Administrative, General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Back On The Air (Sort Of)

29 Comments

Momentarily.

So, I came down with a cold on Tuesday evening. I first noticed it at a U of Michigan reception at SciTech after the main reception (attendees were in high spirits after their football team had won their first national championship after a quarter of a century, unalloyed by having to unfairly share it with Nebraska; I say “unfairly” because many think that Missouri beat them but lost on a bad call). I noticed that my throat was getting a little sore, and my nose was starting to run. (Interestingly, it was the sickest I’ve been since long before Covid).

Anyway, I was better on Wednesday, and attended the conference, then spent the later afternoon and evening with my niece who lives in Orlando. I had a scheduled flight to DC on Thursday evening, but decided to go to the airport and get out earlier on standby, and arrived here late yesterday afternoon. My nose started running again and I had a rough night sleeping, and I lost my voice during the day, but I’m on the mend now. I expect I’ll be much better tomorrow, and fine for the upcoming trial next week.

But I’m spending the weekend cramming for my upcoming testimony, probably Wednesday or Thursday, as a hostile witness for the plaintiff, so probably light blogging not just this weekend, but for the next three-and-a-half weeks. So be grateful if you get any free ice cream between now and the second week of February.

29 thoughts on “Back On The Air (Sort Of)”

  1. Good luck at trial. Too bad you can’t call a postponement due to illness. Funny how the justice systems works that way…

    I too am coming off a killer cold. I say that because it rapidly went from sore throat New Year’s Day to pneumonia all in the course of a few days. The immediate care doctor (my regular doctor is usually unavailable) I went to see did a chest x-ray and immediately put me on zithromax and amoxicillin. Which I’ve since finished. But what a doozy. He suggested viral triggered bacterial pneumonia. The home COVID test showed negative for COVID, but COVID has moved on through so many variants who knows if that test means a damn thing anymore. I’m not buying any more.

    All I can tell you for sure is that I’ve never experienced as much fatigue post illness as this has caused. I’m still not 100% nearly two weeks after. I saw my regular doctor as a follow-up and she tells me expect 4-6 weeks of recovery time! Lots of stuffed up nasal congestion, runny nose and coughing.

    You have my sympathy.

    1. PS: Watched that Michigan / Washington game. I don’t think the outcome was ever in doubt. As is often the case, the unofficial championship game was played the weekend before at the Rose Bowl.

      Congrats to Big Blue, even though I’m a Fighting Illini through and through. Keeping it in the Big 10 at least. Or is that Big 11, 12, 13, … 27? hike!

      Really, what is wrong starting up another conference if you don’t want to be in the ACC? Rather than making the Big-10 the Big Anything East of the Mississippi?

      1. I believe it will now be the Big 18. And the Wolverines certainly seemed to be the team of destiny this year. Michigan against everybody!

        1. I was really hoping they’d limit it to 16 teams in the big ten so that we could say that we were still the Big 10, just in hexadecimal.

    2. I think I have the same illness. Eating more beef and taking extra Vitamin D3 (5000 IU daily, and I will probably add more) seem to have helped. Good luck everyone.

      1. So that’s why my body has been wanting so much more steak lately.

        Something is definitely going around based on what I’ve seen with my team. I had a runny nose one day, but like usual my immune system kicked its butt and I didn’t even have to slow down. Sucks being the only guy who never gets sick; gotta do my work and everyone else’s as well.

  2. I had a cold I caught around Christmas Day, and it laid me up for a couple of days, mostly with a runny nose (that hasn’t completely gone away) and a nagging cough with slight fever. The extremely runny nose seems to be common among the people I’ve talked to and seen that caught this.

  4. There is some weird stuff going around illness-wise. People are knocked out for at least a week. Of course, as long as the random-number covid test comes up negative, everything is fine…

  7. Something is definitely going around based on what I’ve seen with my team. I had a runny nose one day, but like usual my immune system kicked its butt and I didn’t even have to slow down. Sucks being the only guy who never gets sick; gotta do my work and everyone else’s as well.

    For what it’s worth, my workplace (a concessionaire in Yellowstone National Park) experiences an annual bout of viral diseases every winter when employees assemble for the winter season, bringing in whatever they have. This year we had minor occurrences of covid, flu, and RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus, basically one(?) of the many disease agents that cause common colds and bronchitis). Thankfully the covid and flu got stamped out and RSV seems to be background noise. So it appears that there’s some variety out there this winter.

    Because Yellowstone brings in tourists from all over the place, we have to have measures in place all the time to handle these diseases.

    1. Concessionaires and flight attendants, our front line of infectious disease. We should be doing anti-body blood draws from you folks on a regular basis.

  8. Well, Mann had better not plan any trips to Canada; he’s on the hook for costs up here.
    He attempted the same sort of thing – sue, then delay. The judge was extremely patient (8 years!), but eventually told him to proceed or lose. He lost.
    Of course, he’s too important to actually pay. Eventually this will catch up to him.

    1. And the person who “won” the case died and needed a charitable fundraiser to pay for his funeral. Mikey is a real classy guy.

  11. More mud from yesterday’s Guardian:

    The litigation targets two writers: Rand Simberg, analyst at the rightwing thinktank Competitive Enterprise Institute, who published a piece comparing Mann to a convicted serial child molester, and the National Review blogger Mark Steyn, who in a blogpost favorably quoted Simberg and called Mann’s research “fraudulent”. (Mann originally went after both publishers as well, but in 2021 a court ruled that neither the Competitive Enterprise Institute nor National Review could be held responsible for the attacks.)

    No, what Rand said is that Mann “abused” his data and that a subsequent UPenn review of the hockey stick debacle was as much of a whitewash as was the Sandusky sex abuse case “investigation” by Penn State. [The latter of which eventually landed Penn State administrators in jail.]

    I’m paraphrasing what Rand wrote, but the intent was clear and I believe within Free Speech bounds.

    On behalf of Rand, I hope Stephen McIntyre from Climate Audit is scheduled to testify about Mann’s “statistical methods” and how his algorithm, when fed red noise, always produces a hockey stick graph.

    But it’s all right. Mann was vindicated simply by an appearance by Bill Nye in court today.

    1. Just for the Guardian’s edification, Rand has also been published in the left-wing The Atlantic.

    3. A correction:
      No, what Rand said is that Mann “abused” his data and that a subsequent UPenn Penn State review of the hockey stick debacle was as much of a whitewash as was the Sandusky sex abuse case “investigation” [also] by Penn State.

  13. And from today’s SteynOnLine:

    And from Steve Milloy, “If I were Mann, I’d withdraw my complaint, apologize to everyone on the planet and throw myself on Steyn’s and Simberg’s mercy now.”

    After the trial, regardless of the verdict, I’d love to know what that would entail…

  14. Some fringe blog called Transterrestrial Musings is testified to being in existence by none other the Mark Steyn on the witness stand today. As I recall the adjective “fringe” was elided and not part of the actual testimony. My memory being what it is after 12 years…

  15. So Mann doesn’t clearly seem to know or remember if he has had to pay any attorney’s fees or will have to after this trial is over, according to his testimony on the stand.

    Which begs the question, who is paying for his attorneys?

    What an odious process this is. Law-fare by proxy. We definitely need tort reform in this country. Especially need to adopt the UK Commonwealth practice that loser pays all. Stop vexatious lawsuits.

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