history stuff

Antibiotic resistant bacteria found.... in the guts of ancient Peruvian mummies.

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so where did the Philistines come from?

They were sea peoples that were defeated by Egypt and resettled there.

and I was startled when I came across a line in the bible where the Lord said: You think you are a big shot because I resettled you in Canaan? Well, I also resettled the Philistines from Caphtor...

part of the Bronze age collapse/sea people story.

The reason that I was startled was that we have been brainwashed to see the bible as not a historical source. Dr David Nieman says this is nonsense: Although not written as history, the later books are quite accurate. His video snippets on ancient history are quite fascinating.

One of his latest posts is about Joseph in Egypt.



which includes a lot of speculation of what was going on there...


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There was a Bitumen trade? who wudda thot...

That is essentially the natural tar deposits found in the middle east etc.

aramcoworld has an article on the subject here.

For thousands of years before the first civilization in Sumer, the substance we call bitumen was already prized as an adhesive - the result, apparently, of an ancient hunter's discovery that he could attach his flint arrowhead to a shaft with a sticky black substance found in a nearby spring. Several millennia later, that same substance cemented one of the wonders of the ancient world, a man-made mountain built to "rival heaven" - the famous Tower of Babel (See Aramco World, January-February 1967).

In Egypt, it was used to preserve mummies, and many millennia later, with the coming of Islam, Muslim physicians began to prescribe it for skin ailments and wounds. In ancient times, bitumen was primarily a Mesopotamian monopoly.

Ban Dihydrogen monoxide and other chemicals

There is an old joke about "activists" getting people to sign a petition against a dangerous chemical called dihydrogen monoxide.

the webpage has many other terrible facts about this dangerous chemical

 Should I be concerned about Dihydrogen Monoxide? Yes, you should be concerned about DHMO! Although the U.S. Government and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) do not classify Dihydrogen Monoxide as a toxic or carcinogenic substance (as it does with better known chemicals such as hydrochloric acid and benzene), DHMO is a constituent of many known toxic substances, diseases and disease-causing agents, environmental hazards and can even be lethal to humans in quantities as small as a thimbleful.

 Research conducted by award-winning U.S. scientist Nathan Zohner concluded that roughly 86 percent of the population supports a ban on dihydrogen monoxide....

. A similar study conducted by U.S. researchers Patrick K. McCluskey and Matthew Kulick also found that nearly 90 percent of the citizens participating in their study were willing to sign a petition to support an outright ban on the use of Dihydrogen Monoxide in the United States.

Why haven't I heard about Dihydrogen Monoxide before? Good question. Historically, the dangers of DHMO, for the most part, have been considered minor and manageable. While the more significant dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide are currently addressed by a number of agencies including FDA, FEMA and CDC, public awareness of the real and daily dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide is lower than some think it should be....

 What are some of the dangers associated with DHMO?

Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment.

Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are: Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities. Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage. Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects. DHMO is a major component of acid rain. Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns. Contributes to soil erosion. Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals. Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits. Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes. Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions. Given to vicious dogs involved in recent deadly attacks. Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, and in hurricanes including deadly storms in Florida, New Orleans and other areas of the southeastern U.S. Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.

the list goes on.

and as most chemistry majors know, it is a joke, because dihydrogen monoxide is....water.

Improbable research links to Professor James Kennedy, who has devised posters/ illustration of other dangerous chemicals found in.... natural food.

ah yes, better living with chemistry.

and his website contains an essay explaining how all your "natural" food isn't natural, but is the result of 6000 years of manipulation by farmers.

of course, I should talk: We sell organic brown rice. No chemicals. healthier? Probably (vitamin B and all that) but more labor intensive, lower yields and too expensive for the poor to buy, not to mention all that methane released by flooding to destroy weeds naturally, instead of using herbicides.

If I seem ambivalent, it is because my religion is not the green religion, nor is it modern globalism. I figure we need both, and my problem is that activists prefer to be extreme and shout the sky is falling (send money) instead of seeing reality.

Less disease?

NYTimes article on killer disease on the decline.

a lot of this is change in diet...

but I wonder if a lot of the decline of heart attack and strokes are due to aggressive treatment of high blood pressure. Here in the Philippines, we frequently see people with a limp walking around. The limp is residual leg weakness after a stroke. Here medicine is too expensive and often blood pressure problems are not detected early.

We used to see a lot of this in the USA, but it became rarer since Aldomet was released in the late 1960s.

Heart disease is less too. Is it the ICU? That people are taking aspirin? Or the decrease in smoking, a major factor in heart attacks.

Colon cancer is the real dilemma. In the 1960's over half the cases were rectal cancer, easily found if you did a rectal exam and/or simple sigmoidoscope. . Now most cases are upstream, requiring a more complicated colonoscopy or barium enema. Why the change? I would say some of it might be from fiber in the diet (colon cancer is rare in parts of East and South Africa where high fiber diets are common). But the change of where the cancer was located started before the American diet started to change in the 1970's. But the graph shows the actual colon cancer rate dropped in the 1990's, which suggests it might indeed be fiber (20 year lag).

