physics at all, but want to think that after we die we are more than just wormfood. It's the new religion: It's the flying saucer of the new age.

But Karl Popper will tell you how it really is:

Popper, Karl R. "Quantum mechanics without “the observer”." Quantum theory and reality. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1967. 7-44.

(Free full-text link of GoogleScholar, and a must read for those opposed to QuantumWoo—although he does not properly explain the double-slit experiment (only I can do that.))

Thanks, Ziggy.
I had Jackson for one of my undergrad E&M classes.
We used Feynman for the first QM class.

I like his personal biographical stuff as well.

Orac writes,

It’s kind of depressing to have it hammered home to me that way, actually, how much lower the commenting traffic is now compared to two or three years ago.

MJD says,

Once upon a time, Orac wrote about his helicopter experience and it was amazing, outstanding, and unforgettable.

Lately, in my opinion, there's been an overwhelming condescending tone that draws the reader into a sense of learned helplessness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQI0E1WCLMU

Cheer up Orac, write about it, and they will come.

Funniest Joke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IiICcSH8iY

Michael, the only condescension I detect on "Respectful Insolence" is from you.

@Julian

Took the words right outta my mouth. Orac's tried to be nice to MJD but all he's done is throw it in his face, so y'know.
He gets what he gives.

The new layout looks good on my android. Category index easy to nav.

Browsing through comments, Orac responses don't highlight like they do on Sb. I track those highlights as they usually indicate a pertinent point to take note of when considering topic that have 200+ comments.

Sneaky Tim includes link from The Daily Caller... Bad Tim!

Dude, if you're on The Daily Caller for ANY reason, you're getting polluted with all sorts of bad scripts, and I ain't talkin' about computer code...

The new blog looks good although I am not exactly thrilled with the size but I'll adapt. Maybe I'll try the tablet later.

In other news ( because woo . like rust, never sleeps)...

Mikey Boy ( Today, Natural News) shrieks about the fake news/ lame stream media proclaiming his bro's ( Alex Jones) products exceeding standards for lead.
Mike offers a suggestion how AJ can fix the problem ( i.e. call the supplements 'food') and how his fabulous** lab could have been of use by prior testing

** in the original use of the term

The interesting thing about NN's proclamation of an anti-Infowars conspiracy and his lab's offer to save the day, is the statement that no one has ever found high heavy metals levels in NN's supplements.

If true, does that mean no competent, respected lab has ever tested them? It'd be interesting to see such results, not to mention subsequent conspiracy theorizing over the level of contaminants found.*

*since elsewhere there's been reporting down to the level of _parts per trillion_ of glyphosate, it's hard to imagine that the NN supplement empire could possibly be free of contaminants. And as the Food Babe has informed us, there's no safe level of any chemical. :(

@ 88hardindr

I was wondering if anyone knew how to contact Tim Lambert of the Deltoid Blog.

https://theconversation.com/profiles/tim-lambert-3502

might work. It looks a bit old

Very strange.

Don't get out much, do you, Travis?

@Hardindr & jrkrideau, Lambert knows.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2017/10/20/scienceblogs-is-shutting-dow…

Thanks Julian

I had Jackson for one of my undergrad E&M classes.

So did I, as it happens, but Jackson is normally a graduate level text. That about 40% of the students in my ostensibly undergrad class were grad students should have tipped me off that something was amiss.

I used the then current second edition (they are now on a third edition). It was my most expensive undergraduate textbook, at $54.50 new (I rarely bought used textbooks, because I had learned by then that if the textbook was any good it was not available used). Amazon is selling the hardcover third edition new for $81.95, which is less than it has been: a few years back the subject of high textbook prices came up on Chad Orzel's blog, and at the time the book apparently cost about $180 new.

That about 40% of the students in my ostensibly undergrad class were grad students should have tipped me off that something was amiss.

I presume this was intermediate E&M, not freshman (for which we used Purcell; this was kind of a clusterf*ck, because the Berkeley series wasn't used for freshman mechanics [don't recall] or optics [Hecht & Zajak]).

^ Oh, right, it must have been Halliday & Resnick for mechanics. Kinda pricey for only a single quarter.

@Sadmar:

Will we get the ability to edit comments, a la Disqus?

The live comment preview such as used at Popehat might satisfy your desire in this regard. I don't have time right now to check whether it's this or something else, and it is a bit busy, and I furthermore don't know how pocket-rocket friendly it is, but so it goes.

they put the differential term directly ahead of the integral symbol, like this: ∫∂x·4x³

Hey, Fυcklesworth, just out of idle curiosity – completely aside from your inability to do the Unicode spacing correctly – why did you use a partial here? Do you know what the element of integration is?.

What's your preferred approach to making the concept of an infinitesimal mathematically rigorous, other than dopily screwing up the notation?

And the box of blinky lights has arrived in Manchester for QEDCon

oracknows — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 07:00:13 +0000

And the box of blinky lights has arrived in Manchester for QEDCon

As you probably noticed, I didn't manage a post yesterday. Nor did I manage one today, other than this. That's because I was busy preparing for QEDCon, where I will be on a panel and giving a talk, and, of course, putting together my talk. As I write this, I'm horrendously jet lagged; so I probably couldn't write much that's coherent anyway. Consequently, there likely won't be any new posts until next week.

I will take a moment, however, to mention that there will be significant changes to this blog in the near future. It's a process that will likely take a couple of weeks, and I'll update you as I go along. I've told a handful of my readers what the change will be and why it's necessary, and others might have guessed. Fear not, though. I'll update you as I go along, and all will be clear soon. I've been doing this blog for nearly 13 years. It's such a part of my life that I can't imagine not doing it any more. So I will continue.

oracknows Fri, 10/13/2017 - 03:00

Tags

No worries, oh glorious box of lights. Times may be tough without our regular fix of Insolence, but I'm sure we'll survive.

I hope you recover from the jetlag soon, those things can be awful. And of course have fun the next few days! :)

That's good news. I enjoy this blog so much, it's one of the first things I read in the morning.

Have a good conference, a good weekend, and safe flight home!

Welcome to England Mr Box of Blinky Lights. Hopefully the changes aren't too drastic!

Welcome to England Mr Box Of Blinky Lights!

Orac writes,

I’m horrendously jet lagged...

MJD says,

The Nobel Prize for Medicine was given to scientists studying circadian rhythms?

In an article from treehugger (October 2017) titled, Nobel Prize for Medicine goes to scientists studying circadian rhythms, author Lloyd Alter writes, "Circadian rhythms have never got the respect they deserve from lighting designers, architects or engineers, often thought of as pseudoscience. But over last few years, they have been getting more attention."

https://www.treehugger.com/health/nobel-prize-medicine-goes-scientists-…

Have fun!
Since we are continually fighting the battle against confirmation bias and post hoc reasoning, I thought this article on common superstitions might be of interest, especially today!

https://www.livescience.com/14141-13-common-silly-superstitions.html?ut…

I will be on a panel and giving a talk, and, of course, putting together my talk

Extemporaneity, after all, is the soul of public speaking.

I predict you will convert to an https website with an invalid https certificate or implementing a security protocol that is not supported by the Safari browser on the iBook. Either way, I won't be able to see you website anymore and I will miss it. For a little while.

Hmm.

Because the article is written on my main blog, pointed to by this link. I will no longer be writing articles on the Scienceblogs.com blog, just pointers for the next few weeks, then nothing .
So, really, “elsewhere” is not “elswhere” but here, just a slightly different URL. Virtually the same thing!

See you on the other side …..

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/10/10/hacking-voting-machines/#c…

Extemporaneity
Is that the same as "drinking beer and ranting"? Asking for a friend.

Enjoy - I've been pleasantly surprised by the difference between Manchester c. 1978 and Manchester c. 2017.

Orac writes,

I’ve told a handful of my readers what the change will be and why it’s necessary...

MJD say,

Unfortunately, I'm not in your inner circle of "readers" but I'm anticipating that the forced changes are:

1) The Orac nym is no longer acceptable;
2) auto-moderation is no longer acceptable;
3) the use of the F-word is no longer acceptable; and
4) based on ambiguity, the word "anti-vaccine" is no longer acceptable language from the moderator.

I'd be thrilled with at least one of these coming to fruition.

Then you will be disappointed.

“Orac auto-moderates fucking anti-vaccine loons.”

4 out of 4, in 5 words, and in order. They almost write themselves.

Johnny
The Bad One

The cat is out of the bag.
http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2017/10/14/qrt/

The cat is out of the bag.

