Weird Viral Science

Scientists at the University of Southampton have determined that surfaces composed of 60% or more copper kill the norovirus, the highly contageous cause of many outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness. See the university's news release describing their findings, which include:

Copper alloys have previously been shown to be effective antimicrobial surfaces against a range of bacteria and fungi. The Southampton research reported rapid inactivation of murine norovirus on alloys, containing over 60 per cent copper, at room temperature but no reduction of infectivity on stainless steel dry surfaces.

The DrsC have spent many months aboard cruise ships and have encountered several outbreaks of "noro." Such ships normally quarantine sick passengers to their cabins for the 24-36 hours that the disease is active.

I'd like to see cruise ships utilize copper alloys in often touched surfaces: elevator buttons, door handles, stair rails, faucet and toilet handles, and perhaps the ladles used in buffet food lines. What we today call norovirus was called "24 hour stomach flu" when I was a youngster.

Klein: Stunning, Inexplicable Incompetence

Liberal Joe Klein writes for Time on politics. See what he wrote yesterday about the Obama  foreign policy:

(Obama) willingly jumped into a bear trap of his own creation. In the process, he has damaged his presidency and weakened the nation’s standing in the world. It has been one of the more stunning and inexplicable displays of presidential incompetence that I’ve ever witnessed. 

Klein has reported on American politics for decades. When your friends say this, imagine what your not-friends are thinking. 

My Kind of Pope

According to an article in The Independent (U.Kl), Pope Francis has spread the arms of the church to include those whose belief structure recognizes substantial doubt. See what His Holiness wrote:

You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience. Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience. 

That works for me. Faith is not a prerequisite for goodness, although goodness can sometimes flow from faith.

BBC: Chile Remembers Pinochet

The BBC is known for its leftist leanings and yet, every now and then,  surprises with an article like this one concerning Chilean feelings about their late dictator Augusto Pinochet. It turns out he still has fans among the Chilean populace.

As a result of economic reforms Pinochet instituted, Chile is perhaps the most successful economy in Latin America. His human rights record is not admirable. However he "disappeared" a lot fewer opponents than did the generals in neighboring Argentina.

Redistributionist policies generate less wealth and more dependency than do policies that reward effort and accomplishment. Pinochet understood this, Allende did not.

No Diplomat

At long last even his supporters are realizing that Barack Obama may be many things, but an effective President he is not. Russian President Putin has eaten Obama's lunch on the Syria situation, and left him looking foolish. This is not in the best interests of the United States.

Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal, describes our president thusly:

Obama, a self-besotted charismatic who can’t tell the difference between showbiz and strategy, and who enjoys unburdening himself of moral insights to his peers.

A "self-besotted charismatic?" Don't hold back, Peggy, tell us what you really think.

Meanwhile The New York Times' snark-meister Maureen Dowd is vastly unimpressed by Obama and SecState Kerry. She writes:

Obama’s flip-flopping, ambivalent leadership led him to the exact place he never wanted to be: unilateral instead of unified. Once again, as with gun control and other issues, he had not done the groundwork necessary to line up support.

Remembering 9-11

Twelve years ago today the "Pearl Harbor" of the Long War took place in New York City, Washington, and a field in Pennsylvania. Sneak attacks on people who believed themselves at peace, resulting in thousands of deaths.

It is important that we do not forget what happened twelve years ago, or who was responsible. We also need to remember in the name of what cause the cowardly attacks were undertaken.

Two theater wars have happened since 9-11, in Iraq and Afghanistan, by way of striking back at the 9-11 perpetrators.  Both involved nation-building, neither worked out well.

What is more effective are the various means by which we can bring death to jihadis: drone strikes, targeted assassinations, special warfare raids. Getting militant groups to attack each other, as in Syria, works too.

The Second Demographic Transition

Thomas B. Edsall writes a column on politics and demographics for The New York Times. Here he is looking at the degree to which people have physically sorted themselves into regions of like-minded individuals.

Edsall cites the work of Ron Lesthaeghe and Lisa Neidert of the University of Michigan Population Studies Center. These scholars have developed a composite measure of how far along a locale has moved toward what they call the Second Demographic Transition. This they define as:

Postponement of marriage, greater prevalence of cohabitation and same-sex households, postponement of parenthood, sub-replacement fertility, and a higher incidence of abortion.

Places having made more of this transition tend to vote for liberal candidates and parties ... no surprise.

Friedman on Syria ... Again

The New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman comes up with an alternative to bombing Syria that actually might work. It has the advantage of strengthening the non-jihadist rebels vs. the al Qaeda clones.

Friedman proposes arming and training the Free Syrian Army and doing our level best to accuse the high-ups in Assad's regime of war crimes. As he says:

We need to use every diplomatic tool we have to shame Assad, his wife, Asma, his murderous brother Maher and every member of his cabinet or military whom we can identify as being involved in this gas attack. We need to bring their names before the United Nations Security Council for condemnation. We need to haul them before the International Criminal Court. We need to make them famous. We need to metaphorically put their pictures up in every post office in the world as people wanted for crimes against humanity.

I believe I've heard worse ideas.

Weird Longevity Science

It turns out white women who drop out of high school have experienced a drop in longevity. That's a decline of five years lifespan in the last 18 years and nobody knows why.

See this article in The American Prospect for survey details and an interesting case study. I won't try to guess what the variables might be, the drop in lifespan isn't affecting poor women of other races.