Deaths per 100,000 people, age 50 and older 

100

80

60

40

20

0

Colon
cancer deaths

If colon cancer
tracked cancer
over all

’75

’80

’85

’90

’95

’00

’05

’13

Source: SEER Program, National Cancer Institute (age-adjusted rates)

Screening might also be part of the picture, but I don't have the data on screening. The decrease in death rate might suggest screening and aggressive chemotherapy might be cutting down the death rate.

Another question: It is known NSAIDS, especially Ibuprofen/motrin cut the rate of colon cancer. Is this part of the explantion?

but here is a puzzle: Why is the dementia rate declining?

There are reasons that make sense. Ministrokes result from vascular disease and can cause dementia, and cardiovascular risk factors are also risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. So the improved control of blood pressure andcholesterol levels should have an effect.

they also cite education, but I suspect this is because if you diagnose dementia with intellectual tests that are passed easier if you are educated....again I wonder if studies (eg MRI) show more alzheimer's dementia in the uneducated? But not all Alzheimer's is dementia.

the deline in stomach cancer is mentioned. This declined long before I went to medical school (I saw two cases only) yet it remained a major cause of death in Japan. I suspect it was because of smoked fish. In recent years, c the preservatives in the food? Again I am lacking the data on Japanese diet. But another question is why is lymphoma of the stomach increasing?

Anyway, some good news

Family news

Joy and Ruby got back from Manila last night...lots of flooding around her school there. Luckily the trains are high, so once they got to the train station they did okay.

Road flooding is common in Manila with rainstorms: inadequate drainage and sewers clogged with plastic bags and other garbage and litter.

Ruby told me about the new Jr Achievement project, which is to plan a new product to sell in Australia (meaning it will be in English, and sophisticated). Training young entrepeneurs one person at at ime.

They had this in my school when I was young,, but I was busy working and volunteering in hospitals so it didn't interest me. And I have no expertise in business.

As mnetioned before, we've had heavy rain and thunderstorms for the last few days. Minor flooding in the cities but good for the rice fields (as long as they don't flood too much).

Kuya is fixing up our garden really fancy. Lolo always only wanted plain grass, so had removed most of the plants etc from it, and although in the past we sat in the east garden gazeebo, once he got weaker we tended mainly to use the smaller north garden that belonged to our house.

Prayer change people, people change things

this old CW song keeps going through my mind when I hear of all the politicians pointing fingers:


I've treated too many of these patients. Sigh.

Most of the mass casualty situations I've treated were car wrecks, but two were from violence, when a person went berserk. (both times knives, not guns, were used... I left Red Lake before that school massacre, but knew those involved, alas).

usually during these situations, you are too busy to pray, trying to keep them alive, so I always welcomed the clergy who stayed with the family.

Prayer came later, and of course, before. You just sort of say: I'm doing your work Lord...and then work to stop the bleeding and start the IV's....

But you know, before the Vatican council made the church PC, we were taught to to say a prayer whenever we heard a police/firetruck/ambulance siren. Do people still do this?

Which is why I posted about the Dallas prayer rally.

 why prayer rallies are different is that too often political rallies that talk about reconciliation are actually just trying to push the meme by demonizing their political opponents.

It's 1968 all over again...and one just hesitates to check Drudge to see the latest atrocity.

So why are prayer rallies different?

Prayer is "lifting one's mind and heart to God", and to do this, you need to first forgive  your brother and then be honest. Then when you quiet your heart and talk to God, sometimes he tells you things to heal you, and other times he points out where you need to repent or change your life.

God's voice is not in the thunder, or the storm, or the whirlwind, but in the small quiet voice that comes afterward.

so will the result be racial healing, or will the cable tv channels keep up the hatred to get better ratings?

as Drudge says: Developing...

and no, I know I shouldn't talk: We are having bad rainstorms so I didn't make it to church today. Sigh.

Prayers for the fallen

GetReligion links to the prayer ralley in Dallas for those shot and killed by the paranoid sniper.

from Jillcowan's twitter site:

Here's the scene at Thanksgiving Square where there's an interfaith prayer vigil. #Dallas

not a lot of articles there, but MSNBC notes "thousands" came out to pray.

And the local paper insists : Before we restore our city, we have to heal ourselves.

So light a candle, say a prayer, clutch the hand of the person next to you. And then sit with the pain. And sit with it. And sit with it some more. Invite it to truly crack open your heart and allow the poison of smallness to leak away.
Only then can we get to the other side. Only then can we look toward a unity of human spirit and resolve. Only then might it be possible for us to begin the work of uniting this city and this nation.

Murphy had a law

Murphy's law says if anything can go wrong, it will.

And then there are many corollaries to his law:

Murphy's Original Law If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.

Murphy's Law If anything can go wrong -- it will.

Murphy's First Corollary Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

Murphy's Second Corollary It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

Quantized Revision of Murphy's Law Everything goes wrong all at once.

Murphy's Constant Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.

The Murphy Philosophy Smile... tomorrow will be worse.

Father Z has posted his own modern version of the law on how it applies to computers.

Murphy was an optimist. 

 Corollary 1: When you need your technology to work, that is when it will fail. 

Corollary 2: The extent of the failure is proportioned to the urgency of the need. 

Corollary 3: When you want to show someone the great gizmo or program you have, that is when it won’t work. 

