Infoseepage

Infoseepage, 9 hours ago

This is your periodic reminder that the Israeli port of Ashdod lies just to the North of Gaza. Also, World Central Kitchen has a functional jetty which they used twice to deliver barges of aid at the same place where the US is doing their JLOTS. Maybe just switch to using the jetty! You know...the stationary structure which doesn't need anchor cables and which isn't subject to being driven off by wind and waves?

#gaza

Infoseepage, 9 hours ago

As usual, the "What's is Going on With Shipping?" channel has informed ongoing coverage of the JLOTS debacle (which this channel rightly said was going to be a debacle for a long time).

He says this as someone with decades of experience as a merchant mariner and one who has participated in these sorts of JLOTS exercises.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzzVyuPnMHk

#gaza

Infoseepage, 3 hours ago

@indivisibleteam You're far too generous with Biden. In his interview right after the the SOTU his first reaction was to say that he'd never cut off weapons to Israel and he hasn't. Everything else in that statement is him realizing how his first remarks would play and trying to qualify them for public consumption. When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

video/mp4

Infoseepage, 23 hours ago

@Miro_Collas @palestine I wonder to what extent western governments are supporting and letting Israel get away with this shit because Israeli intelligence has dirt on politicians or has documentation of past international dealings and actions by those governments which the public would find unsavory. To what extent is international politics now being conducted by who has the best blackmail material?

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@kdnyhan Btw, the government's own milk sampling effort (which they sat on the results of for over two weeks while everyone accused them rightly of non-transparency) found that half the commercial milk samples they bought in Texas were PCR positive for H5N1. That same testing, conducted in 38 states showed production facilities in I think 17 states were positive (a big increase over the 9 which have been confirmed directly through direct testing of sick cows). And 12 states were not tested.

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@kdnyhan The government's milk sampling results can be found here:

https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/updates-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-hpai#testing

#h5n1

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@kdnyhan Right now there is a very clear data avoidance and data delay effort going on with the US government response to this and several times they've made releases of information apparently as a response to highly qualified university labs releasing experimental data. They basically sit on stuff as long as they can. That occurred Friday with a bunch of stuff apparently in response to U of W's results and earlier when Andrew Bowman released his ten state milk sampling road trip results.

#h5n1

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan Basically the government bought 297 commercially processed samples in 38 states and PCR tested them. PCR testing is looking for the presence of the viral RNA. It tells you nothing about the viability of the virus. The presumption (and it is a presumption) is that pasteurization kills or inactivates the virus and so they've basically been repeating the line "The milk supply is safe."

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan To actually see if it is safe, they do a test where they inject the pasteurized milk into eggs and canine kidney cells to see if there is live virus that takes hold and replicates. The government repeated the "pasteurized milk is safe" line before doing those tests. They've done those tests now and assert that pasteurized milk is safe.

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan The University of Wisconsin as part of another series of tests to see if raw cows milk would infect rodents, also did informal tests where they heated contaminated raw milk samples to 72 degrees C for various lengths of time. 72 degrees held for 15 seconds is the most common standard for commercial pasteurization.

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan There's another form of pasteurization where you heat the milk to a lower temperature (typically in a double boiler on a stove) and hold it for 30 minutes. This later type is typically used for pasteurizing breast milk, for milk banks, for instance. They imitated both of these types of tests and found 99.99% inactivation and 99.999% inactivation respectively. That isn't 100% inactivation, though.

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan And now people are basically going to the government and saying "Did you actually find complete inactivation or just mostly inactivated?" because that matters when you are dealing with billions of copies of virus which can then start to replicate again.

The U of W researchers hypothesized that fat globules and casein micelles may shield the virus from being completely eliminated at the standard levels of heat and hold times used in commercial pasteurization.

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan There are bacteria and viruses which are known to survive in 72c pasteurized milk. That level is basically chosen to reduce levels of some of the more common and worrisome bacterial pathogens to the point where the milk is safe to drink and the milk has a reasonable sellable a the grocery store lifespan. The main reason milk goes bad even if you leave it sealed in your refrigerator is the incompleteness of the pasteurization process.

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan The bacteria not killed in 72c pasteurization replicate in the jug and sour the milk.

There is a higher level of pasteurization called UHT where the milk is heated to typically 132 degrees C under pressure and held for typically 2 or 3 seconds. This does a much better job of killing pathogens. So much so that UHT milk (typically sold in Tetra Pak cartons) can be stored at room temperature for six months to a year prior to opening and use.

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan Once you actually open UHT milk, you have to refrigerate it, of course, because you've introduced bacteria into it from the air. I've drank UHT milk commonly while living in the Cook Islands and on Maui. Milk goes bad fast in the heat of Polynesia.

I've drank nothing but UHT since the announcement of H5N1 is cow milk and don't plan on going back to normal milk.

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan Not leastly because pasteurization failures occur commonly in US agriculture. Google "Pasteurization failure leads to recall" or check out the FDA recall site. These failures in pasteurization equipment and processes are OFTEN not caught for 2-3 months where they are caught at all. People wind up drinking unpasteurized or underpasteurized milk unintentionally without them knowing it.

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan The widespread and frequent occurrence of such failures in US agriculture should IMO give the public little confidence that the milk supply is safe absent of a systematic government effort to wipe this pathogen out in US dairy herds. They are not making such an effort.

Oh, btw, the last pasteurization failure leading to a recall was this month:

https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2024/05/improper-pasteurization-spurs-milk-recall/

Infoseepage, 2 days ago

@human3500 @kdnyhan Here is the paper from the University of Wisconsin researchers published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2405495

I'd like more independent confirmation of pasteurization effectiveness and the public should be demanding it.

#h5n1

Infoseepage, 3 days ago

@inquiline At least people you encounter on nice suburban sidewalks like these tend to be wearing a mask. Right?

Infoseepage, 3 days ago

@inquiline The ducks are his confederates in evil. Everyone looks at the ducks and so never see Michael Meyers as he slips up behind you with a long kitchen knife. Afterwards, he feeds them breadcrumbs, stolen from the kitchens of his victims.

Infoseepage, 5 days ago

@TheConversationUS @histodons This is not WWII and we are not trying to create a port to deliver sufficient materiel to a beachhead invasion. This is a shadowplay to create media imagery around the idea of US relief efforts without actually having those relief efforts by earnest and proportional to the level of ongoing privation of basic human needs.

Infoseepage, 4 days ago

@shanselman @ThibaultDu And that is part of the problem here. A lot of people no longer trust Microsoft to have integrity in any meaningful way, especially when it comes to end users. We've seen how Microsoft has taken every opportunity to slurp up user behavior in recent years and turn around and plaster Windows with ads and not-easily skipped consent dialogs, as well as making anything other than a Microsoft Account for login near unsinkable.

Infoseepage, 4 days ago

@shanselman @ThibaultDu Employees within Microsoft might have individual standards/integrity, but the company as a whole has shown that it does not and ordinary end users are becoming increasingly aware of it. Features like this are just a hop-skip-and a jump from "your every activity logged and monetized" and even in its current state is scary enough for a wide variety of reasons, particularly if widely deployed and turned on by default. This is a real tyranny of the default situation.