More from Gallup's CEO about unemployment

A couple of days ago I wrote about what Gallup calls 'The Big Lie':  official unemployment statistics.  Here's Gallup's CEO expanding on those remarks.  It's well worth watching.

Word.

Peter

Writing, writing, writing . . .

Today's seen a new personal best in my writing output: 8,593 words.  I'm still staggered when I look at that number. I'm exhausted, but it feels good.

That level of output is helped by my irregular sleeping patterns. Thanks to a disabling spinal injury I suffered in 2004, I'm unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time before my spine and left leg 'freeze' and become very painful.  That wakes me up, no matter how much I want to sleep, and they won't ease off if I stay in bed;  so I get up and work.  I rest after lunch for a couple of hours, however long my body will give me, then work again.  That's how, since 3 a.m. this morning, I've been able to write so many words - that, and the fact that I'm busy with a novel I've been working on for well over a year.  I'm covering familiar territory.

Maxwell Volume 4, 'Stand Against The Storm', has given me all sorts of problems.  I've massively revised the plot, location and highlights no less than five times.  It's almost finished at last, thank the Lord!  It's been a topsy-turvy journey.  You see, this novel will complete the cycle of my hero, Steve Maxwell, as a junior officer.  He's now on the cusp of becoming a senior officer, which will see him gain command responsibilities and a whole new focus.  However, he also has to learn more about some of the pitfalls of military service, including officers - even senior commanders - who aren't always as focused on operational reality as they should be.  Today we call them "Chairborne Commandos" or "Powerpoint Rangers".  (In my days in uniform we had some other terms as well, less suitable for a family-oriented blog like this one!  An acronym with which some of you may be familiar is 'REMF'.  No, I'm not going to translate it here!)  This book will see Steve having to come to terms with such officers, even in a combat zone, and reinforce his determination to avoid becoming like them.  It's a transition point for his career, and I've struggled to make that transition, that conflict, clear.  I hope I've got it right at last.

Feedback from initial beta readers has been favorable, and the work I'm doing now is to improve the novel in the light of their feedback.  I'm going to bounce it off a couple of other beta readers next week for a quick impression from them.  If they find nothing major out of place, publication date (for the e-book version at least) will be the following week;  if a few final tweaks are necessary, it may slip until the week after that.  Rest assured I want to get this one out as much as some of you want to read it!

I have a hectic year of writing planned.  The Laredo Trilogy, Volume 2, 'Forge A New Blade', is scheduled for April/May;  Maxwell 5, as yet untitled, for August/September;  and Laredo 3, 'Knife To The Hilt', for November/December.  Here's hoping I can keep working at this intensity!

Thanks for your patience in waiting so long for Maxwell 4.  I hope you'll find it was worth the wait.

Peter

When push comes to shove . . .

. . . the shove(l) takes it!

Some nice work there by the excavator operator.  I'd say he's done this before.

Peter

Trying each other's snacks

I had to laugh at some of the expressions on the faces of the tasters.  First, Korean girls try US snack foods.

Next, US students try Korean snack foods.

I think I'll pass on most of them, thank you very much!

Peter

The debt mountain becomes ever more unstable

In recent weeks we've seen how the new Greek government's determination to dig its way out from underneath a mountain of debt, by fair means and/or foul, has sent shockwaves through the European financial system.  It looks set fair to do the same to the economy of the entire world.  This is despite the fact that Greece's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is less than one-half of one per cent of the Gross World Product.

In one sense, Greece's debt problems are a microcosm of those facing the entire globe.  According to the Financial Times:

The world is awash with more debt than before the global financial crisis erupted in 2007, with China’s debt relative to its economic size now exceeding US levels, according to a report.

Global debt has increased by $57tn since 2007 to almost $200tn — far outpacing economic growth, calculates McKinsey & Co, the consultancy. As a share of gross domestic product, debt has risen from 270 per cent to 286 per cent.

. . .