Corollary 4: When the person to whom you wanted to show off your great gizmo or program departs, unimpressed, that is when it will once again begin to function properly.

From Father Z:

Medical stuff

cross posts from my medical blog:

The Zika Puzzle

Dengue? we have an app for that

High cholesterol and less cancer, or is it the Statins?

Bipolar Mary Lincoln

Hanta Virus is back

Arsenic in ground water

Conspiracy Theory of the week: It's not Zika, it's the pesticide

I missed the articles last February questioning if the microcephaly epidemic blamed on the Zika virus was due to a pesticide used in Brazil,  maybe because experts quickly denied this was true... even NPR denied the link, so I figured it was another conspiracy theory by those who hate chemicals, big Agribusiness, and Monsanto.

but now a study in the NEJM suggests, uh, if Zika causes microcephaly, then why are there so few cases in Colombia?

ScienceDaily report here.

NEJM has several articles on it but the review article is HERE discussing the epidemiological studies that made them suspect the Zika virus, but notes why doctors were not as quick to blame the virus as the MSM, including the observation that the increase in microcephaly in a Pacific Island outbreak was minimal.

Link for the NEJM preliminary report from doctors in Colombia.

Summary: A lot of the moms who got Zika in early pregnancy haven't delivered yet, so data is lacking, but if you got Zika later in pregnancy you and your baby probably will do okay.

I should note that I've read anecdotal cases of Zika encephalitis in newborns causing the brain to shrink.

the NECSI report is here.

Summary: They found Zika in the brain on autopsy, so that is good evidence that Zika encephalitis can cause the brain to shrink.

The Colombia data suggests otherwise, but may change as more information comes in.

The strongest evidence is in favor of Zika, through the observation of Zika virus in neural tissue, though a key piece of evidence is missing in the expected rise of cases in other locations, specifically Colombia. Evaluation of the potential role of pyriproxifen is difficult due to the limited number and nature of available studies, which should be revisited as they include some evidence for neurodevelopmental toxicity. The possibility of DPT immunizations of pregnant women as a factor is largely ruled out by an increase in immunization in countries in which microcephaly cases are not being reported. There is no direct evidence for GM mosquitoes as a cause.

If there is a dramatic increase in cases of microcephaly in Columbia in the next three months, the case for Zika will be dramatically strengthened, and the case for pyriproxyfen and GM mosquitoes will be essentially ruled out.

On the other hand if the cases do not materialize, Zika will essentially be ruled out and pyriproxyfen would become the strongest case with GM mosquitoes a speculative alternative along with other environmental toxins.

their report on pyriproxyfen toxicity is here. 

summary: It's action and metabolite is similar to another chemical that can cause microcephaly, the toxicity studies claimed it was safe but did show problems, and the chemical was overused in Brazil, i.e. giving moms a higher dosage than elsewhere.

A longer version of this with comments is at my medical blog.

True true

Dustbury is recovering from spinal surgery and is in rehab.

Keep him in your prayers.

His latest blog post quips:

The person who comes up with a hospital bed in which more than 5 percent of the population can sleep comfortably deserves everything in the world.

The mattresses are not only hard "for support", but covered with heavy plastic to be easy to clean.

I've slept in many, not because I was sick, but because "on call" physicians are frequently allowed to sleep in empty patient's rooms (and often when there is an on call room, it was for the guys, so I would be told to sleep elsewhere).

Which is why I didn't buy a hospital bed when Lolo was so sick...lots and lots of (disposable) pillows and a (disposable) soft pad underneath him. I also bought an egg crate mattress, (that helps prevent bedsores if someone is comatose or doesn't move around a lot) but he died before we needed to use it.

Audiobook of the week

go to youtube for the rest of the huge book

the story continues to be ignored since too many of the intelligencia preferred to frame the cold war as if both sides were the same.

Stories below the fold

That kerfuffle about the Pope saying many Catholic marriages not meeting the standard of marriage got headlines, but what is the reality? retired Archbishop Cruz, who worked on the marriage bureau here in the Philippines, lists some of the reasons that a person might not be competent to enter into a Christian marriage:

disturbing family experience, hallucinogens intake, amorality caused by a licentious environ and like other factors that have their adverse impact in today’s generation...

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Japan is taking steps to ensure the Ainu language and culture does not disappear.

Wikipedia article.

more on the Ainu DNA studies here.

it is a language isolate, and may be unrelated to other languages.

although Japan is seen as homogenous, there are actually 8 endangered languages (mainly dialects) there.

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British actress visits Zambia, puts the name Congo into the title of her book (different country), sees non existent spiders,  and talks about jungles (Zambia is veldt, not rainforest), gets ethnic groups/history/civil war facts mixed up, then writes a memoir about her being the great white mother, and then wonders why locals get upset. more HERE.

 Follow

Masuka Mutenda @MasukaMutenda

The only thing missing from @LouiseLinton jungle caper was Tarzan swinging to her rescue  #LintonLies

7:44 PM - 4 Jul 2016

 
•  209209 Retweets
 
•  338338 likes

The excerpts don't mention who sponsored her trip, or if she actually was hired by anyone in development work.

Ah but the LATimes has in it's headline a non sequitor: she once dined with Donald Trump. Must have priorities straight.


