Utopia, you are standing in it!

This is a very good book, maybe the definitive one-volume account of the subject currently available.

McMeekin’s earlier volume, The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898-1918, although full of solid history, was conceived and structured as an entertainment, using the erratic history of the Berlin to Baghdad railway project as a thread on which to hang an account of the German High Command’s attempt to raise a Muslim Holy War against her enemies, Britain and France, across the entire territory of the Ottoman Empire and beyond, into Persia and Afghanistan.

It had a chapter apiece devoted to the quixotic missions which the Germans sent out to try and recruit various Muslim leaders to their side, very much dwelling on the colourful characters who led them and the quirky and sometimes comic details of the missions – which, without exception, failed.

In Berlin to…

(December 7, 1941)

Steve Twomey is a superb writer whose new book COUNTDOWN TO PEARL HARBOR: THE TWELVE DAYS TO THE ATTACK is a useful addition to the list of books recently published commemorating December 7, 1941.  Employing numerous primary source documents, memoirs, interviews, and a mastery of secondary materials Twomey has recreated the tension filled days leading up to the Japanese attack. The reader is provided a front row seat from which to witness the debates within the Roosevelt administration, the work of the intelligence community, and the approach the American military took in responding to the Japanese threat.  In addition, the author explores the Japanese perspective on all events.

Twomey, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Washington Post incorporates numerous biographical sketches of the major figures and these sketches include Japanese as well as American figures.  Prominent on the Japanese side are Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Vice…

I haven’t found much about the author of this piece: Clifford MacArthur. He appears to have written just this one article on Medium (click on screenshot to read it). Nevertheless, if his assertions are correct, Tara Reade, who’s accused Joe Biden of sexual misconduct, is an outright liar. And MacArthur has a theory, which is his, about why she’s lied.

You’ve probably heard a bit about this case on the news, though the facts seem confusing.  Reade, an employee of Biden, originally said that he inappropriately rubbed her on the shoulders and neck in 1993. Then, over time, the story became more serious: this year she said that Biden actually cornered her and digitally penetrated her vagina, which is, legally, rape. Her changing story (there has been more than one change) is made less credible by the contradictions in her story, the failure of anyone to corroborate her accusations, her…

Infection Fatality Rates?

Michael Schulson writes at Undark Magazine John Ioannidis Responds to Critics of His Study Finding That the Coronavirus Is Not as Deadly as Thought. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

At issue here is a simple question: How many people actually have Covid-19? Ioannidis and other researchers from Stanford tried to answer that in a draft paper, or preprint, last month. Other experts began pointing out problems in the study, raising concerns about statistical errors, possible issues with a Covid-19 test kit, and shoddy sampling technique.

A few weeks later, the team released a revised version of the paper. The new draft, which, like the original version, has not yet received formal peer review, softens some of the more controversial claims, and acknowledges more uncertainty about the true number of infections.

The following interview — which covers the papers as well as Ioannidis’ appearances on partisan television…