The report is likely to fuel debates among economists about what is an appropriate level of debt in an economy. McKinsey argues much of the expansion in developing countries has reflected the healthy development of financial markets, but in advanced economies high debt could constrain growth and create fresh financial vulnerabilities.

High debt levels could make it harder for central banks to “normalise” monetary policy without disrupting the real economy — the US Federal Reserve plans to raise interest rates this year for the first time since 2006. “High debt levels are an outward sign of structural problems,” says Charles Dumas, chairman of Lombard Street Research.

. . .

McKinsey’s conclusions echo warnings by the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, which acts as a think-tank for central bankers. BIS research had found that “when private sector credit-to-GDP ratios are significantly above their long-term trend, banking strains are likely to follow within three years”, Jaime Caruana, BIS general manager, said in a speech late last year.

There's more at the link.  Highly recommended reading.

To put those numbers in perspective, the Gross World Product (i.e. the sum of the Gross National Products of every nation on Earth) was estimated to be 'approximately US$87.25 trillion in terms of purchasing power parity, and around US$74.31 trillion in nominal terms'.  Averaging those two figures for the sake of simplicity gives us $80.78 trillion - but if the Financial Times' figure for world indebtedness is correct, that means there's almost $2.50 in debt for every dollar of world income.

Never before in the history of the world have numbers like these been bandied about.  Nobody can envision what $200 trillion looks like - it's a meaningless number;  yet that's the total amount of debt in the world economy right now.  It's literally unthinkable.  The interest on that debt is already crippling many economies, and it'll do the same to the USA in the not too distant future, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out yesterday.

Sooner or later, something's got to give.  The solution can only be found in a limited number of ways.

1. Pay back the debt.  With so much owed in comparison to the size of the world economy, that's effectively a non-starter.
2. Deliberately encourage inflation, so that 'expensive' old debt can be repaid with 'cheap' inflated dollars or other currencies.  This works, but at ruinous cost to national economies, and has disastrous effects on those relying on fixed incomes or pensions, which seldom (if ever) keep pace with inflation.
3. Simply keep on rolling over the debt in the hope that the problem will be ignored until the current crop of politicians are all safely retired (on their carefully inflation-proofed official pensions) and can leave someone else to clean up their mess.

At the moment, it looks as if governments all over the world have chosen option (3).  That bodes very ill indeed for our economic future, because the interest payments on that debt will keep on getting bigger and bigger until they consume the lion's share of national budgets - and our taxes.  Meanwhile, governments will try all sorts of tricks to get their hands on more money, even if it means taxing funds that were previously exempt (witness President Obama's proposals to tax college savings funds (since abandoned) and the accumulated capital of US firms in other tax jurisdictions).

I, for one, will do everything in my power to reduce my tax liabilities by legal means, so that I can keep as much as possible of my money for my own needs.  If that means relocating or restructuring my finances, so be it.  Many people are already doing that to a greater or lesser extent by working on a cash or barter basis.  The taxman never gets to hear about such income.  I predict that's going to become a normal way of life for many people before too long.

Peter

What's the Greek word for vodka?

I ask because there might be a lot of it in Athens shortly.  Casey Research points out a very interesting sidelight of the Greek financial crisis.

Last week the world woke up to the fact that Greece’s new government holds a geopolitical trump card: it can hold the EU ransom by threatening to break the fragile consensus on Russia.

The renewal of sanctions against Russia requires the unanimous support of EU members… which means Obama’s alliance against Russia needs Greek cooperation. What’s more, Greece has veto power over whether NATO can retaliate for an attack on any of its members. Article V, which states, “[A]n armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” may only be invoked with unanimous agreement among NATO members.

Greece and Russia have close cultural and religious ties, and Russia is Greece’s largest trading partner. Russia’s ambassador to Athens didn’t waste any time congratulating Greece’s new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, on his victory.

