Time to rattle Barry’s chain. His chained CPI, that is.

The good news that has developed since I wrote this post yesterday is that multiple sources now report that the one patient who was being monitored as possibly infected through person-to-person contact definitely does not have H7N9, so we still have no cases of such transmission.

Reuters just put up a story where the researchers involved in the work that led NSABB to go through their security theater now are saying that this virus vindicates their research:

Scientists in the Dutch city of Rotterdam know precisely what it takes for a bird flu to mutate into a potential human pandemic strain – because they’ve created just such mutant viruses in the laboratory.

So as they watch with some trepidation the emergence in China of a strain of bird flu previously unknown in humans, they also argue it vindicates their controversial decision to conduct these risky experiments despite fierce opposition.

Above all else, what the world needs to know about this new strain of H7N9 bird flu is how likely it is to be able to spread efficiently among human populations.

And according to Ab Osterhaus, a world leading flu researcher who is head of viroscience of the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, studies his team and another in the United States have been doing are the best way to find out.

I’m curious about the wedding portrayal. I was fascinated by the signing of a written dowry agreement as the ceremony got started. But then I was shocked by the bride and groom stuffing wedding cake into each others’ mouths. That seemed very American to me. Was this an attempt to portray some American customs being adopted through such a prolonged US presence or does that really happen at Afghan weddings?

I’m a little confused about when the story in the film is supposed to take place. The post here says it was in 2001 but I thought the graphics in the opening said 2010.

A related question is that the post says the film is based on a true story and yet the credits at the end had a disclaimer along the lines of saying none of the characters were meant to portray real people. Is there an underlying true story, and is it well known? If so, does the underlying story have the same ending, because I find parts of the ending a bit hard to believe (won’t go into this if folks don’t want spoilers in the comments).

Was it difficult to find funding to put the film together? It looks like it was a very large undertaking.

Thanks for a terrific discussion, Neil and thanks one more time for your service.

Thanks for hosting, David. There could have been no other choice.

And Bev, thanks one more time for the miracles you work on a daily basis.

But it almost doesn’t matter. What matters is the presumption in the market that we will bail them out, which will incentivize more risk and lead us to another crisis. What matters is that next time the policy makers will once again believe that they will have to bail them out, so they will. Wash, rinse, repeat, or as Simon Johnson calls it, the doomsday cycle. It is why the republicans claim that they just won bail ‘em out again is laughable. To avoid bailouts, you have to remove the threat NOW. And that can only be done by breaking them up.

As you described so well in the past, this process of the banksters knowing that they will not be the ones to bear the burden when their risky behavior causes losses is the definition of “moral hazard”.

Thank you so much for putting that phrase into the public discussion.

As you forcefully point out in the book, the worst of the practices in the financial industry that caused the 2008 crash have not been changed. Do you think that there’s any chance that the level of detail you have provided in your work and your book will help provide at least some improvement in what takes place the next time the taxpayers have to rescue Wall Street? Assuming DC won’t have the courage to just let the worst abusers like Goldman Sachs and JPMC go belly up, what specific things can we “agitators” push for to make things go a bit better?

Neil, I’m glad David highlighted the Herb Allison vignette because it describes so many problems in Washington all at once. I’m curious, though. The atmosphere you described for the Southern District of New York US Attorney’s Office while you were there sounds just terrific, so it would seem at first thought that you could have refused Allison’s suggestion, stood up for what was right, as you did, and then moved back to DOJ.

Sadly, though, DOJ now is a central part of the culture of impunity that you were trying to fight. At what point did it occur to you that DOJ is now nothing like your fond memories of it, and how painful was that realization?

Neil, thanks so much for being here. But even more importantly, thank you for standing up for what is right.

And don’t forget that the same guys who put Allen West in Congress have already started working on his behalf.

Thank you Michael and Ambassador, both for your discussion here today and for your dedication to truth.

Uhm. Obama did fire McChrystal.