tomo,
Looks like Vennells needs a bit more practice at fake sincerity. As you say, whether the problems stemmed from stupidity or malice, the responsibility was clear and the buck stops with her. Consequences need to be a lot more severe than a wet hankie.

The academic garbage: for one thing it's a waste of public funds, more importantly, it's a waste of the academics' lives. Sure, the person using porcelain for interrogation is likely to have little enough to contribute, but I bet there are *some* smart people caught up in the univesities who could do something useful.

Your last link just gets me a "something went wrong". Appears to be Toby Young, but what "weather" thing was he pointing at?

I mentioned that fellow talking about the generous US immigration policies. He had another interesting factoid on offer: that if the entire UK were taken into the USA as a 51st state, it would rank 51st in terms of wealth per capita.

Initially I thought he was using mean values (GDP per capita, say), but consulting Wikipedia for median incomes by US state and for the UK bears out his claim. I think it's a more subtle form of lying with statistics where the median incomes are calculated among ordinary citizens, but America's considerable "slave" class isn't considered. Balance point would move down quite a bit if they were counted.

tomo,
Thanks for the explanation. this being the Daily Mail's report on it I take it.. They make a song and dance about misogyny, but the other stuff is far worse.

I sympathise with your prospects in the UK. They aren't much better here... we already have the most dismal federal cabinet in my lifetime, and we're bringing in a Bristol each year too. Heard a radio program recently extolling the generous immigration policies of the US... "they let in a million people a year, more than all the other western nations combined". Who was he kidding? Canada, UK, Australia is 1.5 million between them (though I suspect it's well over a million stream into the USA too).

Anyhow, while it looks a bit like the point in V for Vendetta where everything is boiling over, the US *may* pull back. Hope so, otherwise we'll find out how deep the abyss is.

Mailman,
Interesting times ahead to be sure. A montage of the last few years, from "let's get it done" to Sunak's sodden announcement, would make a good illustration for the word letdown.

tomo,
I've occasionally wished our representatives were chosen like juries instead of the ridiculous climbing the slippery pole capers of the parties, but I didn't know that it was called "sortition", or that it was used long ago in Athens. Now I do. Thanks.

What's the context of that tweet Ridley's responding to? You say it's in virus world, so I guess it's not the old climategate stuff.

Fauci story isn't very surprising. As I said in yesterday's lengthy harangue, better to catch him in the act rather than catch up with him later, but good if he gets his in the end.

On some other news, we are just over a month away from a Labour Government coming in to power and a sudden inability for anyone in Government to say what a woman is.

rhoda klapp,
I agree that it would be good to clear their locker of old scandals as distractions, and get onto the COVID stupidities now, not later. I also agree about the vaccines, and argued quite firmly here against the rush to develop them. It never made sense, and substantial harm from applying them universally seemed likely.

That was hardly a deep insight on my part and I'm sure some high-ranking health officials put that position and found it faced strong headwinds from the higher-ups. This was the underlying sin, the subsequent coverup is certainly wrong, but hardly surprising. I would prefer the system to be hardened against that first sin; cracking down on the coverup culture is missing the target.

One early 2000s (IIRC) TV documentary series that I cherish was Disaster. Each episode focussed on a particular disaster: the Piper-Alpha oil rig, the Severn Tunnel train crash, and so on. In most episodes they brought the whole thing down to one or two people making a key decision on which the tragedy hung.

In truth, I cherish the series mostly for this recurring theme. I only *really* remember one episode well: the Challenger space shuttle disaster. The "villain" in the piece was the lead engineer at Morton Thiokol (don't remember, but I'll call him Mike). He and the other engineers were concerned about the O-rings, and that their problems were related to temperature. Then we get to see the meeting where they have NASA on conference call, and Mike is the only engineer present. He raises the concern (the next day is going to be a not-too-common below-freezing morning in Florida), and the NASA people are not well pleased. The launch has already been delayed a couple of times, and a teacher in space is great PR — NASA funding may be threatened if it's one fizzer after another. The Thiokol bosses aren't happy either: it might mean their contract is terminated.

Then comes the scene where his boss is saying "Ok Mike, it's time to make a *management* decision. Take off your engineer's hat and make a *management* decisions. Are we good for launch?"

This is a point that was reached in nearly every episode of Disaster. The *wrong* choice was made, and disaster ensued. What the show never did, but I couldn't resist doing, was to look at the alterative reality where Mike said "No way". Mike won't be a hero. Nobody will know the disaster he averted. He will almost certainly be out of a job. NASA might terminate the contract, so all his colleagues will be looking for work too. His name will surely be mud. Very very understandable that he would kick it down the road in the hope that things will go ok with tomorrow's launch or, better still, *something*else* will cause a further postponement.

Anyhow, back to the point: the subsequent cover-up was insignificant in comparison to the initial stuff-up. I want to see efforts made to prevent the managerial interference in life-and-death decision making. Not that I have concrete suggestions but, *if* there was the will for it, I think the problems are no harder than the ones largely addressed in flight-deck rules in airliners. Who knows, maybe just a voice recorder and data recorder would make all the difference. I don't imagine politicians and bureaucrats would like the idea of their every word being live-fed to the internet, along with every "control input", but it might help them focus on their responsibilities.

Mailman,
Yeah, we got that here too. I think the ABC was taking its cues from the BBC. First reports I heard talked of a plunge of 6,000ft. Whatever that is, it's not turbulence, but I suspect it was a mistake by the reporters (I'm a little sceptical about the turbulence story too. Not a flight attendant leaning on a button again!)

There are plenty of things climate change can't do. It can't do anything good.