So it’s no surprise that Putin is using Greece as leverage. Russia has hinted that it will open its market to Greek food exports if Greece leaves the eurozone, and also that it would consider giving Greece financial aid. One can imagine other carrots being dangled, like an offer to hook up Greece to the Turkish Stream pipeline.

. . .

Syriza, which has close connections with Russia, admires Putin’s defiance of Western institutions. The new Greek foreign minister, Nikos Kotzias, has a relationship with Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist philosopher with close ties to Putin. As neo-eurasianists, they aim to pry a weak and divided Europe away from US influence. Syriza has openly campaigned for Greece to leave NATO, though they’ve toned down their hostility on that issue recently—presumbably to preserve it as a useful bargaining chip for the future.

Kotzias, who says he’ll work to prevent a rift between the EU and Russia, has already recognized the legitimacy of the Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine and dismisses the Ukrainian government as a neo-Nazi junta.

. . .

The euro and the Ukraine crises are converging, and Putin is watching closely.

There's more at the link.  Intriguing!

This is going to put Germany and the more stable European Union states in a real pickle.  They're trying to get tough with Russia and support Ukraine;  but if they do that, Russia can offer Greece the economic incentives that the EU is denying it, and thereby undercut NATO and EU unanimity on how to deal with the Ukrainian separatist crisis.  Wheels within wheels . . .

Peter

Embraer's KC-390 flies at last

The Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer is positioning its KC-390 airlifter as a modern competitor to Lockheed's venerable C-130 Hercules.  It flew today for the first time.  Here's a video clip of the occasion. I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.

I think the KC-390 has the potential to be a real challenger in the field of medium airlifters.  If its cargo capacity and rough-field performance match that of the C-130 (as they were designed to do), and its price point works out as planned (roughly two-thirds to three-quarters that of a current-production C-130J model), it may achieve significant market penetration.  Even more interesting is that Boeing has partnered with Embraer in an aircraft marketing deal.  Boeing's C-17 program is winding down, and it'll be wanting to keep at least a toehold in the military transport market.  The KC-390 would be eminently suitable for that purpose.

Congratulations to Embraer on achieving this milestone.  I'll be watching the KC-390 program with great interest.

Peter

Unemployment: more about the 'big lie'

I've written frequently about the unemployment statistics, and how they're basically a fraud from start to finish - 'massaged' by officials to present the most favorable picture.  Now the Gallup organization has made many of the same points.  They've even called it 'The Big Lie'.

Right now, we're hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is "down" to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job -- if you are so hopelessly out of work that you've stopped looking over the past four weeks -- the Department of Labor doesn't count you as unemployed. That's right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news -- currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren't throwing parties to toast "falling" unemployment.

There's another reason why the official rate is misleading. Say you're an out-of-work engineer or healthcare worker or construction worker or retail manager: If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at least $20 -- maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn -- you're not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Few Americans know this.

Yet another figure of importance that doesn't get much press: those working part time but wanting full-time work. If you have a degree in chemistry or math and are working 10 hours part time because it is all you can find -- in other words, you are severely underemployed -- the government doesn't count you in the 5.6%. Few Americans know this.

There's no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.

There's more at the link.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  official government economic statistics aren't worth the paper they're printed on.  The problem isn't limited to the unemployment rate.  For example, it's claimed that US inflation was only 0.8% during 2014.

Sure it was - if you leave out of your calculations almost everything important to the consumer, including food, fuel and so on.  Shadowstats' John Williams measures inflation the old-fashioned way, leaving in every element of importance, and he comes up with a rather different picture.

0.8%?  Or ten times that?  My money's on Mr. Williams' calculations.  I pay our bills.  The evidence in my wallet and my bank account is all on his side.




Peter

Don't ditch that large-caliber pistol just yet

A lot of handgun owners are apparently moving to 9mm. Parabellum pistols, following recent improvements in ammunition technology that have allegedly improved the performance of the smaller cartridge until it rivals that of larger rounds.  I've noticed many more advertisements for .40 S&W handguns on, for example, the local Armslist than I have for 9mm. pistols, and anecdotal evidence from other bloggers and shooters also persuades me that the 9mm. is finding renewed popularity.