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I am always bemused when someone gets their two minute fame by deciding a famous person or epidemic is something different.

The latest: Mary Todd Lincoln, whose bouts of mania (hyperspending) and depression suggest a classic case of bipolar illness, instead is supposed to have suffered from B12 deficiency.

Uh no. B12 deficiency causes dementia, not mania.. and it was fatal back then, which is why they called it "pernicious anemia".

Her symptoms suggest bipolar illness, and/or narcissistic personality disorder, although her terminal illness does suggest Mary Lincoln might indeed have had tabes dorsalis.

more HERE.

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from Freakonomics: Do boycotts work?

-----------------------

but hyping police brutality does work. LA Mayor remembers the Rodney King beating which was used to justify a riot, and made Korean American shop owners very cynical about their right to be protected. And although this got little publicity in the USA, I have seen it discussed on the local Korean channel as a civil rights problem that Koreans face in the USA.

There are bad cops, but what is going on now is a reaction to propaganda, and one suspects that the organizers had the plan in place before the incidents.

Just ignore the real problem: Gangs who terrorize good people.

older report here:

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Factoid of the day: Boko Haram is green

:StrategyPage has an article about the decline of the murderous Bokoharam group and about Nigerian corruption.

But their summary includes this factoid:

Some of the aerial photos get published and show that what remains of Boko Haram is adapting. The camps are often laid out to be difficult to spot from the air.
What often gives these camps away is the use of solar panels, which Boko Haram needs to power their phones, night lighters and other electronics.

italics mine.
yup.

 the Chinese are selling solar panels in Nigeria (and lots more stuff: The presence of Chinese goods in Africa is another undercovered story).

and the greens were ecstatic at using politically correct energy sources in poor countries.


 but the dirty little secret is that this is not successful in the long run.  and what is that part about "fake"?

Emma Onyejeose, the coordinator of Nigeria’s annual Alternative Energy Expo, says that a recent influx of fake solar panels from China to Ghana was one example where a lack of government control led to people having bad experiences with solar power. “Governments in Africa are still finding it difficult to officially adopt the technology, and this has greatly affected its uptake,” she says.

We find similar quality control problems with the Chinese imports here, so most people with money (i.e. the growing middle class) buy American, or at least Korean or Japanese.

This has been found in Nigeria's solar panel outreach too.

since Nigeria for now doesn't manufacture Solar panels, you'd find that most Solar panels in the market are normally imported and these come from countries like the USA and China. It's actually cheaper for Nigerians to buy Solar panels from China than from the USA however it seems most USA made Solar panels are mostly of higher quality than the ones you can get from China.

as for solar panels: there are other problems.

this discussion includes someone naively pointing out that many street lights in the western world are powered with small solar panels. One comment even noted that this is true in Nigeria. I laughed. I figure i in the Philippines, they'd be stolen and resold in a week.

Few locals are trained to fix the solar panels when they break down. In contrast, generators use small engines, similar to motorcycles or cars, (which are all over the place) so locals know how to fix them.

=================
Two problems stand in the way of the US recovery of manufacturing: Lack of people trained to work with their hands due to an emphasis on college.

Luckily, the Mexicans will figure this out and get the jobs.

Two: the high incidence of drug use in the working class in the USA.  The long half life means the neuropsychiatric effects last longer than alcohol, leading to increased errors etc.

but this is also a taboo subject when people talk about legalizing pot.

Family news

The school year is starting, so Ruby and her mom went to Manila for various meetings yesterday. They will return on Saturday.

She home schools, but is supervised by this school.

I also went shopping... It is hard to find clothing that fits, but I bought four pants that I badly need...when I got home, two fit and two were tight. Oh well...since they cost a dollar a piece I'll give the away. I gained 20 pounds when Lolo was sick, from lack of exercize, and haven't lost it yet.

The grocery store around the corner went under, and is being replaced by another company. Sad. The problem is that the Palenke is larger now, so the food is usually bought there. The new palenke includes a bodega like store (so their book and stationary store, and their hardware stores went broke two years ago). But many middle class go to the mall for a larger selection now.

Sigh. I did go to the alternative store about two blocks away. Unlike the one that shut, which had shelves and was clean like a US store, this one is dark, crowded, and has fewer choices. But since I usually only buy coffee (including "3 in 1" packets for the staff), no problem.

Literary links: Hope

ComeAwayWithMe Blog writes about a visit to Wells Cathedral, where Elizabeth Goudge grew up.

you might know it for being the background for several films and TV shows...including Galavant, Dr Who, Wolf's hall, the Huntsman and a film that I've actually watched (because it is a scifi comedy): the pub crawling film World's End (!)

The story is semi-autobiographical in that it based on a true story of Edgar’s attempt at a crawl ’round Wells in his late teens.

.... LINK

CAWMblog, has several other posts on Goudge, including this one about Miss Montague (a minor but memorial character in the Dean's watch), a girl who was crippled in an accident, and realizes she will never marry and have a family.

So she took a vow to love. Millions before her had taken the same simple vow but she was different from the majority because she kept her vow, kept it even after she had discovered the cost of simplicity.