From Ottoman to Turkish

Here at COTTonLINE we have tracked developments in Turkey. It is the one Islamic country that has the possibility to become a modern state.

See an article in The National Interest which describes modern Turkish history through the lives of two major leaders: Kemal Ataturk and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Current sad trends in Turkey are anti-western and anti-modern.

Economics Not The Answer

Americans are thought to "vote their pocketbooks." That is, they vote for the party most likely to be helpful to them financially.

As Stephen Moore writes in The Wall Street Journal, this rule did not hold true in the 2012 election. The five groups that provided Obama's base were the five groups whose economic well-being had taken the biggest beating during Obama's first term:

The stimulus-led economic revival that began officially in June 2009—Vice President Joe Biden's famous "summer of recovery"—has only resulted in lower incomes for at least half of Americans, the very ones who were instrumental in electing Mr. Obama twice. 

Moore doesn't speculate about why these people voted against their economic interests. I would hazard a guess that having someone other than a successful white male as President was sufficiently wonderful to these voters that Obama's failure to improve the economy didn't matter.

If that guess is accurate, a Hillary Clinton candidacy may have the same effect, may also meet the "get even" need of many voters. Meanwhile the rich get richer and the poor get rap sheets.

Quote of the Day

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, blogging as Instapundit, cracking wise about the Obama foreign policy:

Obama’s mouth has been writing checks that it looks like his body politic can’t cash. I guess that’s what they call “smart diplomacy.”

Goldman as Spengler, Revisited

David P. Goldman (pretends to) channel Oswald Spengler. He often writes interesting columns, in this case for PJ Media. And yes, his work is often pessimistic.

Here his topic is the lack of trustworthy Arabic speakers in the U.S. By "trustworthy" he means other than first or second generation Arab immigrants. Such individuals are often suspected of being al Qaeda moles.

Interestingly, Israel has a surfeit of non-Arab speakers of Arabic. The U.S. could hire these if it weren't that they are also viewed as untrustworthy - remember the Jonathan Pollard case. Spengler likens this situation to Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians.

If the U.S. government needs Anglos to learn Arabic, why doesn't it train them or subsidize the learning thereof? We know from economics if you subsidize something you will get more of it.

Counterinsurgency, a History

The U.S. has been engaged in counterinsurgency off and on since the Vietnam War. Mostly we haven't been very good at it, at least as I remember the history.

If the subject interests you, see an article in Air Force Magazine which takes a long view of COIN, as counterinsurgency is now abbreviated. The treatment is thorough and not overly optimistic.

The Romans were pretty good at COIN, in an era when human rights didn't signify for much. Their model for dealing with troublesome tribes was kill all the adult males, sell the women and children into slavery, and move in friendly settlers to take over the land.

To a degree Chairman Mao followed the Roman model in taking over China. We cannot follow the Roman model, and a better one hasn't emerged.

Climate, The Other View

Here at COTTonLINE we've been climate change skeptics, recognizing that climates do change and have since long before our ancestors evolved from smart apes. That doesn't mean there isn't another point of view to which you might want access.

The Guardian (U.K.) has an editorial which presents the "lets get worried" viewpoint in a reasonable way. If you want exposure to the other side of the argument, give it a look.

Quote of the Day

The Washington Post's Robert Samuelson takes a long Labor Day look at the status of the American worker. Read his conclusion and wince:

Workers do best when strong growth and tight markets raise real wages. On Labor Day 2013, this prospect is nowhere in sight.

Good Photo, Bad Caption

This photo in National Review Online, posted by John Fund, pretty much says it all. On the other hand, the caption is misleading as the sailor's insignia says he is a Chief Petty Officer, a senior enlisted person, the navy's equivalent of a senior sergeant.

Brooks Worries Too Much

The New York Times' David Brooks is often cited in this blog as I find his insights fun, interesting, sometimes important. On the other hand, his August 29 column worries about the unrest in Syria metastasizing into a region-wide religious war of Sunni vs. Shia.

Brooks frets about what, if anything, we might do to stop that from happening. Implicit in his argument is that we should try. Really? Why?

The FBI doesn't get overmuch concerned when one Mafia family kills an inconvenient member of another family. Why should we involve ourselves in this fight between Middle Eastern thugs?

As long as Sunnis are busy fighting off Shias, they aren't attacking the U.S. and its friends. That works for me, how about you?

Southern Hemisphere Climate

Abnormal cold and snowfall in Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay are reported by BBC News:

The Peruvian government has extended to nine more regions a state of emergency called to cope with unusually cold weather and heavy snowfall.

The cold front has also hit Peru's south-eastern neighbour, Bolivia, and Paraguay, where a combined total of five people have died.

More of that global warming we keep hearing is just around the corner? Maybe not. This is late winter south of the equator, officially spring starts there on September twenty-first.

Gin and Tonic

Have some fun with an article in Slate about the history of the gin and tonic cocktail. Perhaps your clue is that "tonic" is another word for medicine.

The gin and tonic story is very East India Company, pukka sahib and the raj. Very much "Jewel in the Crown," Sepoy Mutiny and the Great Game.

The DrsC had a chance to visit Bombay (some prefer Mumbai) this past spring and saw the fabulous infrastructure the Brits left there for the Indians - palaces, libraries, grand hotels, ministry office buildings, plus the triumphal arch known as the Gateway of India. All executed beautifully in stone that will last a millennia.

The architecture the Brits left makes Bombay a world-class city. What the Indians have added, not so much.