I'm not surprised by this;  I often carry a 9mm. pistol (for reasons explained here), and I know many other experienced, competent shooters who've made the same decision.  Nevertheless, the  number of quality .40 S&W pistols currently offered for sale means that their prices have become depressed.  I'd say that at present, in my area, a pistol chambered for 9mm. Parabellum will sell faster and fetch 10%-20% more than an almost identical model from the same manufacturer in .40 S&W or 357 SIG.

Apart from the lower price you'll get for it, there are three reasons why I suggest you hold on to your larger-caliber pistol, rather than sell it.

1. For best-selling pistols like the Glock or Smith & Wesson M&P series, aftermarket caliber conversion barrels are available.  (See, for example - in alphabetical order - the products of Bar-Sto, KKM Precision, Lone Wolf Distributors and Storm Lake.  I currently use conversion barrels from KKM and Lone Wolf;  the latter are the lowest cost, in my experience, and their quality is quite acceptable.)  They convert larger-caliber pistols to shoot smaller cartridges (e.g. a .40 S&W or 357 SIG can shoot 9mm, or a 10mm. can shoot .40 S&W).  They can typically be had for $100-$200 - a lot cheaper than the price of a new pistol - and most have proven pretty reliable in service.  When fed with the right magazines for the cartridge in question, and after a break-in period of 500 rounds or so (an essential precaution, IMHO), I've found mine every bit as reliable as factory 9mm. handguns.  I wouldn't hesitate to trust my life to them if necessary.
2. If another 'ammunition drought' strikes, expect the most popular cartridges to be the hardest to find.  During the most recent ammo drought, one couldn't find quality defensive 9mm. hollowpoints for love or money in some areas.  (Fortunately I had a decent stash of the good stuff, so that wasn't too much of a problem for me;  but other shooters of my acquaintance were hurting badly.)  However, even at the worst times one could always find quality defensive ammunition in larger and/or less popular and/or more expensive calibers on at least some gunshops' shelves.  If you find yourself running low on stocks in one caliber, and your pistol can accommodate another caliber by using a different barrel, you won't be in danger of running dry.
3. The same improvements in ammo technology that have upgraded the 9mm. Parabellum cartridge have also upgraded other favorite defensive loads.  I still have several .40 S&W and .45 ACP pistols in my gun safe, and I'll carry any of them for defensive purposes without hesitation.  A great many law enforcement officers and agencies still entrust their safety to those rounds.  I trust their performance, and the .40 S&W sacrifices very little to the 9mm. in terms of magazine capacity - perhaps ten per cent at most in a typical handgun.  Why get rid of a good thing?

In fact, when I see a bargain-priced .40 S&W handgun for sale, and I know I can get a reasonably-priced 9mm. barrel for it, I tend to make an offer and see if I get lucky.  Right now is an excellent time to buy handguns like that.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #812

Isn't it helpful when a criminal makes a cop's work so much easier?

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy . . .

(Of interest is that after taking a shotgun blast at point-blank range to the leg, the crook was still able to run across the street and hide.  So much for the Hollywood portrayal of a shotgun as a fearsome weapon that'll blow a man clean off his feet!)

Peter

Historic photographs of two wars

Two articles caught my eye recently.  As a military history buff, and an enthusiastic amateur photographer in my younger days, these blended those interests nicely.

First, the BBC reports that a Spanish museum has put on display a number of rediscovered photographs from that country's Civil War by Robert Capa and Agustí Centelles.  Here are a few of the images.

Robert Capa: Aragon front, 1936

(Here he uses a very similar technique to his

famous photograph of D-Day, 1944, shown below)

Robert Capa: D-Day, 1944

Agustí Centelles: Spanish militiaman

Agustí Centelles: Republican assault guards on La Calle Diputacion, Barcelona, 1939

There are more images at the link, plus a link to the museum.