Until now she had only read her Bible as a pious exercise, but now she read it as an engineer reads a blueprint and a traveler a map, unemotionally because she was not emotional, but with a profound concentration because her life depended on it.

Bit by bit over a period of years that seemed to her long, she began to get all her scaffolding into place. She saw that all her powers, even those which had seemed to mitigate against love, such as her shrewdness which had always been quick to see the faults of others, her ambition and self-will, could by a change of direction be bound over in service to the one overmastering purpose. She saw that she must turn from herself, and began to see something of the discipline that that entailed, and found too as she struggled that no one and nothing by themselves seemed to have the power to entirely hold her when she turned to them.

Compare and contrast to modern films "me over you", where the guy selfishly decides if he can't have fun he'd rather die, instead of using his gifts of the intellect to help others...to make things worse, he even decides to makes his girlfriend a murderer to get his own way.

Similarly, although I love "cripple conquers all" type films, I wonder:
So what happens when there is no miracle? If you just can't succeed and overcome the odds?

one of the best quotes from John Green is That is the thing about pain: it demands to be felt.
In the novel "a fault in our stars", it is a sarcastic reaction to the kid's parents who are in denial of the pain in their kids' lives (not just physical but the pain they will never have a normal life), and  post "inspiration" posters all over the place.

Which is why I also avoid "miracle" type Christian films with their happy ending. Jesus loves me and healed me hurrah.

Right. And what if you don't get cured?

Sometimes God doesn't become a magician and voila everything is honkey dorey.

But sometimes he comes, doesn't give you a magic cure, but walks with you in your suffering and helps you along the way, both by his grace in your heart and with the hands of those around you: Family, doctors, nurses, caretakers.

• “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” ....Aeschylus

In Tolkien, there is a goddess/Ainur Nienna, whose job is to weep. And her job is that by doing so, she turns sorrow into wisdom. "those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope. "

Hope. Not the short term type, but the deep hope (in Tolkien's book this is the concept of "estel") that everything has a meaning  behind it, and that good will triumph in the end...

Or as the good book says:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

One of Goudge's themes is this renewal: As in one of my favorites:  the Scent of Water, which is about the renewal of the spirit.

I brought some of Goudge's books with me, or bought them from the used book kiosks here.. But they are also available on Scribd.com

Stories below the fold

What does it mean when ISIS tries to bomb the prophet's tomb?

I suspect the ultimate result of the ISIS terror in the Middle East will be that Iran will take the place over, as they have in the past (Darius the Great, anyone?).

And most terrorism is not reported. LATIMES article.

and it notices the Philippines down toward the end of the article:

In the Philippines, some are drawn by money. Hakim Eljano, 28, fled his home three years ago when the town where he lived, Zamboanga, was attacked by an Islamist separatist group, the Moro National Liberation Front. Now he lives in squalor in a government-run shelter called an “evacuation center,” sharing a cramped room with seven people. He said one of his friends, in the same situation, accepted the overtures of Islamist rebels who promised a salary, a gun and training.

Yes, the MILF attacked a major city here a few years ago, and hundreds of thousands fled, but it got little publicity in the MSM outside of the Philippines.


Why would the MILF attack a Muslim city? Because it's not a Muslim city...The dirty little secret is that most people living there are Christian...

and the local government under PNoy didn't want the bad publicity to ruin the peace talks with the MILF, so the story was played down here, as are most terrorist attacks against locals.

----------------------

Climate change could affect the monsoon and cause famine, says an AP story in the local MB...

nothing new here. Wikipedia on famines in India

Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on climate: a favourable southwest summer monsoon is critical in securing water for irrigating crops. Droughts, combined with policy failures, have periodically led to major Indian famines, including the Bengal famine of 1770, the Chalisa famine, theDoji bara famine, the Great Famine of 1876–78, and theBengal famine of 1943

the problem is not just the drought, but policy failure that let people die (as in 1943).

and then there was the famine of 1896: government relief lowered but did not stop the deaths from famine related illnesses. And when the rains finally came back, people died of floods and malaria.

and did the change of the weather patterns lead to the demise of the Harappa civilization and the Old Kingdom of Egypt? Did it cause the sea people to migrate for new lands, and cause the Bronze age collapse? Did it start the Mongol invasions (or stop it when they hit the boggy Hungarian plain)?

And what does it mean when there are no sunspots? Another "little Ice Age"?
---------------------

Religious bigotry we haz that

Forget Islamophobia.

The real censored story in American history is anti Catholic bigotry. A lot of it was from years of anti Catholic propaganda in England, who saw Catholics as the enemy. The Calphate and ISIS fears have nothing over the fears of the Papacy and the evil Jesuits.

and the colonists brought the bigotry with them to the colonies.

and then things improved.

  From CWR

One of the great mysteries of the time, and something no historian has been able to fully explain, is how many of the anti-Catholic laws and attitudes simply disappeared from local and state governments. In part, this certainly had to do with the Carrolls and their high standing, and, in equal part, a unifying republican spirit descended upon all who opposed what was regarded as blatant British tyranny. During his two terms as president, George Washington—who never had time for bigotries based on accidents of birth or choices of religion—spent much of his time in office attempting to unify all American peoples under the common banner of republicanism. His letters to the Catholics of the United States as well as to the Hebrews of Newport remain documents of highest thought and repute, models of how to overcome and dispel bigotry.

things again got bad with the huge influx of Irish and Germans after the famines of the 1840's, and again after the influx of Eastern Europeans and Italians (and Jews) after the 1870's.