I thought something was up when the blog got a new favicon a couple of days ago....

Stay safe in your travels, and I hope everything goes well!
:)

Hey, did you see this! https://risk-monger.com/2017/10/13/greed-lies-and-glyphosate-the-portie….
Not on this subject but answers how this whole glyphosate BS started.

Post-NECSS thanks

oracknows — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 06:40:39 +0000

Post-NECSS thanks

As you can see, I don't have a new post ready for today. I attribute that to having been so busy at NECSS over the weekend that, by the time my wife and I got back on Monday late afternoon, we were pretty much beat. So I decided to do the American thing and take July 4 completely off, which means no post today.

I'd like to thank the NECSS staff for managing to put together a fantastic conference under very trying conditions. There was a fire in the basement of the building where the hall where NECSS was scheduled to be held is located, which caused some smoke damage to the air conditioning units. The NYFD would not allow the hall to be used until the AC was inspected, cleaned, and, if necessary, repaired. This led to every event planner's worst nightmare, and the NECSS planners came through brilliantly.

In any case, my talk was entitled Whither the antivaccine movement in the age of Trump. Whenever the video is available, I'll provide a link. Perhaps I'll do a post that summarizes my talk, although it might be a bit repetitive to regular readers here, because it was more a bringing together of disparate themes commonly discussed here into (what I hope) was a coherent story. And I'll stop being lazy and produce more material tomorrow...

oracknows Wed, 07/05/2017 - 02:40

Tags

Antivaccine nonsense

Skepticism/Critical Thinking

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/09/29/gary-kompothecras-and-char…

Hope you have a productive July 5th.

Will you have some RI related to climate-change denialism in the near future?

Here comes the Sun and I say, it's all right..... - George Harrison

I will look forward to the video as Mr Lapdog refused to attend something again that starts early in the morning but doesn’t allow him to take his latte into the auditorium. Maybe I’ll come on my own next year.

In the photo above it is clear the cap for your water bottle is missing.

Are you playing with it under the table, Orac?

I've was taught at a young age that there is no such thing as a bad question.

Trump hasn't been as bad as I thought he might be when it comes to vaccines. The administration seems to have abandoned the idea of setting up a "vaccine safety commission" led by RFK Jr., and his pick for FDA director is pro-vaccine.

Also, it looks like Trump is going to appoint Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald to be the next CDC director.

I don't know anything about her, aside from the fact that she is currently the head of the Georgia Department of Public Health, but I did see that Ginger Taylor is upset that Trump is choosing Dr. Fitzgerald, and if Ginger Taylor is opposed to Dr. Fitzgerald appointment as CDC director, I think it's pretty safe to assume that Fitzgerald is at least an OK choice for that position.

Hopefully, Trump's long history of anti-vaccine views won't have any impact on the decisions he makes as POTUS. So far, it hasn't (the meeting between Trump and RFK Jr. was before he was inaugurated), and I hope that continues.

We want to see videos of the NECSS.

I was there, and I enjoyed the presentations very much.

You need to watch out, though. You might develop a reputation as a pill pusher!

Yes, the anti-vax blogosphere is losing their minds over this potential appointment - since it is exactly the opposite of what they wanted Trump to do.....they just don't understand that Trump will do exactly what's good for Trump, and to hell with everyone else.

darwinslapdog,
The no drinks/latte policy was not luckily not enforced. I was prepared for caffeine deprivation, but fortunately, the worst did not come to pass. :)

At least she won't have to move house to take up the position, which may be a factor in government recruitment these days.

@Lawrence-Yes, I've seen that too. First Trump decides not to set up a bogus "vaccine safety commission", then he actually makes reasonable picks for FDA director and surgeon general, and now it appears that he'll make a reasonable pick for CDC director.

The anti-vaxxers absolutely hate it, of course...they were so sure that Trump would advance their "cause", so to speak.

Some anti-vaxxers also seem to have an inflated view of their importance/influence, too...for example, Jake Crosby wrote a letter on his blog asking Trump not to appoint Dr. Fitzgerald, and in his letter he wrote that "many" people voted for Trump because of Trump's anti-vax views-a claim that is obviously false. Most people didn't even know that Trump was anti-vax until he met with RFK Jr.

I'm not sure if Jake's ridiculous claim that "many" supported Trump because he is anti-vaccine is because he, like many anti-vaxxers, lives in an echo chamber and only hears others with views similar to his, or if it's because he (perhaps due to his autism) lacks perspective and cannot understand that very, very few people think about vaccination policy when deciding who to vote for.

Awww crap!
Orac in NYC and I didn't even know!

Maybe this President realizes vaccines are a "third rail". If so, concern is even more so if there is a second term.

@ Jonas

I've been saying here for months not to worry about Trump doing anything about vaccines, though there's still no reason for anyone here to give a sigh of relief.

To amplify what Lawrence says about Trump doing what's good for Trump, he defines that as gaining material advantage for himself, as 'winning' over some opponent. He has no anti-vax views because no views of any kind. Whatever ideologies he blurts are dispensable/mutable/reversible in the pursuit of "the art of the deal."

What we can say about Trump is that he displayed 'anti-vax sympathies'. His consistently stated position is 'vaccines work, but the little babies get too many at once". By his standards, that's a moderate position, evidence of a negotiating navigation between two opponents while keeping both on his side. I doubt he'd be saying anything about vaccines if not for his close personal and financial relationship with hardcore anti-vaxer Gary Kompothecras. He has to make some anti-vax-ish noises to keep Kompothecras happy. But there's not enough money or power in anti-vax land for Trump to be able to gain anything by going any farther than he has already. On the other hand, The Donald is tight with the money guys in Big Pharma. I don't think Orac has ever mentioned that the last time Trump had to make a financial disclosure, pharma stocks were the second largest chunk of his personal portfolio, following only Big Oil securities. And, yup, the pharmas helped feed his campaign coffers, as they do for any GOP pol (including the ones more overt with anti-vax stuff than Trump) as long as they support de-regulation. Of course, from the corporate perspective, the only thing they like as much as de-regulation is "tort reform", laws that make them harder to sue. So absolutely the last thing Donald Trump would ever do is mess with the vaccine court.

Trump did NOT 'have a meeting with Andrew Wakefield'. That was anti-vaxer propaganda hyperboie. What happened is that Kompothecras arranged to have Trump give a short audience to a small contingent of well-heeled anti-vaxers at a large fundraising event in Florida, and the potential donors brought Andy along for a photo op. He did have a 'real meeting' with RFKJ – I'd guess again to soothe Kompothecras – and whatever was said in private, Junior went overboard (if not full fantasy) in talking about it publicly, and that was the end of that.

And really, with all the domestic and international crises, and Trump's obsession with the press, anyone who thinks vaccines make his daily agenda one way or another now is simply untethered to reality.

But, for all the "not what we feared", the result may be far worse for keeping VPDs ion check. We're back to just 'repeal' on the ACA, and Paul Ryan's dreamed Medicaid cuts may still get passed and signed. This administration and Congress could be a general disaster for public health, and there certainly would be consequences for vaccines in low income communities. Since Tom Price has extreme views on individual physician autonomy, and the anti-government crew will be positively inclined to 'health freedom', we could see some legislation in that direction absent language or discussion about vaccines that would nevertheless make it easier for Bob-esque doctors to dole out sketchy exemptions and/or make state vaccine requirements for schools almost impossible to enforce.

You may now join me in return to trying to avoid the news on North Korea...

@ Chris H.

Uh, no. Vaccines aren't even close to a rail in our contemporary politics. A rusty little finishing nail in a deserted field, maybe, and in political terms the current running through it is so far from fatal it doesn't even register on the instruments.

And if there's a second Trump term, we're all f****d beyond any hope anyway.

Trump did NOT ‘have a meeting with Andrew Wakefield’. That was anti-vaxer propaganda hyperboie. What happened is that Kompothecras arranged to have Trump give a short audience to a small contingent of well-heeled anti-vaxers at a large fundraising event in Florida, and the potential donors brought Andy along for a photo op.

Citation, please? Evidence for this assertion, please?

Kent Heckenlively reports that it was a meeting that lasted over an hour. Now, Kent might be a deluded antivax fool, but he's not, as far as I've ever been able to ascertain, a liar. He could be mistaken, but in this case I tend to think he probably isn't.

Hi Sadmar,

I will agree vaccines don't seem to rate as "big", but if there are a lot of VPD outbreaks in the next 3 1/2 years and the media can pin them on the anti-vaxedness of this President, a lot of people would (IMHO) view that as unforgivable. Hopefully this is also realized in all this health care plan legislation as well, because as it stands, a lot of financial support for the VFC (Vaccines for Children) program could be gutted and that would decrease vaccination rates because not all children in poverty would be able to get them at no cost.

Jake's endorsement of Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald is a good sign for her prospects. Jake's previous endorsement of Ari Ne'eman, after all, led to Ari's 5 years on the National Council on Disability.

He did have a ‘real meeting’ with RFKJ – I’d guess again to soothe Kompothecras – and whatever was said in private, Junior went overboard (if not full fantasy) in talking about it publicly, and that was the end of that.

I suspect that Junior may well have accurately relayed the content of the meeting. And it don't mean a thing.

I suggested, on this very forum back in the day, that nothing would come of it, and that Trump was treating Junior just as he had treated Mitt Romney.

RFKJr and Romney said bad things about Orange Thinskin prior to the election. After the election, they have one-on-one meetings with the Orange One, and say nice things about him afterwards. Then they don't get what Trump promised them - SecState for Romney, vaccine commission for RFKJr.

But Trump got what he wanted, kind words from former detractors. He's a dick, but he ain't stupid.

I really enjoyed your talk at NECSS this year and you deserve a day off.

Chris Hickie: I will agree vaccines don’t seem to rate as “big”, but if there are a lot of VPD outbreaks in the next 3 1/2 years and the media can pin them on the anti-vaxedness of this President, a lot of people would (IMHO) view that as unforgivable.

I don't know where you're getting that idea. Trump voters and most Republican politicians- well, most Americans really- are A-OK with letting old people and kids STARVE, so I can't see them do more than shrugging if a lot of kids die from measles.
(Of course, if rubella comes back, it's going to get interesting, since people care a lot more about fetuses than they do about actual living children.)

Jonas: I think you're giving most of the country WAAY too much credit if you're assuming they're thinking at all.

MJD - everyone's caps on still on the water bottles in that image, as I can see.. Yes, there is such a thing as a stupid question.

Who cares, or how is the rotation of the earth affected if anyone is playing with a cap under a table??

Crazy time!

Jane Ostentatious (#22) writes,

Who cares...

MJD says,

The absence of a cap on Orac's water bottle may indicate a lack of empathy for others.

If the speaker table was bumped and all five of the water bottles tipped over, Orac and his companions would be in a very uncomfortable situation.

In my opinion, Orac's insensitivity to vaccine contraindications often places himself, and his minions, in a very uncomfortable situation when it comes to public safety.

Q. How is a water-bottle cap like a vaccine contraindication.

A. Both need to be taken seriously.

Trump did meet with Wakefield,but it was before he became president.

Andy also attended one of the inaugural balls.

@ Orac #16

My primary source was the story in Science Roger linked. Key details: 45 minute with donors at a fundraising event. Kompothecras, Blaxill Larson and AJW participated. I'm not saying Trump didn't know Andy would be there. But since Trump was there to raise serious money – which the first three have but Andy doesn't – it's fairly obvious they were the targets and primary talkers, with Andy supplying support. Larson's quote in the article suggests the contingent had prepped a sort of organized group presentation for the Donald in which each of the four 'activists' delivered a part in turn: "Andy told him about Thompson and gave him Vaxxed." And that was apparently the extent of Andy's roie.

While it's technically not false to say "Trump met with Wakefield" it's very misleading. It suggests they had a one-on-one sit down to have a discussion about vaccine policy. That's not what it was. I don't think there's any question Trump did do one of those with RFKJ, but the Florida event was a quid pro quo where the well-heeled AVs got Trump to listen to their concerns in return for the prospect of a donation.

In saying Andy was just there for the photo op, I was exaggerating in an attempt to balance the scales, and extrapolating that he'd been included in large part because they wanted to present it as "Trump meets with Wakefield". One of the others could have told Trump about Thompson and handed him Vaxxed. I'm sure they thought it would be more impressive if they had their 'star' performer, an actual (ex)-doctor, there in person. So Andy helped them spin their cause to Trump, and Trump helped them spin Andy's prominence to their fan-club.

I concluded it was Kompothecras's show because it was in Florida, and he's the one with a prior relationship with Trump. I don't remember specific sources, but there are numerous references here and there that suggest the two have been close for some time, and Kompothecras is the "many close friends" Trump knows who saw their kids turn autistic after their vaccinations.

Fancy that! sadmar did what he accuses me of doing. He "exaggerated" and "extrapolated." Interesting... ?

In any case, I've known about Gary Kompothecras and his activities supporting the cause of antivaccine pseudoscience and autism quackery since at least 2010, when he used his clout as a major Republican donor (particularly to then-governor Charlie Crist) to try to bully the Florida Department of Health’s Division of Disease Control to turn over sealed health records of Florida children to antivaccine quacks Mark and David Geier for a bogus retrospective "vaxed versus unvaxed" study.:

He's also supported "vaccine freedom" bills to let parents delay vaccines and to ban any mercury-containing vaccines for use in pregnant women:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/major-gop-political-donor-gary-komp…

Indeed, when I first heard about Wakefield's meeting with Trump, I strongly suspected that Kompothecras must have been involved, because he's a wealthy Florida Republican donor with a lot of juice in the local Republican Party and because he's a chiropractor known for his seriously antivaccine views. It therefore made a lot of sense that he would be likely to have supported Trump in the primaries. Even if he didn't, he's a die-hard Republican and would support the party's nominee no matter what, and by mid-August Trump was the nominee. This suspicion, of course, was soon confirmed, and it was revealed that Kompothecras brokered the meeting. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if Kompothecras had something to do with setting up the meeting with RFK, Jr. in January as well, although there isn't any evidence that I'm aware of yet that he did. Be that as it may, you seem to be arguing for a distinction without much real difference.

Think of it this way. What's worse? If Trump met with Wakefield or if Trump met with a group of four prominent antivaxers that included Wakefield in order to discuss donations to his campaign for which a quid pro quo would clearly be on the table? To me, it's far worse that he met with wealthy antivaccine donors who expected something, policy-wise, for their donations and brought Wakefield along to make their case more persuasive than it would have been had he just met with Wakefield alone. Think about it this way, too. Why would Larson, Kompothecras, and Blaxill have wanted to invite Andrew Wakefield along when he didn't have any serious money to contribute? The answer is obvious to anyone who's studied the antivaccine movement. Wakefield is a rock star. He's charismatic and, above all, very, very persuasive to people who don't know the science of vaccines and autism. His "CDC whistleblower" story is a conspiracy theory, and we all know that Trump loves conspiracy theories. He is easily persuaded to believe them.

Also, Kompothecras is far more a member of the "mercury militia" anti-thimerosal wing of the antivaccine movement. So, to a lesser extent, are Larson and Blaxill, who worked together with SafeMinds and were part of Age of Autism, which started out as more of an anti-thimerosal antivaccine group before broadening to just an antivaccine group. Wakefield originated the anti-MMR wing of the antivaccine movement. That makes him important to include.

So, yes, Trump met with four antivaxers, but Wakefield was clearly the star attraction, because he had a story that would convince Trump that something was wrong at the CDC. We have no idea how long it took Wakefield to "tell Trump about Thompson," but somehow I doubt it was a minute or two, and a handoff of a DVD of VAXXED to Trump. The story, even boiled down to its essence for 45 minute meeting that includes three other advocates, takes longer than that to tell, and, believe me, Wakefield is an attention hog. I can't know this, but I'd be willing to bet that he tried to make the most of his face time with Trump, particularly given that the other three in the room are not exactly the most scintillating personalities, although Kompothecras is a bit of a blowhard.

All of the above is why I see your criticisms as harping on a distinction that, when it comes right down to it, doesn't represent much of a difference. "Trump met with Wakefield" is little different in my book from "Trump met with a group of antivaxers that included Wakefield." Indeed, again, I consider the latter to be worse.

Hey Chris H.

OK, I see what you're saying about how outbreaks could become an issue, but vaccines are hardly a third rail now. Even if we do get outbreaks, I'm not sure Trump or the GOP would get the blame, and I still think with Korea and Russia and yadda yadda yadda, a VPD problem would hardly dominate the news cycle enough to get genuine mass attention.

From the beginning, my point has been two pronged
1) forget the AV sympathetic rhetoric; don't worry about the vaccine court, or who will head the FDA and CDC;
2) worry about the effect of the larger budgetary policies, underfunded and demoralized staff, general public health programs slashed, the effect in low-income communities.