Next comes the news that 31 undeveloped rolls of film from the Second World War have been discovered and processed.  PetaPixel reports:

Photographer Levi Bettweiser is the man behind the Rescued Film Project, an effort to find and rescue old and undeveloped rolls of film from the far corners of the world.

He recently came across one of his biggest finds so far: 31 undeveloped rolls of film shot by a single soldier during World War II.

Bettweiser tells us he found the film rolls in late 2014 at an auction in Ohio. About half the rolls were labeled with various location names (i.e. Boston Harbor, Lucky Strike Beach, LaHavre Harbor). “I know nothing about who shot the film or who it belonged to,” he says.

Bettweiser says he gets nervous when developing the first roll in any batch of film, since the results with that one often indicate how fruitful the rest of the batch will be.

Luckily, in the case of these 31 WWII rolls from over 70 years ago, wonderful images emerged from the developing tank.

There's more at the link.  Rather than reproduce individual images, here's a short video about the processing and recovery of the photographs.

Until the 19th century history was mostly about words and buildings, with a few works of art thrown in for good measure.  The advent of photography has made our grasp of history much more real, much more immediate.  From that perspective, these rediscovered images are very important cultural artifacts.

Peter

It looks like he's flying underwater

I'm obliged to Gerard Vanderleun for linking to this fascinating video of French freediver Guillaume Néry 'surfing' the strong underwater currents through Tiputa Pass in the Rangiroa Atoll, part of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia.  Wikipedia notes:

Rangiroa offers some of the best dives in the world in and around the Tiputa Pass, which lies at one end of the one main road and runs 3.5 km to the Avatoru Pass. Sedentary common bottlenose dolphins ... regularly play group in the Pass. They can be viewed from the mainland but it is also one of the few places where they can be approached in scuba diving. Because of its large size and the existence of only two passes, each high tide creates a strong incoming current while each low tide creates a strong outgoing current in those two passes. When the current is flowing inward through Tiputa Pass, about 200 shark specimens gather at the entrance to the Tiputa Pass, at fifty meters deep. Led by the strong current, sharks can remain motionless and allow divers to observe them without any difficulty. Large manta rays, green sea turtles, and humphead wrasses can also be seen. Occasionally, tiger sharks and hammerhead sharks can also be spotted. In January, large number of stingrays gather in the Tiputa Pass, as well as hammerhead sharks that feed on them.

I recommend watching the video in full-screen mode.

Peter

I have no idea what they're doing . . .

. . . but it looks like they're enjoying themselves!

Peter

100 years of poison gas in modern warfare

Yesterday marked a grim anniversary.  The BBC reports:

As he climbed to the top of the church belfry in Bolimow, west of Warsaw, General Max Hoffman of Germany's Ninth Army was expecting a bird's-eye view of a military breakthrough - and a new chapter in warfare.

The date was 31 January 1915, and he was about to witness the first major gas attack in history.

Gen Hoffman watched as 18,000 gas shells rained down on the Russian lines, each one filled with the chemical xylyl bromide, an early form of tear gas. But the results left him disappointed.

"I had expected much greater results from the employment of this ammunition in - as we then imagined - such large quantities. That the chief effect of the gas was destroyed by great cold was not known at that time."

But the failure at Bolimow proved to be only a temporary setback.

By April, German chemists had tested a method of releasing chlorine gas from pressurised cylinders and thousands of French Algerian troops were smothered in a ghostly green cloud of chlorine at the second Battle of Ypres. With no protection, many died from the agonies of suffocation.

Within a few days, the Daily Mail published an editorial lambasting "the cold-blooded deployment of every device of modern science" by the Germans.

The commander of the British Expeditionary Force, Sir John French, called the use of gas "a cynical and barbarous disregard of the well-known usages of civilised war".