 Many in the public sphere began to talk openly about a “papal takeover,” and even the level-headed of American society feared some kind of Vatican conspiracy to destroy the American republic from within and by her own laws and tolerance. 

so the anti immigrant nonsense (mainly against Catholic Hispanics and Middle Eastern Muslims) spouted by the Trumpettes is another spouting of the hydra's head of religious/ethnic bigotry.

the problem this year, however, is that the progressives are in some ways worse, because they actually have enacted laws to stop these "foreign ideas" from being expressed in America:

. In large part, the American Progressive movement arose as a way to halt the further Catholicizing and Hebrewization (my made-up word) of America, desiring to “yank the hyphen out of hyphenated Americans.”
In this, the progressives failed, though they did so while causing considerable harm to immigrant groups as well as to religious freedom. Since the 1960s, however, the progressives have continued to assault Catholics at nearly every level, especially against Catholic schools and hospitals.

from laws about bathrooms, requiring the hiring of active homosexuals in positions of authority, rules against hate speech, protesting segregated swimming pools, to insisting that Catholic institutions obey the latest Obamacare edicts on abortion (and in the near future, euthanasia).

so who do I vote for? A man who may hurt my feelings by his bigotry, or a woman who will continue the under reported "culture war" against religions that won't conform to the latest government fiat by an out of control and unelected federal bureaucracy, that regulates everything from bathrooms to school lunches to insisting that the Little Sisters of the Poor pay for abortion pills.


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Related items:

FBI and other politicized government agencies.

The reform of the civil service (taking exams to get a job, instead of the spoil system) was supposed to stop this from happening.

FYI

Texting in China: using voice messages is back.

a  ot of it is due to the clumsy way to type Chinese characters.

factoid: Mainland Chinese don't get upset at loud voices but Taiwanese are less boisterous.

with many not speaking Mandarin and many others whose Mandarin is actually a non understandable dialect, characters "make sense".

But one doubts if Chinese ideograms will ever replace easier alphabets.

But it won't stop China's aim to make the internet king. LINK

and the part about e commerce is big: AliBaba is changing how rural China shops.

 I learned about Amazon while working in an isolated Minnesota area, where the nearest bookstore was 40 miles away and the nearest decent bookstore was 100 miles away.

But even before then, I tended to use catalogues for convenience for many things.

other under reported stories is how cellphones are changing the world (not everyone can go on line, but everyone has a cellphone, even my friend in rural Zimbabwe has one)

and of course, the story of Chinese investement in South America and Africa is also an under reported story.

Headlines below the fold: crime edition

The headlines in the Manila Bulletin today is that President Duterte named and shamed five police generals who were involved with drugs.

THE LIST THAT SHOCKED PH – President Duterte holds a piece of paper containing the names of the five police generals allegedly involved in protecting drug syndicates in the country. The President made the shocking revelation Tuesday in his speech during the 69th Philippine Air Force anniversary at the Haribon Hangar in Air Force City, Clark Air Base, PampangaRead more at http://www.mb.com.ph/duterte-names-5-drug-generals/#ESFhtJWbEwiJSxuR.99

of course, they all claim they are innocent.

So far they will only lose their jobs.

In our area, when things get too bad, the police are reassigned elsewhere (presumably it takes a few months for them to get new contacts to be bribed in the new communities).

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Drudge reports the fix is in for Hillary's illegal emails, and provides links.

as Instapundit frequently quips: Laws are for little people. (Which is Drudge's headline now)

Of course, this happened over the holiday weekend so people might be doing things and not watching the news.

Bernie's boys are upset, and Trump will look honest next to her.

A few days ago, I pointed out that many of Bernie's economic positions were identical to Trump....

and now the UKGuardian has an opinion piece saying the same thing: How did he come to this conclusion? He actually listened to what Trump said and not the talking points.

Both Trump and Bernie are talking about an elite remaking of the economy that hurts ordinary folks.

The illegal immigrants comments are not racism but they are part of the crossfire about jobs: Those lacking papers work for less, and often their employer can avoid paying social security etc. My son was once ordered to work overtime for his usual pay. When he objected, the manager said he'd call "La Migra" on him. Since my son is a citizen he laughed, but you see how the scam works. And in construction work, often they hire "day laborers" who don't get any benefits at all because they work "under the table", cash only.

This is, of course, exploitation of the workers is something unions fight against, but never mind. Racism!

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And some Christian groups wonder why so few of the Syrian refugees being resettled in the US (after being screened by the UN) are Christians.

StrategyPage has the reason: the criminal gangs take over refugee camps and pressure the administrators to select their friends (or those who bribe them)

These groups control the selection of refugees for admission to Western nations despite the fact that the camp administrators assure Western nations that the refugees they recommend are screened to eliminate criminals and Islamic terrorists. In fact the gangs that dominate the camps often sell “approval” to refugees who can pay, even if the payment is supplied by criminal gangs or Islamic terror groups. Western countries, like the United States, that insist on doing their own screening are accused of racism or anti-Moslem bias.

 heh. You mean Trump's point to keep Muslim immigrants out until the US screens them might have a basis in reality, not in "Islamophobia"?