There weren't that many folks besides me singing that song then. Now you and Orac at least are going there. Welcome aboard this train of woe. I should be 'bigger' than to say 'I told you so' to anyone, but I get enough grief here I can't help it. Not from you, Chris though, and thanks for that. Sorry I came off so snarky in #15. 'Peace, bro' :-)

The problem is that the AV-sympathetic rhetoric, who will head the FDA, and Trump's budgetary policies are all related. They are all of a piece.

I also refuse to believe that who heads the FDA and CDC doesn't matter, which seems to be your point. Of course it matters! It matters almost as much as budgetary polices. Someone like Dr. Fitzgerald (the current reported pick for the CDC) is likely to try to mitigate the damage that could be caused by budget cuts, rather than do nothing or exacerbate them. Also, she would be very unlikely to contribute to poor morale in the CDC, given her history directing Georgia's public health programs and her strong pro-vaccine advocacy. In fact, knowing a few people who work at the CDC (by e-mail acquaintance), I'd be willing to bet that the news of her as the likely pick to head CDC has lifted the morale there already. Remember, she will pick the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices as the terms of the current members end. That's big.

@ Orac

You took 'don't worry about the FDA/CDC appointments out of context. I only meant I didn't think Trump would ever appoint anti-vaxers at either agency. Some folks seemed to be worried he'd really put Andy at CDC or something. Of course, in a general sense those appointments do matter a lot, so the "don't worry" was just specifically about vaccines. Actually, I was indeed worried he'd go with one of Theil's kooks at FDA, and Gottlieb is still awful.

I'd say I'm fairly overt about being hyperbolic sometimes, but I still apologize for the 'just a photo op' thing, which surely came off more literally than was warranted, even as overstatement. I'll still take issue with "Trump met with four antivaxers" as a proper description for the event, because i think the fact it was well-heeled anti-vaxers attending a fundraiser is key to understanding it. See, you take "Trump met with four antivaxers" as evidence he credited anti-vax enough to consider doing something pro-actively about it, like messing with the vaccine court. All I see it as is evidence he'll hit up anyone for money, support, and the stroking of his ego. You can bet he gave more fundraising face time to pharma execs during the campaign and got a lot more cash out of them, too.

As for the details of the meeting itself: sure Andy should have been the star if they were smart and self-aware. But that's not how Blaxill and Larson talk about it. They could have said "Mr. Trump listened to Dr. Wakefield", but they said "He listened to us". The real rock star at the meeting was Donald Trump, and I'm sure the fanboy folks with the money were going to get their face time within his aura front and center and take their turn catting him up no matter who else happened to be there. Trump, of course, is going to focus his attention on the folks with the moola, unless they say "No, let Dr. Wakefield tell it," and they didn't do that. Here's the full Larson quote:

Mr Trump met with autism advocates in August. He gave us 45 minutes and was extremely educated on our issues. Mark stated 'You can't make America great with all these sick children and more coming'. Trump shook his head and agreed. He heard my son's vaccine injury story. Andy told him about Thompson and gave him Vaxxed. Dr Gary ended the meeting by saying 'Donald, you are the only one who can fix this'. He said 'I will'. We left hopeful. Lots of work left to do.

So it was a 4 stage relay: 1) Blaxil touts the 'epidemic' numbers, 2) Larson details the personal angst of the parents of the 'vax-damaged', 3) Andy explains the CDC conspiracy angle, 4) Kompothecras closes with an appeal to Trump's vanity, offering him the opportunity to act as the savior of the children...

In the end though, my point is less about who was there than what the context was: a serious policy discussion is different from a fundraising schmooze. Again, my comparison is to Trump's meeting with RFKJ. That's the 'worst' of all, because if you want evidence Trump credits anti-vax views, it's not complicated by a motive to work Junior for $$. Trump may have been considering actually appointing Junior to something, though I doubt it. I still think the best explanation for that meeting is that Trump owed a favor to Kompothecras and/or other antivaxers who did actually give him money, but the publicity from the RFKJ meeting was the extent of what he intended to give them, and he never seriously considering alienating other more powerful supporters by following through with Junior on anything substantive. That's why Junior was perfect for the role – it gives them the out of 'well he's a Democrat and environmentalist, so of course they couldn't make it work'.

I guess I'll frame my bottom line here as an observation that both anti-vaxers and pro-vaxers are naive about politics. Both see politics through the lenses of their own biases and commitments, and are easily taken in by moves that are no more than 'optics', imagining them to have some significant import on substance where they actually have none. Put on some political specs, and you'll see there's just no way taking any kind of serious anti-vax action is a political win... no way it's anything but a loss. The GOP is great at playing their base with false promises. From Burton to Issa, Chafetz and Posey, the AVs have gotten nothing more than hot air. Those guys are minor league at playing the rubes compared to Trump. Do you really have any doubt Trump ran those meetings, and everybody else in the rooms got played? Hell, even Larson seems to have sensed Trump's "I will" was less than an ironclad guarantee.

Look, I'm happy Fitzgerald got the CDC post, will choose the members of that committee, etc. I'm just not that surprised. So I'm not turning somersaults that she'll mitigate budget and staffing damage that were unconscionable to begin with, and likely remain unconscionable despite her efforts. Trump wasn't going to put an anti-vaxer in there, but he could have nominated a hack, I suppose... I wonder if his pharma supporters were in the loop on the appointment, or if he just went with someone close to Newt Gingrich.

What does play politically is screwing over poor people to fund tax breaks for the 1%. Since the election, you've spent a lot of time worrying about Trump doing something antivax, and only today have I seen you give any attention to the consequences of broader healthcare policy on things like vax uptake in low income communities. Trumpcare has boomed in the headlines, and passed largely without comment here. I think we've confirmed now, with Fitzgerald's appointment, that you've been barking up the wrong tree. Don't double down out of defensiveness. You got it wrong, but that was yesterday. The question is always what we can learn today, and what we're going to do tomorrow.

I can't help but chuckle. You appear to be accepting Larson's recounting of what happened as the definitive account. Who's the naive one now? ?

I know these people. I daresay I'm far more familiar with them then you are. Mark Blaxill, Jennifer Larson, Gary Kompothecras, Andrew Wakefield. The rest of the antivaccine players who didn't meet with Trump. I know them all, as I have been following them for up to nearly 13 years depending upon which one we're talking about. (Indeed, Kompothecras is probably the one I've been following the least amount of time, and I've been following him seven years.) I know their histories. I know where they fall in the scheme of things in the antivaccine movement. I know their tendencies to self-aggrandizement. I know their rivalries. Larson is only marginally more believable than Wakefield; I wouldn't trust a word out of her mouth regarding her activities any more than I'd trust Wakefield, who two days after the meeting with Wakefield was bragging about his meeting and warning his followers that if Hillary Clinton were elected there'd be mandatory vaccination for children and adults within two years, an utterly risible claim.

As for not saying anything about Trump's policies and tax breaks for the rich, I don't say much right here on this blog because this is not primarily a political blog. If you were to follow me on Twitter or FB, you'd know that I've had a hell of a lot to say about Trump's proposed budget cuts to the CDC, NIH, NSF, etc., and the harm they are likely to cause. You'd also know that I've been bemoaning the very things you claim I haven't paid attention to, particularly Trumpcare and how it slashes Medicaid to fund a huge tax cut for the wealthy and how it could endanger public health. Again, I don't write about such things (much) here because this is not primarily a political blog, and those policies are mostly political in nature. Different tools for different messages, and all that. I don't expect you to be following the Orac social media empire, such as it is (that's self-deprecating sarcasm, son), but here's your chance now if you want to.

I would also argue that you are a bit naive as well if you think that taking an antivax stand can't be a political win. In the 2012 election cycle you'd have been correct. Now I'm not so sure any more. Texans for Vaccine Choice, for instance, has demonstrated that in the states that make up Trump's base, pandering to antivaxers can definitely be a winning political strategy, as the group has managed to scuttle a number of bills that would have tightened up vaccine exemption requirements, mandated school level reporting of vaccine exemption rates, etc. I note that Texans for Vaccine Choice is heavily funded by Empower Texans, the state's most powerful far right political organization. Indeed, didn't I recently discuss how fearful I was that state school vaccine mandates are becoming as politicized as climate science and what the results would be for that? The point is that the antivax movement has cannily tailored its message to apply to Ayn Rand-style small government (and anti-government) conservatives, and it'w working. Things are changing, and not for the better. The once rock-solid bipartisan consensus on vaccines is breaking down. Trump is both a symptom and cause of that breakdown.

Orac: The once rock-solid bipartisan consensus on vaccines is breaking down.

The consensus on everything is breaking down. People used to think that the elderly not starving was a good thing, or that kids maybe shouldn't spend a lot of time being hungry. Not anymore.

There's a huge prolife movement- there are zero pro-child movements. People don't even agree on whether women and minorities should vote, or that national parks are a good thing. Most people don't even like clean air or water anymore.

@ Orac #31

Well, I think your post today (Friday 7/7) is awesome. Again, I was only talking about the federal level, and your analysis of how antivax can be a winner at the state level is excellent IMHO.

I don't do Twitter. Let me rephrase. I couldn't do Twitter and retain what's left of my sanity. I just read here and SBM, so consider my comments to be about the blog, not about you. I do know there's more to your opinions and actions than what appears here, but I still have to say I think it would good to have more of that on RI. Science and medicine have never NOT been political in the wider sense, and never will be. Sure, at times in terms of electoral politics and governance there are subjects of bi-partisan consensus, and I understand the desire to avoid upsetting the applecart when those outcomes are good. But good or bad those bi-partisan agreements are always the result of process – hard won and subject to change when counterforces come into play. And I'm not going to pretend that merely acknowledging this always-politcal nature of things leads to knowing how to address it effectively: who and what to critique and in what tone, etc. How to focus and balance the insolence and the respect...

As for the Florida fundraiser meeting: Of course, Larson could be BSing. I'll spare you the semiotic analysis argument about why I think her account is (just) probably more accurate than not. I'll leave it as this question (and it's not rhetorical): If Andy had been the star performer of that meeting, do you think he wouldn't have crowed about it? (Like, a lot?)

There's not one thing in your last paragraph of #30 I take issue with. Including that I would be naive if I thought anti-vax couldn't win again at the state level. I can indeed be naive about some things, but that's not one of them. it's not going to come here in Cali, or involve pols like Jerry Brown anymore. But Texas isn't California, and neither is Michigan, or... well it's a depressing enough list, eh?

Thanks for the discussion. I think we agree on this more than not in the end, but I learn stuff by hashing it all out.

A little mid-vacation housekeeping...

oracknows — Sun, 11 Jun 2017 07:00:03 +0000

A little mid-vacation housekeeping...

So far, our vacation has been going quite well. We've hit two European cities, with today and tomorrow left where I am now and then on to the last one on Tuesday. Obviously, I haven't been paying nearly as much attention to this blog (or political news out of the US) as I normally do. It has been lovely. I'll be bummed out to have to go back to work on June 19.

Unfortunately, the remaining powers that be over at Sb seem to have done something to the blog. Search functions don't always work right, and—I'm not sure about this—some of my posts from years ago appear to have disappeared (or to be no longer so easy to find using the usual methods). Using Google Advanced Search and searching on the scienceblogs.com domain helps, but sometimes even that fails. I'll have to figure out what was done after I get back, although I might not be able to resist a quick e-mail before that.

More importantly, some new security feature has been added to this WordPress that sometimes locks out my iPhone from moderating comments. That means that often I can only moderate comments when I'm at our hotel. Please be patient. I do check them before I go to bed (usually) or after I get up, and, given how much the commenting volume has fallen during this blog hiatus, there usually aren't more than a few comments that get hung up in the filters and need to be set free.

Also, there will be a post tomorrow (or Tuesday, depending on my mood and whether I want to tinker with what's there). That is all. Off to our afternoon adventures! The newest existing posts are right below this one!

oracknows Sun, 06/11/2017 - 03:00

Tags

Tabarnache, you are supposed to be on vacation. Get out and tourist.

Oh and depending where you are, have a coffee, a beer, or a glass of wine while watching the passing crowd.

So far, our vacation has been going quite well

At first glance, I read this as "So far, our vaccination has been going quite well..." Ouch, how is that for narrow-mindedness on my behalf...
Perhaps it's time to follow Orac's good example and take a little time off, and broaden my horizon beyond this computer screen with its daily blog posts lamenting the antics of those of an alternative persuasion...

And I totally agree with jkrideau: just living in the here-and-now, without feeling any obligation, is very good for people every once in a while.

I agree with jkrideau: you are on vacation and should be relaxing. I envy your remove from the political circus. While I miss the blog, it will be all the more welcome when you return. In the meantime, enjoy yourself and don't worry about irrelevancies like blog links. In fact, just disconnect completely, it'll be good for you.

It really is rather odd being disconnected from US politics. I hear there was a hearing yesterday, for instance. :-)

I don't know of a better place to put this, so I'll put it here. Amid various other news today, there have been some developments in the Flint water case:

[Michigan Health Department head] Nick Lyon is accused of failing to alert the public about an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the Flint area, which has been linked by some experts to poor water quality in 2014-15.

The state’s chief medical officer, Dr. Eden Wells, was charged with obstruction of justice and lying to a police officer.

Lyon’s failure to act resulted in the death of at least one person, 85-year-old Robert Skidmore, special agent Jeff Seipenko told a judge.

The charge against Mr. Lyon is involuntary manslaughter.

Cloudskimmer (#3) writes,

In fact, just disconnect completely, it’ll be good for you.

MJD says,

The needs of the many far outweigh the needs of the one.

@ Orac,

Stay active in that disconnecting completely (i.e., cold-turkey) from RI after all these years could be harmful to your/our psychological well-being.

With respect, continue to be the best "wise-guy" in the science-based blogging community!

Best,

A concerned MJD :-)

Amid various other news today, there have been some developments in the Flint water case

I don't know that that's a development in the Flint water case. Freep was on it back in January.

(H/T, predicably, to Crawford Killian's H5N1 aggregator.)

^ G-ddamn Finkelstein sh*t-kid. The second link is anchored to the words "H5N1 aggregator."

Although Orac has missed much of the usual political crap, he ( most likely) also missed the awesome coincidence of
the Donald ( probably) learning that he is being investigated for obstruction of justice on his birthday!

Remember Orac to protect yourself; don't drink the water but the beer is just fine.

Rich@10: Actually, in Western Europe the water is generally safe, though not necessarily palatable. (Things could well be different east of Warsaw; I haven't been to those areas.)

Contrast with the United States if Trump and company get their way.

Eric,

I know the water is for the most part good to very good in quality (what of my jobs is ensuring water quality for the tribe I work for) but was a way to give Orac an excuse for drinking more beer or other beverage of choice for Mrs. Orac,

Even where I am moving the in January (Chiang Mai, Thailand) the city water is of decent quality although I probably will stick with bottled water until I connect a whole home water filter system up.

Leaving on a jet plane...I do know when I'll be back again

oracknows — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 07:00:36 +0000

Leaving on a jet plane...I do know when I'll be back again

By the time you read this, I will have arrived at an undisclosed location somewhere in Europe. My 25th wedding anniversary is today, and to celebrate my wife and I planned a nearly two-week vacation flitting about Europe. I won't announce where exactly, given that I've irritated a couple of European cranks in recent months, but those of you who are Facebook friends or who follow me on Twitter will likely soon see mentions and/or photos of where we're vacationing.

As this day approached, I contemplated what to do with the blog. I thought about just shutting it down for two weeks, but hesitated because in its twelve and a half year history, I've never shut Respectful Insolence down for longer than a few days, and, to be honest, I fear the traffic hit a bit. On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't give a rodent's posterior if my traffic plummets; I'm sure it'll recover. In any case, I'm certainly not going to be blogging regularly (if at all), although, me being me, I'd be surprised if I don't produce at least one new post during travel time (blogging is a lovely way to pass the time on a plane or train, and there will be a plane and train trips to different destinations, plus a long transatlantic flight with many hours to kill). Also, I have at least one post in the hopper scheduled for later, and I have a very long flight ahead of me with a lot of time to kill during which I could knock off another post or two.

So what I'll probably do is to post "reruns" most days and maybe the odd new post. (If I happen upon some major quackery action in Europe, who knows? I might not be able to resist.) If, as is likely, it turns out that I'm having such a good time that there's no downtime and I'm getting tired of spending even a few minutes each day to pick out an old post to repost, I'll stop doing reruns and let the blog lay fallow until after I return, hopefully refreshed and revitalized, ready to lay down some more Insolence. Tune in now and then to find out.

It feels really weird not to have a pager on my belt—in a good way.

oracknows Tue, 06/06/2017 - 03:00

Tags

https://www.redcross.org/donate/holiday-vaccinations

medicine

Happy Anniversary! Congratulations! Enjoy!

Have a lovely time!

Enjoy!

Happy Anniversary!!!

Have a wonderful trip.

Wishing the lovely Mrs. Orac a very happy anniversary. Oh and I suppose you too.

If your blog's hit rate drops, your pharma shill payments will also drop. Speaking of which, as a loyal minion and shill, I have not been receiving my payments. My lavish lifestyle won't pay for itself, you know.

Exactly! You understand my fear! :-)

Happy 25th anniversary to you and your honey!

@ Orac,

Temporarily release me from auto-moderation and I'll get this hive of African bees (Orac's minions) stinging out-of-control the next two weeks.

That's what I'd be afraid of.

Enjoy the trip. There are lots of wonderful places in Europe, and I hope you get to visit a few of them.

I've been to quite a few nice places in Europe over the years, and I know there are many more I have never been to--most of my trips over there have been the sort where you stay in one place for a week or two, getting to see that city reasonably well and maybe a day trip to some place nearby. I have found that package tourism, particularly the if-today-is-Tuesday-this-must-be-Brussels sort of trips, is not for me.

Wish you a happy anniversary and a nice trip in Europe.

I still consider myself more European than anything else, though it seems to be a bit impopular these times.

Happy anniversary to you and Mrs Orac! I hope you have a great vacation. I'll miss the daily Insolence, but you won't get rid of me that easily! :)

Mrs Orac must have the patience of Job--show her a good time. Reruns are fine. Many congratulations!

Happy Anniversary to Dr. and Mrs. Orac!

I hope you have a wonderful trip :)

Happy anniversary and holidays!
Enjoy and don't fall into any radon baths, say, in Germany :)

Happy Anniversary!

Happy anniversary! And have a nice holiday on our side of the pond!

Many happy returns to the Oracs!
*raises glass for a toast*

Have a great time ambling about in Europe, while I will practice being insolent elsewhere... in anticipation of the orange occupier of the White House, who will sadly be in my hometown a few weeks from now - if he'll finally find a place where he can stay.
(None of the local first class hotels wanted to host the US delegation, and, as of now, it seems the ones in our nation's capital don't want to either)

Happy anniversary- sung to the tune of the William Tell.

Enjoy Europe.

Congratulations on reaching 25 years, may you and Mrs. Orac have at least another 25 years.

Just a suggestion don't wear yourself out like I just did with 15 days in Thailand. I had to come back to work to rest.

Rich

25 years? You must, one day, tell me your secret... If there is some secret to it.

Best wishes for a happy vacation !

Congrats. Many happy returns.

Remember only two touristy things a day at most and lots of time in pubs/cafés/bodegas/restaurants or whatever for recovery. Touristing is hard work if you are not in training and people watching is a lot of fun while you recover.

Ren: "If there is some secret to it."

I guess it is different for everyone. We had our 37th wedding anniversary last month.

Orac, you both have fun! And I should remind you: provide pictures or it did not happen. ;-)

Ren: “If there is some secret to it.”

I guess it is different for everyone. We had our 37th wedding anniversary last month.

Orac, you both have fun! And I should remind you: provide pictures or it did not happen. Like his one I found that you took ten years ago in front of a homeopathic hospital in London:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/09/04/homeopathic-ambulances/

;-)

Touristing is hard work if you are not in training

I am a highly-trained professional, and if anyone wants to go touristing but does not have the necessary stamina, I am willing to take the air tickets and go touristing on their behalf.

Europe, huh? You picked a good time to go. I hear they have cars, and voting, and flush toilets and everything over there now.
Actually, given that the large soggy jack o'lantern that a minority of the American people has been embarrassing us in the eyes of the world, I recommend sticking Canadian flags all over your luggage and clothing. Also, if you go to Portugal, I recommend knocking off a bottle of vinho verde each per day, except for the days when you have one of the very good local beers. Come to think of it, I recommend spending every afternoon and evening in every country in a very slight alcoholic haze to give your memories that golden glow.
Or just do what you feel, have fun, recharge, etc.

Touristing is hard work if you are not in training

Depends what kind of touristing you are doing.

I grew up in an area that attracts lots of tourons. I trust that our host isn't one of these. "Touron" is a portmanteau of "tourist" and "moron", i.e., people who think that because they are on vacation their brains don't have to do any work. (Credit Carl Hiaasen for the term.) The category includes people who merely turn into gibbering idiots the moment they step on the plane, and more than a few Darwin Award candidates.

A work colleague grew up on a Greek island, and his family run a hotel there. He is even more intimately familiar with the type than I am.

I didn't know where else to put this.
http://www.cracked.com/article_24767_5-people-who-ruined-themselves-fig…
Take a look at entries #4 and #1.

Wow. Both Darwin Award winners. Actually, all of them except Wesley Snipes.

@Julian: Story #5 also involves a crackpot medical theory, though the guy who killed himself implementing it didn't have a medical background. I'm just old enough to remember hearing about Jim Fixx's ironic death from news reports, so I don't recall if there were disclaimers before then about consulting your doctor before undertaking an exercise program if you are over 40, but I do remember seeing such disclaimers shortly thereafter.

I also recall seeing news reports about the anti-seat belt activist from Nebraska. He calls to mind Robert Heinlein's quote about a universal death penalty for stupidity. Contra Heinlein, this penalty is not uniformly applied, but it certainly was applied in that guy's case.

I expect many RI readers will find today's XKCD amusing. As is usual with XKCD, hover over to see the punchline in the alt tag.

Happy anniversary - what a lovely way to celebrate!

@Eric - how did I not know this was a thing with xkcd?!

Happy Anniversary!! Have a wonderful trip.

Making donation in honor of you and your long marriage and admirably tolerant wife!

Celebrate Mike Pence’s birthday (and Orac's anniversary!!) with an annual gift to @PPact in his honor! Join me: d.shpg.org/309729527t #PlannedParenthood

Kudos Jay - supporting Planned Parenthood is one of the best things you can do.

I've donated for years to Planned Parenthood.

How about we consider making donations to the following organization's initiative in Jay Gordon's honor:

And don't forget to donate in Jay's name to a group supporting domestic vaccination efforts, such as Every Child By Two and vaccinateyourbaby.org

@Julian and Eric,

The Jim Fixx case is interesting because it illustrates two common claims of alt med, that something good for prevention like diet and fitness is also good for treatment, and the overselling of the benefits in cases where it has some value like type II diabetes.

But, the benefits of cardiovascular or aerobic exercise to prevent heart attacks were well established by Dr Cooper back in the 60's, so running for fitness is not nearly as crackpot an idea as Hulda Clark's zapper or starvation cures.

I've read a few things about Jim Fixx. According to another source, he was a bit fanatical about things.
Exercise is beneficial up to a point (about 140 minutes a week), but after that, over-exercise can actually reduce your health. Jim Fixx went beyond that limit, according to the other source I read. That is one of the reasons he had a heart attack.

# 27 Rockin' Dave

I recommend sticking Canadian flags all over your luggage and clothing.

Oi, are you trying to give us a bad name?

# 31 Eric Lund

It has been a very long time but IIRC President Eisenhower's personal physician (Paul Dudley?) was an ardent advocate of running for the good of your heart. And yes, he died of a heart attack.

He was probably older than Methuselah when it happened.

after that, over-exercise can actually reduce your health

This may not be true but why take the risk?

That would be Paul Dudley White: you got it close. However, he died of stroke at age 87.

jkrideau: "Oi, are you trying to give us a bad name?"
Orac choosing to be associated with one's nation is an honor. You should only be so lucky up there in the Great Cartographic Blank Spot.
Also, I am ambivalent about having the "Old" left off my handle. While somewhat pleased at all the senior discount that increasingly are coming my way, and being called "sir" a lot, and belonging to a SAGE group, and having overcome a great deal of various solid forms of excrement to have gotten this far, I tend to think of "Old" as just a kind of nametag, rather than a real part of my identity.

# 42 Se Habla Espol
That was him! Stroke ?

I really thought it was a heart attack but I was talking about a very vague memory of , to me, a very minor event very long ago.

Well I got a good part of the name right which for me is unusual! And good guess at the age. Put that Bible down!

Still, it just proves all this exercise is bad for you. He'd have lived to at least 100 without all that running. Time for another cookie.

Bon Voyage and Happy Anniversary, Orac and Mrs. Orac!

If you're going to be in Europe, you'd be remiss if you didn't visit Krakow. And Budapest.

I mean, sure, I've heard Paris and Milan are nice, but...

I loved the French countryside, but Paris was an annoying pit. Go to Europe, avoid some major cities like Paris, and according to my children.. avoid Amsterdam. They did like Copenhagen.

Okay, it is personal opinion.

Sad news, JP... the porcini season here finished early.

Spend a day in Amsterdam with some friends from the US, who liked it there.
I would prefer Delft, or perhaps Utrecht. Both have canals, like Amsterdam, but they are smaller. The canals in Utrecht have terraces close to the water. They can be seen in 'Amsterdamned'.

I've never been to Amsterdam (transiting at Schiphol Airport doesn't count), and my experience with Paris is limited to a part day between flights at CDG (morning arrival from US, evening departure to Asia, in between I stashed my suitcase at Gare du Nord and saw a few sights). But I have spent some time in London, Munich, and Stockholm, as well as various smaller cities. The main problem with London is that everything there is so bloody expensive: for a first-order estimate, take New York expense account prices and replace the dollar sign with a pound sign. Munich and Stockholm are great places to visit, and not quite as expensive (though you will find liquor is heavily taxed in Sweden).

I'd rather play tourist in any European city than in a North American city of similar size, because over there they actually take seriously the notion that many people might prefer not to drive. Even smaller cities like Bern (which is similar in population to Huntsville, AL, a city with no public transportation whatsoever) have well-developed public transport systems. One afternoon in Bern I took a tram to the end of the line, walked up a small mountain, and walked down the other side into one of the suburbs. The bus back to the city center was pulling away just as I was approaching the bus stop. I had to wait all of six minutes for the next bus.

Orac,

If you are self guiding don't always believe Google Maps. I rented a scooter (125cc) in Chiang Mai and basically got lost every time I road around and Google Maps did eventually help find my way back to the hotel. I did go to a post office and Google Maps said I had reached my destination which would be on my right. It was no where to be found but it was soon pointed out that it was on the left side of the road.

Today is a surreal day for me because I proposed to a young Thai lady at 3:01 am this morning.

Sad news, JP… the porcini season here finished early.

More sad news: I never did find any "spring kings." I suppose I was focusing on morels, therefore I was in the wrong kind of habitat. I did have some luck with morels.

I gather, from looking at the posts in various ID groups that I'm a part of on Facebook, that there are still plenty of mushrooms out there for the picking, in any case. I've seen people finding oysters yet, chanterelles already, chicken of the woods, etc. Must get out soon! (I was curtailed for a time because the temperatures here got up into the 90s, freakishly, which I find disgusting. They've since dropped about 30 degrees, though.)

Rich@51: Google Maps isn't the only one with problems. I am convinced that at least one major GPS map vendor has the addressing on my street reversed, because I have had more than one pizza delivery person show up at my front door when they were looking for the house at the other end of the street (notwithstanding that I have my address number on a mailbox next to the street, visible to traffic moving in both directions).

Things have improved, fortunately. There was a time when I would routinely see things like an instruction to get on the Mass Pike in a place where there is no onramp. An even more ridiculous case was the directions I got to attend a friend's wedding in New Jersey. First attempt: go through the Bronx, but instead of staying on I-95 the whole way across, get off and take some local streets for a while. Not wishing to drive in New York City, and specifically trying to avoid the George Washington Bridge, I attempted to set an intermediate point on the Tappan Zee Bridge. No problem: cross the bridge, exit immediately thereafter, cross the bridge in the other direction, and then head south to the George Washington Bridge (which was the route I was trying to avoid). "Favor Major Highways"? According to that website, the portion of I-84 east of Hartford (a motorway with three or more lanes each direction) was not a major highway.

I suppose I was focusing on morels, therefore I was in the wrong kind of habitat. I did have some luck with morels.

Oh good. Not much sprouting up under the trees here except blewits and slippery jacks. Which are meh, so I'm dehydrating them for later.
I did have a stategic stockpile of dried porcini from last year, but used up a lot of that yesterday, because a colleague and I are brewing a Porcini Porter

Today is a surreal day for me because I proposed to a young Thai lady at 3:01 am this morning.

I didn't propose yet but yesterday, I learned that the waitress at one of my favorite brewpub (no I didn't drink any alcohol) was single since two years. I asked her to a nice diner/lunch/meal and movie theater. She agreed to go with me.

Alain

Eric,

As long as the pizza is pre-paid you're golden.

Alain,

Try working with a 14 hour time difference. It is tomorrow for her now.

Congratulations to you both! Have a wonderful relaxing time - & if in Rome, try to get to the Borghese Museum. My SO is just back from a trip & swears the Borghese leaves all other museums in the shade.

Best wishes, kids**

** altho' considering the 25 years, perhaps I should have said " people"

If I happen upon some major quackery action in Europe, who knows? I might not be able to resist.

I had thought that recovering false memories was a bit of American quackery, now largely disappeared, but I was shocked to read today that it's alive and well in France, with some horrifying examples.

I'm horribly late, but that's better than never --

Happy Anniversary to the Oracs!!! :-)

On a (hopefully) brief temporary involuntary blog break

oracknows — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 14:30:32 +0000

On a (hopefully) brief temporary involuntary blog break

In case anyone's interested, the reason that there was no post today is because we had a rather massive windstorm here in the Detroit area that left 800,000 without power. Unfortunately, that number included my wife and me. I valiantly tried to take care of my blogging addiction last night, as the temperature in the house plunged to the 50s. With nothing but residual battery on my laptop and mobile hotspot from my phone I ended up giving up in order to save battery charge, particularly on the phone. Given that the power is still out and I'll be surprised if we get it back before tomorrow or Saturday, I can't predict whether I'll have a post tomorrow. Worst case scenario, I'll post a rerun from the vault that you can chew on or bang out a quick post someplace where there's heat and wifi (which we'll have if the cold forces us to stay in a motel tonight). I definitely should be back by Monday. I think.

It takes a lot to stop Orac from applying Insolence to pseudoscience and quackery. One of the biggest windstorms in his lifetime finally did it. (No jokes about wind.)

oracknows Thu, 03/09/2017 - 09:30

Tags

I hope it's fixed quickly, and y'all stay warm and safe.

Orac, as long as the food in the fridge or freezer doesn't go above 41 degrees for more than a couple hours; its good to go. You can safely refreeze food that hasn't gone above the 41 degree point.

(Hey, part of what I do is emergency management)

Stay warm! And hopefully up in the terribly cold north everyone knows not to bring gas heaters or grills or generators inside.

There was a terrible windstorm out here a few years ago and several people died of carbon monoxide poisoning because they brought their generators inside because they didn't want to disturb the neighbors with the noise.

I hope you have somewhere you can go in the meantime. I've been without power for three days on a couple of occasions, and it's not fun. With 800k people not having power, it will take a while to restore it to everybody.

I don't know how far out of town you live, but if you need to run a pump for any reason (well water and keeping the basement dry are the two most common reasons where I live), you should definitely have a generator on hand, just in case. Ask the gas company about it if you are connected to a natural gas supply system--they can get you one that runs on natural gas, and those tend to be quieter and less expensive to operate than gasoline-powered generators.

One of the most common mistakes is to bring a hibachi into the house to cook with.

You have my sympathies, Orac. Been there, done that.

I'm sure we'll manage to keep ourselves occupied. Stay safe, and stay warm, and hope your weekend turns out better.

I'll just sit out here in the courtyard in the sun and read some papers.

In early December 2015 there was a big ice storm that downed our power line. It was followed by unusually cold weather for early December. Our power was out three days, because that's how long it took the power company to get to us. Not fun. I need to buy a generator. A good one. I should have gotten the last time this happened. We seem to be in an area prone to power outages. Not as bad as our house in NJ when we lived there, but prone nonetheless.

HDB, my retirement plans (9 months, 22 days but who's counting) is to move to a nice warm location.

Orac, if you do not have natural gas available in you area go with a propane powered generator. Propane does not degrade over time like gas does. Also, get a generator that has about a 1/3 more capacity than your normal home power usage during peak usage. Running a generator at lower than peak capacity lowers fuel usage, allows additional uses(unexpected loads), and in general adds a longer life expectancy to the general. The generator I specify for my health center was a 500KW (you probably need about 25-30kw) and our max usage is 230KW.

If you happen to have a tauntaun and a light sabre.......

A good time to brush up on your Quintet skills.

Would be interested to know what was the wind-speed. Hope your house was not damaged.

If there were downed trees please replant.

Squirrels and birds are good neighbors that also need a home.

I'd suggest something that suits your personality (e.g., Weeping Willow). ;-)

Obviously God's punishment for participating in holding back cancer cures! Shame on you! Praise the Lord and pass the antineoplastons!

... go with a propane ...

It doesn't happen very often anymore, what with global warming, but in rural areas around here people occasionally have to build fires under their propane tanks because the propane is too cold to evaporate. This is something done with a certain amount of fear and trepidation.

My wife's cousin, who lives in the Detroit area, was having dental work done when the power went out.

Dental work. Power out.

We have friends who live where trees tend to fall in windstorms. Once right across their driveway which wiped out their truck.

They get water from a well, so they decided to get a good generator powered by propane because when the power goes out it not only gets dark and cold, but there is no water.

They get water from a well, so they decided to get a good generator powered by propane because when the power goes out it not only gets dark and cold, but there is no water.

We live in the mountains, where the power goes out when there are bad storms. I remember one winter, when I was a kid, when the power was out for a week.

We don't get winters like that anymore, but this winter has been a relative doozy. We have wood heat, and we don't have a generator; as soon as the power goes out, we draw a couple bathtubs full of water and that lasts us for the day or two it is out.

We tend to be the last ones in the area to get our power back on, as remote as we are...

I can definitely empathize. After Sandy we had no power for four days, and we were luckier than the rest of the neighborhood because our power comes from a different line. After five days the streets were cleared enough to go over to my brother. We hadn't been able to get in touch with them since the storm. They were okay though.
We lit the gas burners with a barbecue lighter and we took out the eggs and boiled them, and cooked some of the other stuff. We didn't open it again, and everything inside stayed good, even the milk..
Two things I saw that I will never forget: our dog retreated to her bed and at the peak of the storm she was staring wide-eyed like a human, something I've never seen in a dog any other time, and from the upstairs windows I could see up to the major power lines near the Expressway and I saw the transformers blow one after another with brilliant white flashes, almost like arc welders.
Here's hoping you come through at least as well as we did.

This is what happens when you trust in "Big Energy". Forget that generator, though...here's a patriot that will show you how to go off the grid forever with just a few hundred dollars in supplies (and $27 to his bank account). And if you buy that, I've got some ocean front property for you here in Arizona.

Seriously, though, hope you're getting some power back on really soon.

Hope you're all ok - fingers crossed for a swift return of power!

Sorry to hear about the bad weather.

Hope you can manage to stay safe and warm.

Top wind gusts were 68mph, near Detroit and near Saginaw. They were over 60 mph quite a few places. Ground was not super wet but was thawed in most of the areas of high winds so some uprooting occurred, and would have been more if there had been leaves on trees. Tree breakage mostly confined to compromised trees, but there are more of those than you think, as gets proven at these times. I merely have sticks all over the yard, and one large elm "stump" about 30 feet long that fell over the garden, proving I should have felled it previously, but it's not a big deal. It was what remained of one tree after a 2012 tornado removed most of my woods. Well, actually, some of the trees are still there, dead, and have supplied me with beautiful bark for the past few years, but gave most of the oaks, hickories, and cherries away to worthy causes. My garden walkways are gorgeous.

We had a dead tree in our yard that the tree service didn't want to take down for various reasons, not the least of which was that they thought it was unsafe. It was uprooted. Fortunately it didn't hit any power lines or buildings. It did, however, buckle a section of our fence, although a lot less than I would have guessed. I'm not even sure we need to replace it if we don't mind a bit of a curve in the top of the fence.

I learned something too. Douglas fir trees, though very solid looking an weighing tons, are actually able to fly in MI. People sometimes ask me (cause I'm a botany nut) how big Doug's can grown here, compared to where they are native out west. I still often answer to ask me again in about 500 years, when I'll know better, but I think the real answer might be that they will never become old trees here, cause the winds will kill them at some point before then. Consider not planting trees that want to be over 200 feet tall here.

@rork: They get some pretty fierce winds out west, too--winds that have been known to shake bridges apart.

That wind storm hit my neck of the woods yesterday. My house lost power sometime after I left for work in the morning. We got it back around 10:15 AM, to judge from the time my oven clock was showing when I got home.

I'd recommend a whole house generator system, there are propane models and models that'll run off of natural gas.
That and an automatic transfer switch and it'd come right on as soon as the power goes out. Figure around $8 - 10k for it and installation.

We had an outage last weekend, but fortunately, in this area, outages are typically quite brief. I still had a half hour remaining on my UPS battery, so I didn't have to try to limp the car to the office to finish my shift.

Well, off to order the thermal fuse and pre-heater thermostat for the clothes dryer. We got the unit for a song and it turned out that the heater coil was tack welded to the frame, leaving the element constantly on, which killed both that thermostat and the thermal fuse.
Then, off to change my oil in the car, assuming the replacement oil filter can be found (someone mistakenly took it out of the car and didn't bother putting it back into the car and now, it's been "put away").

our dog retreated to her bed and at the peak of the storm she was staring wide-eyed like a human, something I’ve never seen in a dog any other time

Every time there's an earthquake our Siamese glares at us, gives us real stink-eye, because it's apparently our job to keep the ground stable. "You house-apes had just one job..."

A few years ago, we have a massive ice storm where I used to live in North Carolina. School was canceled, and I was stretched out on the couch enjoying my time off.

I could hear ice cracking and falling as the temperature rose . . . then I heard a KABOOM! and my whole house shook. I thought a tree had landed on my house. It had landed on my neighbor's house with such force I felt it in mine. :o

The damage could have been worse; caved in the soffets and wrecked the front porch. I took photos for the insurance company, and a good thing since they couldn't wait for an adjuster with all the other damaged houses in the area. They had to take the tree apart and start temporary repairs to make the house livable.

That's when I noticed one of their (pine) trees was so far bent over my garage, it was a miracle IT hadn't snapped and hit my house.

When I first moved to the PNW we had a terrible windstorm that absolutely destroyed the regional electrical grid. And by destroyed I mean that in some more suburban/ex-urban places it took a biblical 40 days to restore power, because the trees didn't just knock down the power lines, the lines themselves shredded.

A coworker had a freezer full of breastmilk that managed to stay frozen until they could get power back (but they were only a few days).

Justa Tech, was that the Inauguration Day Storm in 1993?

That was the one where I was watching the roots of a conifer in the front yard heaving up the lawn. So I took grabbed my toddler and drove to a mall without tall trees, and then picked up his older brother from preschool.

When I got home I saw the top half of the conifer had broken off and landed where I my would have been parked. It did some damage to the garage. Fortunately the neighbors had already cleaned it up!

Sorry for treating this like an open thread, but I've just seen this, and feel the need to put it somewhere.

https://reasonablehank.com/2017/03/12/antivaxers-violently-react-immuni…

Australian anti-vaxxers seem to be losing their s#!t over a proposal to ban un-vaxxed kids from preschools.

Some conifers are quite fragile in high wind.

In my neck of the woods we have a fair amount of white pine, which grows tall and grows quickly. I dodged a bullet with the one that was next to my driveway (planted, as I discovered when I counted the tree rings, the same year the house was built) which had limbs growing through the utility lines (not the electric lines of course, as they do take care of that kind of thing, but they don't care about the phone and cable service strung along their poles). When the tree service guy came to give me an estimate, he knew before he stepped out of his car that I was asking about that tree. If it had come down in an uncontrolled fashion, it would have taken out my house, the neighbor's house, or the power lines.

Mr. Lund, imagine what that is like for someone whose property borders an elementary school playground. It was a Douglass fir, but the issues are similar.

Apparently the duties of a school custodian go beyond just making sure the refuse is discarded, he is the one that wrote the owners explaining that the tree was a danger to children. In reality they are the school property facilities manager. They know everything about the building/grounds, and it would be idiotic to ignore them.

@Chris:

Is it also the custodian's job to shoot the potential grizzly bears?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/18/betsy-devos-guns-school…

Happy Holidays to all...

oracknows — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 10:30:26 +0000

Happy Holidays to all...

Happy Holidays to all from everyone's favorite box of blinky lights. See you all on Monday. I'll still be checking occasionally for comments that need to be released from the moderation queue but won't be particularly active otherwise.

Until then, I leave you with Tim Minchin:

oracknows Thu, 12/24/2015 - 05:30

Tags

religion

Tim Minchin

White Wine In The Sun