But four months later Britain itself attacked the German trenches with gas, at the Battle of Loos.

"Owing to the repeated use by the enemy of asphyxiating gases in their attacks on our positions, I have been compelled to resort to similar methods," Sir John explained.

. . .

The standard-issue gas mask in 1917 - the "small box respirator" - provided good protection against chlorine and phosgene.

But soon all sides had turned to gases which maimed even soldiers wearing a mask - blistering agents, or "vesicants".

The most widely used, mustard gas, could kill by blistering the lungs and throat if inhaled in large quantities. Its effect on masked soldiers, however, was to produce terrible blisters all over the body as it soaked into their woollen uniforms. Contaminated uniforms had to be stripped off as fast as possible and washed - not exactly easy for men under attack on the front line.

. . .

Other terrible weapons were developed at the same time. The flamethrower appear on the Western Front in 1915, two months before gas. Other weapons, like the machine gun, were honed to new levels of murderous perfection. The biggest killer of all was artillery. Yet it was only the use of all gas that was outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925.

There's more at the link.  Wikipedia also has a good overview of the topic.

Germany would go on to use poison gas to terrible effect in the extermination camps of World War II.  The Allies produced large quantities of poison gas during that conflict in order to retaliate against possible enemy use of the weapon, but tragically scored an 'own goal' with it when a ship carrying a large quantity of mustard gas was bombed by German aircraft in Bari harbor, Italy, in December 1943, releasing its cargo.  Thousands of Allied sailors and servicemen and Italian civilians were affected.

Peter

Remember that "brothel investigator"?

Back in September last year I reported on an Australian 'brothel investigator'.

Three years ago Fred Allen was a taxi driver working 12-hour shifts to make ends meet.

Today, he is a gun for hire, having received tens of thousands of dollars from Sydney's metropolitan councils in exchange for crucial evidence that is presented in court to help expose and close underground parlours. In short, Mr Allen has paid sex with prostitutes and ratepayers foot the bill.

"Never in a million years would I have imagined a job like this existed, let alone me doing it," the 60-year-old said, with a hint of a smirk. "It's a strange world for sure."

There's more at the link.

It seems Mr. Allen was enjoying his job a little too much . . .  The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

A private investigator who gets paid by councils to have undercover sex inside illegal brothels has been fired after withholding information about a prostitute whom he met on a job.

. . .

In a letter dated October 23, Brothel Busters head Chris Seage wrote to Mr Allen, and warned: "It is my view you may have breached the code of ethics for private investigators in Australia.

"Let me be clear on this;  I hold very seriously the withholding of information from your reports.  You said yesterday the sex worker, Sophie, provided you with her phone number so you could contact her outside the establishment to have sex with.  You said … you wouldn't mind taking her up on that.  Further, you said you didn't want to get her in trouble ... you withheld this information to protect the sex worker who you took a liking to."

Wishing to forward the report onto the Department of Immigration, Mr Seage ordered the investigator to refile his report, adding: "You must agree to be 100 per cent honest." But Mr Allen refused to return phone calls or emails.

When approached for comment, Mr Allen said the girl, Sophie, did hand him her private details so they could meet away from the brothel, but denied seeing her again.

"I did not provide the phone number as I was not aware of who else was involved in having access to this report and was concerned for the safety of both her and myself."

Mr Seage, however, confirms that Mr Allen was hired to make two undercover visits to the premises that week and in his first report, "willingly provided" the private contact details of another illegal sex worker, Amy, with whom he had "engaged" onsite.

NSW Special Minister of State Anthony Roberts said the government was continuing to monitor "this very complex issue".

Again, more at the link.

Perhaps Mr. Allen found the atmosphere at his 'workplace' a little Sophie-cating?




Peter

In Memoriam: Otto Carius

Otto Carius, one of the outstanding German tank commanders of World War II who was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves for his exploits, has died at the age of 92.

His book 'Tigers In The Mud' is one of the classic accounts of armored combat on the Eastern Front.