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StrategyPage also has a review of wars around the world LINK
and again the press gets it wrong:

Normally, the West does not get involved in these Islamic religious wars, unless attacked in a major way. Moreover, modern sensibilities have made retaliation difficult.

For example, fighting back is considered by Moslems as culturally insensitive ("war on Islam") and some of the Western media have picked up on this bizarre interpretation of reality.

It gets worse. Historians point out, for example, that the medieval Crusades were a series of wars fought in response to Islamic violence against Christians, not the opening act of aggression against Islam that continues to the present. Thus, the current war on terror is, indeed, in the tradition of the Crusades.

And there are many other "Crusades" brewing around the world, in the many places where aggressive Islamic militants are making unprovoked war on their Christian and non-Moslem neighbors. Political Correctness among academics and journalists causes pundits to try and turn this reality inside out. But a close look at the violence in Africa, Asia and the Middle East shows a definite pattern of Islamic radicals persecuting those who do not agree with them, not the other way around.

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The Pope backed the anti western and very corrupt expresident of Argentina, and now that the folks there have thrown her out, his popularity is going down in his native land.

and if the Pope frothes at the mouth against the "ultra conservative" in the church, maybe this is why: too many blogs (a la Drudge) keep track of what is going on behind the propaganda.

So the Remnant reports that SNAP is not impressed with his "mercy" mantra.

Dirty little secret: Ten percent of the population are sociopaths/narcissists etc who are only kept in line by laws and social pressure. Remove the laws, and they act on their selfish impulses and just don't get it when you object to their actions.

The church of "feel good" religion and "mercy" is nice for ordinary sinners, but it ignores the reality of sociopaths, and marginalizes their victims.

One reason so many priests were "reassigned" was that they were "cured" by psychiatrists and sent back to work.

when I was in medical school, (late 1960's) psychiatrists took the Freudian stance that accusations of abuse, including incest, were "projections" of the kid's wishes, not real. And other psychiatrists insisted that if children were initiated into sex by an adult, they would lose their sexual inhibitions and frustrations (that in Freudian theory was the cause of all psychiatric illness).

In the 1970's, I remember medical journals and even "Newsweek" had articles insisting you shouldn't report incest to the cops, because the trial was more traumatic to the victim than the actual abuse. And they also pointed out tyat you would break up the family, and that nice guy would be mistreated by other prisoners in jail. California even released loads of "non violent sex offenders" back then.

Whatever became of Sin? was written in the 1970's, and the reason sin was removed from Catholicism is explained in this 2008 BBC article:

Fr Fagan calls for a 'rehabilitation' of the notion of sin -- one that is informed by the human sciences, free of cultural hang-ups, appropriately 'person-centred, realistically shaped by the diversity of human sexual experience and not wholly conditioned by the severely limited experience of celibate male priests.

of course, what this guy is saying is to let anyone screw around and that no sexual activity is a sin.

Fast forward and you see why the feminists are up in arms about the "rape culture".

FatherZ advises watch and wait: and pray.

And WWJD? Millstone, anyone? Matthew 18:6.


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Screwing the elderly: Treasury bond interest is going down again.

And if the past is prologue, expect hyperinflation similar to that of the Carter era, when my savings lost half their worth (I was working in Africa, and came home to find everything cost twice as much, but my savings got interest less than half that of inflation).

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Family news

I now have the new electric cord, so can use my computer and not just my tablet. So I have 4 days of news to catch up with.

Yesterday was brownout again (putting up concrete poles to replace the termite eaten wooden ones, lifting up the sagging wires that get snagged on trucks, and replacing the spaghetti wires with newer cables).

I was mainly sick all day yesterday with the heat, despite the generator: I had to use my personal generator since the large one needs to be "fixed" again...the smaller one will run the airconditioner, but with the heat, I also had to run the refrigerator and fish pond pump (dead fish are a mess).

The new fish pump spews water 5 feet in the air, but the fish are a lot happier now: before they would lurk at the bottom or gasp in the surface, but now they swim around and play nicely.

Ruby pulled an "all nighter" with her books. Her mom had to leave at 3 am to meet others going on a trip to Laguna, so it was easier not to sleep at all...she'll probably sleep all day.

Blogging hiatus

My electric cord just died so I will be on my tablet, so blogging will be light...(that makes four this year). The last time I buy a cheap Chinese computer. My Dell didn't do this until I had it for four years and it got wet.

The Battle of the Somme and Mordor

NYTimes article on Tolkien in the trenches.

and the dead men seen in the marshes also comes from WWI....

related item: mp3 lecture the Inklings in wartime

Yum! Fried pig ears

.

.. like sausage or scrapple, sisig is traditionally made from the parts of pigs that you don't eat in a pork roast (i.e pig's head: snout, ears, tongue)

recipe here.

Stories below the fold

Culture wars update: Stop singing God Bless America, because  it upsets him.

I am always bemused at people who don't know enough about the English language to realize that saying "God Bless" is an old fashioned way to say thank you  to someone.