It's a must-read, IMHO, for military history buffs and anyone interested in armored combat.  His war record was exceptional by any standards.  His last interview was given to a Russian journalist last year;  it can be read in translation here.

May he rest in peace.

Peter

A follow-up to Doofus #811

In a comment to our Doofus Of The Day #811, reader Merlin linked to this video clip from the movie 'Robocop 3'.  Not having seen the movie, I didn't know it:  but it fit so well with our latest Doofus that I simply had to include it here.

Peter

Ebola: not down and far from out

The news media has allowed reporting about the Ebola crisis in West Africa to die down to a dull background murmur, but things are still pretty bad over there.  The disease is now having a 'knock-on' effect across the entire health care sector.  The Telegraph reports:

Ebola is devastating Sierra Leone's health-care system, with a dozen medics and more than a hundred healthcare workers dead so far.

At the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown, Ebola’s deadly legacy greets visitors the moment they walk in the doors. Occupying pride of place on the peeling lobby wall, in a spot where a portrait of the hospital’s founder might normally hang, is a picture of staff member, Samuel Batty. A caption above reads: “In loving memory of our beloved brother and colleague.”

Mr Batty died from Ebola on December 2 at the age of 37. He was one of about 110 health-care workers killed by the virus since it hit Sierra Leone last March. Yet when his colleague Amadou Jawara walks past the picture each day, he feels pride as much as sadness.

Like Mr Batty, Mr Jawara is not a doctor but a community health worker, and the pair were on a training programme to teach them how to deal with basic surgical operations and the complications of childbirth. In a country where the health service is patchy at the best of times, it helps for even the most junior health workers to be able to “act up” – and when Ebola hit Sierra Leone, that is just what Mr Batty and Mr Jawara found themselves doing.

“In November, the junior doctors in Sierra Leone went on strike for two weeks, saying it wasn’t safe enough for them to work, and wanting better protective equipment,” said Mr Jawara, 40. “During that time, those of us on the surgical training programme helped fill the gaps, but it was very tough work.”

Too tough, as it turned out, for Mr Batty. Quite how he contracted the virus remains unclear, but his colleagues believe it was on a particularly busy day in late November, when a pregnant woman came in with a mild fever. Mr Batty had no choice but to conduct the usual internal examinations, in the interests of her unborn child. “The woman died shortly afterwards [from Ebola], and by that time it was too late for Samuel,” said Mr Jawara.

As ever with Ebola, the tragedy did not end there. Mr Batty’s wife also died, meaning that his son (who also caught the virus but recovered) and four other children are now orphans. Mr Jawara also spent time in quarantine, fearing he had become infected, too. “The whole thing was terrible,” he said. “And Samuel was such a decent, gentle and hardworking man.”

Such tales can be heard these days in nearly any hospital in Sierra Leone. It is now the worst-infected of all the West African nations hit by the Ebola epidemic, with 3,145 of the 8,641 deaths recorded so far since this outbreak began in Guinea in December 2013.

. . .

The deaths of so many health workers – coupled with the ongoing reluctance of many others to return to work – has thrown a health service already crippled by civil war into an all-out crisis. Many of the country’s hospitals and clinics remain shut or are operating at a fraction of their normal capacity, meaning that people seeking routine A&E treatment, be it after a car crash, for malaria or just for severe diarrhoea, may die.

“We estimate there are 3.8 deaths from normally treatable diseases for every Ebola death,” says Adam Forrest, an NHS consultant gynaecologist with Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust.

There's more at the link.

To make matters even more complicated, just as Ebola is merely the latest in a long line of viral hemorrhagic fevers in Africa (its genetic 'ancestors' include Lassa fever, Marburg virus, etc.), so it's now beginning to mutate into something different.  The BBC reports:

Scientists tracking the Ebola outbreak in Guinea say the virus has mutated.

Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in France, which first identified the outbreak last March, are investigating whether it could have become more contagious.

More than 22,000 people have been infected with Ebola and 8,795 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Scientists are starting to analyse hundreds of blood samples from Ebola patients in Guinea.

They are tracking how the virus is changing and trying to establish whether it's able to jump more easily from person to person

"We know the virus is changing quite a lot," said human geneticist Dr Anavaj Sakuntabhai.

"That's important for diagnosing (new cases) and for treatment. We need to know how the virus (is changing) to keep up with our enemy."

It's not unusual for viruses to change over a period time. Ebola is an RNA virus - like HIV and influenza - which have a high rate of mutation. That makes the virus more able to adapt and raises the potential for it to become more contagious.

"We've now seen several cases that don't have any symptoms at all, asymptomatic cases," said Anavaj Sakuntabhai.

"These people may be the people who can spread the virus better, but we still don't know that yet. A virus can change itself to less deadly, but more contagious and that's something we are afraid of."

Again, more at the link.

An asymptomatic form of Ebola would be really, really scary.  All the precautions set up at entry points to most nations, and the initial assessment centers backing them up, focus on detecting the symptoms of the disease and responding to them.  If there are no symptoms, the entire screening process is at risk.  If an asymptomatic carrier of a new form of Ebola gets into a country, he or she could infect literally hundreds, if not thousands of people before the disease manifests itself in its final stages, just before it kills the carrier.

It looks like within a year or two, the 'Ebola' being treated in West Africa will not be the same 'Ebola' that we saw last year.  Will it bear the same name?  Who knows?  Those infected with it won't care, because they'll likely suffer just as badly.

Peter

"10 Things Weather Forecasters Won’t Tell You"

That's the title of an interesting article at MarketWatch.  I had no idea that weather was such big business (the weather forecasting 'market' was worth $6 billion in 2014, according to the article).  Here's just one of the ten points they discuss.

7. “The financial markets keep us on our toes.”

One way companies protect against unexpected weather is to buy weather futures — essentially financial contracts that pay off in the case of adverse weather like hurricanes or extreme temperatures. These contracts seem to be having a surprising side effect: They are making weather measurements more accurate.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, on which many such contracts trade, says they’re used as a hedging mechanism by companies like ski resorts, electric utilities, snow removal firms, and others that depend on certain weather conditions to profit. A company might enter into a contract with a financial institution. One bets that the temperature will be on average over 65 degrees in a certain location next month, while the other bets that it will be less than 65 degrees on average. The difference between the benchmark and reality (based on NWS measurements) determines who gets a payout at the end of the month.

And exchange-traded weather contracts are just one portion of a large base of weather futures, much of which takes place over the counter, says Brown, of Swiss Re.

Amiyatosh Purnanandam, associate professor of finance at the University of Michigan, and doctoral student Daniel Weagley did research on the weather contracts and the accuracy of the NWS’s measurements. Readings from NWS stations in the field can sometimes be off initially, as a result of calibration, maintenance issues, or external interference (the agency later issues corrected temps). But the researchers found that, after a weather futures contract was introduced in a specific city, those errors fell by about 10%.

The National Weather Service doesn’t often make mistakes in its measurements, but the added scrutiny of the financial markets puts pressure on the meteorologists to make measurements more accurate, Purnanandam says. It’s an example of how financial markets can influence behavior.

But while the market may have been one factor in improving weather data accuracy, the weather service says it’s always working to improve.

There are nine more points at the link.  Interesting reading, particularly if you only watch the weather forecast for your own area and don't think about how it can impact commerce and industry.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #811

OK.  You're a crook.  You decide to rob a store for some quick money.  What's the absolute worst kind of store you could pick?  The kind where you're virtually guaranteed to run straight into the long arm of the law?

That's right.  You guessed it . . .

An instant Doofus award to the criminal for what Massad Ayoob terms "A sudden and acute failure of the victim selection process."  How the hell is he going to explain that decision to his cellmates?




Peter