And the song was Irving Berlin's way to thank America for letting him live in peace at a time when his relatives in Russia were being killed in pogroms (and later became popular when the rest of his relatives were being killed by Hitler). The point is that it thanks America for freedom of religion. And in today's anti religion frenzy by the elites, that is the problem.


But never mind: it's part of a larger agenda to censor the name of the deity in public.

And more than 88% of atheists dislike the song, Kaskowitz found. (Quick aside: We atheists also hate having “In God we Trust” on the currency and in the courtrooms of a country whose Constitution bars the “establishment of religion” — but that’s a fight for another day.)

Update: I seem to remember an almost identical demand published by a "minister" (who did not work at a church) in the Washington Post awhile back.

So the question is: Why was this published? Is there a sudden outcry to stop singing a patriotic song that mentions God?

Both bring up the almost identical argument of the first amendment: Even though this is a private, not a public domain.

And both demand any mention of God belongs in church, not in the public square.

And that, my friends is the point.

Check Mary Eberstat's new book on the liberal attack on free speech.

All of this reminds me of a snippet in the book by Maria Von Trapp, when her children lamented that the Nazis wouldn't allow them to sing certain songs:

"We can't sing anything with God, so that stops us from singing Bach. And we can't sing Mendelsohn because he is Jewish"

change that to Irving Berlin ("God Bless America" and "white Christmas") and Steven Foster and you probably get that right.

Or would singing Bach still be considered a microaggression?



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Te at Trianon reviews the new BBC miniseries War and Peace.

UKGuardian review HEcjRE compares it to earlier versions.


ironic, isn't it, that the anti religious soviet Russia allowed War and Peace to be read, but nowadays, I suspect it's religious themes would get it censored for microaggression

as for the BBC series: It shows religion but is light on why people believe.( But it shows Helene dying of an abortion whereas in the book she died of typhoid. Logical, but who changed that part?)

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Reporter for youth magazine catches herpes in one night stand, now seeks to de stigmatize herpes.

dirty little secret: condoms don't protect against herpes.

TheOther McCain remembers how HIV was used to promote the culture wars.

and gets into the non PC public health facts
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Headlines below the fold

Zika bill fails to pass Congress

Yet the reason this bill failed can be boiled down to one memo and the memories of the government shutdown crisis of 2013. Faced with the choice of either offending Planned Parenthood or failing to pass a bill that provided the Zika money they had been demanding be allocated for months, the Democrats chose the latter. Moreover, they did so because they were also sure that no matter how partisan and divisive their own behavior, Democrats have come to believe that the media will blame Republicans for any Congressional standoff...

 the key moment in the fate of the Zika bill came this week.

AsPolitico reported: 
On Tuesday morning, Planned Parenthood wrote all Senate offices opposing the bill, arguing that “a vote against this bill will be seen as a vote for women’s health care.” 

While liberals like to talk about the power of the National Rifle Association over Republicans, the ability of that influential group to crack the whip over the GOP is nothing when compared to the way Senate Democrats responded to Planned Parenthood’s marching orders 

 headsup Instapundit

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also via Instapundit:

CNN reporter pushes Brexit meme, gets repeatedly corrected by British politician.

USAToday reports Noble prize winners (mostly in medicine) are daring to criticize Greenpeace for opposing "golden rice" which is a GM type of rice designed to save the lives (and sight) of poor children in rice eating lands.

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StrategyPage report on President Rody:

Abu Sayyaf represents what most Filipinos fear most about granting the Moslem minority in the south autonomy. Duterte is known to be innovative and not afraid to try bold solutions.
He has commented that he would try to negotiate, or at least talk to, Abu Sayyaf leaders. If that failed to resolve the terror and banditry problems down there Duterte indicates he would consider declaring martial law in some of the Moslem provinces in the southwest and offer cash rewards for any civilians or security personnel who captured or killed key Abu Sayyaf members. Duterte also has a track record of cracking down on corruption and doing things considered by some as outside the law (and by others as necessary). All this would be necessary to have a chance of finally shutting down the mayhem that has long characterized the Moslem south.

I  talked to one of Ruby's teachers who attended our new mayor's inauguration and she said he also has declared war on criminals.

Heh. It might be nice to have the cops and the mayor's private armies go against the criminals instead of their political rivals. One hopes they don't kill too many bystanders. (personal note: our nephew was killed as a bystander when an ex mayor arranged some retired NPA guys to shoot his political rival, but only killed two of his sons and some bystanders... politics here is that clans run the place, so that mayor got away with it but when he retired, his wife lost the election...but the next cycle his daughter won. The bishop ordered all local candidates to take a "no violence" pledge, so it meant that the next hit job didn't occur until a few days after she took office, again killing bystanders).

Kuya however says the mayor's family has been involved in gambling and drugs in the past... which means he might actually know who to go after.

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BBC reports the hole in the Antarctic ozone hole is  getting better.

Remembering the Somme

BBC reports the royals will attend the memorial ceremony.

HistoryExtra podcast discusses the battle

Wikipedia article notes:

The first day on the Somme was also the worst day in the history of the British army, which had c. 57,470 casualties....The battle is notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank.